History and WEB in Germany

by Rüdiger Steinmetz

1. Theoretical Framework

We understand this project as a whole and this paper especially as a pilot study for a more in-depth research. This is even more true,

• as the Web provides such a huge amount of communication content, even if you confine your research questions to a smaller focus of topics and countries;

• as Web content analysis has not yet reached a methodologically and internationally standardized level as this is (more or less) the case with newspaper and film analysis – only to mention the younger methods

• and as Web terminology is not yet really internationally standardized, either, as this is (more or less) the case with film and broadcasting studies terminology, and this applies even if we all use the same English terms as “Web 1.0/2.0”, “thread”, “post”, blog” etc.

1.1 Research Questions

Here are the research questions (RQs) of the project:

1.1.1 Basic research questions (RQs):

What are the historical topics that surface in the everyday talks conveyed on the Web?

– On what occasions are they used?

– To what extent are/aren’t they developed?

– Are there any hints at the history of other countries, or at Europe?

1.1.2 Special RQs:

What is said about “transversal topics”:

• Shoah and Holocaust

• resistance to Nazism

• the fall of the Berlin Wall

• the end of the communist “bloc”

1.1.3 RQs concerning E.U.:

• Is the past that is mentioned exclusively national or related to other nations?

• Is it mentioned in a friendly or diffident way?

• Do allusions include, at times, references to Europe or to the European idea?

1.2 Methods

We analysed German sites with the extension “.de”, exclusively, and primarily historical forums as well as (Web 1.0-) sites of institutions and (Web 2.0-¹) sites of newspapers.

Our hypothesis: In the more communicative forums and the 2.0-websites with feedback functions we learn much more about the current state of people’s knowledge, opinions, feelings, hopes and fears than in the static Web 1.0 sites provided by more or less official institutions.

Analysing the “Wikipedia”-site seems easy compared to the “rest” of the analysis. As “Wikipdia” entries may be nationally different (if they are not only translations of the US “Wikipedia” site) but exist in every country, this could be a good chance to compare them with an identical method of analysis.

1.2.1 Approaches to Web Sites

We applied two methods:

1.2.1.1 Open Google Search (with an empty cache) for

• “Widerstand gegen Nationalsozialismus (im besetzten Europa)” (resistance)

• “Judenvernichtung”, “Shoah”, “Holocaust”

• “Ende des kommunistischen Blocks”, “Ende ost-west-Konfrontation” (end of

communist block, end of east-west confrontation)

• “Fall Berliner Mauer” (fall of the Berlin Wall)

We analysed the first ten sites found with these tags on one single test day.

Sure, this access to web sites is not standardizing the method much: Web sites are ranked differently day by day (minute by minute), according to the browser one is using. So, as an experiment, we accessed the sites with different browsers like “Mozilla”, “Safari”, “Firefox”, “Opera” and “Chrome”. The ranking in this special snapshot moment, when we are searching and accessing the sites also differs depending on your cache and cookies and on how their algorithm is/may be optimized by their owners. And the tags are also read differently: there are tags structured by text, and there are meta tags. Meta tags may have nothing to do with the site content, but they link to the site header.

As this approach does not lead to a really high level of standardisation, we applied another method:

1.2.1.2 Weighted Google Search (with an empty cache)

of what we judged the “most important forums” according to our research criteria. After some research, we selected the following sites:

http://www.geschichtsforum.de/

http://einestages.spiegel.de/page/Home.html

http://www.volksbetrug.net/forum/index.php

http://www.politikforen.net/ (one has to be registered for the search)

http://www.reconquista-europa.com/search.php?do=process (one has to be registered for the search)

http://humanistenteam.info/forum/

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/

http://forum.freenet.de/

http://www.bild.de/ka/p/forum/index/5

http://forum.spiegel.de/

also relevant:

http://www.mitmischen.de/

http://politik-forum.eu/index.php

1.2.1.3 Additional method/analytical tools

We tried some tools like Google analytics: GA is useful for domain owners, but is accessible only by them. It describes the activities of the owners. Also the tool https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome may only be used by the domain owner, and it is only accessible from the US. So, instead, we checked all sites with the tool “Web of Trust” (wot): http://www.mywot.com.

It provides information of web site users.

A quite differentiated analytical tool is

http://www.pageglimpse.com/einestages.spiegel.de

For the page analysis, which we applied for most of our analysed sites, see appendix.

1.2.2 Qualitative Analysis

For the analytical description² we chose to standardise it – to a certain extent – by providing the following information:

• the way and by which research tags this site was found;

• type of website: Web 1.0 or Web 2.0;

• mywot.com check result;

• (kind of) indicators of integrity, i.e. mission statement, content using documents and

citations, academic citation, (plural or one-sides literature used);

• institution/person recognizable by masthead and possible more than these informations;

• one-sided “discussion” or many contradicting positions;

• actuality of the site: last updated, regular/sporadic postings, dating back to…

• general characteristics of the site/platform

1.2.3 Definitions

1.2.3.1 Web 1.0

By “Web 1.0”, we understand the types of accessible web content (mostly text, hypertext, pictures) and its communicative form: more or less one-sided, static, similar to the one-to-many communication of the traditional broadcasting media, with no feedback possibility other than emails to the other or separate “muds” and “moos”.

1.2.3.2 Web 2.0

By “Web 2.0”, we understand “the network as platform” based on Tim O’Reilly’s definition of 2005,³ actualized in 2009.⁴ Applying to our RQs, we are focused especially on

• integrated feedback, which allows for democratic and collective intelligence

• and the low level entrance to participate in communication, interaction and collective

production.

2. Results

2.1 General Results: Web Fora

There is a very broad variety of German Web fora coping with history in general and the history of Germany, especially. The “Geschichtsforum” is one of them with sub fora like „Das Dritte Reich“, „Der Zweite Weltkrieg“ as well as „Blockbildung und Kalter Krieg“. The most intense discussion is going on in the sub forum „Das Dritte Reich“. For a more specific analysis, see below.

2.1.1 Social Networks

2.1.1.1 Facebook

For the following tags, we got a quantitative result: “Germany resistance to Nazism”, “the holocaust”, “karl marx”, “nazism”, “Marxism”, “fascism”, “winston churchill”, “communist block”, “Gorbatschow”, “Eiserner Vorhang”, “Perestroika”, “Glasnost”, “Berlin wall”, “Berliner Mauer”, “Judentum”, “USC” – “Shoah Foundation Institute”, “resistance movement”. 820 000 people aged 13 years and older, living in Germany, were using these terms on 14^th July, 2013:⁵ in a post, in their status, they “liked” it, or one of their closest “friends” used it. It does not tell anything about the content of the discussion of these tags.

2.1.1.2 YouTube

Tag “Fall der Mauer” (“Fall of the Berlin Wall”): YouTube features documentary films of Spiegel TV, ARD, Deutsche Welle.

Tag “Europa”: Documentary films of the German Foreign Office and of Friedrich Ebert Foundation (close to Social Democratic Party).

Tag “Ost-West-Konflikt”: Documentary films of „Wissen to go“, “Sofageschichten” (“sofa stories”) and DokuOnline.

The ZDF mini series „Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter“ (= “Our mothers, our fathers”. Director: Philipp Kadelbach, Script: Stefan Kolditz, Producer: Nico Hoffmann, ZDF 17.,18.,20. March 2013) initiated a long lasting discussion in the Web, not only on YouTube but also in the ZDF Mediathek (where programmes are accessible freely for seven days after their screening), but also on Social Media platforms like Facebook and Google+, and many more. We will have a closer look at a follow-up discussion on Spiegel online, below.

2.2 Specific Results

2.2.1 Tag “Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus (in Europa)” (resistance)

Analysis, Websites as of 1^st August, 2013

This Analysis is based on the research method Open Google Search (with an empty cache) (see Chapter 1.2.1.1). The screenshot of this test day shows the search result.

