Abstract
The impact of social media has grown significantly during the past decade in several fields of our society. This article advocates the research subfield of social media memory studies based on empirical data from a case study on the role of social media in a local conflict about re-naming a public square in an average German town. The square had been named after Paul von Hindenburg, who played a crucial role in the implementation of Adolf Hitler as German Reichskanzler and was therefore regarded as an inadequate public patron. Conservatives fought against the new name, also on Facebook. Our findings indicate that the platform played a decisive role as counter-public sphere against hegemonic mainstream media and politics in fostering a new historical consciousness. The case might be seen as a precedent of right-wing movements and their use of social media in the Brexit campaign or the US elections.
Introduction
During the past decade—at least—the impact of social media has grown significantly in several fields. One of these fields is social memory (Olick, 1999: 346) or, as Halbwachs called it, collective memory (Halbwachs, 1967; Misztal 2003). Some, like Michael Schudson, “use the terms social memory, collective memory, cultural memory and public memory interchangeably” (Schudson, 2014: 85). This article advocates the research subfield of social media memory studies and uses empirical data of a case study on the role of social media in a conflict that dealt with historical consciousness in Germany. Thus, our study aims to be a conceptual and empirical contribution in the field of “memory in a mediated world” (Hajek et al., 2016) and the “mediatization of memory” (Hoskins, 2009).
While much attention has been paid to the role of “national mainstream news media,” this role on public remembering is now challenged, for example, in times of political crisis or conflict (Volkmer and Lee, 2014: 52). New platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter contribute to a “new memory ecology” and change established ways to research media and memory (Brown and Hoskins, 2010: 94). The “connective turn” is shaping the “memory by people as they connect with, inhabit and constitute increasingly both dense and diffused social networks” (Hoskins, 2011a: 271). Brexit and the US elections in 2016 hint at the relevance of the usage of social media by conservative movements. Here, we will deal with some kind of precedent.
In 2011, the citizens of Muenster—a major university town in Germany—were engaged in heavy debate regarding the renaming of a prominent square in their community. Historians had presented new insights into the role of former President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg in the Nazi seizure of power. Hindenburg has been the patron of this square. Hence, the mayor and the municipal council decided to name it Schlossplatz (Palace Square). Conservative citizens did not accept that decision and launched a popular vote. In public discussion, the hegemonic interpretation of Hindenburg and his role in the seizure of power by Adolf Hitler were contested. The public debate in the run-up to the popular vote provides information about the struggle over local collective memory and the historical consciousness of civil society (Misztal, 2005: 1336).
This article analyzes the controversial renaming of Muenster’s Hindenburgplatz (Hindenburg Square) via the social media discussion surrounding the event and uses it to illustrate our approach toward social media memory research with the example of the (possibly) changing of German memorial culture. Social media can still be regarded as a research gap in the field of memory studies. Our qualitative content analysis centers on the active debate on Facebook about the renaming of Hindenburg Square and reconstructs the discourse, its actors and their networks, their arguments, the framing of this issue, and the quality of the communication in social media, that is, the amount of deliberation (Marcinkowski and Donk, 2012; Wessler, 2008).
When we talk about questions of hegemony and counter-memory (Molden, 2015), the public sphere of a “digital democracy” (Dahlberg, 2011) might spread officially suppressed opinions and some form of counter-public sphere (Downey and Fenton, 2003; Fraser, 1992) might develop in comment sections of news websites (Toepfl and Piwoni, 2015) or social networks (Nuernberg, 2013). Social media has become a valuable instrument in political conflicts for those who are not in charge, for example, for non-elites or social movements. Thus, it is important to analyze the role of social media in political conflicts, which are referred to as questions of collective or social memory. It is remarkable that in the case of renaming Muenster’s Hindenburg Square, it was not an alternative or left-wing movement that did not feel represented by the mass media. Even as large swaths of the citizenry, all political parties, and the local media were in favor of the new name, a conservative counter-public sphere emerged in social media. Thus, we ask which kind(s) of counter-framing become(s) visible in social media and in which ways do these counter-frames contribute to the deliberative quality of memory discourse? Therefore, comments on the Facebook page “Pro-Hindenburg Square” that were posted in the run-up to the popular vote were analyzed by means of qualitative content analysis (Viehöver, 2003).
To outline our research concept in the context of social media memory and the advantages and limits of our project, we first have to explain the historical background of the Hindenburg debate in Muenster. Next, we provide a brief review of literature, showing that there have been remarkable efforts to analyze mass media’s role in collective memory that should be supplemented by insights into the treatment of collective memory in new social media (Zelizer and Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2014). Subsequently, we summarize local media’s coverage of the Hindenburg debate and present—as means for later comparison—the journalistic framing of the issue. We draw, first, conclusions from analyzing the literature with reference to our case in order to present our central research questions. Our methodological approach is then explained in section “Method,” followed by a presentation and discussion of our results. The limitations of our study and final conclusions to answer our research questions are drawn in the last section where we also try to reflect our research more generally in the light of the development of social memory in Germany and the use of social media by conservative movements.
