Widukind or Karl der Große? Perspectives on Historical Culture and Memory in the Third Reich and Post-War West Germany

Abstract

In Verden an der Aller, a small town in Lower Saxony, there is a stone henge. Publicly accessible, but half-concealed among trees, it comprises nearly 4500 standing stones. They are variously arranged: in stone circles, in an ensemble typical of neolithic long barrows and above all in long, winding tree-lined avenues. These help form a roughly oblong enclosure, so large that one might drop several football pitches into it. A number of the smaller groupings of stones look ancient. Many of the individual stones themselves do, too. In more than a few cases, the latter appearances are not deceptive. Though several now have Christian crosses chiselled into them, there are dolmens and megaliths among them, taken from genuine prehistoric sties in a region once strikingly rich in such monuments. Some allegedly bear traces of prehistoric decoration (though — try as I might — I could find no such evidence myself). Some may even have originated on the site itself — vestiges of a ritual site predating the present one by millennia, and largely destroyed by it.