About the Monument for Deserter in Hamburg [1]

The Memorial for Deserters and Other Victims of Nazi Military Judiciary (often called simply the Monument for Deserter) is located in one of the city's busiest spots — next to the Stephansplatz subway exit and opposite the entrance to the city's large park, Planten un Blomen. A stone's throw away from the monument is the city's Dammtor train station and behind it the campus of the University of Hamburg, one of the largest in the country. Thousands of people pass by the monument every day, but of course, not all of them in their daily routine have time to pay attention to the memorial and realize its significance. Besides, the Monument for Deserter is relatively new - it was erected ten years ago, in 2015, between two other monuments, and even Hamburg old-timers sometimes get confused trying to understand where exactly the new monument at Dammtor has been placed. Nevertheless, sometimes you can see someone entering the memorial, and after a while you can hear a measured voice from a loudspeaker reciting long-forgotten names, blocking out the city noise for a few minutes and creating an atmosphere of civic remembrance for people who were victims of an unjust trial. [2]

The Hamburg Deserters' Memorial is the largest memorial of its kind in Germany and probably also one of the best known. It is not only known because of its size and significance, but also because of Ludwig Baumann (1921-2018), a Wehrmacht deserter from Hamburg who actively participated in the campaign to rehabilitate deserters and thus made the idea of the memorial possible in the first place and at the same time became inextricably linked to it. One reason for the lack of public remembrance of deserters is that the state generally has no interest in them. And this is true also for the memory of the Nazi Germany army. Even though the Third Reich lost the war, and Nazi ideologues were partly convicted of war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials, for decades West Germany regarded deserters only as “cowards and traitors”. [3] The deserters were not rehabilitated as victims of Nazi justice (until 2002), i.e. they were not able to claim compensation. They were not also honoured as the resistance fighters against National Socialism who paid with their lives to bring about the end of the Second World War and the end of what was the most criminal and bloodiest regime in European history. One reason for this injustice is that some of the judges, who tried the deserters during the Nazi period, continued their careers after the war, thus obstructing post-war German justice from within. This obviously contradicts the idea of the so-called “Stunde Null”, which is supposed to mark the unconditional historical gap between Nazism and the postwar Germany, beginning on 8 May 1945. The career of the naval judge Hans Filbinger (1913-2007) is an example of how Nazi ideology and ideas continued to have an impact even after the capitulation. Filbinger was a member of the NSDAP and imposed death sentences on deserters. After the war, he became Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg but was forced to resign after a journalistic investigation into his Nazi involvement.

But the reason certainly lies not only in this, but also in the beginning of the Cold War and the rearmament of West Germany (Wiederbewaffnung) through the founding of the Bundeswehr, and its accession to NATO in 1955. Until the 1980s, desertion and deserters were a taboo topic. [4] Therefore, only German reunification in 1989 and the withdrawal of Soviet troops, which lasted until 1994, could eventually lead (in 1997) to the Bundestag's recognition that World War II was a criminal war of annihilation. The official admission of guilt, in turn, enabled the process of rehabilitation of deserters and, as a result, to rethink the crimes of the Wehrmacht, which had long been considered innocent of war crimes in contrast to the SS units.[5] It was also at this time that the touring exhibition “Extermination War. Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941-1944” (Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941-1944), organised by the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, which made a lot of noise and was first closed under pressure from the “public” and then reopened in a revised form. [6]

There are places in Hamburg that have a historical connection to the persecution of deserters and where there are memorial signs. [7] A fifteen-minute walk from the  Monument for Deserters on Dammtor, in a park, situated a small memorial in front of the still-active Hamburg pre-trial detention centre at Holstenglacis (UHA Hamburg), where about 500 opponents of the Nazi regime were executed by beheading during the war. The plaque on the outside wall of the prison commemorates two female resistance fighters from France and four Catholic priests from Lübeck. Nearby is a sign with information about the executed deserters, the number of which is estimated at 59. There are other places in the city associated with deserters: the Wehrmacht Generalkommando at Sophienterrasse 14, the Höltigbaum local shooting range in Hamburg-Rahlsted, the soldiers' graves at Ohlsdorf Cemetery, the prison in Altona, the former caserns in the Eimsbüttel district of the city, and finally the military courts in Manteuffelstrasse and Ballindamm. In all, according to official figures, 227 men were executed in Hamburg out of an estimated 23,000 executed deserters throughout Germany. But this is an incomplete statistic: the figures do not take into account the men who died in the penalty battalions and those soldiers and officers who were executed by court-martial [8], especially in the last weeks of the war, when desertion became widespread. 

