Alles auf Anfang

It is a misunderstanding to think of remembrance as a backward movement. And no one is as adept at regularly succumbing to this misunderstanding as the Germans, with their self-image as world champions of remembrance and coming to terms with the past.
For how can it be that right-wing populists win elections, right-wing extremist crimes remain insufficiently investigated, and „Never again is now“ has become an empty phrase? And how can it be that a country whose reality has long been shaped by migration prefers to question this reality – and all those who acknowledge it – rather than finding real answers to the pressing questions of our time: how to shape social coexistence in a just, humane, and democratic way?
The two authors, Max Czollek and Hadija Haruna-Oelker, argue that this has to do with a failed German culture of remembrance. Together, they reflect on a new practice – one that shapes the present in such a way that the past truly cannot repeat itself. And they consider how this practice must be both resistant and unifying at the same time.
Drawing on their podcast „Trauer und Turnschuh“, which has been running since 2023, Czollek and Haruna-Oelker have written a sharp-witted, provocative, and energetic book in the form of a correspondence, which they present in a reading followed by a panel discussion.