European Cultural Memory: The European House of History and Recent Novels by Jenny Erpenbeck and Robert Menasse Friederike Eigler Georgetown University Abstract: Against the backdrop of the conceptualization of the House of European History, which opened in Brussels in 2017, this article examines literary approaches to European cultural memory by looking at two recent examples: Robert Menasse’s 2017 novel Die Hauptstadt which focuses on the European Union and the waning collective memories of World War II and the Holocaust that provided the rationale for European integration in the post-war period� By contrast, Jenny Erpenbeck’s 2015 novel Gehen, ging, gegangen challenges dominant German and European memories through the main protagonist’s encounters with refugees hailing from Europe’s “other heading” as Jacques Derrida has called the northern part of the African continent� With their contrasting outlook on the European past, Menasse and Erpenbeck envision markedly different presents and futures� Overall, this article maintains that Gehen, ging, gegangen and Die Hauptstadt serve as case studies for diverging notions of European cultural memory and, at the metalevel, as an occasion for exploring literature’s role in tackling complex constellations of European memory and identity� Keywords: European memory, literature as European site of memory, Holocaust commemoration, multi-directional memory In May of 2017, the House of European History (HEH) opened its doors in Brussels� The museum’s location in the Leopoldspark, adjacent to the Paul-Henri Spaak building of the European Parliament, is significant if not overdetermined: The park’s name refers to the first king of Belgium but it also recalls his son King Leopold II, infamous for his ruthless pursuit of colonialism in central Africa (Kongo)� The park is part of the Leopold Quarter which is today often 282 Friederike Eigler called the European Quarter, a geographical constellation that exemplifies the entanglement of European and global histories, aspects that also feature in the HEH� The museum, promoted and funded by the EU, showcases the history of European integration and the European Union but also focuses on selected aspects of European history from the French Revolution to the present� Thematically, the permanent exhibition highlights events and constellations whose legacies continue to shape the European and global present, most importantly the history of colonialism� 1 This essay is not so much concerned with the exhibition itself but instead with the long and complicated planning phase of the HEH� Some of the conceptual issues that were raised in this context, especially the museum’s historical and geographical reach, the role (and very existence) of a European identity and its relationship to transnational memory, can serve as a useful framework for the discussion of contemporary literature� Against the backdrop of the conceptualization of the HEH’s permanent exhibition, the main part of this article examines literary approaches to European cultural memory by looking at two recent but noticeably different examples: Robert Menasse’s 2017 novel Die Hauptstadt which the publisher Suhrkamp advertised as “der große europäische Roman”; its main focus is the European Union and the waning collective memories that provided the rationale for European integration after World War II� By contrast, Jenny Erpenbeck’s 2015 novel Gehen, ging, gegangen challenges dominant German and European memories through the main protagonist’s encounters with refugees from outside of Europe� Both novels received a lot of attention in the media, and both authors were recognized with awards for the important transnational issues they address not only in these novels but through other means as well� 2 In my analysis, Gehen, ging, gegangen and Die Hauptstadt serve as case studies for diverging notions of European cultural memory in contemporary German-language literature and, at the meta level, as an occasion to explore literature’s role in tackling complex constellations of European memory and identity� The museum’s name, House of European History, reveals neither the underlying geographical parameters of Europe nor the historical scope of the permanent exhibition� Instead of providing information of this kind, the term “House” suggests a shared place of belonging, a European Heimat if you will� These connotations of belonging reflect the role the academic advisory committee initially assigned to the museum, namely to strengthen a sense of transnational European identity among museum visitors (“Konzeptionelle Grundlagen”)� Along similar lines, the brief print guide to the permanent exhibition explains that the museum explores how a “cultural memory of all Europeans” emerged from the European Cultural Memory 283 shared history of Europe� The assumption that Europeans share cultural memories recalls the initial idea for the museum as formulated by Hans-Gert Pöttering, past president of the European Parliament (EP) and the longest serving EP member (1979—2014)� In his inaugural speech as president of the European Parliament in 2007, he called for a European history museum and defined its mission as shoring up European integration and European identity� As chair of the international board of trustees which oversaw the work of the academic advisory committee, Pöttering continued to be involved in the planning process� Due to the range of stakeholders and diverging interests, it took a decade for the museum to be realized (Kaiser)� When Pöttering spoke at the opening of the House of European History on May 4, 2017, ten years after the initial speech, his rationale for the museum came across as less prescriptive and more open-ended� For instance, he expressed the hope that it would promote greater understanding for the importance of fostering a European identity, and he called it a place for encounters (“ein Ort der Begegnung”) where the “idea of Europe” could be cultivated and where visitors would be encouraged to participate in the continued formation of a European identity (Pöttering 2017)� Elsewhere in the museum, and in an interview with director Constanze Itzel on the permanent exhibition, the very notions of a “European identity” and “European cultural memory” are taken for granted even less� She mentions that a critical concept of memory is one of the museum’s focal points, and this includes probing the very notion of a European memory (Itzel)� Along similar lines, chief curator Andrea Mork explains that in the exhibition planning phase “European identity” was considered as a guiding principle but ultimately rejected as a topdown and authoritarian approach� Markus Prutsch, historian and member of the European