Countermonument

The Monument for Deserter is located between two other monuments. One is dedicated to the 76^th Infantry Regiment “Hamburg” and was erected after the National Socialists came to power in 1936 by sculptor Richard Kuöhl (1880-1961). The monument has two unofficial names. One is critical – Kriegsklotz, the other is Kriegerdenkmal (can be translated as “war memorial”), which, however, seems to be too affirmative and does not take into account its connection with the ideology of Nazism and militarism. The 76th Monument still draws attention with its conservative militaristic aesthetic. This monument is dedicated simultaneously to the soldiers of two world wars. After the end of WWII, two more stone plates with text were added. One of them is dedicated to the 225^th Infantry Division, installed in 1959. [9] This military unit of the Wehrmacht also took part in the Blockade of Leningrad. [10] The other plate was erected in 1959 to the 76^th Panzer-Grenadier Regiment, which also participated in the battles on the Eastern Front, on the territory of present-day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. These plates therefore both refer directly and positively to the context of the “war of annihilation” waged by the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. [11]  

The monument has long been a stumbling block in disputes between anti-war activists and conservative circles. In the post-war history the monument was proposed to be demolished [12], later at least to remove from it the main inscription-message: “Germany must live even if we must die” (Deutschland muss leben und wenn wir sterben müssen). After all this had no political success, the monument became the site of direct-action of the activists that still take place today. In 1981, for example, Bundeswehr reservists hung a banner “Heroic Death Without Us” on the 76^th Monument (It was exactly 30 years before mandatory military service was suspended in Germany in 2011). [13]

As a counterbalance to the 76^th Monument, an anti-war counter-monument by Alfred Hrdlicka (1928-2009) was erected nearby in 1986, which itself is not uncontroversial in its generalisation of wartime suffering. [14] It remained unfinished and consists in its material form of two parts – “Hamburg's Firestorm” and “Cap Arcona Escape Group”. One part symbolizes the aftermath of Operation “Gomorrah”, when Hamburg was subjected to one of the most destructive and deadly bombings of World War II, and the other part tells the story of the deaths of the Neuengamme concentration camp's prisoners on the liner “Cap Arcona”, which mistakenly bombed in the last days of the war on May 3, 1945 by British aircraft in the Bay of Lübeck. The other two pieces of the monument were never completed due to financial disagreements between the city and the sculptor. The counter-monument, set at a considerable distance from the 76^th Monument, never managed to break its dominance in the urban environment. The large distance between the monuments is also because a subway tunnel runs between them, and heavy structures cannot be installed in this area due to safety regulations.

In 2010, the “Association for a Monument for Deserters in Hamburg” was organized, which includes more than 20 local anti-fascist and anti-war NGOs. The association succeeded in erecting the monument where it stands. Since its foundation, the association has organised regularly anti-war celebrations and actions in front of the monuments on Stephansplatz. One of the important messages of the members of the association, printed in their booklet, is “Deserters are not criminals, the war is the crime”. [15] Their sort of visit card depicts the marching soldiers of the 76^th Monument, while the outline of the deserter takes a step in the opposite direction, symbolizing his resistance to the soldier's collective. [16] The hidden motif of the lone soldier opposed to the mass of marching columns can also be found in Monument for Deserters, if viewed from a certain angle: the gap between the grid and the concrete wall of Monument for Deserters becomes a frame that can pick out one solitary soldier from the bas-relief of marching soldiers of the 76^th Monument, hiding all the others at the same time. [17] Behind this image is the idea that desertion is first and foremost a personal and conscious choice of each soldier. Although one can argue with the fact that desertion is always the decision of a loner, because even in the case of Ludwig Baumann this rule is not confirmed: he fled together with his friend Kurt Oldenburg (1922-1945) who later died in a penal battalion on the Eastern Front.

Finally in 2012, the Hamburg parliament, under pressure from the civil society, decided to create commemoration sites for deserters and other victims of National Socialist injustice in the city. According to the terms of the competition of the Hamburg Office of Cultural Affairs, the Memorial to deserters had to confront the 76^th Monument in some way. [18] In general, the authors of most of the projects understood the assignment literally. Elements of their projects interacted directly with the 76^th Monument in one way or another, usually blocking it and/or supplementing it with new constructions. However, the winning project was by the sculptor Volker Lang, who did not try to visually cover the monument, nor to complete it. Lang chose again a strategy of opposition, like Hrdlicka's counter-monument, combined with a distanced commentary on the 76^th Monument and a more differentiated approach to the destigmatization of the deserters and their commemoration.

In the artist's opinion, the memorial to the deserters also serves as a kind of mediator between the two pre-existing memorials. Lang's monument consists of different elements and can be understood on many levels. It is a triangular structure with one monolithic zigzag wall made of concrete and two metal text grids. A sound installation is embedded in the concrete wall. The sound is activated when a visitor enter the monument and press the button on the panel. The first button starts a recording of a text by avant-garde poet Helmut Heissenbüttel entitled “Deutschland 1944”, a collage of quotes from perpetrators of National Socialism. The author intended this text to give an idea of the brutality of the war of annihilation. The grids also repeat a fragment of this text. One of them can be read from the inside and the other from the outside. The remaining six buttons include an alphabetical reading of the names of executed deserters and other victims of Nazi justice, with brief information about the person who died: date of birth, age, military profession, and method of execution. In this way, the performative naming, remembering of the victims of “bloody justice” is contrasted with their anonymity and oblivion.

