SOLL staff achievements: an interview with Andi Dorrer

Catherine Roberts

Andi Dorrer is a lecturer in German studies whose research encompasses World War I (WWI) literature, theatre, memory, and German and Australian literature. He was recently awarded a prestigious publication subsidy by the Australian Academy of the Humanities for a co-edited volume on remembering WWI in Australia and Germany.

Catherine interviewed Andi about his research. 

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To start, could you tell me more about your research?

For the last six and a half years I’ve been looking at the literature and cultural history of WWI related to WWI. My PhD was on German WWI dramatic literature, a few projects have come out of that, and then the last project got funded through the Australian Academy for the Humanities. The memory and commemoration project was a result of my engagement with WWI German texts. That’s been my work for the last two and a half years.

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Where did your interest in memory and commemoration in literature begin?

Well, I was looking at WWI and I realised how little most Germans really know about WWI itself. The aftermath of the war is a different story, it’s well known, but there are very few facts people know World War One itself.

In 2012, Christopher Clark published a book called Die Schlafwandler (The Sleepwalkers in English). His book essentially documented a series of events thatthat led to the outbreak of the war, which weren’t necessarily driven by a specific agenda, but a result of decisionmakers just sort of sleepwalking into the catastrophe. This idea put the topic to rest even more.

In Australia I came to realise how important the First World War is to Australia. It’s part of life, of the national identity, but also sometimes of the identity of individuals, even friends of mine. But it’s amazing how, like the Germans, most people know very little about it. They know the official narrative and the story of Simpson and his Donkey, but not the details.

So, one night I was chatting with my friend in a pizzeria in Regensburg, talked about my PhD project and this difference between German and Australian ways to remember the war. From that chat, we decided to do a project and look a little bit deeper into it. We were lucky enough that it got funded afterwards and turned into a two-year project.

It’s just fascinating to see how this event can be remembered so differently. It has such a different importance within the cultural memory of the nations and is, in both ways, extremely inaccurate.

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Why are you interested in WW1 and the post-WW1 period specifically?

I’ve always been interested in the topic of war – what makes a previously peaceful people willing to kill? For land? For an ideology? That’s beyond my comprehension. But it fascinates me in a sort of dark way.

So, I had the option to do my PhD on the dramatic literature of World War One. It was part of a bigger project through the DAAD , the German Academic Exchange Service. It was good to have my PhD embedded within a larger project. Sometimes being a PhD student can be lonely, and you can feel isolated. It was good that I had people working alongside me on other aspects of that topic.

I looked at propagandistic literature because propaganda is the reason why get people behind ideas that often are quite terrible. Such genres of literature defended ideas that are violent, cruel and racist. That aspect got me interested in WWI and the how it came about.

The period after WWI is regarded as the Second Golden Age of German literature and culture. Before the war Germany was a conservative, militaristic, oppressed social system. After the war, that all broke down. There was this outburst of creativity and expression. So, literature in that era is considerably rich, interesting, and diverse.

George Kennan once said that WWI was “the great seminal catastrophe of the 20th century.”  It brought so many positive and negative changes, and in that estimation, I think he is correct.

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What are the differences in how Germany and Australia remember the war?

First, we need to separate between memory and remembrance. They are two different things. Remembrance has a certain goal; it doesn’t exist for the sake of existing, it’s part of a political structure, it is the instrumentalization of memory. Memory is different, it’s more complex psychologically, but also culturally. I mainly looked a commemoration of WWI in Germany and Australia.

The first difference between Germany and Austrlia is in the role the war plays in national memory. WWI plays a tiny role in Germany, that’s if it is considdered at all. If there is any knowledge, interest, or remembrance then it is always looking at aspect of WWI that leadg to the Second World War (WWII). WWII is far more important to modern-day Germany andthere’s this attempt to disassociate modern-day Germany from everything that happened before 1945.

In Australia, the nation building process was linked to WWI even though there were no major political changes in Australia following the war. Obviously in post-war Germany there were massive political changes. Unlike in Germany, there’s an attempt to connect that past to modern day Australia. There’s an attempt to connect today’s values, the values of the Australian nation and the Australian people to WWI. WWII, however, plays absolutely no role in the Australian cultural memory. People know that there was a bombing in Darwin, but that’s about it.

The second difference, and I think this is the main difference, is that in Germany any form of nationalistic commemorations for any of the two world wars is completely unthinkable. Remembering only the German victims would be political and societal suicide and rightfully so. For example, in 2018 Angela Merkel went to a global commemoration ceremony in Paris. It was carefully performed that Germany was only attending as a guest.

In Australia, there is a purely nationalistic focus. Even though the term ‘ANZAC’ includes New Zealand, there is no role for even the New Zealand troops in the Australian commemoration. If you look at Australian war memorials, it becomes obvious that the focus is really on the remembrance of the sacrifices made by the Australian nation.

The final difference is the level of involvement from the military. In Germany, the military cannot be involved in any form of commemoration. This is because of the militaristic nature of the German empire and of course the so-called ‘Third Reich’ .

In Australia, on the other hand, the military is one of the driving forces of commemoration. The returned servicemen leagues, the War Memorials, are strongly involved in the commemorations every year.

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You were one of only six winners of the Australian Academy of Humanities publication subsidy. How did it feel to receive this honour?

It was great obviously, as you said, it’s quite prestigious. It’s great to see your work valued. It was also good for the project financing. But I felt a little bit bad when I received it because so many people have worked on the volume, it has my name on the subsidy confirmation because I was the only one who could apply.

A lot of people were involved, it started with my then PhD supervisor and colleagues in Regensburg. Over the years the personal circumstances of a lot of the members have changed and some had to drop out. New members came into the project and continued their work. It was very much a team effort, and I was just lucky enough to be the one who wrote the subsidy application.

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What’s next for your research?

My current project here at the University of Melbourne is with Heather Benbow. We’re looking at internee camps in Australia. During WWI many German Australians were seen as ‘enemy aliens’ and interned at camps. It’s a bigger project with a few people involved and we are looking at all kinds of aspects of this camp life and I’m contributing my expertise in dramatic literature and theatre.

I’m looking at the theatres because most of these camps established theatres. It was part of their pass time but also had a significance in contributing to the identity of the internees. It became a means of cultural opposition. So that’s me circling around again to the war itself.

So, my research has looped from Germany during the war, through to Germany and Australia after the war, and now back to Australia in the war.

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Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to chat with me about your research. 

Thank you, Catherine.