The Queen, Ireland & Willy Brandt's Bendy Knees

I write this in the middle of the Queen's State Visit to Ireland.  Yesterday she laid a wreath to honour those killed by the British fighting for independence.  Today she visited the Croke Park, where the British Army fired on a soccer crowd killing fourteen.  Tonight she is widely expected to "acknowledge past difficulties" but not to apologise for past British actions in Ireland.

The whole event has got me thinking about the nature of reconciliation, as well as about the acceptance of history and its role in creating the present.  I <really> believe this stuff matters, and here are some thoughts on why.

War Breaks Out

At 4.45am on 1 September 1939 the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein famously opened fire on the Polish Westerplatte Military depot near Danzig.  The opening salvo of World War Two had been fired.  By 1945 the Germans had murdered a total of 3 million Polish Jews, some 90% of the 1939 population.  Often overlooked by non-Poles was the fact that a similar number, roughly 3 million non-Jewish Poles also died in the intervening 6 years.  Think about this for a moment: ONE in FIVE of the entire Polish population would meet an untimely and often unthinkably terrible end in the few years following this bombardment.

The Schleswig-Holstein Battleship

Warsaw Genuflection

Just twenty-five years after the end of WW2 the Social Democrat Chancellor of West Germany made a remarkable visit to Poland.  He visited the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial and surprisingly and apparently spontaneously fell to his knees in front of it.  The entire crowd of assembled dignitaries and journalists fell silent.  Brandt remained there in silent contemplation for some time.  I wasn't even alive in 1970 but the mere thought of this brings tears to my eyes.  It was the iconic "Warschauer Kniefall" or "Warsaw Genuflection".

A Truly Iconic Moment

He later explained "Under the weight of recent history, I did what people do when words fail them. In this way I commemorated millions of murdered people." 

This was 25 years after the end of the most murderous period in European history, committed by his nation.  25 years ago today takes us back to May 1986: Madonna was in the charts in with "Live to Tell".  It was such a short time afterwards.

Owning up to the Past

Brandt was not just there to carry out this remarkable act.  He had come to sign a treaty, which gave up all German land east of the Oder-Neisse line. This was an area not that far off the size of the whole of England.  That act hurt - really, really hurt: fourteen million lost their historic homelands.  This was where my German family had fled from in the depths of Winter 1945 - if you're bored and haven't already done so, read the fairly dramatic story here. My elderly German family could never forgave Brandt.  "This was our land, our home - politicians have no right to give away this to anyone" said my Great Aunt, Tante Ella.

Brandt's actions were however in my opinion an unavoidable, brave and necessary part of a process that Germany went through and is going through until today.  No amount of dropping to your knees, making (sometimes paltry) payments to Holocaust victims or foreign policy support for Israel will ever, can ever, make right the wrongs of the Third Reich.  What the German government has done though - sometimes to the point of self-flagellation - is to attempt to face up to its history.

In this, I am always struck by the contrast between the position in Germany and that in neighbouring Austria, where the cancerous myth of the "first victim" still pervades all too many minds.  Austria made up 7% of the Third Reich, but 25% of the membership of the SS - care to find that staggering fact in any Austrian school book?

Overwhelmingly, Germany has rigorously examined its role, its conscience, its actions and apologised unreservedly for its acts.  It has done things such as sign the Treaty of Warsaw - which caused enormous pain to people during this process.  It has also, however, created a space where its Jewish population is again thriving: now the third largest in Europe, and the fastest growing in the world.  Most of this came from post-Soviet emigration, but the fact is no Jewish family need live in this country: they choose to do so because is it considered on balance a safe place to bring up your kids and get on with your life.  It's obviously not all a bed of roses, but new synagogues are being built all over the country: not just in Berlin and Munich, but in tiny towns across the country like Hamelin, of Pied Piper Fame.  There is net emigration from Israel to Germany today.

Munich's new Synagogue: one of 6 in the city

Meanwhile in Austria, once home to the incredibly vibrant Jewish community of Vienna, the Jewish population stagnates.  There are a couple of thousand mainly very Orthodox Jews in the capital.  It took 46 years for Austria to recognise its role in Third Reich crimes.  It was November 2005, after court litigation and huge pressure from the USA, before Austria made payments to its few surviving holocaust survivors.  The contrast is self-evident and the effects of this different dealing with a similar past are fascinating.

(By the way, personally I blame Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer in large measure for their horrendous historical white-washing of Austrian history in the Sound of Music.  That said, I'll still attend a sing along if you invite me.)

Hollywood in non-accurate historical portrayal shocker!

Where is all this going?!

I hope you have worked out where this is all going.  The British did not deliberately, with forethought, murder 20% of the population of Ireland in a space of just over 5 years.  However, at least 10% of the entire population of Ireland did die during the Potato Famine.  A further 10% minimum were forced to emigrate - this was a tragic, painful, dreadful watershed in Irish history.  Historians tend to agree its occurrence was neither inevitable nor avoidable; and the British response remains a source of burning pain and sometimes hatred for many Irish.  It came on top of centuries of subjugation and colonisation by the British and was followed by frequently brutal oppression and suppression.

A friend on Twitter told me last night there is a saying along the lines of "The Irish need to forget history and the English need to remember it".  My very personal interest in German history teaches me that gestures such as Willy Brandt's bendy knees are far from meaningless, hollow gestures.  As part of a proper examination of history and owning up to a country's past, a different reality can actually be created in the present.  I am convinced that German Jewish life would not be flourishing today if the country had adopted a different path post-1945.

Far from a hollow gesture

We do not live in the past and it should not poison our creation of the future, but we must learn about history to understand and shape things for the better.  My preferred path is a middle one between the Irish and English extremes in the saying above.  I hope, though, that through the example of Germany I have shown that a proper examination of history does have the capacity to change people's lives.  Seen like this, history matters SO much.

Time for an Apology?

For all of these reasons I believe that the Queen's visit, 100 years after our last king visited Ireland, can not have come a moment too soon.  Her laying a wreath does not mean nothing: it is deeply symbolic, powerful, and moving. A heartfelt apology tonight for all the many wrongs that Britain has done to its neighbour would cost absolutely nothing to do - and in my view is the least our Head of State can do.