 

(Wikipedia analysis is left out here, within our approach.)

Ad 3: Deutsches Historisches Museum

After two Wikipedia sites, there is the Web 1.0 website of the “Deutsches Historisches Museum”, a very reliable site provided by the “Foundation House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany” (“Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland”). This website offers information: texts, text&photo documents, sound and video documents, statistics, biographies about German history, with a special focus on the German Kaiserreich (German Empire), Weimar Republic and “Third Reich”, early post war period: http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/wk2/ widerstand/.

All this is searchable by a more or less integrated inflexible search engine. No comments or blogs are possible. Interestingly enough, at the time of our research (late July/early August 2013), there was no legal nor editorial notice about the source. An upgrading or editing of the website is not recognizable.

Tagged “Widerstand”, the page shows ample information about: the Hitler assassination attempt by Johann Georg Elser (8^th November, 1939, Munich, Bürgerbräukeller), the assassination attempt of 20. July, 1944, resistance in the Wehrmacht, in “Kreisauer Kreis” and of “Weisse Rose”, opposition of youth (“Edelweisspiraten”), the “Red Chapel”, and the Confessing (protestant) Church (Bekennende Kirche). But there is no link to resistance in occupied countries in Europe.

Ad 4: Leipziger Internet Zeitung

The fourth page shows, surely caused by the Google search algorithm, which recognizes the region where the user enters the web, and surely optimized by the producer of the site, news info of “Leipziger Internet Zeitung” of January 2011 about an event remembering the Leipzig anti fascist resistance fighter Georg Schwarz: http://www.l-iz.de/Bildung/Zeitreise/2011/01/ Reihe-erinnert-an-Widerstand-gegen-den-Nationalsozialismus.html.

Ad 5: Freie Presse, Chemnitz

The fifth page brings an archive newspaper article of “Freie Presse” (Chemnitz), of February, 2012, on a retrospective on the resistance of “Leipziger Jugendbanden” (gang of youths) against Hitler, in 1938: http://www.freiepresse.de/NACHRICHTEN/SACHSEN/Widerstand-im-Dritten-Reich-Leipziger-Jugendbanden-gegen-Hitler-artikel7901641.php.

Ad 6: Photo and poster gallery “White Rose”

The sixth page brings a photo and poster gallery of resistance with a lot of photos and documents, among them several pictures of the “White Rose” resistance in Munich and the siblings Scholl who were condemned to death.

Ad 7: Resistance vs. National Socialism

Then, there is a private Web 1.0 website (2002-2013) of the author Dieter Wunderlich,⁶ which boasts of “5 Million visitors per year”. Tagged “Widerstand gegen Nationalsozialismus”, Wunderlich provides a comprehensive, factual overview of resistance activities, starting that “at no time there was a coherent resistance movement versus the NS regime”. The “Widerstand” site contains factual information about the “Bekennende Kirche” (Confessing Church of protestants), resistance of catholic clerics, the assassination attempt of Georg Elser, the Jewish resistance “Gruppe Baum” in Berlin, the “White Rose” and Sophie Scholl, resistance of communists, social democrats and labour unions, the “Rote Kapelle” (“Red Chapel”), the “Solf-Kreis” around former ambassador Wilhelm Heinrich Solf who provided a “political tea”, the “Kreisauer Kreis” around the lawyer Helmut James Graf von Moltke, the “Goerdeler Kreis” around former Leipzig major Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, the resistance activities around rear admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the resistance in the officer corps, the assassination attempt of 20. July 1944, and the longest one, an overview of “Resistance in the occupied territories”.

Let’s have a closer look at this last article: It starts making up a difference between the resistance fighters in Germany who were betrayed and expelled from “Volksgemeinschaft” (people’s community) and the partisans in the occupied territories who were secretly supported by the people there. Auther Dieter Wunderlich states that in all occupied countries resistance arose: “in the Scandinavian countries, in Holland, Belgium, France, Italy, the Balkan peninsula, and in Eastern Europe. Partisans fought against Germans and collaborators, similarly.” Then the author describes the successful Heydrich assassination (1942) in Prague and the Nazi’s revenge on the Czech village of Lidice. French résistance is described by Général Charles de Gaulle’s “Forces Francaises libres”, the Résistance and Maquis in the Vichy-parts of France, the resistance of Communists, Unions, Conservatives, and Army, as well as the unification of the French resistance, initiated by Jean Moulin in the “Conseil National de la Résistance”. The author describes formation of the “Comité de Libération Nationale” in Alger, which was acknowledged as the provisional French Government by the Allies. He also mentions the “revenge” killing act of the Germans in Oradour-sur-Glane (1944). Then he talks about the resistance groups of Tito and Mihailovic in Jugoslavia: “Instead of coordinating their actions against the Germans they fought one another.” He states that the British Allies did not accept Tito’s communist resistance and preferred the royalist resistance of Mihailovic, first. But, finally, the Big Three agreed on supporting only Tito during their conference in Tehran (1943). When German parachute troops attacked Tito’s headquarters in Dvar (1944) the partisan leader could flee to Italy in a British airplane where he erected a new headquarters on the Isle of Vis. Web site author Wunderlich provides links to his own film reviews of Jo Baier’s “Stauffenberg” (D 2004), Bryan Singer’s “Valkyrie” (“Operation Walküre – Das Stauffenberg-Attentat”, USA 2008). The reviews are also factual and more or less positive, stating that these films cannot replace good lessons on the resistance topic. Concerning “Valkyrie” Wunderlich does not forget to remind the reader of the protest of Stauffenberg’s son Berthold against Tom Cruise as a member of the “Scientology” sect playing his father as the resistance fighter.

All of the texts do not contain any scientific source material nor references. But they are written fact based, balanced, liberal and highly critical towards the Nazis.

Ad 8: Convey History

Ranked eighth, another Leipzig website is shown, due to the Google algorithm: “Geschichte vermitteln” (“Convey History”) http://geschichte.public-ip.org/texte.html. This small Web 1.0 website provides texts and audios concerning resistance versus Nazis. Behind these stand a Munich and Leipzig media pedagogy initiative,⁷ supported by D-A-S-H (“Building networks against discrimination”) which aims at “Young people from all over Europe (who) struggle against racism and exclusion“, and the „Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung“ („Federal Agency for Civic Education“). The project researched memorial sites in and around Leipzig reminding of antifascist resistance, of forced workers, of the victims of National Socialism and the biography of the communist Kurt Julius Goldstein who fought for the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, was imprisoned in Auschwitz, built up KPD and SED after 1945, became general director of GDR radio stations, member of the Central Committee of SED, and secretary of the “Fédération Internationale des Résistants“ (FIR) in Vienna.

Ad 9: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung” (BpB)

(„Federal Agency for Civic Education“)

Ranked ninth is the ample Web 1.0/”1.5” website of the “Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung” (BpB) tagged “Deutscher Widerstand 1933- 1945”: http://www.bpb.de/izpb/10367/deutscher-widerstand-1933-1945. This is a federal institution, located in Berlin and Bonn, financed by the Federal Government. In each of the Länder, the federal states, a regional institution is working analogue to the “BpB”. The “BpB’s” duty is to foster the understanding of politics, to consolidate democratic awareness and to enhance political and civic society engagement. In times of Cold War, it was kind of a propaganda institution of the West German government. But today, it is an all-German, more or less liberal institution.

