WWII

Some Final Thoughts on the 2015 #FemGeniusesInBerlin

By Breana Taylor

KwesiBerlin has surprised me. This is a city rich in history, and I do not only mean history specifically focused on World War II. The course has focused, in part, on problematizing the limited popular narratives about Berlin and Germany, and has exposed my classmates and I to the histories, herstories, cultures, and politics of marginalized groups, such as Black Germans, Jewish Germans, Turkish Germans, LBTQIA folks in Germany, and other groups and how their experiences and relationships with Berlin and Germany are often absent from general narratives. We have taken numerous tours learning about Berlin’s Queer history, Jewish History, African history (particularly along the streets of Wedding), and more. In addition to tours, we have met with multiple intellectual activists like Stefanie-Lahya Aukongo, Asoka Esuruoso, Sandrine Micossé-Aikins, Noah Sow, Noah Hofmann, Dr. Maisha Eggers, Sharon Dodua Otoo, and many others.

Like other countries across the globe, Germany wishes to distance itself from racists and oppressive actions committed within its own walls and by its own people. As Heinz Ickstadt points out in “Appropriating Difference: Turkish-German Rap,” Germany is a country with multiple cultural layers. It is a country in which Black Germans, Asian Germans, Latino Germans, and more do exist and not all in small numbers. Still, Ickstadt argues, “It will probably still take some time until Germans fully understand how much their own culture has been enriched by these developments.” He further questions, “Is it a transitional phenomenon bound to disappear with the next generation of fully integrated Germans with Turkish names? Or will it be kept in place by a global tendency toward a bicultural existence?” (21). This is an unavoidable transition that Germany is approaching. And while German as an identity is growing and evolving to include many of the aforementioned marginalized communities, it is still not an inclusive term, even for marginalized people who were born and reared in Germany. Along these lines, Jasmin Eding argues, “Today we have to deal with a dominantly white society that now calls itself multi-cultural although we are viewed strangely if we identify ourselves as Black. We are also still struggling for visibility as well as Black consciousness within our own ranks” (2). Similarly, listening to Noah Sow speak gave us incredible insight regarding the distinctions between Black German and Afro-Deutsche.

GraffitiAs we learned from Mutlu Ergün-Hamaz, Turkish-Germans have also resisted similar challenges through their relationship with Black American culture through hip hop as means of expressing themselves. Generationally for the Turkish community in Germany, one’s citizenship is affected by whether or not one is born in Germany and when one person’s parents came to the country. Hence, when coming of age, many feel they have to choose between two citizenships, two identities. Because many young Turkish Germans were born in Germany, they consider themselves German. Unfortunately, the German identity has restrictions and limitations on what is actually German, and Turkish-Germans are often not treated as German. The idea of being German and what it means is evolving, but German often still means White German.

As the class came to an end, we concluded with a dinner at Maredo Steakhouse, enjoying a full course meal and good company. We laughed and spoke about what it has meant to be abroad and experience new things with all the phenomenal people on the trip. Though it may have seemed overplayed, it was still greatly appreciated. This was an amazing class thanks to the vision for the class provided by Professor Heidi Lewis, including the help of her colleague Aishah Shahidah Simmons, and our interactions with the rich herstories/histories of Berlin.

Group Photo2015 FemGeniuses in Berlin Blog Index:
Also, click here to view a slideshow of the course.