Parliament, provides context for this caution concerning the linkage of European history and “European identity�” As he explains in a EP-commissioned study on “European Historical Memory” from 2015, earlier “attempts at European identity-building” on the side of the EU proved unsuccessful because they were too narrowly focused on preconceived notions of particular aspects of European history, e�g�, the two World Wars and European integration (Prutsch 23)� The alternative, bottom-up approach he recommends would foster - via EUwide educational and cultural initiatives - not so much an agreement over the substance of European memory but rather a “European culture of remembering” by creating open arenas of discussion about contravening and uncomfortable aspects of (national) histories (37)� Along similar lines, the HEH was eventually conceptualized as a space that invites dialogue on the very question of European identity and European memory (a shift in emphasis that Pöttering clearly took to heart in his 2017 speech)� Referencing the seminal work on collective memory by Maurice Halbwachs, Pierre Nora, and Jan and Aleida Assmann, among 284 Friederike Eigler others, Mork outlines an alternative organizing principle for the exhibition: a notion of cultural memory that is not fixed but in flux, one that incorporates multiple intersecting, and at times contravening, transnational, national, and regional perspectives (220—21)� Critics have pointed out that the permanent exhibition does not live up to these nuanced and self-reflective approaches to European history and identity and that it fails to incorporate recent historiographical research on entangled European histories (Fickers)� Different kinds of critical responses came from some political representatives of EU member states and illustrated the challenges of realizing a transnational project of this caliber (Sieg 26)� High-profile critique came for instance from the Polish government which claimed that the permanent exhibition downplayed the oppressive character of Soviet Communism while portraying the role of religion and the nation in a negative light (Krupa)� Considering the fact that the Chair of the HEH’s academic advisory committee, Wlodzimierz Borodziej, is a prominent Polish historian, this critique is a reminder that national memories are by no means homogenous but the result of “memory contests” (Fuchs and Cosgrove 2) as well� Far more relevant (for the focus of this essay) than these national quibbles is the transnational perspective Katrin Sieg adopts in her comprehensive assessment of the HEH: The museum leaves behind the “triumphalist certainties” (11) and “quasi-nationalist discourse on common European and identity” (9) that marked earlier exhibitions, especially the 2007 “Europe: C’est notre Histoire” (It’s Our History) exhibit, conceptualized by the non-profit association Musée de L’Europe and, ironically, modeled on 19 th and 20 th -century National History museums� The discussions surrounding the realization of the House of European History serve to highlight central questions that are also relevant for a consideration of European literatures and their contributions to European memory� At the most fundamental level, we need to ask what notion of Europe is at play when terms like “European cultural memory” or “European identity” are invoked� The EU, primarily Western Europe, the entire European continent, or imaginary notions of Europe? Another central issue is the relationship between collective memory and European identity� As mentioned, there were attempts to promote European identity via the assertion of a shared European memory, but a more productive approach, as proposed by Itzel and Mork, thinks of “European” memory as a dynamic engagement with intersecting or competing memories� Some of these questions also inform my analysis of literature that asks how the creation of imaginary worlds participates in fostering “cultural memory” in transnational, European contexts� Scholars across Europe and the US have challenged notions of cultural memory that are bound to the nation and have instead examined European Cultural Memory 285 how memory travels (Erll), how memory functions in a multidirectional fashion (Rothberg), and how literature and the other arts have the potential for rethinking the relationship between memory, citizenship, and culture (Rigney 616)� At the same time, we need to ask in what ways any cultural production, including literature, continues to be inflected by particular national or regional histories and memories� Two recent novels by Robert Menasse and Jenny Erpenbeck serve as examples for diverging literary engagements with collective memory� Die Hauptstadt (2017) exemplifies a notion of European memory that is strongly shaped by Austrian and German history and grounded in the centrality of Holocaust commemoration� Gehen, ging, gegangen (2015), while also rooted in 20 th -century German history, opens up perspectives on communicative and collective memory that reach beyond the European continent� Menasse’s Die Hauptstadt consists of several loosely interwoven narrative strands that take place for the most part in Brussels, the de facto capital of the European Union� 3 Only close to the end of the 450-page novel (on p� 394, to be exact) the reader learns of another point of reference for the title� Indeed, the novel’s main narrative arch moves toward and culminates in a surprising new meaning of “The Capital�” Overall, Menasse manages to create a suspenseful narrative around the inner workings of the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, and the European Council, comprised of the heads of states of all EU members (see EU Institutions)� Narrated often in a sarcastic tone bordering at times on the satirical, the novel depicts civil servants eager to advance their own careers (EU Commission) or to protect the interests of the nations they represent (EU Council), thereby jeopardizing transnational European efforts� 4 The “Big Jubilee Project,” a plan to celebrate the Commission’s 50 th anniversary, is at the center of the novel� (This anniversary plan recalls a related project in Robert Musil’s novel Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, a recurring intertext and model for Menasse’s Die Hauptstadt� 5 ) Its primary function is to improve the dismal public image of the European Commission (57)� 6 The main ambition of Fenia Xenopoulou, the deputy director overseeing the anniversary plans, is to impress the Commission president and to gain his support for a more influential position than heading the Office of Culture, ranking last among all EU offices (47)� 7 For strategic reasons, she thus supports her co-worker’s idea to make the invitation