Contextualization: the history of Hindenburg square in Muenster
For a better understanding of the following theoretical and empirical contribution, we would like to give an overview of the chronology of the Hindenburg controversy in Muenster. General Paul von Hindenburg is, as is Marshal Philippe Pétain in France, tied to both World War I and the National Socialists and therefore also to World War II (Von der Glotz and Gildea, 2009). As Germany’s commander-in-chief during World War I, he subsequently took part in building his own myth (Menge, 2008). As soon as the war ended, he took part not only in creating the myth of an undefeated German military force that was stabbed in the back by social democrats and communists but also in building his own monument as a strategic master who saved the Germans from a Russian invasion (Kossert, 2007).
During the Weimar Republic, Hindenburg became a massive figure, first for the conservative right-wing parts of German society who did not accept the end of the monarchy and later even for the center and left-wing parties like the Catholic Zentrum and the Social Democratic Party, as he was seen as a figure who could help the country avoid the ascent of Hitler. In 1927, in honor of Hindenburg’s 80th birthday, the city of Muenster, like many other German cities, named the central square of their city Hindenburg Square. In the next 80 years, more than a dozen initiatives by individuals or social groups (mostly left-wing movements) have been undertaken to rename Hindenburg Square, for example, into Salvador Allende Square. All these attempts failed. In 2008, the municipal council was controlled by a majority of left-wing parties (i.e. the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party) for the first time. At this point, a commission was established to check the names of Muenster’s streets and squares for any historical burdens from the Nazi past. A group of historians from the University of Muenster intensively researched the role Hindenburg played in the installation of Adolf Hitler as Reichskanzler in 1933. They came to the conclusion that he played a crucial role and that it seemed absolutely inappropriate to have the central square in the city named after Hindenburg. 1
In March 2012, as a consequence of the commission’s work, the mayor proposed to rename Hindenburg Square into Palace Square. The decision was built on a broad consensus of Conservatives, Social Democrats, Greens, and Liberal Democrats. The council voted to rename the square by a margin of 53 to 23. This decision was neither unique, as other German cities were doing the same, nor was it the first attempt, as there had been several attempts during the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.
One part of the community did not accept the council’s decision; in particular, conservative voters showed their frustration at the mayor’s conservative party (i.e. the CDU—Christlich Demokratische Union) and initiated a successful petition to revoke the decision. Thus, the council had to decide again on the question of “Hindenburgplatz vs Schlossplatz.” This time, a majority of 62 members of council voted for maintaining the new name.
As a final means, the renaming opponents launched a popular vote that was held on 16 September 2012. The citizens of Muenster were asked to decide on the question of whether or not to cancel the council’s decision and to reinstitute the old name. The citizens voted, and nearly 60% opposed this proposal. Hence, the new name Palace Square was finally established. During the weeks before the decision, the citizens of Muenster heavily debated the renaming—and therefore the question of hegemony about their collective memory—in public, in mass media, and in social networks.
Current state of research: mass media and collective memory
There is a notable amount of research on the role of mass media in the creation of collective memory (Ammann and Grittmann, 2013; Edy, 1999; Erll, 2005; Kitch, 1999, 2003, 2006; Meyers, 2002; Zelizer, 1995, 1997, 2008, 2010). Other scholars have opened the path to research the role of (new) social media in a community’s memory culture. There are edited volumes such as On Media Memory: Collective Memory in a New Media Age (Neiger et al., 2011); books such as Mediated Memories in the Digital Age by Van Dijck (2007), Media and Memory (Garde-Hansen, 2011), Journalism and Memory (Zelizer and Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2014), and Memory in a Mediated World (Hajek et al., 2016); and a special issue of Media Culture and Society in 2014 (36/8) on “Digital media—social memory: remembering in digitally networked times.” Research has become quite diverse in this complex field. Wikipedia, for instance, formed the basis of a paper on its role “As a global memory place” (Pentzold, 2009), and Michela Ferron and Paolo Massa (2014) investigated “Collective memories in Wikipedia.” Facebook has also been researched in this dimension. While Joanne Garde-Hansen (2009) looked at its archival function, Scott H. Church (2013) looked at “Digital gravescapes: Digital memorializing on Facebook” and Anne Kaun and Fredrik Stiernstedt (2016) at a “Community of remembrance.”
