I have to say, I don’t find the lack of interest in Armistice Day in Germany very surprising. In Belgium, France and Poland, and to a degree in Canada and elsewhere, November 11 is still a national holiday. In the US, the event has, since the Second World War, been renamed „Veterans Day,“ and is also a public holiday. And in Britain, Remembrance Sunday and „Poppy Day“ are commemorated through the wearing of poppy flowers – which anyone who watches the BBC will see much in evidence – and by ceremonies around the country, including especially those held at London’s Cenotaph – where three of the UK’s four surviving WW1 veterans appeared this year. In Gemany, by contrast, no special day has successfully established itself for national commemoration of the country’s WW1 experience. Volkstrauertag was intended to serve that purpose, but has always faced difficulties due to conflicts with religious holidays occuring in November, as well as the commemoration’s misuse (as „Heldengedenktag“) during the Nazi period – along with a general shunning of war commemorations of all kinds. Nowadays, Volkstrauertag has faded to relative insignificance, largely replaced by May 8th. In a contest over the commemoration of loss and destruction, the Second World War has trumped the First in Germany’s popular cultural memory. But even there things fade – as they do with most peoples. We are now rapidly approaching December 7. But how many Americans still remember it as the „day of infamy“ that President Roosevelt referred to in his famous address to Congress?