of some of the few remaining Holocaust survivors the cornerstone for the celebrations� The participation of survivors is supposed to underscore the importance of Holocaust commemoration for the history and identity of the EU: the supranational European Union as antidote to racism and nationalism (179—88)� In one of the novel’s many ironic twists, the ultimately unsuccessful “Big Jubilee Project” underscores the paralysis of the EU� 286 Friederike Eigler The novel juxtaposes these career-driven efforts to showcase Holocaust survivors with snippets of the life of Jakob de Vriend, one of the last Belgian survivors of Auschwitz� Concurrent with the planning for the Commission’s anniversary celebration, de Vriend has to leave his longtime apartment and move to a retirement home, a change that complicates efforts to locate him and invite him to the planned celebration� In some of the rare sections narrated without sarcasm, the novel carefully portrays de Vriend’s difficulties in adjusting to his unfamiliar environment; signs of disorientation and dementia alternate with the intrusion of traumatic memories from his youth� This portrayal illustrates how an aging Holocaust survivor suffers from the long-term effects of trauma and thus serves as a powerful contrast to the political use of Holocaust memory among EU officials� The novel further complicates this constellation by introducing the character of Alois Erhart, a well-known and recently retired professor of Economics from Vienna who is member of the EU commission’s Advisory Group on the “New Pact for Europe,” charged with thinking about the future of the EU (295, 300)� In sharp contrast to its mostly younger members, Prof� Erhart insists on the significance of Holocaust commemoration for historical and ethical - not instrumental - reasons� This sincerity, the narrative suggests, is directly connected to the generation Erhart represents (born at the end of World War II) and its response to the involvement of the previous generation in National Socialism and the Holocaust� 8 Erhart and de Vriend’s paths briefly cross a few times in the novel, albeit without any interaction� 9 These chance encounters between a Holocaust survivor and a descendant of a perpetrator underscore their complementary roles in a narrative that, at its core, is concerned with European memory of the War and the Holocaust and related political and ethical imperatives in the present� The occasion for Prof� Erhart’s presence in Brussels is the invitation to present a keynote address at a meeting of the Advisory Group� Both in terms of plot and its narrative realization, the novel gradually builds up to this presentation� Over the almost 100 pages preceding the main part of Erhart’s speech, the narrative alludes to the radical nature of his address and to his anticipation that it will be his farewell speech to the think tank� 10 Menasse thus succeeds in turning a topic that is usually considered to be dry and abstract, namely the future of the EU, into a suspenseful and at times entertaining narrative� In his impassioned keynote address, Erhart calls for transforming the EU into a truly transnational body� He then addresses the upcoming anniversary celebrations with the planned focus on Holocaust commemoration and, in a surprising turn, proposes the following: “In Auschwitz muss die neue europäische Hauptstadt entstehen, geplant und errichtet als Stadt der Zukunft, zugleich die Stadt, die nie vergessen kann� ‘Nie wieder Auschwitz’ ist das Fundament, auf dem das European Cultural Memory 287 Europäische Einigungswerk errichtet wurde� Zugleich ist es ein Versprechen für alle Zukunft” (394)� Predictably, the audience responds with disbelief to Prof� Erhart’s proposal to build a new European capital at Auschwitz, the location whose name has become iconic for the Holocaust� In the context of the novel’s focus on EU bureaucracy and political scheming his impassioned plea appears both over the top and strangely out of place� Yet it also evokes the postwar consensus among the founding fathers of the EU, namely that European integration would be the best way to counter nationalism and racism, and to prevent military conflicts on the European continent� Put differently, the sincere manner in which Erhart, the son of a Nazi perpetrator, presents his provocative proposal references a dominant notion of European cultural memory regarding the centrality of World War II and the Holocaust� The board members’ response, on the other hand, underscores how far away the EU has moved from these foundational ideas� Prof� Erhart’s position on European memory as main impetus for strengthening the political institutions of the European Union largely reflects the author’s own outspoken support for reforming the EU� 11 Indeed, Robert Menasse mentions in an interview, posted on the website of his publisher Suhrkamp, that the character of Prof� Erhart can be considered his alter ego� In numerous essays, speeches, and a manifesto that Menasse co-authored with the political scientist Ulrike Guérot in 2013, he focuses on the urgent need for transforming the multinational institution of the EU into a truly transnational body as the only viable path forward� 12 Similar to Prof� Erhart, Menasse regularly references the catastrophic events of the last century, most importantly the Holocaust, as the main rationale for strengthening the EU� A recent controversy illustrates how closely Menasse’s character resembles the author’s own positions (and how fact and fiction got mixed up in the process)� The public conflict centered on the author’s inaccurate references to Walter Hallstein, one of the founding fathers of the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community, both early versions of the EU� Menasse attributed his own argument regarding the need to abandon the nation state to Hallstein - who never actually argued for the dissolution of the nation state -, and he falsely suggested not only in his fiction but in other contexts as well that Hallstein chose Auschwitz as the location for his inaugural speech as president of the European Commission (Winkler)� 13 In the larger context of European cultural memory, the fact that Menasse misrepresented a prominent EU politician - missteps that he initially justified as poetic license but later acknowledged and apologized for - is less significant than the strong pushback he faced� He was severely criticized not only from members of right-wing parties but also by the mainstream press, including the 288 Friederike Eigler FAZ� In an impassionate defense, Eva Menasse puts her brother’s mistakes in perspective and calls out those who insinuate, in the most extreme instance, a proximity to the infamous “Auschwitz