Gedenkgottesdienst zum Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges nach 60 Jahren in Liverpool
Das Gedenken zum Kriegsende in Europa und in Japan legte die englische Regierung auf den 10. Juli fest. Zu den  Gottesdiensten anlässlich des 60. Gedenktages luden sich die Kirchen wechselseitig nach Köln und Liverpool ein. Die Kölner, ökumenische Delegation – bestehend aus neun Hauptamtlichen, zwei Ehefrauen und Töchtern sowie fünf jungen Leuten aus der Jugendarbeit – verbrachte ein langes Wochenende in der  Partnerstadt.

Gedenkgottesdienst
Das Team der anglikanischen Kathedrale gestaltete mit der British Legion (Veteranenwerk) und der Liverpooler Ausbildungseinheit Cadet Forces den Gottesdienst, der mit dem „Spitefire Prelude“ von William Walton eingeleitet wurde.
Als offizielle Repräsentanten nahmen die Bürgermeister/-innen aus der Region Merseyside, der Liverpooler Lord Major,  in Vertretungen der Königin der Lord-Lieutenant of Merseyside sowie in Vertretung der Ordnungsmacht The Sheriff (zur Zeit ein Frau) teil; zwei von ihnen verlasen Bibeltexte. Gemeinsam mit dem Kathedralen-Team zogen auch die offiziellen Kirchengäste aus Köln und Japan ein.  Die Veteranen  - angekündigt von einer Orgelfanfare – durchschritten mit 26 Standarten im Slow-March die gesamte Kirchenlänge. Zu einem wichtigen Punkt des Gottesdienstes versammelten sich einige von ihnen um den Altar. Mit gesenkten Fahnen wurde aller gedacht, die in der Armee, Handelsmarine und im Heimatland gedient haben. Daran schloss sich die Kohima Erklärung an: When you go home, tell them of us and say „For your tomorrow we gave our today“. Begleitet von einem Trompetensolo wurden Kränze in der War Memorial Chapel niedergelegt. Beim anschließenden Gebet für die Menschen der Welt sprachen auch Joachim Thull (Dechant in Porz) und Markus Zimmermann (in Vertretung für den Stadtsuperintendenten) einige der Fürbitten; auch Martin Hüneke, Pfr. i. R. und Sonja Sailer-Pfister (in Vertretung für den Stadtdechant) waren mit dem Gottesdienst-Team eingezogen. Die Predigt hielt der katholische Erzbischof Patrick Kelly, der Verbindungslinien zwischen dem Predigttext nach Micha 4, 1-5 zum damaligen und heutigen Familienleben sowie zum Bombenattentat drei Tage zuvor in London zog.

Das Zeichen der Versöhnung und Zukunftshoffnung  bildete der „Act of Renewal und Rededication“: Rainer Will überreichte namens der „Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Christlichen Kirchen in Köln“ einen Herrenhuther Stern an Martyn Newman für die „Churches Together in the Merseyside Region“. Junge Leuten aus Liverpool, Köln und Japan drückten abwechselnd ihre Verpflichtung aus, für Frieden, Gerechtigkeit und Wohlstand für alle Menschen in der Welt zu arbeiten.

Schließlich umringten alle Veteranen mit Fahnen den Altar, und die Gemeinde sang die Nationalhymne.

Als Gruß an die Krone marschierten die ehemaligen und aktiven Soldaten – begleitet von einer schottischen Dudelsack-Band – zunächst am Lord-Lieutenant vorbei und gingen dann über die Hope Street zur katholischen Metropolitan Kathedrale; eine britannisches Musik-Chorps der Marine – Bagad De Lann-Bihoué - schloss sich ihnen an.