“Introducing the 2015 FemGeniuses in Berlin” by Heidi R. Lewis
“Finding Their Presence: A Women’s Perspective Tour of Berlin” by Nia Abram
“I’m My Own Flower: Stefanie-Lahya Ndeshipewa Aukongo on Intersectionality, Resistance, and Belonging” by Jazlyn Andrews
“Understanding Black Studies in Germany (w/ Dr. Maisha Eggers)” by Meredith Bower
“Beware of the Green Spaces: A Jewish History Tour (w/ Carolyn Gammon)” by DeAira Cooper
“The Jewish Museum: Forced into Exile Workshop” by Jesse Crane
“#BlackLivesMatter All over the World: Initiative in Memory of Oury Jalloh” by Samantha Gilbert
“What is Racism?: A Discussion with Sandrine Micossé-Aikins” by Jade Frost
“Student Resistance: Germany in the 1960s” by Mackenzie Murphy
“Where You Reside?: Postcolonial Performance in Berlin w/ Salma” by Lyric Jackson
“I Am not Your Idea of Me (w/ Sharon Dodua Otoo)” by Thabiso Ratalane
“‘Not So Tangible but Still Real!’: LesMigraS and Intersectional Anti-Violence Work in Berlin” by Spencer Spotts
“Jasmin Eding and ADEFRA: On Self-Definition and Empowerment” by Willa Rentel
“Stories of Blackness with Asoka Esuruoso and Noah Hofmann” by Breana Taylor
“Dismantling Structural Racism: Kwesi Aikins on Politics in a Postcolonial Society” by Nia Abram
“Consumption of Culture: A Trip to the KENAKO Afrika Festival” by Jazlyn Andrews
“Ignorance Is Never Bliss: Our Turkish Tour Experience” by Meredith Bower
“Freedom Summer, Selma, & Federal Civil Rights Legislation: Black History in Berlin w/ Rebecca Brückmann” by Jesse Crane
“‘I Want You to Listen to My Story!’: An Afternoon with Mutlu Ergün-Hamaz” by Jade Frost
“Misrepresenting a Colonial Past: The Africa in Wedding Tour with Josephine Apraku” by Samantha Gilbert
“What It Is and What It Ain’t: Tour of the Neues Museum” by Lyric Jackson
“Breaking Down Barriers: A Discussion with Noah Sow” by Mackenzie Murphy
“A Visit to Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand” by Thabiso Ratalane
“Resistance through Art: The FemGenuises Do Graffiti with Berlin Massive” by DeAira Cooper
“‘Hier ist’s richtig!’: Creating and Dominating Queerness in Berlin” by Spencer Spotts
“Site Seeing (and Thinking, Analyzing, Understanding, etc.)” by Willa Rentel

To read and/or listen to the finales and view the indices and slideshows for previous FemGeniuses in Berlin, click here. 

IMG_9349While studying at Colorado College, Breana Taylor realized that feminism is a passion of hers, which is convenient, because she recently decided to declare her major in Feminist & Gender Studies. Hailing from Little Rock, Arkansas, Breana is no stranger to traveling or to being around lots people. Having grown up in a large family and with a father in the military, she enjoys being exposed to new environments and the experiences that come with being in new places. During her down time, she enjoys reading, stand-up comedy, and listening to movie soundtracks. Feminism has brought nothing but good things to her life, such as new perspectives on women, race, and gender, and how to think critically about these things and more. Being a member of the FemGeniuses is such an honor, and she cannot wait for the opportunity to grow in her knowledge on feminism across the globe!

Student Resistance: Germany in the 1960s

By Mackenzie Murphy

Student Revolution of 1968 IOn Monday morning, after having coffee at Heidi’s apartment and catching up after a fun weekend, we went to meet our tour guide Nadav Gablinger. On the first stop of the tour, Naday lead us through the doors of a German university and out into a courtyard. We all sat down and listened as he explained to us that we were sitting at the location that was home to the Student Movement of 1968. This was a movement that was headed by the Baby Boomer generation. Nadav explained that in 1960, the media began to cover the trials accusing Nazis of war crimes in relation to their involvement at Auschwitz. This was the first time that many of the students attending the university had heard of the types of atrocities that occurred under the Nazi rule during WWII. They responded with outrage—why was this history, which was so recent, never taught to them? The students began to push back against the school system, demanding that the entire history of Germany be taught. Students also began to push against the ideology of the school, which at this point seemed less like a place that encouraged learning and more like a well-oiled machine meant to get students in and out of the system as quickly as possible, as to generate the most profit. Many members of the school’s administration were former Nazis themselves, so this just furthered the wary nature of the students. As a result, the students were stripped of their ability to communicate with professors and those in charge. It became increasingly apparent to the students that they were functioning under an authoritarian rule, with only the illusion of democratic freedom.

