Integration after totalitarianism: Arendt and Habermas on the postwar imperatives of memory
| Author | Peter J Verovšek |
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088218796535 |
| Date | 01 February 2020 |
| Published date | 01 February 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088218796535
Journal of International Political Theory
2020, Vol. 16(1) 2 –24
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088218796535
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Integration after
totalitarianism: Arendt and
Habermas on the postwar
imperatives of memory
Peter J Verovšek
University of Sheffield, UK
Abstract
Collective memories of totalitarianism and the industrialized slaughter of the Holocaust
have exerted a profound influence on postwar European politics and philosophy. Two
of the most prominent political theorists and public intellectuals to take up the legacy of
total war are Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas. However, their prescriptions seem
to pull in opposite directions. While Arendt draws on remembrance to recover politics
on a smaller scale by advocating for the empowerment of local councils, Habermas
draws on the past to justify his search for postnational forms of political community
that can overcome the bloody legacy of nationalism. My argument brings these two
perspectives together by examining their mutual support for European integration as a
way of preserving the lessons of totalitarianism. I argue that both Arendt and Habermas
reject the technocratic tendencies of the European Union while maintaining hope that
it can develop a truly postnational form of politics.
Keywords
Collective memory, European Union, Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, political
community, totalitarianism
The Second World War … [is] a war we forget at our own peril. Anyone who thinks that
fascism in one guise or another is dead and gone ought to think again.
Judith Shklar (1998: 4).
Corresponding author:
Peter J Verovšek, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield, Elmfield, Northumberland Road, Sheffield
S10 2TU, UK.
Email: p.j.verovsek@sheffield.ac.uk
796535IPT0010.1177/1755088218796535Journal of International Political TheoryVerovšek
research-article2018
Article
Verovšek 3
Introduction
Collective memories of Europe’s “age of total war” (Black, 2006)—spanning two global
conflicts, the economic hardship of the Great Depression, the rise of totalitarianism, and
the industrialized slaughter of the Holocaust—defined European politics and society in
the postwar era (1945–1989). The unprecedented record of death and destruction in the
first half of the twentieth century has been the dominant imperative for change since the
end of the Second World War. This motivation has been a particularly powerful force in
global affairs, as anti-fascism defined domestic and international politics on both sides of
the Iron Curtain throughout the Cold War (see Lebow et al., 2006).
The most notable product of this political agenda from the perspective of international
political theory is the project of European integration. From its humble beginnings as the
European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Union (EU) has become the
greatest experiment in political, social, economic, and monetary integration “beyond the
nation-state” (Haas, 1964). As such, it raises fundamental questions about many of the
basic concepts of politics and international relations, including nationalism, citizenship,
sovereignty, and democracy (see Verovšek, 2017b: 398). Despite its ongoing crises at the
beginning of the second millennium, looking back on the Schuman Declaration of 9 May
1950, a “united Europe” has indeed proven “indispensable to the preservation of peace”
by helping overcome the “age old opposition between France and Germany” (Committee
on Institutional Affairs, 1982: 47).
The postwar imperative for change cannot, of course, reconcile the atrocities of the
past once and for all. In the words of Max Horkheimer, “Past injustice has occurred and
is completed. The slain are really slain” (in Benjamin, 1999: 471). While it is impossible
to redeem the victims of totalitarianism, its survivors have sought to give these deaths
meaning by drawing on their memories of the past to prevent the recurrence of such
events in the future.
Although World War II left painful and divisive memories across Europe, this histori-
cal legacy is especially powerful in the Federal Republic. The intellectual challenge of
the Holocaust looms large over Germany’s cultural tradition. These difficulties are most
symbolically obvious in Buchenwald. In the middle of this former concentration camp
(Konzentrationslager), where many Jews, Poles, Slavs, and other “social degenerates”
labored and died, once stood the “Goethe Oak” (Goethe-Eiche), where Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe wrote the “Wanderer’s Nightsong” (Wanderers Nachtlied) and parts of
Faust. However, this legacy was tarnished by the fact that the Nazis used the oak for
torture and hangings before it was destroyed by an allied bomb in 1944 (Häftling Nr.
4935 [Prisoner #4935], 2006).
This example is emblematic of the postwar German struggle to approach its past.
Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas stand out as two of the most prominent public
intellectuals to take up this problem and its political implications. Although Arendt’s
(2006) condemnation of Adolf Eichmann for overseeing the deportation of the Jews by
the Nazis is her most (in)famous intervention in these debates, she also took strong posi-
tions on the issue of Germany’s collective guilt and responsibility (see Alweiss, 2003:
307–318), as well as on the important role that history plays in constructing the common
world that all individuals share. Similarly, the meaning of the past has been a constant
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