During the past 20 years, an interdisciplinary scientific field developed, including communication science, media research, cultural studies, and history. For media and especially journalism, Jill Edy’s (1999) publication on the “Journalistic use of collective memory” had become paradigmatic. The argument of her theoretical paper, based on a rich literature review, is that a commonly known and widely spread understanding of the past within a society can only be transmitted by mass media, as neither the education system nor the scientific media are able to reach larger parts of society: “The stories of the past presented in the media, especially on television, are far more visceral than those presented in the classroom” (Edy, 1999: 71–72).
The media does more than just represent the visions of history that already exist within society. Of course, that is one component, but the other is that with the mechanisms of selection and narration, frames and salience, and including the proper logic of the media production process, visions of history can be co-constructed by the media. As one of the first scholars in this field, Barbie Zelizer (1997) stated that journalism is more than a profession with its own working routines but that it provides society with interpretations of the past (pp. 401–402).
Edy (1999: 74–81) proposes on a theoretical base three prototypical forms of journalistic treatment of the past that can influence collective memory:
Commemorations. These include reportage of past events when their anniversary occurs, as happens for 9/11 in America, for example. Commemorations do not necessarily connect the past with the present but show the role of journalists as public historians that select and interpret the past for a broader audience (Kitch, 1999: 121).
Historical analogies. Here, the connection between past and present is explicit, usually to explain developments or events and to display analogies. Typically, the motivation here is to learn from the past or to give a kind of prognosis for the future (Edy and Daradanova, 2006).
Historical contexts. A special type of memorial journalism that contextualizes events into a historical framework, for example, the history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in the context of elections in Israel.
Some scholars believe that fictional forms have an even higher impact on social co-memory (Hein, 2005: 181) than journalistic forms. Television, in particular, seems to have a high impact on what and how a society remembers (Kirchmann and Filk, 2000). Although this is highly plausible, empirical evidence is still lacking and should probably be collected with large surveys. Perhaps it is more fruitful to ask in which way different media formats contribute to the process of collective memory management: “If the news represents the first draft of our public memories, then the movie-of-the-week represents the second draft” (Lynch, 2007: 223). The argument here is that only events that become a (journalistic) story can afterward become history. Then the outcome can be regarded “media memory products” (Ammann, 2010; Kitch, 2006: 105). While the story of Hindenburg became history, the story of the renaming of Hindenburg Square will probably not continue as (hi)story in television and film.
Mass media coverage of the Hindenburg debate
Media coverage of actual events, as in the case of the renaming of Hindenburg Square presented here, is interesting not only as a case study of how the media manages history but also as a media history resource for ensuing generations of historians that provides a discourse about history at a certain moment in time. Oren Meyers, for example, used press photography in Israel to reconstruct how the self-concept of Israel as a nation changed over time (Meyers, 2002: 201; Reinhardt and Jäckel, 2005; Wilke, 1999). In the Israeli media, the murder of Yitzhak Rabin is considered a “divisive event” (Peri, 1999: 121). Before, it seemed as if the society had a consensual memory of the common past. Because his political role had been extremely controversial, the media coverage of his murder reveals the different views on and interpretations of the history of the country as a whole.
We expect to find a comparable discourse on the historical consciousness in Muenster (and pars pro toto in Germany) within social media. As emphasized by Toepfl and Piwoni (2015), previous research in this field was undertaken “without a systematic, content-based analysis of surrounding mass-mediated discourses” (p. 466). A former analysis of the media coverage of the renaming of the square identified six central dynamics in media’s attention to the issue (Donk, 2015):
The local media strongly put forward a frame that focused on renaming as an indisputable consequence of new scientific evidence.
Another predominant frame was covering the issue as a question that divided the local community. Here the focus was on conflict.
Looking at the letters to the editor surrounding the Hindenburg debate, a deep division in the local society became evident and was visible in the highly emotional tone, which in some parts was not appropriate to the civility of the debate.
Over time, the media no longer presented the pros and cons of renaming because these pros and cons can be assumed to be already well-known. Instead, the political competition between supporters and opponents of the renaming decision, and especially the conflict within the conservative party (i.e. the CDU), was moved into the foreground.
We did not find typical examples for a type of “historical journalism” as suggested in the literature. The focus of reporting was not on the past (e.g. Hindenburg as a historical person, his work or politics, and society in Imperial Germany and the Weimar Republic). Rather, the referendum was described in all its facets, that is, the coverage was more likely to feature renaming as an example of political communication.
The variety of frames and counter-frames presented over time offered a wide variety of positions for the readers, which indicated a plural and diverse debate within the media. The media’s processing of the issue oscillated between the poles of continuity and timeliness.
The renaming of Hindenburg Square showed a certain similarity with the genre of historical context. Because the topic had been discussed in politics, the citizenry, and media since the 1970s, it was considered a highly adaptable topic and could be treated by the media as a kind of routine reporting. New topicality was attributed to the theme by the results of a commission of experts, which drew up recommendations for the renaming of streets and squares.