Student Revolution of 1968 IVAs Michael A. Schmidtke points out in “Cultural Revolution or Cultural Shock? Student Radicalism and 1968 in Germany,” a larger picture began to form revealing that “a gap existed between [Germany’s] democratic ideals and the undemocratic culture” (79). Hence, there was a growing tension between the students and the authorities. Students became more at-risk living in West Berlin during this time of conflict, and could be arrested for things as simple as wearing ripped jeans and having long hair. Eventually, this growing tension lead to the formation of the Sozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund (SDS), an opposition group outside of the German Parliament. According to Schmidtke, the SDS was “one of the most important groups in the protest movement” (80), as their goal was to not resist the authoritarian institution but go “through it and change it.”

Student Revolution of 1968 IIWe continued the tour by walking to spots where the students had performed sit-ins and other forms of protest. We eventually found ourselves standing in front of Deutsche Oper, West Berlin’s opera house. This was the point when the movement came to its height. A demonstration was held in protest of the visit of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Benno Ohnesorg, a German student, was present at the demonstration with his pregnant wife. When the protest turned violent, Benno and his wife fled the scene to seek protection. They ran down the block as a police officer followed them. They cut a corner and continued down an ally way and into a courtyard where Benno was then shot in the back of the head by the police officer. Bennos’ death sparked debate within the student community and across the world. Today, there is a statue (Relief Der Tod des Demonstranten [The Death of the Demonstrator] by Alfred Hrdlicka) outside of the Opera house commemorating the police brutality that was occurring during the time of the movement and the death of Ohnesorg.

Student Revolution of 1968 VIThe students in Berlin also decided to attack the Bild newspaper headquarters in response to the police brutality. Bild, a very large publishing company, had been printing papers throughout the Student Movement portraying the members of SDS and the movement leaders as terrorists. Bild’s mass media influence had large effects on the way the public constructed a narrative of the movement. As Jin Haritaworn points out in “Queer Injuries: The Racial Politics of ‘Homophobic Hate Crime’ in Germany,” the misrepresentation of the group as terrorists “converted police into the main patron” in the public’s eyes (73). This allowed for Ohnesorg’s perpetrator, Karl-Heinz Kurras, to escape any type of punishment.  Instead of appearing in the media as oppressors of people fighting for freedom, police were seen as heroes protecting Germany from the student terrorists.

Student Revolution of 1968 VThe next and last stop on our journey was to Rudi-Dutschke-Straße, named after one of the most prominent leaders of the movement. This is also the street where Bild publishing headquarters is located and the sight of the movement’s response to Ohnesorg’s death. This is where the members of the student movement burned down the headquarters of Bild and held daily riots in the following days. The Student Movement opened doors for resistance groups around the globe, and it allowed for groups whose history had previously been silenced to have a space to begin to tell their stories. For example, Erik N. Jensen notes the “shared memory of the Nazi persecution of homosexuals (which) emerged in the 1970s” in “The Pink Triangle and Political Consciousness: Gays, Lesbians, and the Memory of Nazi Persecution” (321). If it were not for the actions of the members and leaders of the Student Movement, this community’s stories may have been left hidden in Germany’s past forever.

Below, the FemGeniuses are reacting to Peace be With You by Peter Lenk (above) on the side wall of the Tageszeitung (Taz) building on Rudi Dutschke Straße…click the pic for more info!

Mackenzie Murphy

Mackenzie Murphy grew up in New Jersey, and although she loves living in Colorado, the east coast still has a strong hold on her heart. She has been fortunate enough to have traveled within the United States, as well as to some parts of Europe and most recently to Costa Rica. This is her first time in Germany, and she’s most excited about the opportunity to travel and learn about this wonderful place with her peers. She will be a senior this coming fall, and she studies Film & New Media Studies. She also holds strong interests in Philosophy and Feminist & Gender Studies. She is currently watching the TV series The Sopranos, and her favorite philosopher is Friedrich Nietzsche.

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“Berlin from Below: Dark Worlds”

By Melissa L. Barnes

UnterweltenThis evening, we attended a tour entitled “Berlin from Below: Dark Worlds.” Berliner Unterwelten offers five tours, and “Dark Worlds” showcases an underground museum of a civilian air raid shelter under a modern-day train station. We were not allowed to take pictures during the tour, because the tour company does not own the copyrights for the artifacts and does not own the complete rights to the air raid shelter. The tour company also does not receive government funding, so they rely solely on private funding, donations, and guided tour income.