Celebration of the Sea; Gottesdienst zum Sea Sunday
Am Nachmittag wurde in der katholischen Kathedrale ein Sea-Sunday-Gottesdienst durchgeführt. Liverpool und sein Bewohner lebten früher von der Seefahrt; heute kommen noch immer 94 Prozent der Versorgungsgüter auf dem Seeweg nach England. Lieder rund um die Seefahrt trugen Schulkinder, Shanty-Chor und eine Konzertsängerin vor; zum Gesang wurde auch getanzt. Ehemalige und heutige Pfarrer der Seefahrer-Mission, der Lord Mayor und der Geschäftsführer einer Entwicklungsgesellschaft teilten sich die Texte zur Information, zum Gedenken sowie Gebete und Segen.

Der Sonntag klang mit einem Besuch am Strand und dem Sonnenuntergang bei Temperaturen um die 20°C aus.

Zu Gast in der Deutschen Gemeinde Liverpool
Das Begleitprogramm führte die Kölner Delegation auch in die Deutsche Gemeinde. Hier wurde die 18-köpfige Gästegruppe freitagabends freundlich  empfangen und lecker versorgt. Das „Mitbringsel“ war ein Vortrag von Marten Marquardt, früher selbst Pfarrer in dieser Gemeinde, zum Thema „Demokratie und Frieden“. Er ging der Frage nach, warum es so schwer ist, in islamischen Ländern wie Irak, Afghanistan, Palästina das westliche Demokratie-Modell einzuführen. Er betrachtete die deutschen Erfahrungen im Jahr 1945 und damit die Probleme mit der Kommunikation zwischen Kriegsgewinnern und -verlierern und mit ihren unterschiedlichen Wertverständnissen sowie die innere Neu-Orientierung und Vergangenheitsbewältigung  in der deutschen Gesellschaft (englischer Text: Anhang)

Christlich-muslimische Begegnung
Samstags waren die Kölner zu einer Diskussion mit muslimischen Leitern eingeladen, die über ihre Alltagserfahrungen als religiöse Minderheit mit britischem Pass in der englischen Gesellschaft berichten. Dorothee Schaper, in Köln zuständig für die Förderung von christlich-islamischer Begegnung, knüpfte insbesondere Kontakte zu muslimischen Frauenorganisationen.

Das gemeinsame Statement muslimischer Organisationen und christlicher Kirchen in Großbritannien mit der Verurteilung des Londoner Attentats als verbrecherischem Akt gab die Richtung vor. Auch die Gedanken des anglikanischen Erzbischofs Rowan Williams zum 8. Juli lagen vor;  er ermutigt, nicht in tödlichem Schweigen und in Lähmung zu verharren, sondern das Schweigen für tiefes Durchatmen und Sammlung unter die christlichen Wurzeln zu nutzen (beide Text: s. Anhang)

Projekt „Peace Education Center“ in den Ruinen von St. Luke’s Church
Es folgte der Besuch eines historischen Segelschiffes (zu Gast aus dem norwegischen Marine-Museum in Stavanger) in den modernisierten Albert Docks mit der Einladung zum Lunch.

Dann konnten die Gäste wählen zwischen dem Evensong in der Kathedrale und dem Besuch in der Kirchenruine von St. Luke’s Church. Zu Gast bei Philip & Enid Lodge wurde die Diskussion über ein Friedenserziehungszentrum vertieft. Pläne für den Kubus, der in die alten Kirchenmauern eingesetzt werden soll, sind vorhanden; noch fehlt es an breit getragenem Engagement und der Finanzierung. Im Mai hatte Philip Lodge Kontakte zum NS-Dokumentationszentrum in Köln geknüpft.

Die Kölner Delegation war wiederum privat untergebracht; zum Abschied hatte sie reichlich Grund, sich bei den privaten Gastgebern und Martyn Newman als Programm-Verantwortlichem zu bedanken.