lie” (i�e�, to those who deny the historical facts of the Holocaust)� Her counterattack exposes how Holocaust memory is used here in a particularly sinister manner: namely to discredit an Austrian-Jewish author like Robert Menasse who has long been a strong advocate for holding on to the centrality of this very memory� Regarding methodological approaches to the study of memory, the attacks against Menasse illustrate how traveling memory discourses can be employed in highly problematic ways� Even if one agrees that collective memory, especially of Holocaust memory, functions in a multidirectional manner it is important to be aware of the potential for appropriating this memory for purely political or ideological agendas� 14 Turning from public discourse back to Menasse’s novel, the ending of Die Hauptstadt underscores that the generational consensus regarding the centrality of Holocaust commemoration can no longer be taken for granted� The advisory group does not take Prof� Erhart’s proposal seriously, and he leaves the scene immediately after his speech� The “Big Jubilee Project” falters as well (just like the anniversary plans for Emperor Franz Joseph in Musil’s Mann ohne Eigenschaften)� In the final part of the novel, representatives of some of the smaller EU countries on the EU Council, driven by national interests, even jeopardize the plan to focus on Holocaust commemoration for the 50th anniversary celebration of the EU commission (327—36)� 15 The novel’s ending is in other ways even bleaker� In reference to real events, the narrative traces the path of some of its principal characters in the hours and minutes just before the 2016 terrorist bombing at the Metro station Maelbeeck (438—51)� In a tragic and highly symbolic turn of events, the victims of the attack include Prof� Erhart and the Jewish character de Vriend (who was supposed to be featured prominently at the EU celebration)� 16 At the end of the novel, it is thus called into question who will carry on the memory of the Holocaust, portrayed here as the raison d’être of the European Union; and how a EU, lacking both a sense of its own history and the will to change into a truly transnational body, will be able to face mounting global challenges - including extremist threats - in the present and in the future� In the broader context of literature and European cultural memory, Menasse’s novel Die Hauptstadt provides no real answers to the questions is raises� Overall, its focus on the memory of the Holocaust as the combined result of nationalism and racism comes across, despite its use of sarcasm and satire, as rather prescriptive (Hieber)� Without adequate memory of 20 th -century European history, in particular the Holocaust, there is no viable future for the EU - a view clearly out of step with concerns that dominate the EU bubble of Brussels as portrayed European Cultural Memory 289 in the novel� At the same time, the novel references transnational criminal and terrorist activities that intrude into the city of Brussels and are literally at the doorstep of EU institutions� If one adds the frequent allusions to Musil’s Mann ohne Eigenschaften to the mix - a novel chronicling the disintegration of an earlier transnational configuration of the Habsburg Empire - the prospects for the European Union appear dire� 17 With regards to the changing roles assigned to European memory in the context of the House of European History, Menasse’s novel recalls the early phase during which Pöttering saw European memory as bolstering European identity� At the same time, the novel also tracks the generational and global changes that have loosened this connection between memory and identity and challenge the very assumption of a shared European identity� Recent scholarship on the changing role of Holocaust memory in Europe helps to further contextualize Menasse’s novel� For instance, Klaus Leggewie and Anne Lang’s Der Kampf um die europäische Erinnerung (2011) conceptualizes changing notions of European history and memory (“Geschichtsbewusstsein”) in terms of seven concentric circles, with Holocaust commemoration in the center (12—13), surrounded by collective memories of ”Kommunismus, Vertreibungen, Kriegs- und Krisenerinnerungen, Kolonialismus, Einwanderung, Europas Erfolgsgeschichte” (15—48)� Over the past 70 years, these memoires came to the fore unevenly across Europe, with a shift towards memory of Stalinism and the GULAG in post-communist Eastern Europe� There are plenty of literary examples that address these changing European memoryscapes (Biendarra 125—31; Wetenkamp 340—44) but in Menasse’s novel none of the other collective memories mentioned by Leggewie and Lang play a role� Prof� Erhart’s focus on Holocaust commemoration in Die Haupstadt epitomizes the Western European consensus of the Cold War period� By extension, this novel addresses primarily a German, Austrian, and Western European audience� As the title Der Kampf um die europäische Erinnerung suggests, Leggewie and Lang examine the memory battles and competing approaches to European memory that emerged especially since the end of the Cold War� While Leggewie and Lang focus on the dynamic and polyvocal dimensions of European memory, they continue to assume that Holocaust memory constitutes a stable core in the West� Michael Rothberg has taken the discussion of transnational memory in a new direction by rethinking the very functioning of collective memory� Instead of conceptualizing collective memories as distinct and circumscribed - visualized by Leggewie and Lang as concentric circles that are in constant competition - in his seminal work on Multidirectional Memory Rothberg calls on scholars to examine the productive and multilayered exchange and co-constitution of collective memories� 290 Friederike Eigler Similarly, in a 2011 article titled “Memory Citizenship,” Rothberg and Yildiz use as their point of departure the memory regime that Menasse’s novel continues to embrace: “Collective memory of the Holocaust has functioned as a point of reference for a post-fascist Europe and the basis for a new human rights regime at the same time that migrations have complicated the ‘unity’ of Europe’s population and posed challenges to Europe’s liberal model of rights” (34)� Although there are few explicit references to the changing demography of Europe in Die Hauptstadt, the epilogue mentions in passing a related contemporary concern, namely pervasive Islamophobia: The Brussels newspaper Metro conducts an online naming contest for a pig that runs loose in the city of Brussels (and that reappears at unexpected moments in the novel); the contest is discontinued when it turns out that the most frequently suggested name is “Mohamed,” a stand-in for Muslims (458—59)� As Seeba points out, by connecting Muslims via the name “Mohamed” to a pig, the novel alludes to the anti-Semitic term “Judensau” that harks back to Nazi Germany� The results of the naming contest thus underscore the looming threat of new forms of discrimination in a city unaware of the (European) past (Seeba 132)� The impasse at the end of Menasse’s novel provides a fitting segue for my discussion of a very different kind of novel� If Die Hauptstadt represents one end of a spectrum regarding literary contributions to European memory, Erpenbeck’s novel Gehen, ging, gegangen (GGG) is located at the opposite end� Several of Erpenbeck’s previous works focus explicitly on the intersection between collective history and individual biographies and explore how the effects of major historical events can be traced in the lives of her characters� Combining collective memories of Eastern and Western Europe, these novels examine the human costs of two World Wars, the Holocaust, National Socialism, Stalinism, Socialism, and German unification� By featuring multiple generations in her narratives, novels like Heimsuchung (Visitation) and Aller Tage Abend (The End of Days) ask how specters of the past continue to haunt the present� Furthermore, the plots and character constellations underscore the extent to which 20 th -century German history is intertwined with aspects of European memories (e�g�, the portrayal of German exiles in Moscow during and after World War II in Aller Tage Abend)� It is for these reasons that Erpenbeck’s works have been called, with reference to Pierre Nora, “European sites of memory�” 18 As Anke Biendarra shows, her novels open up imaginary transnational spaces and thus contribute to the construction of a European memory (132)� Biendarra raises two related aspects that are also essential for this article: the role of German and European history for the fate of Erpenbeck’s characters and, at the metaliterary level, the function of narratives as European sites of memory� European Cultural Memory 291 In contrast to her previous work, Erpenbeck’s most recent novel appears at first sight less concerned with issues of history and memory� Gehen, ging, gegangen is located in the present and addresses the precarious situation of a group of refugees in Berlin who seek asylum in Germany after entering Europe from the African continent under often harrowing conditions� 19 As I will show below, despite this focus on a contemporary human rights crisis, the novel not only opens up transnational spaces beyond Europe, but also new perspectives on transnational European memory� The novel is largely narrated from the perspective of its main character Richard, a widowed and recently retired professor of Classics who struggles to make sense of his new life and the unstructured time he suddenly has at his disposal� The narrative traces Richard’s initial lack of attention to a public hunger strike staged by a group of “dark skinned” refugees at Alexanderplatz in the center of Berlin (18—19) to his growing interest and active attempts to find out about the plight of African protesters occupying the Oranienplatz in Berlin-Kreuzberg� The main part of the narrative portrays Richard’s interaction with individual refugees who are temporarily housed in an empty retirement home while they await the city’s decision regarding their relocation to other parts of Germany or Europe� At first, Richard adopts roles familiar to him as a scholar by doing background research and preparing interview questions for the refugees, but over the course of the novel he develops closer personal ties with some of them� Richard - and the reader - learns about the individual life stories of Raschid and Zair from Nigeria, a young man of the Tuareg tribe from Niger, and Awad from Ghana, among others� Together with some of his longtime friends, Richard ends up supporting several of the asylum seekers by providing housing and small jobs� This kind of support enables the refugees to defy, at least temporarily, the eventual ruling of the city that demands that they return to the locations across Germany where they first submitted their asylum applications - thus threatening the human ties they developed during their time in Berlin� While the novel focuses primarily on the transformation of the main character, it also gives voice to individual refugees and their biographies prior to displacement� These voices are filtered through the language and perspective of the narrator (marked by the use of the third person), yet Erpenbeck’s representation of their stories draws directly from her own interaction with and support of a group of asylum seekers� The novel’s paratexts illustrate that the author conducted extensive interviews in preparation for writing the novel, and that she sees her creative work as part of larger efforts to draw attention to - and improve - the untenable situation of refugees in Germany� 20 Both at the plot level and through its paratexts the book thus works towards reversing the state 292 Friederike Eigler of invisibility that the silent protesters embody at the beginning of the novel� Regarding the novel’s approach to cultural memory, the reasons for Richard’s initial blindness vis-à-vis the refugees are significant: When he passes the silent protesters, he is distracted by a series of loosely connected thoughts, beginning with the medieval system of catacombs that archeologists found below the Alexanderplatz and continuing with references to a system of underground tunnels in a Polish town that provided protection during times of danger until the Nazis discovered and destroyed the hideout (GGG 19—20)� In clear contrast to Menasse’s Hauptstadt, Richard’s attention to the “dominant memory of National Socialism” (Steckenbiller 72) is shown here to be a distraction from pressing challenges in the present� Put differently, while the main characters in both novels initially share a preoccupation with the German and European past, insulating them from other concerns, Gehen, ging, gegangen focuses on shifting priorities in the life of Richard� This process of reorientation does however not imply a disregard for 20 th -century German history and its effects on Richard’s life - on the contrary� As Brangwen Stone illustrates in detail, the novel’s main protagonist shares a number of experiences with the African refugees he befriends (“Trauma”)� Very early in his life, toward the end of the Second World War, Richard’s family was expelled from Silesia, and during the upheaval of the flight the infant Richard was almost separated from his mother� They later lived through the Allied aerial bombing of Berlin� Through his interaction with the refugees, Richard recalls some of