Two doors lead into the Berlin hall where the second World War in Europe ended, at 11.01pm on May 8th 1945. In Moscow it was already May 9th. Today the two dates are pasted in Latin and Cyrillic scripts above the doors in Karlshorst, a red line between them.
Seven decades after Nazi Germany’s capitulation, ending the second World War in Europe, the symbolism of these two doors is potent.
Western leaders, in light of the ongoing Ukraine conflict, will mark the war's end today and boycott tomorrow's military parade in Moscow. Not since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 has remembering the capitulation of 1945 been so fractured.
The grey, Nazi-era officers’ mess where the signing took place, now Berlin’s German-Russian Museum, lies in the eastern suburb of Karlshorst. There were no intact buildings left in the city centre big enough, or representative enough, to hold the 200 people that attended the signing of the capitulation treaty.
The hall remains largely unchanged since 1945: the wooden parquet floor creaks as tiredly as the flags hang, glass decanters rest on long tables with green tablecloths.
Ceremony
Karlshorst was the third such ceremony because Stalin was unhappy that his top military officers were absent at previous signing. The British, too, were anxious that all German armed forces chiefs – army, airforce and marines – sign the treaty.
Failing to do so in 1918 had allowed German officers claim they had been betrayed by politicians who had signed the armistice.
"That legend helped fuel the rise of nationalism and Nazism, a mistake the British wanted to avoid a second time," said Margot Blank, deputy museum director.
In the hall newsreel footage replays how Red Army marshall Georgy Zhukov orders commanding Nazi general field marshall Wilhelm Keitel to sign the document.
“Keitel quickly rose, shooting a malign glance at us ... and walked unsteadily to the table,” Zhukov recalled later. “His face was covered with red blotches ... putting his monocle in place Keitel sat down on the edge of the chair ... his hand was shaking slightly.”
Keitel signed, the German delegation was escorted into captivity, and the capitulation entered into effect at 11.01pm local time. In the Karlshorst hall the champagne corks popped. Outside, Berlin, Germany and Europe lay in ruins.
Visiting the German-Russian Museum is a valuable reminder of just how historical memory of even huge events can be. First visitors see sections of the original GDR-era exhibit here – smoking dioramas, complete with sound effects, of the victorious Red Army’s “liberation” battle of Berlin.
Raising the hammer and sickle flag on a ruined Reichstag turret ended their 1941-1945 war that cost 20 million lives, the highest casualties of any nation.
Head upstairs and you see a compelling new exhibition that breaks a fresh perspective on even familiar atrocities, along with lesser-known details; like how the death rate among Red Army prisoners-of-war was 60 per cent, compared to just 3.6 per cent among POWs held by the Soviets.
Liberation
It took four decades for remembrance of the second World War to take a decisive turn in West Germany, when president Richard Weizsäcker described May 8th, 1945, as both a day of defeat but also of liberation from the Nazi dictatorship. That 1985 speech prompted heated debate and is still cited today. Three decades on, the historical debates have largely run their course.
The Third Reich’s rise and fall has been exhaustively documented, the sites of its greatest horrors preserved as memorials. And, with last eye witnesses unlikely to be here for the next major anniversary, attention has shifted to the importance of museums.
Amid a tsunami of exhibitions, television documentaries and history books, some of the most striking contributions made to this year’s anniversary have been more artistic than historic.
One powerful contribution not to be missed is the German film Phoenix, which opens this evening at Dublin's IFI. It's a subtle story with haunting performances, like a wartime cousin of Vertigo, rescripted by David Lynch and directed by an older, sadder Billy Wilder.
Military parade
Chancellor
Angela Merkel
will have no time for the cinema this weekend. While most European leaders have declined to attend anniversary ceremonies in Moscow, Dr Merkel, knowing she couldn’t absent herself entirely, will skip the military parade on Saturday and instead lay a wreath with President
Vladimir Putin
on Sunday.
The shadow of the ongoing Ukraine conflict hangs over their meeting, and over ceremonies in Berlin.
Back in Karlsrhorst, Margot Blank says her museum still has a contribution to make, to “remove the fertile ground for conflict”. “And the first step to war,” she says, “is demonising the other side”.
In the hall where the second World War ended 70 years ago, lost souls linger in the air, imploring visitors to learn the lessons of a terrible war for today’s uneasy peace.