While the issue was of lesser interest from a national perspective, the local reporting of the daily newspapers Muenstersche Zeitung (MZ) and Westfälische Nachrichten (WN) was huge, demonstrating the relevance of the topic among the citizens of Muenster. A wide variety of facets and interpretations of the issue appeared in the letters to the editors, several of which were written in a rather harsh style. In the national press, the debate and the referendum were viewed with distance and amazement: “You cannot say that this square which is so bitterly fought over is a beautiful square” (Spiegel Online, 15 September 2012).
Basic assumptions and central research questions
Popular votes on the renaming of streets or squares are not uncommon in Germany (Kost, 2013: 39–40). Thus, the conflict in Muenster can be understood as a symptom of societal conflicts about the interpretation of the common past. Indeed, our understanding of collective, or social, memory will always hinge upon some recognition of the issue “whose memory” (Zelizer, 1995: 235). In Germany, in the light of the current refugee crisis and the rise of a new right-wing party, a new debate about self-image and self-understanding arises. So the case of the Hindenburg debate presented here might be interpreted as an indicator of what was about to happen in right-wing movements.
In the past few years, there have been several popular votes on the renaming of a Hindenburg Street or a Hindenburg Square. In 2010, for example, the city of Solingen wanted to rename the local Hindenburg Square. After public protest and a petition, as a compromise the square was renamed with the neutral name Marketsquare.
Following Edy (2014), in a “post-broadcast media environment” different forms of “alternative collective memory might more easily be shared” and could be expressed “without having to conform to the communication principles of the majority” (p. 74). With respect to our object of the analysis—social media—we ask who dominates the historical discourse of controversial visions of history (in this particular case) and toward what end (Zelizer, 1995: 217)? Can we identify the narratives of the classical mainstream media in the discussions on Facebook? And who fights whom in these discussions?
Social groups construct the past(s) they need for their collective identity. The proliferation of this version of the past and the ensuing controversies are transmitted by and can be observed within the media (Ammann, 2010: 154–156). In the transformation process from authoritarian regimes to democracies, as happened in Germany after World War II, the recognition of the injustices of the past as part of the collective memory is an important part of this transition (Misztal, 2005: 1323). When the cruel truth of the common history becomes part of public awareness, collective memory changes, monuments are destroyed, history textbooks must be rewritten, some heroes will disappear and others will appear, and streets and squares will be renamed (Leggewie and Meyer, 2005b: 663; Stekl, 1997: 115). Klaus Leggewie and Erik Meyer (2005a), experts in the field of German public memory especially of the Holocaust, state that historical consciousness is always framed toward present and future (p. 353). For this reason, the name of the central square of Muenster is of such great importance for its citizens. What self-image is constructed by maintaining a Hindenburg Square, or which new one is created with the renaming of it? “It appears that what matters for democracy’s health is not social remembering per se but the way in which the past is called up and used” (Misztal, 2005: 1336).
Places of remembrance function as focal points of collective memory. Thus, such a place has high symbolic value for a social group as it can create a common identity. As mentioned before, the decision to rename Hindenburg Square as Palace Square by the local government led to a popular vote. In this sense, Hindenburg Square is a lieu de mémoire (Nora, 1998). Especially during the campaign for and against renaming Hindenburg Square, the topic was broadly debated in the local mass media. For both sides, a “Pro Hindenburg Square Group” and “Pro Palace Square Group” opened up Facebook pages. Because of the potential interaction in social media, we were especially interested in the discourse on Facebook. How was history presented? What was the tone of the discussion between the different camps? The arguments of the “Pro Palace Square Group” were mostly identical to the arguments of the political parties in the cities’ parliament. Thus, this part of the discourse has also been visible and accessible via most of the mainstream media. Because it was a conservative movement that felt inappropriately underrepresented in the public debate, we concentrated on the Facebook page of the “Pro Hindenburg Square Group.” Social media platforms such as Facebook “offer more immediate modes of remembering” with “posting, circulating, linking, liking, mixing and remediating” (Hoskins, 2014: 189).
First, a conservative counter-public sphere is kind of a new development in Germany, where usually social movements from the left use the Internet and social media for entering the public sphere with issues and arguments they felt missing in the mass media. From a today’s perspective, “Pro Hindenburg Square Group” can probably be seen as an example for conservative or even right-wing populist movements that became stronger or more visible since the global economic crisis, the European refugee crisis, Brexit, and the US elections in 2016. In this case, their fight for dominance in the local social memory can be interpreted as a harbinger of the current debates on refugees and the strengthening of nationalism in Germany and all over Europe. Furthermore, we focused on the Facebook page of the “Pro Hindenburg Square Group” to find out whether it only represents comments and conversations of like-minded groups or it actually contributes to an argumentative exchange of the opponents.
Thus, to research social media memory in our case study, our central research questions include the following:
In what way can the social media discourse on questions of collective memory—with respect to the case of the Hindenburg Square—be described?