these memories and post-memories, i�e�, traumatic stories communicated to him by family members� In addition to these early childhood experiences of flight and displacement, Richard’s entire thinking is shaped by the unexpected disappearance of the East German state, i�e�, the country where he grew up and established a comfortable life as a professor� Twenty-five years after unification, Richard still feels disoriented and to some degree foreign in the Western parts of the city of Berlin� Taken together, his biography references major aspects of 20 th century German and European history, including flight and expulsion, life in the divided Germany, and in unified Germany, similar to other protagonists in Erpenbeck’s earlier novels� The novel incorporates these “national” or “German” memories in a multidirectional manner: Gehen, ging, gegangen brings Richard’s post/ memories of displacement and ongoing feelings of disorientation and loss in touch with related experiences of the refugees� Drawing on theories of trauma and postmemory, Stone maintains that the novel succeeds in creating multiple points of connection between Richard and the refugees, processes that she also sees reflected in the novel’s effect on its readers (6)� However, Erpenbeck wisely stops short of equating Richard’s overall secure life as retired professor with the existential European Cultural Memory 293 situation of the refugees� Indeed, as Gary Baker convincingly argues, despite some similarities in their respective biographies, the novel ultimately contrasts the refugees’ state of extreme precarity with Richard’s privileged life style (507)� Regarding the larger question of European memory, it is noteworthy that the character Richard is shaped not only by German collective memories of the 20 th century, but also by cultural memory harking back to antiquity� Richard’s entire intellectual life is clearly anchored in European notions of Bildung and the history of Western civilization (Steckenbiller 70—72)� Indeed, his occupation as Classics professor at the Humboldt University - the prototype of the “modern” university founded by Wilhelm von Humboldt - can be read as exemplifying a Eurocentric cultural memory of the educated elite that largely transcends East- West European differences� 21 Not surprisingly, this background affects Richard’s interaction with the African refugees� For instance, the refugees’ stories of displacement and flight trigger Richard’s associations with Homer’s Odyssey, Goethe’s Iphigenie auf Tauris, and Mozart’s Magic Flute and the character Tamino, among other famous cultural artefacts� These brief references to aspects of the Western cultural tradition serve to highlight the parameters of Richard’s education and worldview, but the novel employs them in a manner that undercuts their dominant reception as classical pieces of art by relating them to contemporary instances of violence and displacement� Furthermore, the narrative draws attention to some of his engrained racist and sexist attitudes, and to the trouble Richard has remembering the Africans’ foreign sounding names� He responds by renaming some of them after figures from Greek and Germanic mythology� In his notes about his encounters with the refugees he calls the young Tuareg man from Niger “Apoll” and Awad from Ghana “Tristan” (GGG 84)� This act of renaming highlights the extent to which Richard’s entire thinking is steeped in a Western tradition of Bildung� Yet his encounters with individual refugees begin to challenge this Eurocentric outlook� Examples include first and foremost Richard’s increasing openness and empathy toward the stories of others; he listens not only to their traumatic memories of civil war in Libya and the horrific flight to Europe, but also to the refugees’ accounts of the regions, homes, and traditions they left behind� In brief, Richard - the quintessential expert on and product of humanistic Bildung - assumes the role of someone who is willing to learn about the backgrounds of those who enter Europe from a range of African countries� Importantly, hearing these stories of individuals, whose names he was not able to recognize let alone remember, he begins to question some of his own longheld beliefs and becomes increasingly involved in their lives� For instance, the narrative suggests that through the encounter with the refugees and their responses to loss and death, Richard begins to develop new awareness for the suffering of others - forms of empathy that up to this point 294 Friederike Eigler had been largely lacking in his comfortable and self-centered life� 22 This process exemplifies what Ann Rigney considers to be one of the crucial role of the arts for reshaping European cultural memory: “Creative narratives help to ‘thicken’ imaginative relations with other groups […] along lines that transcend those of traditional memory narratives while helping to create alternative shared points of reference for the future” (622)� Furthermore, at a cognitive level, Richard begins to expand his knowledge about the history and religious practices of Islam (GGG 106—08, 342) and about Europe’s colonial histories on the African continent (53, 64, 66, 175, 186), albeit in a rather superficial manner� Among the national and international responses the novel has provoked, several comment on the hopeful dimensions of Richard’s encounter with individual asylum seekers� For instance, Monika Shafi reads the novel’s ending as transforming a private home into a transnational space and of projecting a vision of a cosmopolitan community (Shafi 199); and for Stone the novel turns the “ungrievable lives” ( Judith Butler) of refugees into grievable ones� But there are also critical responses that underscore the discrepancy between the situation of the prototypical German character Richard on the one hand, and the asylum seekers’ desperate situation on the other; and on the risks of eliding this chasm by focusing on Richard’s transformation and fledgling empathy� 23 Yet as Gary Baker convincingly shows, the novel does not only foreground these affective connections, it also provides information on and ultimately a scathing critique of the European asylum laws as entirely inadequate in light of contemporary causes for mass migrations� Despite corresponding aspects in the respective biographies, the novel thus ultimately contrasts the refugees’ precarious situation with Richard’s privileged life� In sum, Gehen, ging, gegangen does not suggest in any way that interpersonal relationships between European citizens and asylum seekers can begin to solve the global human rights crisis� Rather, its plot and narrative style 24 underscore the urgency of this crisis and the need to change restrictive EU