For “Deutscher Widerstand 1933- 1945” (“German Resistance”) the site features the content of a special issue of the print version of “Informationen zur politischen Bildung” (“Informations for the political Education”), Vol. 243, 1994. In the foreword, author Jürgen Faulenbach states that resistance in Nazi Germany was a “resistance without a people” as it was very heterogeneous and differenciated at different times; apart from the resistance groups, 7000 individuals can be named. Historian Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Benz, former director of the Munich “Institut für Zeitgeschichte” (“Institute for Contemporary History”) and former director of the Berlin “Institut für Antisemitismusforschung” (“Institut for the Research of Anti-Semitism”) of the Free University of Berlin, and internationally renowned researcher, is the author of most of the texts. The issue contains ample, historical research-based texts – with citations of scientific sources – concerning the following aspects: acceptance and resistance to National Socialism, the fight against NS before 1933, opposition and resistance of the labour movement, Churches: self-assertion and opposition, obstructiveness and resistance: three examples, resistance of traditional elites, the military resistance, self-assertion and defence of persecuted people, opposition of youth and students, denial in every day life and resistance in the war, models and examples of political moral. The whole issue is accompanied by historical, political academic literature.

In this issue, we do not find a focus on resistance in the occupied countries. But in a very recent paper, which is part of a web only “Dossier Frankreich” (January 2013, on the occasion of 50 years of the Elysée treaty), author Steffen Prauser, academic staff member of “Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris” (DHIP)(“German historic Institute”), writes about “Erinnerungen an eine dunkle Zeit: Kollaboration und Widerstand in Frankreich“ (“Memories of a dark time: collaboration and resistance in France“).⁸ The trailer of this article announces a text about the “Vichy syndrome, which the French society has never overcome.” Prauser characterizes the beginning of resistance in 1940 as the “engagement of few individuals”. Only in 1942, the underground resistance groups were of a “more important consistence”, and he states an “ambivalence” of “many groups” towards the Vichy regime until 1942. For the communist PCF resistance, the German raid of the Soviet Union in June 1941 was the sign for a “new dimension” of resistance activities. The author writes about the French people’s refusal of Laval’s forced labour (“STO”), which – “in contrast to a persistent legend” – made only a minority of around 25.000 people join Résistance. He mentions the German revenge killings of Tulle and Oradour-sur-Glane. But in the whole article the author does not, in contrast to the headline, talk about the collaboration in France.

Ad 10: Westfälische Nachrichten

The tenth page is a newspaper report in “Westfälische Nachrichten” on an exposition of every day resistance in Münsterland (state of North Rhine-Westphalia) and a request to tell these every day stories.

Ad 11: Film trailer on YouTube: “Europe’s secret armies resisting Hitler”

The eleventh site is a trailer of the film “Europe’s secret armies resisting Hitler” on YouTube (from Sept. 2012). The film can be ordered by everyone, but the main group that it aims at are school teachers.

Ad 12: Resistance in Third Reich (School Project)

The next site is the result of a high school project. In six lessons, the 2008 13^th grade students of Theodor-Heuss-Schule in Sulzbach-Rosenberg (Saarland) produced this website: “Widerstand im Dritten Reich – ein multimediales Lernprogramm“ („Resistance in Third Reich. A multimedia learning programme“).⁹ With short texts, pictures and quizzes, it refers to the different resistance ways and groups. It is a Web 1.0 site, no blogging, nor comments.

2.2.2 Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus (im besetzen Europa)

Analysis of Websites, based on weighted Google Search

(with an empty cache)

This analysis is based on the method weighted Google search, described in Chapter 1.2.1.2.

1) Geschichtsforum http://www.geschichtsforum.de/ (as of 8th August, 2013):

This is a Web 2.0 platform providing a blog forum of a community with the claim: “The forum for those interested in history and for history fans”. This is a Web 2.0 platform. In Germany, it is ranked 6446 and used by 78,8% Germans and 21,2% international users, among them 12% from Austria. Web of Trust (wot) classifies it as a trusted and safe website. Users rate the page as a very informative site.

With the tag it shows a vivid forum with 116 pages dating back from end July 2013 to 2005. The most recent thread (of end July 2013) is about the “Myth Rommel”, and it is motivated by an ARTE documentary of August 2007 (!!!). In a very balanced, fact oriented way, community members discuss Rommel’s role in resisting Hitler. Partly, they are referring to historical sources. But the majority of the discussion is about Rommel’s Africa engagement.

In the next thread, the role of women in the resistance is being shortly discussed but then far more intensely their role for the German economy and armour industry. The historical research neglect of women in resistance, especially in the left wing resistance, is being criticised. A share of 15 % women is said (estimated, without source) to have been part of resistance. In another thread, we find a controversial, balanced discussion about the proposition that the horrors of the col-onial powers in times of imperialism versus the „natives“ layed the basis for the Shoah by the Germans.¹⁰

In a thread on the “Kreisauer Kreis”, a high school student asks for a complete, excellent two page paper on resistance as he “needs” to enhance his grading. He is harshly criticised for his idleness and provided with a lot of links, but then takes a basic forum article on the “Kreisauer Kreis”. After (!) having done so he is happy with “his” work but then dears asking the forum “what the ‘Kreisauer Kreis’ finally did”.¹¹ There are more high school student’s questions for help in their history exams. Forum moderator “El Quijote” tells him that he can get help but needs to think first, for himself.¹² An interesting question is risen by a high school student: he or she wants to talk to her/his classmates about those who pretended to have been resistant to the regime, as a lie to cover oneself after 1945.¹³

2) Spiegel Forum:

http://einestages.spiegel.de/page/Home.html

Tags: “Widerstand”, “Widerstand gegen Hitler”

This website is a Web 2.0 platform. Users can interact by discussing the articles, and the special thing about the site is that users can rate each article. Interactive resources are not rare. If your are registered in the forum you can add photos to the picture gallery. Beneath the articles one finds information on who submitted the photos. You can also see how many posts there are in a discussion. If you are looking for articles, you can search by rating, for the date of publication, for the date of the event or for the activity, ascending as well as descending. You can also view related articles.

Web of Trust (wot) classifies it as a trusted and safe website. Users rate the page as a very informative site. Pageglimpse analysis (see Fig. 1 in appendix) shows that this site is ranked ninth in Germany and that it is approached by 83% Germans and by 17% international users, most of them from Austria and the US. In Germany, the majority approaches this site from Berlin (12%).

The page consists of photographs and contemporary documents. Under the tag „Widerstand gegen Nationalsozialismus im besetzten Europa“, we find articles about church and war crimes as well as articles about Jewish saviour. There is also a rider containing contemporary witness reports.

http://einestages.spiegel.de/s/tb/28343/aufstand-im-warschauer-ghetto-sie-haben-angst-vor-uns.html

http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/document/27184/moralist_unter_der_robe.html?k=Widerstand+gegen+Nationalsozialismus&o=original_publicationdate-DESCENDING&s=0&r=3&c=1

This is about Fritz Bauer, a “Moralist unter der Probe” (“A Moralist under probe”), an attorney general, who in 1952 initiated the rehabilitation of the resistance fighters of 20. July 1944 (reason for the tag), and who in 1960 set the Mossad on the trace of Adolf Eichmann; photo gallery of Bauer.

http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/document/26081/geschwister_scholl.html?k=Widerstand+gegen+Nationalsozialismus&o=original_publicationdate-DESCENDING&s=0&r=3&of=2&c=1

A calendar sheet of the siblings Scholl (student resistance group “Weisse Rose”/”White Roose” in Munich.

3) Volksbetrug.net

http://www.volksbetrug.net/forum/index.php.

This is an ugly right wing and neo Nazi, anti-democratic blog forum. It sure is under surveillance of the German intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Some of the main threads are reading: “FRG – A State that is no State”; “Meldestelle”: “registration platform for the despotism of state and justice”, “Get active together”, “History” (with the sub thread “Zionist ideology” = “Z. Weltanschauung”). In the main thread “News and press” we find the sub thread “News from Austria”, and, within this one, the news: “Seizure. Turks take over a village, targeted”. In this “news” of 1^st February, 2013, threats are pronounced openly: “Foreign domination does not only take place but is even propagated openly. (…) Let us tell the enemies and traitors of our culture, society and people that if the people take the control of their fate into their own hands, then woe betide them.”¹⁴ Accordingly, this site has a bad reputation, based on user reviews. Trustworthiness and youth protection are the assessment criteria.