Hannelore Morgenstern-Przygoda, 15.07.05

Kölner Delegation:
Martin Hüneke/Bad Iburg, Marten & Reinhild Marquardt, Hannelore Morgenstern-Przygoda/Sozialwerk, Sonja Sailer-Pfister, Referentin des Stadtdechanten; Dorothee Schaper, christlich-muslimische Begegnung;  Dechant Joachim Thull Köln-Porz,  Markus Zimmermann (i.V. Stadtsuperintendent Fey) und Ehefrau Susanne, Rainer und Eva-Maria Will mit den Töchtern Caroline und Cornelia sowie 5 Jugendliche: Robert Förderer, Frank Obermüller, Sebastian Witte, Martin Cornet, Bernadette Cremer

Minefields between the end of war and the beginning of peace

I. The puzzle: Why do they not join our peace-camp more easily?
Western societies under US leadership are at present fascinated by the idea that we ought to bless all sorts of countries around the world with our European achievements of peace and democracy, or rather shorter: a peace loving democracy. Honourable as this intention may be, I am afraid the instruments that are being implemented to bring about a democratic turn of the tide are ill designed. I cannot help but introduce a little irony into the tale.

• Say for instance Iraque. We shall gracefully bring democracy to Iraque and they shall be grateful for all the blessings we offer them.  - What then is it, that makes them so stubborn?
   
• Or think of Afghanistan: How good for all of them to join our democratic club and become a peace loving society. - Why have not all of them instantly become happy members of the democratic world?
   
• And remember the Palestinians: If only they were prepared to accept our model of democracy, peace for the whole Middle East would ensue as a matter of consequence.
  
   – Peace seems for many just a matter of missionary zeal and pompous rhetoric. 

Why then does it not happen? Why on earth are so many nations and societies so reluctant to follow the western lure of peace? What is so difficult about peace and democracy of our kind, that people find it so hard to join the club?!
I don’t know the answer. But maybe I have a few comparisons to offer from the German experience in the year 1945.
In this paper I would therefore like to discuss two different issues concerning the minefield that lies between the end of a war and the beginning of peace. The first set of thoughts looks at the problem  of communication between the winners and the losers of a war. The second round is about the need for an inner readjustment within a society.

II. The problem of communication between winners and losers
I shall give you three examples of extremely well intended but at the same time extremely ill accepted offers made by allied officers to different addresses in Germany in the year 1945. And let me stress this right in the beginning: I admire the British for their patience and their humane endeavour to bring peace and democracy into our totally corrupted country in 1945. We cannot and indeed must not forget, what the British and their allies have done for us and for the liberation of Europe from Nazi terror.
All the more I find it tragic and deplorable to see with hindsight how impossibly difficult their mission was in 1945. They really did their best, but most Germans, I guess,  had no clue what they actually were up to.

• British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery on July 1^st 1945 sent the following message to all his military chaplains in Germany:
  
  We have won the war in Europe. We now face the challenge of building up a new civilization, indeed a new world in which all nations can live in peace and prosperity. And this can only be achieved on a strong spiritual ground. Today we look at the Churches and we expect them to give us a clear and simple guidance for the spiritual questions that are of all out importance and don’t allow for any compromise.
  
  From a British point of view Montgomery’s expectation may have been meticulously clear, but for German ears at the time, things were not quite as easy. In German ears, and for German middle of the road bourgeois these words had a different ring at the time. In their eyes Church and democracy had so far always been opposed to each other. Kaiser Wilhelm II had been the last head of our Protestant Church; democrats had chased him out of the country in 1918; democrats had betrayed the German Kaiser, our protestant church leader. Many, if not most, German protestants during the 1920’s therefore could never develop a friendly feeling for western democracy. Of course there were a few exceptions, but by and large, you felt either a protestant or a democrat; and only a few at that time were wise enough to bring the two together.
  
  I wonder how much Lord Montgomery knew about the intrinsic tensions between German Protestantism and western democracy at the beginning of the 20^th century. Had he known better he would at least not have hoped for a positive response from many German church people. And British military chaplains, provided they knew more about German church history, would have been well advised to caution the marshal’s expectations as regards an immediate democratic growth within the German churches.
  