Which narrations of the past are being presented? How is Hindenburg as a historical person presented and how is the renaming of the square framed?
Can elements of counter-framing be identified that are in opposition to the official/political interpretation of Hindenburg as supporter of Hitler and renaming as an act of democratization?
Which characteristics show up in the social media discourse? Does the discourse rely on arguments, reciprocity, and civility, that is, is it of high discursive quality?
Method
For our research project, we conducted a qualitative content analysis. Our aim was to look at actors and networks, at topics and arguments, and at the quality of the discussion in the counter-public sphere of a conservative, right-wing populist movement and to ask for deliberation (Habermas, 2005; Kitch, 1999, 2003; Marcinkowski, 2007; Marcinkowski and Donk, 2012; Viehöver, 2003; Wessler, 2008).
We not only ask how “journalists similarly make sense of past news by placing them into narrative frameworks” (Kitch, 1999: 123) but also how ordinary people did so in the public space of Facebook. We want to identify “culturally resonant narratives” (Kitch, 2003: 187). We are not searching for a quantification of the debates but instead to find different—prototypical—types of discourses in social media regarding the renaming of Hindenburg Square, as an illustration for our approach to social media memory. We draw upon a research design to analyze the way social media might affect the social construction of collective memory.
We also tried to question the deliberative quality of the public communication on memory in social media. Deliberation exists on a continuum between the extremes of no deliberation and ideal deliberation (Steiner et al., 2005: 55). A complete set of indicators is still a desideratum. Drawing on our findings from the historical contextualization of this debate, as well as on Habermas (2005) and Wessler (2008) who summed up the issues, we can arrive at the following media indicators measuring deliberation:
Solid information base. Media should provide fair and impartial reporting (Gastil, 2008: 52) and show an orientation toward substantive policy. Communication must concentrate on the issue itself, rather than on the campaign or on specific players.
Openness and inclusion. The arenas of public deliberation must be accessible to all actors, even for speakers from the political periphery, that is, the deliberative quality of public communication depends both on the inclusion of many and varied actors and on maintaining a balance between them during the debate. A plurality of speakers will lead to a plurality of arguments (Ferree et al., 2002: 301; Schudson, 1992: 147).
Argumentative exchange can be identified as a central value in the deliberative decision-making process (Wessler, 2008, 1199); media content must be analyzed with respect to the structure of the arguments presented. In particular,
Reciprocity and responsiveness: Actors should refer to each other’s arguments.
Justification: The arguments presented should be based on a transparent and understandable justification.
Rationality and complexity: The complexity of the arguments depends on the way in which counter-arguments are integrated into a speaker’s argument.
Civility and ideal role-taking: Actors should respect each other, which also implies that they should avoid inflammatory speech and personal attacks (Wessler, 2008: 1201).
The presence of the abovementioned indicators within public discourse corresponds to the positive occurrence of certain speeches, content, or coverage attributes, for example, the more speakers or the more arguments presented in the media, the higher the expected level of deliberativeness. We measured the deliberativeness of the mediated public debate with a set of indicators as described below.
The sample of our case study consists of posts on the Facebook page “Pro Hindenburg Square,” an initiative that was established following the council’s decision in March 2012. As this study focuses on the popular vote, the sample comprises posts that were made during campaign phase from June to September 2012. The posts were archived after the final decision.
There were 231 posts with 1733 comments; thus, the average number of comments for each post was 7.5. We found 826 likes, that is, 3.6 per post. Looking at the contributors, we found 136 contributors, of which two are organizations. Of the remaining contributors, 109 individuals appeared to use their real name, 19 used an alias, and 6 cannot be identified. There are many individuals who contribute once or twice, and only a few persons wrote regularly. The most prominent contributors were as follows:
Ruprecht Polenz (22 posts): Member of Parliament, Conservatives (CDU);
Rainer Bode (12 posts), Executive Manager of a local culture center and café;
Christoph Jauch (12 posts), Vice District Chairman of the local Liberal Democrats party;
Arno Tilsner (8 posts), local journalist and editor.
Generally speaking, we consider it important to analyze how far the discourse reflects features of the medium and therefore looked at the mode of interaction: Can we find a structure of posts with many comments that relate to each other and indicate discussion among the Facebook page users? Or is there a lack of responses where posts are assigned “likes” but no further commentary is offered? In nearly one-third of the posts (31%), the number of likes exceeds the number of comments.
Furthermore, we investigated whether there were only comments by a few people, whether the comments in a post came from just one person, or whether a broad discussion with many different actors in each post can be found. Our indicator measured whether there were three or more unique commenters on a given post. It showed that nearly half of all posts (48 %) met these threshold values.