In the search for “Widerstand Nationalsozialismus” (“resistance to National Socialism”) the latest blog, as of 31^st May 2013, in the thread “news”, is a very lengthy one, written by “Cindy H” about “warning of deception!”¹⁵ The author signs with her real name and contact data, “Sylvia Stolz, Rechtsanwältin, wegen ‘Holocaustleugnung’ aus der Rechtsanwaltschaft der BRD ausgeschlossen,¹⁶ Pfarrer-Grabmeier-Allee 10, D-85560 Ebersberg, Tel: 08092-24418, ‪sylviastolz@aol.com“. This “lawyer” seems to be so proud of being expelled from the professional association of German lawyers and, consequently, feels proudly so free like a bird that she does not hesitate to publish her full name (Stolz = “pride”) and contact data. For that, she earns admiration in related blogs as this is the case very rarely. She cites a Hitler speech of 8th November 1939, completely, and her discussion style is in a very harsh and self-confident way. The author seems to have much, much time for writing.

The search for “Holocaust” brings 642 current hits, going back to September 2010, with “Holocaustlüge” (“H. lie”).¹⁷ The search for “Shoah” brings only six elder hits from 2012.

Taken all in all, this is – sorry to say – quite an active site. But it is not analysed by the analytic tools. And – personal remark by Rüdiger Steinmetz – it is impossible to keep any academic analytical distance, here.

4) politikforen.net

This site has a bad reputation either, based on user reviews.¹⁸ Trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy, youth protection are the assessment criteria. You can only search for content if you are registered. In the forum’s registration you must specify the name of your mother or your father and the respective birthplace. The forum is divided into a political forum index, finance social theories, religion, history and scientific topics. “The world is tired of Islam” is one of the most popular topics.

„Kraftwerk 03/31/2010 : Hateful or questionable content (wot). A commentary of a wot user: “Racist and right wing thinking are spread here. Unbelievable that this still exists in the 21st century.” A (for more specific research necessary) registration via a university web site is not being accepted.

5) reconquista-europa

http://www.reconquista-europa.com/search.php?do=process

(One has to be registered for the search function.)

6) Humanisten Forun

http://humanistenteam.info/forum/

On this web 2.0 platform documentaries and films – among others – about National Socialism are recommended. The discussions, which are found under the tag „Widerstand gegen Nationalsozialismus im besetzten Europa“¹⁹ were mainly conducted in 2012. In February 2013, there was again a discussion after the TV premiere of the documentary “When the war came to Germany”. Web of Trust (wot) classifies it as a trusted and safe website. Discussions are serious, quotes and links refer for example to Wikipedia. The website is operated by a private person, called Dirk Jasper. The history of fascism is also discussed there, partly factual based but also very emotionally. It is a balanced website.

7) Forum der Wehrmacht

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/

This forum is set up by the “Lexikon der Wehrmacht” (“Encyclopedia of WM”), which claims “Zum Gedenken der Toten des Zweiten Weltkrieges. 
Möge ihr Tod Mahnung für uns alle sein.“²⁰ And: „Diese Seite soll geschichtlich Interessierten dienen. Sie ist nicht für Nazis oder Menschen mit rechter Gesinnung gedacht.“²¹ Web of Trust (wot) classifies it as a trusted and safe website. The site is meant to remind its readers of the victims of WW II, and it is not meant for Nazi or people with a right wing ideology. This is claimed easily but in the Web not fulfilled that easily as you will always have the wrong people using it as a platform for their purposes. Nevertheless, in the forum there is a lot of discussion going on details of Wehrmacht actions, partly based on military archive research.

The tag “Widerstand” (”resistance”) brings a thread of 2007 on the “Weisse Rose” (“White Rose”) student’s siblings Scholl and Christoph Probst. In it, an intense discussion is going on about the fact that the German resistance discourse is too much focused on the “White Rose” on the one hand and the Stauffenberg assassination attempt. Some pledge for changing the focus also on those who stood in the “shadow” of the big names and to integrate also the assassinator of Heydrich, Jozef Gabík. Generally, there is a more or less balanced and factual discussion on „Widerstand“ and who should be called insurgents.²²

One of the most popular threads was the one on the ZDF mini series “Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter” (= “Our mothers, our fathers”, March 2013).²³ Since then, it generated 30 pages of controversial posts with discussion about homosexuality in the Wehrmacht, on German and Russian army rapists, polish Anti-Semitism, etc. There seem to be exclusively men who are posting.

8) Bild.de

http://www.bild.de/ka/p/forum/index/5

Is a very general (mostly Web 1.0) website, too, with no forum. The performance of Bild.de (online, Apps, mobile) is the most successful one, according to IVW categories.²⁴

Bild.de

253.866.542

176.713.068

77.153.474

2.183.263.287

1.669.120.187

514.143.100

Web of Trust (wot) classifies it as a trusted and safe website although the user rating is very different. Some people are of the opinion that bild.de is “propaganda and agitation”:

PeterKrabbabel 12/18/2008

Hate, discrimination

„Propaganda, hate, violent, non G-rated content …, but that comprised the web site itself (bild.de)“

bild.de is a very special web site, the most significant department is entertainment.

Visits by comparison, in July 2013, according to Community information for determining the distribution of advertising (IVW):

Bild.de: Visits – 7,66 %/ PIs²⁵ – 12,49 %

Spiegel.de: Visits – 7,41% / PIs – 6,48%

Focus.de: Visits: – 5,01% / PIs – 8,15%

Stern.de: Visits – 2,08% / PIs – 0,32%

süddeutsche.de: Visits + 1,57% / + 0,64%s

Welt.de: Visits + 2,83% / PIs + 1,14%

BZ-Berlin.de: Visits – 6,47% / PIs – 1,37%

9) Forum Spiegel

http://forum.spiegel.de/

This web site is a web 2.0 platform. Users can interact by discussing the articles, which are totally different from the printed magazine articles. The special thing about the site is that users can rate each article. Interactive resources are not rare. Web of Trust (wot) classifies it as a trusted and safe website. Users rate the page as a very informative site. Fig. 5 (appendix) shows that this site is rated eight in Germany, with 82,3% German and 17,7% international users, most of them from the US and Austria. You also can search topics from A to Z, for example Ernst Jünger, who was foreign legionary in both world wars, or Max Liebermann who was a Jewish painter persecuted by the Nazi regime.

Concerning the picture of the European neighbours within the context of Holocaust and the German heritage of National Socialism, let us have a closer look at the Spiegel Online column of Georg Dietz: “Und wieder die alte Geschichte” (“And the old story again”) and its 91 posted comments between 19^th and 22^nd April.²⁶ He wrote about the “european narrative” to get lost, gradually. And this tenor aims into the centre of our project’s research question. The hooks of Dietz’ column were: the mini ZDF-TV series “Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter” (late March 2013, see above), the protest of the Polish against the picture of their fathers and mothers in this film, the quarrels about the paintings exposition in the Paris Louvre “Über Deutschland” (“Sur l’Allemagne. De Friedrich à Beckmann, 1800 – 1939”, 28^th March – 24^th June, 2013),²⁷ the “usual fascism fasching” with chancellor Angela Merkel in SS uniform in Zyprus newspapers on the occasion of the German position to the Zyprus finance crisis. Self ironically, the author asks if the people in these countries do not see that “we” Germans are suffering of “our own” history? How can “they”, the other peoples, get back to their old prejudices? “As it seems, Europe snarls up in its own history. Or, more precisely, it dissolves into its different histories. It divests itself of the all overarching, euphoric European narration which was pressing forward and was looking for salvation in the future from the past; in the ever too gloomy blue of the European flag, in this one and beautiful idea of a peaceful, prosperous continent. (…) The French, who are mirroring themselves in the Germans and who see themselves, first of all. The Polish, who are afraid of the Germans and who see their angst, first of all. (…) Hope lies in the narrative. (…) It is the old (hi)stories that are bothering us in Europe as a convincing narrative is missing, a narrative of solidarity, of peace, of welfare. It is the old figures that are worrying us. (…) We thought it had ended once and for all. We thought we could mind for our own wounds, now. We have been wrong. We should not wonder.”