  Of course the plant of democracy had started growing in the late 40’s already. Of course West-Germany was about to become a democratic society during the fifties already. And the protestant Church of Germany became a non authoritarian, democratically organized institution right from the early days in 1945. But for democracy to become a deeply rooted plant in all layers of philosophy and theology it obviously took a little longer. And judging from the official paper, which always follows reality with a distance of years or even generations, it took us 40 years to come to grips with a new understanding of democracy in a theologically based paper. - 40 years, that is more than one generation. Democracy and peace are very slow growing plants. And democracy and peace are unsuitable for artificial implantation, let alone military crusades.
   
• The British Governor Hugh de Crespigny on August 20^th 1945 spoke about a close cooperation between  the Churches and the military government in a Christian spirit: “The Christian Church and Democracy”, he said, “in closest partnership go for the same aim: enduring peace and the weal of mankind”. But it seems neither did the British governor know, what some German counterparts made of his words, what overtones they heard, nor seem many German listeners to have clearly understood, what the British governor had wanted to express.
  
  Many German minds at that time were still influenced by 19^th century’s opposition: German idealism here – anglo-saxon materialism there. Western democracy clearly mirrored materialism and pragmatism. German Protestantism on the other hand was called to serve as a safeguard for all the values of German idealism and true faith in our particular German Lutheran heritage. Pastor Martin Niemöller, obviously one of our best church leaders at the time, clearly and simply represents this protestant resentment against western democracies. On June 5^th 1945 he explained in an public statement: “The western form of democracy does not agree with our German ways.” So many German ears by and large could not avoid hearing a negative overtone in this statement about the closest partnership between Church and democracy. At the same time the British counterpart from his background perhaps could not even have sensed this negative notion, that his words might have had for many Germans.
  
  Of course all these misunderstandings have gone today. Of course we can today communicate on a much more balanced level. But we must not forget, how much time it took for this common understanding of our view of democracy to be achieved.
  
  I wonder, how much we all are aware of similar problems in our days, when we think of bringing democracy into the different Islamic countries. Can we sense their reactions, can we hear all the high pitched overtones, when Muslims hear us talk of western democracy and peace and justice and what not ?! And if you take into account the mere possibility of associating the word “democracy” with their experience of injustice, arrogant behaviour and even brutality: how can we expect them to accept or even love our western values of democracy?! From our German experience I suggest that we should first of all try to understand, what the different expressions that we naturally but perhaps naively use, could mean to the other side.
   
• We are told of an unnamed British general, who had invited German youth leaders for a meeting to discuss the philosophies and strategies for a new post-war Germany. Young people had come from all sorts of social strata, of different religious and political colour. And those young Germans listened to the foreign general and heard him say: In new Germany, every young German boy should be brought up and educated in order to make him become a good Christian democrat.
  
  The German journalist who at the time reported of this meeting added: It then took both sides several hours of intensive discussion to sort things out. The general had to learn, that the young German socialists were bound to hear something totally different from what he had intended to tell them. And the young members of the social democrat’s youth organisation “Die Falken” (The Falcon) needed quite some time to understand, that their British counterpart had indeed intended to say something totally different from what they had understood. Those young German socialists heard the officer talk about “Christian Democrats”, and they could not avoid thinking of their former experience with “christian democrats” (Centrum), who had let them down in 1933, when they - in sharp contrast to the Social Democrats - voted for the so called “Ermächtigungsgesetz” (law of empowerment), which paved the way for Hitler into absolute despotism. Christian democrats in their eyes had been the grave-diggers of democracy; how could this foreigner recommend them as models for a new Germany?! –His good intentions were bound to produce very heavy storms on the German side; and instead of bringing peace he had blown up a storm of rage.