Findings and discussion
Regarding the categories of attention, openness, and argumentative exchange, which are all highly relevant for discourses in social media, we found out the following. There was high attention paid to the issue among Muenster’s citizens in social media, as we identified a lot of contributions, both posts and comments, on Facebook. There were only a few prominent contributors and a large number of individuals from the civil society represented in the discussions. So with regard to openness, social media seems to provide a fairly balanced, plural, and open arena for speakers from the political periphery. Nevertheless, those contributors with the highest number of posts were all located in the political or cultural elites of Muenster. Regarding argumentative exchange, the basis is interaction. Our analysis indicates that the contributions are not limited to mere likes. Furthermore, Ruprecht Polenz, a prominent supporter of the new name, was seen to argue with opponents on the Facebook page, which indicates the presence of reciprocity.
For our qualitative content analysis, we analyzed 20 contributions and their respective comments out of all of the posts in depth, exemplifying the research design. These 20 postings were selected with regard to two parameters: They represent the range of opinions on “Pro Hindenburg Square” and show a sufficient length with pros and cons, exchange, and reactions as material for the analysis of the discourse. Here, we focused on two areas. First, which traditional media framings of the renaming debate could be found in social media? And second, how can the discourse be described—does it show signs of deliberation? If we first examine the issue of framing, these 20 postings on “Pro Hindenburg Square” primarily showed six frames:
Biased historians launched the Hindenburg debate. Facebook users put forward the idea that the historians who criticize Hindenburg for his role in the seizure of power through Hitler and the Nazi regime are biased. Their attackers claim they are “left-leaning historians” and their expert knowledge is questioned: Kalle Lichterbeck, 19 June 2012: “The so-called historians will only tell the mayor what he wants to hear.”
Hindenburg had been directly elected. Certain aspects in the biography of Hindenburg are highlighted, while others get neglected. While the opponents of the name “Hindenburg Square” emphasize his role in World War I, the Weimar Republic, and Hitler’s takeover of power, the supporters point to the fact that the German people directly elected Hindenburg. Furthermore, some suggest that he was the only directly elected president in German history, as these days it is the members of the so-called “Bundesversammlung” who elect the German president: Jürgen Panhans, 20 April 2012: “Why should a president who was as popular as Hindenburg be dishonored nowadays?” Ogdan Ücgür, 27 July 2012: “Paul von Hindenburg is the only directly-elected president in Germany up to this point.”
Historical context. It is argued that one must put the merits and failures of Hindenburg into historical perspective. This framing comprises different arguments, primarily the following two. First, the context of 1933 is mentioned to relativize Hindenburg’s active part in designating Hitler as Reichskanzler. It is said that Hindenburg—despite his personal aversion to Hitler—had no alternative but to set him in charge. One contributor explicitly makes a counterfactual argument and asks whether it would have been better if Hindenburg appointed Strasser, a left-leaning Nazi, as Reichskanzler or whether the military had taken over power? Furthermore, users talk about the complicated situation in Germany at that time when parliament was no longer capable of acting and the danger of civil war threatened society. Thus, Hindenburg acted, as every other person would have; the situation has been without alternatives. Second, other historical personages are used as examples of why history should not be judged from a current perspective. For example, it was often argued that Martin Luther, the reformer, would be seen as an anti-Semite from today’s point of view. In general, this framing is used to relativize Hindenburg’s role: Ralf Schleweis, 23 May 2012: “So, what other choice did Hindenburg have?”
Nazi regime. While the supporters of Hindenburg emphasized that he should be seen in a holistic perspective and not limited to 1933 and following years, opponents stressed this time passage. In the last weeks before the vote, they posted pictures showing Hindenburg together with Hitler. This pairing with Hitler is a very common frame in Germany—both as narrative and as visual—because it can be used to completely undermine one’s integrity. Thus, postings with the Hindenburg–Hitler pictures were heavily criticized.
Memories. Some users emphasized personal memories instead of historical or political arguments to vote for Hindenburg Square. They argued that the square had been named after Hindenburg for the past 80 years and that they had many positive associations with it, for example, the regular local fair. Thus, Hindenburg belonged to Muenster, both as a part of the German history and as a part of the local/located memory of the citizens. Here, another argument is that the renaming might hide dark sides of the past: Astrid Heltmann, 13 January 2012: “This man belongs to German history. We should not mask certain aspects of our history.”
Politicians versus the people. A typical view on the question whether the square should be renamed or not was the confrontation between politicians and citizens. Users argued that renaming was the idea of a few politicians who were in charge, but that renaming was not in accordance with the opinion of the vast majority. The elites wanted to change the local collective memory because of political correctness, but the people would be the ones who stood up against that. Insofar as this was the case, the popular vote should be used as a lesson for politicians: Christoph Stracke, 3 July 2012: “[…] politicians abuse their power against the will of the people. Therefore, I suggest that ALL street renaming etc. should be decided by the whole community via popular vote.”