The posts are very controversial:

The “Germans as the parasites of Europe.”

“Friendship ends with money, (…) buying the friendship of the others with our payment of 70 per cent of the EU budget”,

“Europe – that’s pure egoistic nations. Solidarity, that’s the label for making Germany pay the bill”;

“As long as German politicians and not only few citizens believe that the whole of Europe must dance to the Teutonic pipe (…) they will be measured at this self-aggrandising position by the neighbours.”

A highly frustrated one: “Meanwhile, I am neither interested in a German state (!) nor in a European super state.”

A German Greek: „If your queen had pointed down with her finger, Greece would have the Drachm today, and the people would be better off.“

“With credits, money and cash injections of all kinds Germans try and make the world well-meaning towards them. And this is readily accepted by the world as it knows, if you only confront them with their brown history (…) that’s effective, and they are financially willing.“

Another German Greek: „Presently, I am highly frightened by how both sides, also Greece, are working with the mad pictures from history. (..) We will surely not kill one another but have an Ouzo (or more) together in my mother’s house in Orestias, Greece.“

A non-German: „How can I hate Germany and the Germans? There was a time when your people deleted my country. But that’s history, and it’s over forever. I want to live in the future, and I will never allow myself to get lost in this horrible history.“

“The only thing one should not trust is the prejudice. Neither the Polish nor the Greek are mistrusting us as most part of these people understand the complexity and is criticising the intertwining of international politics and economy” – and in all countries there are the “blusterers in the media, and then this again is to be found in ‘Spiegel’ and ‘Bild’”.

And another media criticism: “The history in my head is much more positive an light blue. Again and again, I find Europeans from all countries, who know this history, too, and spin it forward. For that, one has to block out media hysteria, sometimes!”

A direct commentary of the column: “It is the European histories themselves that form the missing narrative. (…) I prefer an exhausting peace (…) to “Nothing new at the Western Front”. (..) Nationalism leads into the trench, as to the manner born.”

As an example, this thread would need a much more precise analysis than it is possible, here. And only to analyse this thread academically and thoroughly, in a content analysis, takes a lot of time. If one transfers this problem to all our websites and hundreds and thousands of threads, even with the selection of the first ten Google hit sites or according to other standardized selection criteria, this results in a very big international research project.

Coming back to this thread: On the first view (hypothesis), the 91 posts seem to fall into four categories: those who are on their way back to nationalism, those who are holding up the European idea, based on national traditions and cultures, those who are highly frustrated by this kind of debates and those who are blaming the media for providing a false or biased picture.

10) Portal zum Bundestag “mitmischen.de”

1. http://www.mitmischen.de/

This website is a youth portal of the german federal parliament. Under the tag “Widerstand Nationalsozialismus” (resistance) we do not find any relevant results. Web of Trust (wot) classifies it as a trusted and safe website. Users rate the page as a very informative site; good to discuss.

11) Politk Forum EU

2. http://politik-forum.eu/index.php

This is a web 2.0 platform. Web of Trust (wot) has no rating. The page is highly accessible: To each topic there is a politic forum. Under the tag „Widerstand gegen Nationalsozialismus“, we find a discussion about the film „Unsere Mütter, Unsere Väter“ (see above), which is a German World War II TV miniseries. It was commissioned by the public broadcasting organization ZDF, produced by “TeamWorx” Productions, and first aired in Germany and Austria in March 2013. The homepage is operated by the “Verein zur Förderung der politischen Diskussion” (“Society for the fostering of political discussion”). Discussions are critical. Quotes and passages are provided with sources.

2.2.3 Tags “Shoah”, “Holocaust”, “Judenvernichtung”

Analysis, Websites as of 1st August, 2013

This Analysis is based on the research method Open Google Search (with an empty cache) (see Chapter 1.2.1.1). The screenshot of this test day shows the search result.

“Holocaust“

 

Ad 1 – 3:

The first eight Google search engine results begin with the German Wikipedia link, a current (Berlin newspaper) “Tagesspiegel” article, the English Wikipedia version and contains – among others that will be described after this – two newspaper archives of “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (five pages with links, ranging back from today to 2010) and “Spiegel online” (a lot more pages with links, ranging back to 2006).

Ad 4: Deutsches Historisches Museum

On this Web 1.0-site, 75,2% users are German, and nearly a quarter are international users, most of them from the US and Austria. The site is ranked only 4935 in Germany. Again, the vast majority of the German users access the site from Berlin (16,2%). No comments or blogs are possible. For its contents, the website was awarded the 2007 Alternative Media Prize, the 2008 Austrian „Ebiz E-Government Award“ and for its usability the 2006 „Biene“ award.²⁸

The site provides an article on “Der NS-Völkermord” (“The Holocaust”): http://www.dhm.de/ lemo/html/wk2/holocaust/.

Ad 5: Chronologie des Holocaust

http://www.holocaust-chronologie.de

On hundreds of pages, we find here an ample chronology of the Holocaust (“Chronologie des Holocaust”), beginning with Hitler’s „Machtergreifung“ (seizure of power) on 30^th January, 1933, and ending on 8^th May, 1945, provided on a day-by-day basis. It is easily searchable. The Author, Knut Mellenthin, is traceable with his exact address,²⁹ as a “journalist and author in the fields of history and current affairs” and as an author of “ak – analyse & kritik, Zeitung für linke Debatte und Praxis“ (=newspaper for leftist debates and practice). The texts are written from a liberal journalist’s view but mostly with academic sources. The site is far from being in the top 100; it ranks around 11 million, and that is why there are only few statistical data (see Fig. 8).

Searching this site for „Widerstand+Nationalsozialismus+besetztes+Europa“, one finds one longer article of the website author on “50 Years ago – Hungary’s Jew’s Holocaust”, published in 1994.³⁰ It contains more or less scientific references and a commented bibliography. No results for “Shoah” but for “Judenvernichtung”, referencing seven articles and chronology information of Mellentin, among them on the Goldhagen debate (1997) and an obituary on Raul Hilberg (1997). All texts on this website contain a lot of citations from documents. No comments or blogs are possible, here.

Ad 6: Shoa.de/Zukunft braucht Erinnerung

“Shoa.de” (sic!) is equivalent to http://www.zukunft-braucht-erinnerung.de (=“Future needs memory“). It is ranked around 2 Million. 72% are German and 18% are international users (see Fig. 9). This is a traditional Web 1.0 website.

It provides an ample platform of all topics related to the Holocaust (Shoah) as well as “Widerstand” (resistance) and a lot of other topics connected to “Third Reich”, post war Germany until today and biographies of historical persons. It is based on a civil society engagement originally of history students, who recognized the didactical importance of the internet, beginning in 1996.³¹ Today, around 190 authors are writing for the project for free, and more authors are encouraged to write for the project, which is a free and liberal project.³²

The search for “Shoah” (as of 6^th August, 2013) brings 37 short text links to articles, signed by the “Redaktion” of rsp. by author’s names, some of them history professors. The articles are difficult to date as only few of them carry an explicit date. The first paper on the ranking list, “Ripley im Land der Shoah”, is about the awarding of the „Prix Goncourt“, the French “Grand Prix du Roman”, to Jonathan Littell, a young American with Jewish roots, for his novel „Les Bienveillantes“ (Paris: Gallimard, 2006). This novel caused kind of a scandal, as it was written form the perspective of a German SS murderer. Author of the review is Peter Schöttler, professor of history at CNRS, Paris, and honorary professor at Humboldt Universität, Berlin, and it dates back from 2006. At first, Schöttler comments positively on the fact that the reader is forced to take the view of the (intellectual&gay) perpetrator instead of the one of the victims. But then he criticises the French bestseller novel and his author harshly for too many clichés, which prove that Littell neglects any kind of history research.