This particular shelter was completed in 1942, and became a museum in 1999. The shelter has four levels, with a total of forty-eight rooms. Our tour guide also talked with us about the difference between civilian air raid shelters and bunkers. Bunkers were solely for military/defense use and were expensive to construct, because they use more steel—thicker walls and roofs—than civilian shelters and have a more chess board-like, square architecture. Generally, bunkers held about 200 people, while the civilian shelter we were in was designed to hold 1,300 people. Bunkers were designed to look like houses or simple buildings in order to distract and confuse countries that were attacking Germany from the air. Germany was not allowed to have an air force due to the Treaty of Versailles, so this was a well-known weakness utilized by the opposition.

Before 1941, there were no civilian air raid shelters, because the Nazi regime did not want to convey that there was any potential harm for civilians to worry about and, secretly, civilians were thought of as collateral damage during wartime. However, in 1941, it was clear that Berlin would be under continuous attack, and German citizens would be less cooperative if they were not given a “safe space” during the air raids. Before the civilian air raid shelters were constructed, the Nazi regime tested many different architectural designs: first with animals, then with people imprisoned in concentration camps. To this day, no one knows how many trials the Nazis completed before they were satisfied with the design of the air raid shelters.

The walls of the shelters were different lengths, each floor was built at a slope, and every door is facing a wall. If a bomb were dropped into the shelter the shockwaves of the explosion would destroy the whole shelter – whatever was left after the initial destruction of the bomb. The shelter was built in such a way, then, that the shockwave would not reach people two rooms away from the epicenter. Additionally, if any chemical weapons were dropped into the civilian shelter, the toxic gas used was usually heavier than air, so the chemical would float down into the lower areas of the shelter, saving the people in the higher levels. This especially illustrates Hitler’s belief that civilians are collateral damage.

BunkerIn each room, there is a room number and occupancy limit painted on a wall. However, when an air attack happened, civilians obviously did not care about the occupancy limit and tried to get into the shelter no matter what. The shelter is very spacious and each room looked like it could definitely hold more than the limit; but, ventilation for fresh air was only installed in nine of the forty-eight rooms. Hence, many people died from suffocation, because each room was sealed with thick doors. So, if there were too many people than the Nazi’s calculated air for, then the air would not reach everyone. At the end of the air raid, firefighters and police officers were sure to tell surviving civilians, “Remember, the Fürher has just saved you!”

Once the war was over, most men were dead, injured, elderly, or too young, so the women were expected to rebuild entire cities by hand. During this time period, unlike times before and during the war, women were not considered too weak to do a man’s job, but were expected to do so in order to provide for their children. They had to use their imaginations to build things from the remains of the war. For instance, they used bomb shells to make stoves, soldiers’ helmets to make pots and drainers/strainers for cooking, and rubber from tires to make shoes and insulation during harsh winters.

Speaking of the “end” of the war, forensic pathologists estimate that the war will not truly be over until all human remains are found and identified. Along these lines, there are still 3,000 live bombs within Germany’s soil that could be accidentally detonated. The detonators on the bombs have a life of 100 years, so they will remain live for about 30 more years. For these reasons, the government requires that police and forensic specialists examine all sites where new buildings will be constructed in order to ensure that no live bombs are near the area. We learned how important this is when our guide discussed the case of September 15, 1994, when a construction worker detonated an underground WWII bomb. This accident left 3 people dead and 17 people injured.

Throughout this tour, I was trying to imagine myself as a civilian whose daily routine included a trip to an air raid shelter about four times a day. This was challenging, because I also thought about some civilians’ cooperation and support of the war, racism, and genocide. Given the content of our course, I also wondered about the role of Black women after the war, especially whether or not they were expected to perform the same duties as other women—what happened to them during these times? We have learned during our seminars throughout this course that some, but by no means all, Black people were spared from murder and/or concentration camps. If Black people were still present in Germany, were they allowed to enter the civilian air raid shelters? Throughout this class, we have also discussed the importance of multiple perspectives of history, and I feel that popular narratives of the WWII period are dominated by the White civilian perspective, even if we are talking about the victims of WWII.

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Melissa IIIThis fall, Melissa will be starting her final year as a student at Colorado College, double-majoring in Feminist & Gender Studies and Psychology. This fall, she is planning to apply to Ph.D. programs in Clinical Psychology.