Research in England

The last three weeks, I spent in Great Britain. My main intention of this journey was to visit Coventry. After I had been in Dresden last year, I decided that I also want to see Coventry, because both cities were heavily bombed during the Second World War and share a deep connection of reconciliation as partner cities today. In the Blitz Museum, I met a man who experienced the bombing as a child, and I had the chance to interview him within the ruins of the Coventry Cathedral. It was a unique location to speak to a contemporary witness from this city. He described how unexpectedly this attack came for the inhabitants, that they sat in the bunker for nearly twelve hours and how the city looked like the next morning.

In the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, I attended a guided tour about the Lancaster, a British heavy bomber which was involved in area bombing of German cities. Given that this plane occurs in my book and my readings, I had wanted to see one in reality. During the lecture and the inside view of the aircraft, I learned more background information about how it worked, how it was for the crew to operate in it and what they thought in the moment they dropped the bombs.

Also, it helped me to understand the British view better. I sometimes find the way that some British people talk about the Allied bombings of German cities rather insensitive, for example when they call the bomber crews heroes or say that the Lancaster bomber was a “remarkable success”. In these moments, and having been to Coventry, I tend to imagine how it would be if it was uttered the other way round. In Duxford, I learned that the heroism often refers to the courage that this job required and not to the controversial task they were assigned to do. The word “success”, as I learned, does refer to the killing and destruction, but also to aspects like the reliability of the aircraft. From my perspective, I still tend to find this wording rather inappropriate, especially when it is used in official or scientific contexts.

Furthermore, I was happy to meet Richard Dunning in England, the founder of the Lochnagar Crater Foundation. Richard had bought the Lochnagar Crater in France in 1978, which dates back to the First World War. His foundation preserves the site as a memorial and works on remembrance and reconciliation. Since I had interviewed Richard online last year, we stayed in contact and frequently exchanged views and ideas. Now we saw each other for the first time in person.

As a symbol of British-German reconciliation, he gave me an ivory tuning peg which he had found in the crater. It had once been part of a violin of German origin. Back then, nearly every trench had a musician, and this person had played the violin where later the mine exploded to form the crater. I am very grateful for this special gesture. I have rarely met someone who lives out reconciliation as intensively as Richard and his foundation do.