Especially this last point of skepticism toward the political elite seems to be extremely relevant in the light of the Brexit vote and the Trump victory. Furthermore, the arising authoritarian structures in Hungary and Poland and the success of right-wing movements in France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and the Netherlands must be discussed in this context (Rathkolb and Ogris, 2010).
From a discourse analysis point of view (Gerhards, 2003; Keller, 2005; Viehöver, 2003), where discourse is about power and knowledge (Bosančić and Keller, 2016: 5), we might interpret the discussions on the Pro Hindenburg Square as forerunner of the debates of the new right-wing movements in many European countries. When “discourses are ways of […] constructing knowledge about a particular topic” (Hall, 1997: 6), here we can observe the struggling of a particular group of people against a certain version of their city’s history and, in a broader understanding of the discourse, of the country’s history. Especially the first four frames on history and historians form “a cluster (or formation) of ideas, images and practices, which provide […] forms of knowledge” (Hall, 1997: 6) on the history of Germany. They are not offering alternative facts, but an alternative reading of the facts, against the worldviews of the mainstream in politics and media. Bedford and Snow (2000) talk about “meaning work—the struggle over the production of mobilizing and countermobilizing ideas and meanings,” especially when talking about social movements (p. 613). These forms of challenging the mainstream gained ground in times of Trump and Brexit also in Germany, where many conservatives felt unconformable with the liberal orientation of the Merkel CDU concerning, for example, conscription.
Another issue is that the media regards scientific constructions of history as facts. In numerous articles, the vote of the commission of historians is considered as scientifically proven and thus without alternatives. This shows a problematic tendency which we can observe in some areas of science journalism—it deals quite uncritically with the object of its reporting. The question whether Hindenburg has supported the assumption of power by the Nazi regime is thus withdrawn from public controversy and political contest. The political problem of renaming is presented as solved by scientific advice. Media coverage thus reflects the common practice of the evidence-based politics, even in cases of essentially normative decisions.
The other two frames can be regarded the more emotional side of the discourse, when personal memories are connected with the feeling of the people, that they are not understood by politicians and media. But it is the combination of the sense of being ignored by the elite and not being conformed to their mainstream views and then challenging these views with alternative interpretations of historical facts that gives us the whole picture of this discourse on who dominates the discourse.
Regarding the quality and the tone of the discourse, it should be mentioned that the postings on Facebook showed typical characteristics of social media, such as short and/or funny remarks and support by means of liking or distributing an article from the mass media. Nevertheless, beyond this, we found a substantive, issue-oriented discourse about renaming the square.
Arguments (pro and contra) were presented and discussed. So, we can state a certain amount of argumentative exchange occurred. It also became clear that commenters referred to one another’s comments and that the original contributor was also sometimes reengaged in the debate. Thus, a dialogic structure of discussion could be found. What is really surprising is the fact that the discussions showed long, historically informed comments, sometime even with links to references. Some contributors explicitly asked for improved arguments when they thought a post was too weak. In other words, we found that some participants really used social media to discuss ideas with one another and to exchange arguments, highlighting what they thought was best for the city and its people.
Certainly, it should be mentioned that there were some threats that lacked civility and that some posts were very modest—especially those of the CDU politician Ruprecht Polenz, who positioned himself against most of his voters—and had to face insulting posts on Facebook. In addition, one user said she felt intimidated by the Hindenburg opponents. In some posts, one can feel the aggression of left-wingers against right-wingers and vice versa, and it is obvious that highly insulting posts were deleted. But overall, the respectful argumentative exchange seemed to prevail and we did not detect hate or “fake news.”
Within this discussion, we can see the struggle for hegemony. Which ideology leads a public discourse on memory and history? Here, we can observe a discussion in a quiet conservative setting where participants blame the mainstream media and politicians for ignoring them and their version of the history of the country. They argue that by renaming the square, a part—the good part, in their view—of the first half of the twentieth century has been stolen.
Contextualizing our findings with the broader discussions in Germany on memory and history and the renaming of parks, squares, and streets, we can observe a clear distinction between the judgments of World War I and World War II. Everything related to World War II is damned and has to be renamed. But until the beginning of the twenty-first century, everything related to World War I seemed to be memorable, even if it was not explicitly honorable. Here, hegemony is shifting between left and right. Still, in the discussion about Hindenburg, the main argument against him was not his role in World War I. Although those in favor of the name Palace Square mentioned his role in World War I in a negative sense, for those in favor of the name Hindenburg Square he remained a war hero. But his involvement in Hitler coming to power in 1933 was the key argument for the renaming because in this way Hindenburg was contaminated with Hitler and World War II. That seems to be the decisive line in the German discourse of the country’s past until now. While, for example, Angela Merkel took part in the great memorial ceremonies remembering the terrible battles at the Western front of World War I at the war zones in France, no high official of Germany took part in the Russian memorial ceremonies remembering the German invasion of the country in 1941. World War I is part of the collective memory, World War II also, but still the Germans do not remember that part of their history that willingly. Renaming the Hindenburg Square might than be interpreted as suppression.