The next text links highlight the French documentary film author Claude Lanzman’s films “Shoah” (F 1985), “The Karski Report” (F 2010) and “Sobibor” (F 2001) and the homage for Lanzman on the Berlinale film festival in 2013. The very positive and advertising texts are accompanied by film clips and trailers of the respective films.

Another article is about “Neue Tendenzen in der NS-Täterforschung” (“New tendencies in the research of ns perpetrators”), and resumes that recent research history of the perpetrators has in common that it retrieves the extinction politics of the Nazi back out of non-personal structures to the acting people. The last sentence of author Wolfgang Gippert reads: “Die neueren Studien zur NS-Täterforschung liefern einen enorm facettenreichen, düsteren und beunruhigenden Einblick in die deutsche Gesellschaft, in der ‚ganz normale Menschen’ zu Massenmördern wurden.“³³

Another article is written by Szilvia Dittel und Tibor Pécsi, history teachers in Hungary, who describe their methods of keeping the memory of the Holocaust among Hungarian youth alive, as well as „die Kriegssünden der ungarischen Seite (Morde, Gewalttätigkeiten, Raub des Vermögens der Verschleppten).“³⁴ They are motivated by their intense irritation about the fact that a Hungarian study revealed that the majority of students (19-25 years of age) agree to racist and anti-Semitic positions and that these will form the future elite of the country. Headlines of other articles read: “Missing Synagogues – Sechsundvierzig Ansichten in Berlin”,³⁵ “Verlernen: Denkwege bei Hannah Arendt – von Marie Luise Knott”,³⁶ “Die Judenrazzia in Rom (1943)”,³⁷ “Österreich, die Moskauer Erklärung und der Opfermythos”,³⁸ “Kritik des Antisemitismus in der DDR”,³⁹ “Weibliche Identität in der Haft”,⁴⁰ and a basic article on the history of anti-Semitism.

The tag „Shoa“ produces 103 pages with around 20 short cuts and links of articles, each. The tag „Holocaust“ produces 270 pages with around 20 short cuts and links of articles, each. The tag „Widerstand“ (resistance) brings 143 pages with around 20 short cuts and links of articles, each. The tag „Widerstand+Europa“ produces 48 pages with around 20 short cuts and links of articles, each. It covers countries like Israel, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Italy, Austria, The Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Russia, Poland, etc.

Summing up, the website Shoa.de/ http://www.zukunft-braucht-erinnerung.de contains book, research and film reviews that cover a broader range of topics and countries from an impartial point of view.

2.2.4 Tags “Shoah”, “Holocaust”, “Judenvernichtung”

Analysis of Websites, based on weighted Google Search

(with an empty cache)

This analysis is based on the method described in Chapter 1.2.1.2.

1) Geschichtsforum

www.geschichtsforum.de:

This is a Web 2.0 platform. In Germany, it is ranked 6446 and used by 78,8% Germans and 21,2% international users, among them 12% from Austria. The tag “Shoah” leads us to the same site as analysed in chapter 2.2.2. Discussions are partly grounded on scientific sources.⁴¹

2) Spiegel Forum:

http://einestages.spiegel.de/page/Home.html

We find articles about Charlotte Knobloch, the speaker of the Jewish Community in Germany, and the Holocaust survivor and author Max Mannheimer.⁴² The article links to related topics, for example “Paul Joseph Goebbels, German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of the Nazi regime from 1933 to 1945” or to further articles, which are tagged “anti-Semitism”, “personalities”, “holocaust” or “war crimes”.

3) Volksbetrug.net

http://www.volksbetrug.net/forum/index.php

Under the tags “Holocaust, Shoah, Judenvernichtung” we do not find any relevant results.

4) politikforen.net

6) Humanisten Forun

http://humanistenteam.info/forum/

Tagged „Shoah“, we find only four results, which originate all from spring 2012. Also, the discussion of Jewish extermination are outdated. Only the tag “Holocaust” leads to current discussions about the pension back pay for victims, in German: “Rentennachzahlung”.⁴³ Furthermore, the discussions in this forum are relatively one-sided and more irregularly.

7) Forum der Wehrmacht

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/

Under the tag, in German, “Holocaust” we find several relevant threads. One of them is called “Kriegsverbrechen im II. Weltkrieg” (“=war crimes of WW II”). Partly controversial discussions are taking place in this thread beginning in 2012 until now.

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/board.php?boardid=42

In the thread “Geschichte” we find three more discussions about that issue: “Heute vor 67 Jahren – Befreiung von Auschwitz”, “Pogrom 1945 in Kiew” and “In Memoriam: Todeslager Minsk”.

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/thread.php?threadid=27832&hilight=holocaust

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/thread.php?threadid=13547&hilight=holocaust
http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/thread.php?threadid=25061&hilight=holocaust

And finally we find the thread “dancing auschwitz – video” about a video from a holocaust survivor.

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/thread.php?threadid=19882&hilight=holocaust

Under the tag “Judenvernichtung” we find one thread titled “Konzentrationslager” (= “concentration camps”). This thread had been commented on from 2008 until 2012.

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/thread.php?threadid=8948&hilight=judenvernichtung

We also find another thread called “Vernichtungslager usw.” (“extermination camp etc.”), in which the question is raised how it can be explained that not even German soldiers knew about the concentration camps or at least very late. This thread had been commented on in 2008.

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/thread.php?threadid=6729&threadview=0&hilight=judenvernichtung&hilightuser=0&page=1

10) Forum Spiegel

http://forum.spiegel.de/

Tagged „Shoah“, we find an interview with the shoah film director Claude Lanzmann, which has 75 posts. The search with the tag “Shoah” leads on to an extensive amount of results whereby some of them go back to the year 1986. The tags “Holocaust” and “Judenvernichtung” bring along approximately the triple quantity of results than the tag “Shoah”.

11) Portal zum Bundestag: mitmischen.de

Under the tag “Holocaust” we get about hundred results. Only a few of them are concerned directly with the Holocaust, for example the articles “Erinnern statt verdrängen” (2012) (“remembering instead of ousting”), “Im Dienste der Opfer” (2012) (“in the service of the victims”). There are a few other articles dealing with this topic but the main interest seems to be the creating of a commemorative culture. In the forum “Politik aktuell” the tag “Holocaust” in mentioned several times, mainly in the year 2008. We are able to determine a rather carefully usage of the term “Holocaust” and discussion about it´s definition.

http://www.mitmischen.de/mm_suche/search_cms.do

12) Politik Forum EU

http://politik-forum.eu/index.php

The search results tagged, “Shoah”, “Holocaust”, “Judenvernichtung”, are very confusing. Only about half of the results lead to the desired result. Under the tag “Holocaust” there is a broad discussion on the denial of the holocaust. Wikipedia is used as a source of evidence.

