 | Dr Leo Kretzenbacher is Senior Lecturer at the School of Languages and Linguistics, German Studies Program, University of Melbourne. Hans Schroeder introduced Leo Kretzenbacher. Leo took us on a journey into two nations’ very different collective memories when he told us about the ‘forgotten German-Australians’ and the big rift which occurred in relations between those who considered themselves Australians and the German-Australians at the beginning of WWI. It was a topic that fitted very well into the current emotional commemorations of the beginning of WWI one hundred years ago (in 2014), and the reliving of the disastrous Gallipoli landings (in 2015). |
Where WWI is concerned, Leo reminded us, very different events stand out in the minds of Australians and Germans. For many Australians the bloody slaughter that marked the battles of Gallipoli also give rise to the ANZAC myth – the memories of brave young men who became the symbol of the birth of a nation – Australia. The film “Gallipoli” (1981, directed by Peter Weir) relives the traumas of this momentous event.
For Germans, it is the battles on the Western Front which stand out and Remarque’s book “Im Westen nichts Neues” (1929; and the film of the same name, “All quiet on the Western Front”).
“What can one do” asks Leo , “when an Australian journalist complains about the lack of focus on World War I and specifically on the 1915 Gallipoli campaign in the displays of the German Historical Museum in Berlin?” The journalist in question felt affronted that he had to search high and low to find even the smallest reference to Gallipoli and “this war that ( …) forged our nation.”
There are many reasons for this apparent German negligence, explains Leo. The campaign on the Western Front, so much closer to home than far off Gallipoli, the economic struggles of the post war years, the unpleasant memory of the Nazi’s glorification of the ‘brave German soldier’ for their own purposes, and the fact that the horrors of WWII overtook the memories of WWI and are at the forefront of the German nation coming to terms with its past.
But not only do the recollections of Germans and Australian place emphases on different historical events (leaving one to shake its head at the peculiarities of the other), WWI, as Leo pointed out, marked a significant change in the attitudes of the Australian citizens to their German-Australian neighbors. As with all propaganda, the perceived enemy, Germany and the Germans, were demonized beyond all reason.
That let to the internment and deportation of German-Australians, to people being hounded out of their occupations, to the renaming of German settlements, and to a general distrust and dislike of people with German origins that was then carried over well past WWII.
One person who felt enraged about the injustices carried out against German-Australians, was Lesbia Harford. In her short life, Lesbia Harford (1891-1927) achieved a lot. She was a poet and novelist and one of the few women to enter Melbourne University in 1912. She studied law and campaigned for the rights of the workers and against conscription during WWI. Deeply disturbed that two German-born lecturers were hounded out of the University of Melbourne, she wrote a novel that highlights the erasure of the formerly well-respected German members from the Australian Society.
Harford did not live to see her novel, “The invaluable Mystery” published (in 1987), and it is difficult to find a copy of the book now.
It was extremely satisfying then, to hear Leo expand on the life and writing of this rather amazing woman. Timely too, because it highlighted once again the necessity to meet and embrace ethnic differences with an open mind.
For Germans, it is the battles on the Western Front which stand out and Remarque’s book “Im Westen nichts Neues” (1929; and the film of the same name, “All quiet on the Western Front”).
“What can one do” asks Leo , “when an Australian journalist complains about the lack of focus on World War I and specifically on the 1915 Gallipoli campaign in the displays of the German Historical Museum in Berlin?” The journalist in question felt affronted that he had to search high and low to find even the smallest reference to Gallipoli and “this war that ( …) forged our nation.”
There are many reasons for this apparent German negligence, explains Leo. The campaign on the Western Front, so much closer to home than far off Gallipoli, the economic struggles of the post war years, the unpleasant memory of the Nazi’s glorification of the ‘brave German soldier’ for their own purposes, and the fact that the horrors of WWII overtook the memories of WWI and are at the forefront of the German nation coming to terms with its past.
But not only do the recollections of Germans and Australian place emphases on different historical events (leaving one to shake its head at the peculiarities of the other), WWI, as Leo pointed out, marked a significant change in the attitudes of the Australian citizens to their German-Australian neighbors. As with all propaganda, the perceived enemy, Germany and the Germans, were demonized beyond all reason.
That let to the internment and deportation of German-Australians, to people being hounded out of their occupations, to the renaming of German settlements, and to a general distrust and dislike of people with German origins that was then carried over well past WWII.
One person who felt enraged about the injustices carried out against German-Australians, was Lesbia Harford. In her short life, Lesbia Harford (1891-1927) achieved a lot. She was a poet and novelist and one of the few women to enter Melbourne University in 1912. She studied law and campaigned for the rights of the workers and against conscription during WWI. Deeply disturbed that two German-born lecturers were hounded out of the University of Melbourne, she wrote a novel that highlights the erasure of the formerly well-respected German members from the Australian Society.
Harford did not live to see her novel, “The invaluable Mystery” published (in 1987), and it is difficult to find a copy of the book now.
It was extremely satisfying then, to hear Leo expand on the life and writing of this rather amazing woman. Timely too, because it highlighted once again the necessity to meet and embrace ethnic differences with an open mind.