Conclusion and limitations
We used the discussions on the renaming of a central square in a regular German town to advocate the potential of social media memory research. The social media debate about the renaming was rich and vital. There were many postings concerning the issue on Facebook, which means that there was a high degree of social media attention paid to this topic. Many people showed interest in this question of local collective memory and participated with posts, likes, and comments. Of course, such a case study has several limitations. Our article only analyzed the contributions at the Pro-Hindenburg Square page, but there is a corresponding Pro-Palace Square page that likewise had hundreds of contributions. Further research should include other social media platforms, more postings, and therefore maybe also quantitative methods. In this light, our empirical data can only hint at tendencies in the social media discourse on collective memory while our article contributes in a more conceptual way to the emerging field of social media memory.
The Pro-Hindenburg page showed a positive framing of Hindenburg and a negative framing of the renaming, as expected. Hindenburg became historically contextualized, with the argument that he did not have any choice but to make Hitler the Reichskanzler. Furthermore, it was argued that Hindenburg had no sympathies toward Hitler, an argument that served to distance him from Hitler and the Nazis. In general, on the basis of our qualitative content analysis, we found much discussion, argumentation, and presentation of both pros and cons in the contributions to the Facebook page. Thus, the Pro-Hindenburg page was a place for both camps to meet and discuss and was not a closed shop for just one like-minded group that wanted to confirm their opinions.
In our case study, social media is used as a counter-public sphere for conservatives who want to keep their Hindenburg Square in the center of Muenster. The framing on Facebook is different from that in the mass media as it presents positive attributes of Hindenburg and questions the whole renaming, including the results of the historians who built the original basis for political decision. This should be investigated more broadly in the future, as we still know little about the functionality of counter-public spheres in Web 2.0 and about commentary in social media in particular. Is a Public Sphere 2.0 emerging (Ruiz et al., 2011)? Some of the research on this topic expresses worries about a “smudged” public sphere (Springer, 2014) and argues that the user’s “exchange is socially and not deliberatively motivated” (Springer et al., 2015).
While others found little discourse in social networks (Kneuer and Richter, 2015), the quality of the discourse analyzed here, in our small sample, could (with some exceptions) be described as deliberative because we found argumentative exchange, where the contributors refer to each other’s arguments. The discourse was complex and mostly rational as there were many detailed historical discussions about Hindenburg and his time. Furthermore, it could be described as plural: There were actors from both the political center and the political periphery. The discussion was not dominated by few contributors, and supporters and opponents of the renaming both took part in the discussions.
Obviously, social media can be used as a means for civil society to debate a common past and can function as a counter-public to the elite’s discourse. Drawing upon our work, we would carefully state that issues concerning the collective memory affect many people and that these people are willing and capable to discuss such a complex issue. We had chosen the Pro-Hindenburg page on Facebook because we considered it quite a new phenomenon, that a conservative movement used social media to give their—in their eyes—suppressed view of the past a forum to discuss the history of the country and the national identity. Such movements have found their way nowadays into a broader public, via social media. The use of social media creates the above-mentioned “new media ecology,” and the possible fragmentation might challenge collective memory at all (Hoskins, 2011b). For sure, it will change the fight for hegemony in this field.
In times of globalization and digitalization, the ongoing financial and economic crisis, we can observe the rise of a new nationalism in Europe and the United States. These movements gain their strength from a deep uncertainty of those groups, who feel economically and culturally cut off from the elites. The only resource these—seemingly—marginalized groups feel to have left is their identity. And collective identity is mostly build upon a common understanding of the past. Thus, debates about a re-interpretation of local or national history, and especially the discourses besides the mass media, give insight into the fragmentation and polarization of societies. Shifts in memorial culture and their representation in social media might function as an indicator for shifts in political culture and the tone of political and media discourse then. The German right seems to be less ashamed to reclaim some of its past than it was before the reunification of Germany and before the country’s growing economic and political influence in Europe.
So maybe with the Pro-Hindenburg page on Facebook, we detected already forerunners of the new popular right-wing movement in Germany (namely, Pegida and AfD), comparable to Front National in France or UK Independence Party (UKIP) in Great Britain. That should, of course, be investigated more precisely in the future, for example, in the light of the way Donald Trump used social media in his campaign and was elected. It seems as if we are really talking of a “connective turn,” not yet knowing whether that ends up in “connective memory” (Hoskins, 2011a) or fragmented memory.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editors for their helpful comments.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Fieldwork for this research was done at Chang Jung University, and it was funded by the Taiwan Fellowship.