Selective Remembering: Minorities and the Remembrance of the First World War in Britain and Germany

Abstract

Remembering the war dead, so historical writing suggests, was considerably easier for the victors than for the vanquished. Yet, as this essay suggests, this strict dichotomy was not quite as rigid as the historiography implies. In both Britain and Germany, ethnic, religious and national minorities did play some role in nascent memory cultures. However, while some groups were remembered, other minorities, such as Britain’s African troops or Germany’s Polish soldiers, were all too often missing from the commemorative landscape. The absence of minorities from the remembrance process, then, had less to do with the outcome of the war, but was rather contingent on place, time and the minority group in question.