asylum laws� As indicated above, both the interpersonal and the collective dimensions of Gehen, ging, gegangen pertain to an emerging notion of European memory that makes visible Europe’s linkages to the African continent� Beyond the presence and integral role of minorities throughout European history, the more recent arrival of large groups of refugees at the EU borders and the global reasons for these large-scale movements of people bring to the fore the extent to which Europe’s history and its present situation are intertwined with that of other parts of the world� Erpenbeck’s novel explores the demands that the changing face of Europe places on all EU citizens, not only recent newcomers� Through the figure of Richard, the prototypical German citizen, the novel challenges its readers to reconsider the way we think (and feel) about our own places of belonging, our European Cultural Memory 295 own histories, and the extent to which they are entangled with postcolonial legacies and with individual life stories of migrants and refugees� 25 The novel thus provides both a supplement and a corrective to the notion of “Memory Citizenship” as proposed by Rothberg and Yildiz� In their 2011 article, they call for an approach to collective memory that takes into consideration the memories of migrant populations (or “migrant archives”)� As an example, they discuss a group of migrant women in Berlin who became involved in multidirectional memory work that connects the German past to aspects of their own histories� Rejecting ethnicized notions of national identity, Rothberg and Yildiz consider this kind of memory work to be a performance of citizenship that “derives from being-in-common, not common being” (44)� Erpenbeck’s novel explores the reverse constellation: It traces Richard’s growing awareness of how aspects of his own past correspond with the refugees’ experiences, and how the legacies of colonialism continue to link Europe to the African continent (GGG 182, 252—53, among others)� Thus Gehen, ging, gegangen focuses on the need of German and European citizens - not primarily migrants, as in Rothberg and Yildiz’s case study - to engage in prosthetic memory work 26 as a necessary step to imagine more just European and global futures� If performances of memory can function as “acts of citizenship,” as Rothberg and Yildiz claim, 27 then we might want to think of Erpenbeck’s novel as an example of how literature can participate in such performances and, in the process, envision new notions of European and global citizenship� Returning briefly to the questions raised by the House of European History mentioned at the outset, the two novels discussed here could not provide more different answers� With regards to the underlying concepts of Europe and European memory, Menasse’s Hauptstadt links Brussels, the unofficial EU capital, to the imagined EU capital of Auschwitz in an ultimately futile effort to rescue a Western European memory culture centered on “never again” - the political rationale of the founding of the EU� At the same time, the consistently sarcastic tone of the narrative brings to the fore the generation-specific reasons for tying European cultural memory to Holocaust commemoration� To be sure, the German and European past, including the Holocaust, are referenced in Gehen, ging, gegangen as well, for instance when Richard moves through the urban landscape of the city of Berlin� But these memories remain part of Richard’s passing thoughts and mark him as a prototypical German citizen� 28 The novel as a whole suggests that this is not the place and time for providing history lessons to refugees� It is rather time for Richard and his friends and, by extension the citizens of Europe, to engage with the refugees’ life stories and the entangled histories of European and African countries� While the HEH underscores the 296 Friederike Eigler history and legacy of European colonialism, Erpenbeck’s novel explores some of the implications of this legacy for a well-situated European citizen� Implicit in both the HEH and Gehen, ging, gegangen are thus expansive notions of Europe and of European memory, entanglements that go beyond the borders of the European Union and beyond the European continent� In different ways, both the permanent exhibit and Erpenbeck’s novel begin to consider Europe’s “Other Heading” as Derrida has termed the “southern coast of the Mediterranean” (7), i�e�, the northern part of the African continent� 29 As I have shown over the course of this article, both novels function as European sites of memory, but the approach in Erpenbeck’s novel contrasts sharply with that of Menasse’s Die Hauptstadt� The underlying notion of European memory in Die Hauptstadt “assumes a fixed legacy that is owned or inherited by particular groups” (Rigney 610), while in Gehen, ging, gegangen prosthetic forms of remembering emerge in Richard’s interaction with a diverse group of refugees from Ghana, Libya, and Niger� The genre of the novel allows for the rendering of new affiliations and for dynamic forms of memory that are linked to alternative visions of Europe� At the same time, it is precisely the “thickening” of imaginative relations in Gehen, ging, gegangen that throws into relief severe shortcomings of European migration policies and asylum laws� With their contrasting outlook on the European past, Menasse and Erpenbeck envision markedly different presents and futures� Beyond these different emphases, both Menasse’s and Erpenbeck’s novels represent major landmarks in contemporary German-language literature showcasing its broadening transnational relevance� Notes 1 See https: / / historia-europa�ep�eu/ en/ permanent-exhibition (accessed 17 January 2019)� For a critical account of the permanent exhibition with special emphasis on the representation of European colonialism, see Sieg� 2 In addition to the 2016 Thomas Mann Prize, Erpenbeck received the 2017 Order of Merit of the FRG (Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) in recognition of her support for refugees (http: / / www�bundespraesident�de/ SharedDocs/ Berichte/ DE/ Frank-Walter-Steinmeier/ 2017/ 10/ 171004-Verdienstorden-TdDE�html� Menasse’s novel Die Hauptstadt received the 2017 German Book Award (Deutscher Buchpreis) which is awarded annually at the Frankfurt Book Fair (https: / / www�deutscher-buchpreis�de/ der-preis; accessed 15 February 2019)� His novel and related publications draw on his in-depth research on the EU� 3 Although EU institutions are located in several European cities Brussels serves as de facto EU capital since most of its political institutions are lo- European Cultural Memory 297 cated there (the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, and the