2.2.5 Fall oft he Berlin Wall / Fall der Berliner Mauer

1) Geschichtsforum

http://www.geschichtsforum.de/

Under the tag, in German, “Mauerfall” we find about eight relevant threads in this forum. They were written from 2005 up to the present. In some of them historical facts are examined, two people asked for guidance concerning a presentation for school about the fall of the Wall and in other threads we find short analyses about TV-documentaries about the issue.

http://www.geschichtsforum.de/search.php?searchid=718201&pp=25

2) Spiegel Forum:

http://einestages.spiegel.de/page/Home.html

Tagged „Fall der Mauer“, we find 48 pictures and documents including information about the Wall, the Wall construction and boarder guards, 108 articles that deal with the topic and 79 contemporary witness reports. Specific is that readers can describe their own impressions of that time. Accordingly, not every topic deals with the tag, in German, “Fall der Mauer” in detail.

3) Volksbetrug.net

http://www.volksbetrug.net/forum/index.php

Under the tag “Mauerfall” we find just one thread which is possibly relevant, titled “Vergleich BRD 2011 – DDR 1989” (“comparison FRG 2011 – GDR 1989”).

http://www.volksbetrug.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=4530&p=43399&hilit=mauerfall&sid=ce0cfb068a9b9d73d0a72c98a2fe3020#p43399

6) Humanisten Forun

http://humanistenteam.info/forum/

Tagged „Fall der Mauer“ you first have to filter out the thematic articles. The first search results deal with polemical discussions about Syria and Greece. There are relevant discussions after ten hits including book- and tv-tips. The web 2.0 platform einestagesspiegel and the German weekly news magazine “Die Zeit” are used as a source of evidence.

7) Forum der Wehrmacht

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/

Under the tag, in German, “Mauerfall” we do not find any relevant results.

10) Forum Spiegel

http://forum.spiegel.de/

The SPIEGEL ONLINE search offers topic and keyword entries from Wikipedia in the entire Spiegel archive since 1947. Tagged “Fall der Mauer”, we find many articles on the German reunification. The webpage has many interactive elements. Users can recommend the article on Facebook or Twitter, can view rights of use, print or comment the articles. The items are sorted by topic from A to Z. In summary, the website is very user-friendly.

11) Portal zum Bundestag mitmischen.de

http://www.mitmischen.de/

Under the tag “Mauerfall” we find the article “20 years peaceful revolution” (2011). In the forum we find four posts written between 2007 and 2009, which discuss the current knowledge of German students and the curriculum of the German school-system with regard to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

http://www.mitmischen.de/mm_suche/search_cms.do

12) Politk Forum EU

Tagged „Fall der Mauer“, we find 234 articles, but only half of them deal really with the topic. One topic that comes up again and again is the difference between East and West Germany, the solid contribution or the question if the DDR was better than their reputation.

2.2.6 Ende kommunistischer Block/The End of the Communist Block

1) Geschichtsforum

http://www.geschichtsforum.de/

Under the tag “Ende kommunistischer Block” we do not get any results. Under the tag, in German, “Ende Sowjetunion” we get 345 results but only four relevant threads. One was posted in 2009, is called “Ende der Sowjetunion?” (“end of the Soviet Union?”) and deals with questions concerning a research paper about the issue. The thread “Ende des Sozialismus schon früh absehbar?” (“Was the end of socialism foreseeable early?”) was posted in 2007. The other two threads were posted in 2008 and 2009 and just contain descriptions of TV-documentaries (“Der Kommunismus – Geschichte einer Illusion (3/3); Zerfall der Macht”; “Als der Ostblock Geschichte wurde”) (“Communism – History of an illusion; Decay of power; When the Eastern Block became history”).

http://www.geschichtsforum.de/search.php?searchid=718231&pp=25

2) Spiegel Forum:

http://einestages.spiegel.de/page/Home.html

Tagged „Ende kommunistischer Block“, we find nine articles and five contemporary witness reports. Some posts and documents are illustrated by maps and by copies of original documents. Adherent to only two of the five contemporary witness reports there exist comments or discussions. But every report is linked to further information. It is possible to subscribe to the articles with RSS feed.

3) Volksbetrug.net

http://www.volksbetrug.net/forum/index.php

Under the tags “Ende kommunistischer Block”, “Kommunistischer Block” and “Ende Sowjetunion” we do not find any relevant threads.

4) politikforen.net

6) Humanisten Forum

http://humanistenteam.info/forum/

The search of the tags, in German, “Ende kommunistischer Block” and “Zerfall UdSSR” did not lead to any relevant results.

7) Forum der Wehrmacht

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/

Under the tags “Ende kommunistischer Block”, “Kommunistischer Block” and “Ende Sowjetunion” we do not find any relevant threads.

10) Forum Spiegel

http://forum.spiegel.de/

The search for the tags “Ende kommunistischer Block” and “Zerfall UdSSR” did not lead to any relevant results.

11) Portal zum Bundestag mitmischen.de

1. http://www.mitmischen.de/

No relevant results under the tags “Ende kommunistischer Block” and “Ende Sowjetunion”.

12) Politk Forum EU

1. http://politik-forum.eu/index.php

1. The search for the tags “Ende kommunistischer Block” and “Zerfall UdSSR” did not lead to any relevant results. The problem with this search is that it appears to be overloaded after a while, because you have to wait few minutes before you can use the search again.

2.2.7 “Ende Ost-West-Konfrontation”

1) Geschichtsforum

http://www.geschichtsforum.de/

Under the tag “Ende Ost West Konfrontation” we find one forum with one potentially relevant thread named “Which alliance was more aggressive?“. But taking a closer look at it we notice that it solely is about a comparison between the NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

http://www.geschichtsforum.de/search.php?searchid=719260

2) Spiegel Forum:

http://einestages.spiegel.de/page/Home.html

We find five articles.⁴⁴ But none of them is concerned with the end of the East-West conflict. Instead, they are dealing with topics, which are taking place during this conflict, e.g. an article about a great demonstration against the NATO Double-Track Decision. The articles have been published in the years 2007 and 2008. Viewers are able to write posts but for these five articles but we find only three posts in total.

3) Volksbetrug.net

http://www.volksbetrug.net/forum/index.php

Under the tag “Ende Ost West Konfrontation” we do not find any results.

6) Humanisten Forum

http://humanistenteam.info/forum/

Neither under the tags, “Ende Ost West Konfrontation“ nor “Ende Ost West Konflikt“ nor „Ende Kalter Krieg“ we find corresponding articles.

7) Forum der Wehrmacht

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/

Under the tag “Ende Ost West Konfrontation” we do not find any relevant results.

10) Forum Spiegel

http://forum.spiegel.de/

Tagged „Ende Ost West Konfrontation“,⁴⁵ we find about twenty relevant results in the form of articles from the timespan from 1989 to 1991 (one has to click through to the respective timespan). The articles mainly concern the GDR, the fall of the Wall and Gorbatschow.

11) Portal zum Bundestag mitmischen.de

1. http://www.mitmischen.de/

Under the tag “Ende Ost West Konfrontation” we do not find any relevant results.

12) Politk Forum EU

2. http://politik-forum.eu/index.php

We find about 40 results, which refer to posts in different forums. None of these forums addresses the East-West conflict itself but topics like the conflict between Israel and Palestine, the situation in Syria or the future of Europe. The posts have been written from 2008 till present.

3. Synopsis

In this paper, we tried to combine a first analysis of Social media, Web sites and Web fora as of one rsp. test day in late July and early August 2013. Our Research Questions were related to the overall questions of the project as a whole:

Basic Research Questions (RQs):

What are the historical topics that surface in the everyday talks conveyed on the Web?

– On what occasions are they used?

– To what extent are/aren’t they developed?

– Are there any hints at the history of other countries or at Europe?

Special RQs:

What is said about “transversal topics”:

• Shoah and Holocaust

• Resistance to Nazism

• The fall of the Berlin Wall

• The end of the communist “bloc”

RQs concerning E.U.:

• Is the past that is mentioned exclusively national or related to other nations?

• In a friendly or diffident way?

• Do allusions include, at times, references to Europe or to the European idea?

