"Hurra, wir können’s noch!": How NATO’s counterinsurgency doctrine uncovered German civil-military memory fragmentation
Résumé
This chapter will examine the impact of the ISAF mission on German domestic memory discourses, especially after the adoption of a counterinsurgency approach under General McChrystal after 2009. While this strategy was developed and applied by the US Army using perceived lessons of British and French colonial counterinsurgency experiences, the doctrine was relatively quickly adopted by German commanders on the ground, eager to overcome the growing frustration with escalating Taliban attacks in their zone of responsibility. However, a (literal but also doctrinal) “translation” of the concept was refused by the German military leadership, fearing that it would be associated with the German counter-partisan action during World War II and thus contradict the official memory discourse rejecting any use of the Wehrmacht as a ‘role model' for the contemporary Bundeswehr. This has enabled the emergence of a process of memory fragmentation in which the official discourses on the memory of World War II are publicly contested in at least three areas, namely the symbolic recognition of combat experience, the commemoration of military deaths, and the support of German society for its armed forces.