The visual confrontation between the Monument for Deserter and the 76^th Monument is primarily on a formal level. The 76^th Monument is a heavy, rectangular stone structure that symbolizes military and national unity, while the Monument for Deserter, thanks to the grid of letters, is transparent and appears light. It deliberately contrasts the “block” with a triangular shape. The geometries in the monument refer to the avant-garde propaganda tradition of objectless art. Examples include the poster “Beat the Whites with a Red Wedge” by El Lissitzky (1890-1941) and the monument “Red Wedge” by architect Nikolai Kolli (1894-1966). In both works, the triangle associated with the “Reds” is directed toward the circle or rectangle of the “Whites”. Although the triangle of the Monument for Deserters does not split or point directly into the block of the 76^th Monument with its tip, this association on a formal-architectural level continues to work.

Another meaning is sometimes attributed to the triangle shape. The red triangle with the point upwards was the distinguishing mark of imprisoned Wehrmacht soldiers in concentration camps - the so-called SAW-prisoners. [19] Such prisoners included soldiers “unworthy of military service” who had committed various degrees of misdemeanors and offenses. However, SAW-prisoners and deserters are different categories of prisoners, although overlapping. Information about a special mark for deserters or the significance of the SAW mark for the monument is not available to me at this time. Stefanie Endlich writes about the complexity of the monument's dedication: the list of victims of National Socialist justice included those convicted of desertion, undermining defence power, refusal to obey orders, and active resistance, and these are very different people - soldiers and those civilians who helped them, including female members of the resistance. [20]

Another form of interaction between the two monuments takes place through light and shadow that fall from the grid. During the day, the shadow is projected onto the concrete wall inside the monument for some time, where there are also texts next to the button panel that provide information about the significance of the monument. And in the evening, the backlighting also casts a shadow on the outside of the 76^th Memorial, on which Heissenbüttel's text appears, and whose white surface takes on a new meaning as a kind of projection surface. Overall, the wall depicts the deserted soldiers more strongly, while the text grid represents the motivation for their deed.

The motivation for desertion and the injustice of the war play a central role in the idea of the monument and are in line with the ideas of Ludwig Baumann, who defended the right to desert during the war. His escape was a protest against the cruelty and absurdity of war. [21] The political reflection came much later. Baumann deserted in France, was caught, and passed at first through the Esterwegen concentration camp in Emsland (Lower Saxony) then Torgau prison of Wehrmacht in Saxony. He survived only because of his father's connections, who was able to get his death sentence changed to service in a penal battalion on the Eastern Front. [22] In the 1980s, Baumann, together with historian Manfred Messerschmidt (1922-2022), organized the “Federal Association of Victims of National Socialist Military Justice” (Bundesvereinigung Opfer der NS-Militärjustiz), which became a driving force in the fight to rehabilitate deserters. The official rehabilitation took place in 2009. Ludwig Baumann became a prominent anti-war activist, joined the West German peace and disarmament movement, and in 1995 received the Aachener Friedenspreis. In 1996, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize, which he did not receive, but thanks to his nomination he was able to draw attention to the “Potsdamer Appell”, which demanded the abolition of all unjust convictions under National Socialism. [23] At the moment there is an initiative group in Hamburg called “Sedanstraße umbennenen!”, which wants the street named after the surrender of French troops at Sedan (1871) to be renamed Ludwig Baumann Street. [24]

Today, the issue of prosecution for desertion and conscientious objection has become a hot topic in many countries around the world where there are armed conflicts or mandatory military service. The right not to take up arms for reasons of conscience is anchored in the resolutions of the UN Commission on Human Rights, which is why the right of deserters to asylum in Germany is supported by some non-governmental organizations, such as the German organization for deserters and conscience objectors Connection e.V. [25] and human rights and refugee protection organization Pro Asyl. [26]

Although the monument officially commemorates the German deserters of World War II, for many anti-war activists the monument is identified with the figure of the conscious deserter in general and the hope that justice will prevail. In 2023, activists from Russian opposition rallied at the Monument for Deserters in support of the demand for protection and asylum for deserters in Germany. In 2024, tours were organised in the spirit of 29 February - Deserter's Day, which was proposed by the anti-war project “Idite Lesom” (Get Lost) in order to de-stigmatise Russian deserters who do not want to participate in the aggression against Ukraine. In this sense, Ludwig Baumann's idea of a deserter's right to “betray the war” may resonate with many people who oppose war killings and war crimes.

• Counterhegemony