European Parliament)� 4 For instance, the opening scene features a pig running lose through the city of Brussels (“Da läuft ein Schwein! ”; Hauptstadt 9)� The pig reappears at various other points of the novel but it remains unclear until the end if the pig is real or a “hysterical collective projection” (Hauptstadt 174, 457)� The sarcastic tone is most prominent when the role of culture or the careerism of some of the EU civil servants is addressed (e�g�, Hauptstadt 33—34, 45—47)� Menasse’s critical portrayal of the role of the EU Office of Culture in Der Europäische Landbote provides further background, including information on the lack of funding for this office (76—81)� This contrasts with Menasse’s positive comments on the EU Commission as the only truly transnational EU branch (Landbote 21—27)� 5 Musil’s novel chronicles the disintegration of the Habsburg Empire while holding on to the vision of a transnational “Haus Europa�” In Die Hauptstadt, Musil’s novel is repeatedly mentioned as the favorite book of the Commission president (alias Jean-Claude Juncker, at the time of writing)� In Der Europäische Landbote Menasse compares his own idea of writing a novel about the EU with novels like Musil’s that preceded epochal change (107—08)� 6 My analysis focuses on this main narrative strand and its connection to the life (and eventual death) of the Auschwitz survivor Jakob de Vriend� Among the novel’s other narrative strands are the machinations of a transnational criminal network that is responsible for a murder in Brussels and its subsequent cover-up by the Belgian police; and the pork trade, showcasing the absurd consequences of the elaborate EU subvention system (a topic that is associated with the pig running loose in the city - see note #4)� 7 The general disregard for the Office of Culture and the satirical portrayal of its deputy director draw on Menasse’s observations during his extended stay in Brussels (Landbote 76—81)� 8 The reader learns that Erhart’s father participated in the killings of Jews in Poland (Hauptstadt 396—97)� Furthermore, the novel draws attention to the ways in which many of the characters’ families were involved in or affected by the War� This provides a powerful contrast to the lack of interest among most EU politicians and civil servants in 20 th -century European history (Seeba 131—32)� 9 It is telling that the first encounter takes place at an old cemetery in Brussels next to the graves of soldiers arranged according to nationality (Hauptstadt 87—88)� The cemetery is contrasted with the lack of graves for the victims of the Holocaust, including for de Vriend’s family (85)� 298 Friederike Eigler 10 Long before Erhart’s speech (Hauptstadt 385—95) there are allusions like this one: “Er hatte einen radikalen, für diese Runde völlig verrückten Text geschrieben” (301)� 11 During the early 2000s Menasse was highly critical of the lack of democracy in the EU but since his extended research in Brussels in 2010 he has turned into a strong EU advocate who is in favor of strengthening the European Commission, the only truly transnational body of the EU (Landbote 34—36)� For an overview on Menasse’s changing positions on the EU, see Büssgen 317� 12 See the speeches in Menasse, Heimat ist die schönste Utopie; Menasse, Der Europäische Landbote; Menasse and Ulrike Guérot, “Manifest für die Begründung einer Europäischen Republik�” - 13 Winkler pointed out Menasse’s errors in 2017 but the public controversy only erupted two years later� 14 Erll’s notion of “traveling memory” underlines that all cultural memory is constantly moving across real and virtual borders� Rothberg’s concept of “multidirectional memory” examines specific instances of borrowing and cross-referencing with focus on Holocaust memory� Erll mentions the risks involved in these processes (14)� 15 In a further twist, the president of the Commission himself finds the anniversary plans unacceptable but cannot say so openly; instead, his chief of staff leaks information to EU Council members who then reject the planned celebration for purely national reasons� 16 In one of the novel’s most compelling sections temporality is suspended and de Vriend’s traumatic flashbacks of his deportation, the conditions of his survival, and his parents’ death in Auschwitz are fused with symptoms of dementia and his death at the Metro station Maelbeek (Hauptstadt 447—51)� 17 In an astute observation Seeba calls Menasse’s novel the “aesthetic equivalent” of the political process of EU integration� The success of the former stands in for the lack of success of the latter (Seeba 126, 132)� 18 Biendarra 126� Pierre Nora has introduced the term lieu de mémoire for both real places and metaphorical sites (including anniversaries and objects) that are central for collective memory� 19 By coincidence the novel appeared in the fall of 2015, at the height of the so-called refugee crisis� 20 See the author’s thank you note at the end of the book, acknowledging numerous conversation partners whose names suggest that many are of African descent� She also provides information on a specific Berlin church and bank account for those who want to make donations in support of refugees� European Cultural Memory 299 21 The emphasis here is on the Eurocentric reception of traditions we associate with Greek antiquity versus their actual “travel” through many continents (Erll 13)� 22 In a rare instance of a first-person narrative Richard is haunted by the (imaginary) presence and voice of one of the refugees (GGG 135—50)� As part of this process Richard also begins to recognize his own vulnerabilities and his lack of empathy with his late wife (115, 347—48)� 23 For a comprehensive review of the novel’s scholarly and public reception see Stone as well as Steckenbiller� 24 See, for instance the disruption of the narrative on pages 328—29� These pages are left blank except for the following question, repeated twice: “Wohin geht ein Mensch, wenn er nicht weiß, wo er hingehen soll? ” 25 According to Gurminder Bhambra, decentering the West as the “cradle of civilization” is not sufficient� She calls for more sustained attention to the ways in which “the histories of colonialism, imperialism, and slavery enabled Europe and the West to achieve this dominance” (80)� 26 Alison Landsberg coined the term “prosthetic memory” for forms of memory that are not based on one’s own experience but are communicated via film or other cultural media� 27 According to Rothberg and Yildiz, the key role that memory of the recent past plays in German society means that German citizenship requires “both memory work and affective labor across society” (36, 39)� 28 At various points in the 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