Page 471 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo II

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Photo 1: 8 May 1945, Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel signing the unconditional surrender of the
German Wehrmacht at the Soviet headquarters in Karlshorst, Berlin, in: Bundesarchiv-online, Bild:
183 R70630.

„Museum of Capitulaton“ in this building in commemoration of the battle of Berlin and
the German surrender. I argue that the museum exhibited the official master-narrative of
the Great Patriotic War based on more than 1500 objects, such as photographies, written
material, weapons, war-art, filmdocuments and memories of former combatans. After
the German-Soviet agreement on the withdrawal of the Soviet Forces from German
territory, both countries decided already in 1990 to remember in this museum the Second
World War. Today this museum is supported by a board of trustees representing both
partners. The items exhibited in the former „Museum of Capitulation“ were used in the
new exhibition. 4

Cultural-historical approaches
The analysis of the former Soviet exhibition, which presented the visualised official
master-narrative of the Great Patriotic War in the „Museum of Capitulation“, can be
understood as a contribution to the yet rarely asked question whether and how the Soviet
Union tried to gain cultural hegemony in the East German State.
5
I investigated the ways Soviet cultural models had to be modfied in order to become
embodied by a very different cultural entity. Doing so, I take into account the research of
Susan Reid and David Crowley (Sheffield, London), who, while working on the material
culture of the Soviet-bloc, criticised the reduction of the complex relations between
4 The Historic Location, in: Chronicle, The German-Russian Museum, in: http://www.museum-kar-
lshorst.de/en/about-us/the-historic-location.html (visit: 25. 07. 2013).
5 De Keghel, Isabelle: Abstract, Forschungsprojekt, in: Exzellenzcluster „Kulturelle Grundlagen von In-
tegration“ (Konstanz) http://www.exc16.de/cms/295.html (visit: 15.10. 2013).