 

The questions being precise and quite broad at the same time, the answers will be very limited, as the Web provides a huge forum of information and opinions and an extricable mixture of both, and – with limited research funds – we could only scratch on the top of the iceberg. Hence, the answers must be dealt with much reluctance. Methodological and measurement tools for the Web, its contents and users, especially for very delicate political, historical and cultural topics, have been developed over the last years, but are only in their very early phase.

That is why we laid considerable stress also on deliberations

• of how to cut traces into the jungle of the Web (i.e. to systematically detect sites and fora to be analysed),

• of more qualitative content analytical methods,

• of quantitative and descriptive tools for analysis

• and of reproducible analysis.

Basically, we differentiated between more or less static Web 1.0 sites and discursive Web 2.0 sites. The first ones, mostly sites of institutions, provided publications of texts and pictures (rarely videos or trailers). The second ones were mostly sites of newspapers and more or less private fora dealing with the big amount of user traffic by (mostly hidden) moderators. For the content and formal analysis of the web sites, we applied two different methods: Method 1: Searching with an empty cache in order to undermine – at least to a certain extent – the Google search algorithm, we described and analysed the first ten Google results for the search of the tags “Shoah”, “Holocaust”, “Resistance to Nazism”, “Fall of the Berlin Wall” and “End of the communist bloc”, for one test day in late July rsp. early August 2013. As these Google search results are so fluid we applied a second method (method 2), in addition: the Weighted Google Search, also with an empty cache, of sites which we selected in a weighted process as being of special interest for our research target.

For the formal description, we gathered data of the actuality and of the duration and continuity of the site content and discourse. For the description of web sites, of users and of user habits, we used analytical tools as “Google analytics”, “Web of Trust” (WOT),⁴⁶ “pageglimpse”⁴⁷, “IVW”-data⁴⁸ and meedia.de data.⁴⁹ In spite of these very much up-to-date and sophisticated tools, it is still not really possible to determine the socio-demographic status of user cohorts. We can tell if users come from inside or outside Germany or if the are posting user generated content or only reading (visiting) – but not, how old they are, what gender, what social status, etc. For academic and research purposes, and for our research goal especially, this might be of great interest. But, on the other hand: Do we really want to have the totally transparent users – who want to stay anonymous in the Web? We are not the NSA, nor the GSHQ!⁵⁰

3.1 Results

For the tag, “Widerstand gegen den Nationalsozialismus (in Europa)” all ten (twelve) German web sites of the test day (method 1) and most of the sites selected in a weighted process (method 2) provide balanced, informative, democratic and liberal information and opinions which is critical towards (Neo-) Nazism and try hard to keep the memory of the atrocities of Nazism alive. All of them are positive about the resistance to Nazism. Partly they are using scientific sources, but mostly they are not explicitly referring to published sources based on research. Different public institutions like the Deutsches Historisches Museum and the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, but also regional Newspapers and privately run web sites and school projects, are part of the selection based on method 1. Their web content is dating back until 2005, and mostly they are Web 1.0 sites. They do provide some European perspectives, partly even academically based ones. A lot of them have a didactical background.

The Web 2.0 sites, which are more part of our weighted selection (method 2), show on the one hand a very vivid and highly actual discussion of European perspectives on the forum of Spiegel online and very harsh neo Nazi content on the other hand. On Spiegel online forum, very interestingly the Nazi history of Germany and the resistance is explicitly discussed in connection with the presence of the European financial crisis and the role of Germany but also of other countries in it. The diagnosis of one blogger runs as follows: The “European narrative (…) dissolves into its different histories” and the respective nationalisms again.

The 91 Spiegel online posts concerning this topic fall into four categories: those who are on their way back to nationalism, those who are holding up the European idea, based on national traditions and cultures, those who are highly frustrated by this kind of debates and those who are blaming the media for providing a false or biased picture. Among our weighted selection there are two really ugly (Neo) Nazi sites with all the kind of “information” and opinions, which are well known enough and need not be repeated here. These platforms are also being used continuously, but they are by far not so actual as Spiegel online is.

For the tags “Shoah”, “Holocaust” and “Judenvernichtung” the most of what has been said above is also true: more static sites of institutions, but also of private persons, fact based information, didactical impetus. But here, there is no bridge between current developments on the European stage, and the (Neo-) Nazis are not using these tags at all. Interestingly enough, two privately initiated platforms provide relevant information: a very ample and sophisticated “Chronologie des Holocaust” and “Shoa.de” = “Zukunft-braucht-Erinne-rung.de” (“Future needs memory”) of history students and professors. This second one is oriented very much internationally. A “Forum der Wehrmacht” Web 2.0 site seems to be, on the first glance, a militarist site, but the name is misleading. True, discussions are lead from a military point of view, but partly based on archive sources and in a clear distance towards (Neo-) Nazis. And military “experts” share their fora also in other countries.

The topics – “fall of the Berlin Wall” und “end of communist bloc” – related to the younger European history find a lot attention on the platforms and in the fora, but these tags especially do not bring really the vast results we would have expected. There might be two reasons: On the one hand, the tags may have been too abstract ones and should have been broken down to some more indicative tags. On the other hand, both of them, and especially the “Berlin Wall” tag, has been so intensely used in Germany in the last nearly two and a half decades that there might be some signs of fatigue talking, blogging or posting about it. In the first five years after 1989 and then again ten (1999), 15 (2004) and 20 (2009) years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there have been exhausted discussions in the media and in the Web. And there will be again in October and November 2014, when Germany will “celebrate” the 25^th anniversary of the fall of the Wall and the beginning of the breakdown of the communist block. The memory of history is always tied to historical key events, and these events provide the media with their “fodder”.

By the way: This was not only the breakdown of the communist block, but the fall of the Wall marked the beginning of a new world order after the cold war dichotomy of two political hemispheres and a search for new friends but also for new enemies and adversaries; this was a two-sided and not a one-sided process, concerning the “big brothers” USSR as well as USA.

The historical key event “erecting the Berlin Wall” on 13^th August, 1961, and the media reflexion of it 50 years later, in August 2011 (and also in August 2013), was too big an event to research it thoroughly within our pilot study. A master thesis is being written presently on this topic under my supervision.

An overall result of our study, here, is that there is a continuous discussion process in the fora on both of these topics, which is triggered by memory days of historical key events connected to them. And sure, today this is always discussed in a European perspective as well as in a national perspective, the perspective of a unified German nation.

Answering the RQs shortly:

On what occasions are historical topics used?

Mostly, historical topics are used in connection with historical key events. Sometimes posts are bridging the times from present issues to historically rooted opinions and/or prejudices.

To what extent are/aren’t the historical topics developed?

They are developed, as the historical (and political) narrative is a fluid one.

Are there any hints at the history of other countries or at Europe?

Yes, there are hints at the history of other countries and at Europe, but not in a vast quantity.

RQs concerning E.U.:

Is the past that is mentioned exclusively national or related to other nations?

It is not exclusively national, and it is related to other nations, but in a limited dimension.

Is the past mentioned in a friendly or diffident way?

In Germany, the own past of the NS and related crimes and violations of human rights is mentioned very critically. As a tendency, a focus on countries which cope with their past in the 1930s and 1940s is to bee seen.

The younger past in connection with the tearing down of the Iron Curtain is mentioned with some pride, as it were East Germans and their Peaceful Revolution who played a key role in this historical process.

Do allusions include, at times, references to Europe or to the European idea?

Yes, the European idea is being discussed and other European countries are focused on, especially France, Italy and the UK, from the perspective of the East German Länder (federal states), also Poland and the Czech Republic.

 

A general result of our pilot study was that in the more communicative forums and the 2.0-web sites with feedback functions, we learn much more about the current state of people’s knowledge, opinions, feelings, hopes and fears than in the static Web 1.0 sites provided by more or less official institutions.

APPENDIX

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Notes:

 

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