These three rather random examples of best intentions on the one hand and simple but seemingly inevitable misunderstandings on the other may suffice to say: peace, democracy and Christianity are not at all a self explaining set of values for a future world. There can be so much tension between those three ideals, that they cannot be taken as an automatic road towards a better future.

III. The need for inner readjustments within a society
For a people who have come out of war and mutual destruction it takes much more then a military victory and following foreign intervention and exhortation from outside. European church leaders from outside Germany in 1945 had a good sense of historic need, when they demanded a public confession of guilt from within the German Churches before they were prepared to take them back into the European community of churches. Most of our church members and many of our church leaders in the beginning strictly refused to look back and to discuss their own active or passive involvement in the historic and human disaster of the 30’s and early 40’s. The famous Hamburg theologian Prof. Helmut Thielicke boldly refused any public confession of guilt: “In this respect everything revolts within myself, all my virility rebels against the idea to let foreign and eagerly listening ears hear what I think about myself.”
But eventually they all were pressed so hard that the protestant Church in Germany formulated the so called “Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis”  (Stuttgart confession of guilt) in August 1945. The result is a rather ambiguous paper, rather half hearted as far as radical penance is concerned, but it was a first step onto the road of conversion. In Germany this road was later ambiguously labelled “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” (the management of the past; to master the past; the struggle to come to terms with our own past). Many Germans avoid this expression, because it is so ambiguous. On the one hand it stresses the need to really look back and judge our own past; but on the other hand and at the same time it opens the path towards an end of discussion, full stop. We have looked back, and now we have done our duty; and therefore we need no longer be reminded of the past by any one from outside or inside Germany. The road now is open into the future. – Although I am well aware of the most problematic connotations of this expression “Vergangenheitsbewältigung”, I have recently come to use it in quotation marks: there is a certain historic post war lesson woven into this ambivalent expression, and this lesson I don’t want to forget.
Peace and democracy are the terminals on a people’s  road of conversion. “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” is a precondition for a sound democracy and peace to grow. And vice versa: there will never be peace and democracy, as long as peoples refuse to look at their own involvement and address their own problems, theologically spoken: their own sin.
This is our experience in post war Germany. And we were strongly reminded of our own experience when - beginning during the 1990’s - we saw the coming up of so many different Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC), starting from south Africa (later also in Sierra Leone), further implemented in South America (Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Peru) and later even repeated in Asia (East Timor). The TRCs work on the assumption, that peace cannot be achieved until you have looked at your own past, including all the human hurt and harm, that have never been paid for. This is the spirit of Santayana's famous quote that "those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it".

Thus the lesson to be learned both from post war Germany and post Apartheid South Africa is that there is probably no way to peace or democracy unless peoples are prepared to look back into their history: Vergangenheitsbewältigung. And the best way to pave the road towards peace is to help people to face their own past and to try and come to grips with their own failures.
Military measures may well be needed to end all out war and open terror, but military measures can never bring about peace and democracy.
The terms “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” (management of the past) and “Commission works” (TRC) on their own smack of bureaucratic measures, but they can always help bring about a new non-military approach and thus perhaps build the inroad to real peace and democracy. And although neither our German “Vergangenheitsbewältigung”, nor the English TRC may be smooth expressions for the human endeavour that mankind needs on their way to peace, yet those two words point to something much more important than the endless and expensive spirals of violence and warfare.
Therefore I want to take the opportunity to once more thank the British on behalf of all the German people, particularly in the Rhineland area, for the way you have helped us go forward by looking back and facing realities. And I would like to mention one British bishop in particular, who with his very special mixture of love and demand supported Dietrich Bonhoeffer during the years of  terror and who also after the war did all he could to help us look back and thereby look forward at the same time.
To win the future of peace and democracy presupposes that we have learned to look back and not to forget the difficulties of yesteryear: they could help us avoid the traps on our road into tomorrow.

Marten Marquardt, Leiter der Melanchthon-Akademie

A new sign of hope
Peace Education Center (please click on the link)