Historical museums attract millions of visitors each year (or at least did until the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 severely affected operations). At a time when the reading of books has fallen out of favor with young people, museums play an outsize role in shaping popular perceptions of the past. The public role of museums also makes them relevant for conflicting political agendas that spark vocal controversies around museum exhibitions and their connection with other institutions and with audiences. This volume, edited by two German researchers, explores the recent landscape, focusing on museums and memorials exhibiting or commemorating the experience of the Second World War, mostly in Germany and Austria, but also including examples from the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Canada. A recurrent theme in the volume is the fragile political position of museums, which are exposed, on the one hand, to pressures from politicians and institutions that supervise and fund them and, on the other hand, to the divergent expectations of civic or veterans organizations, media, and local populations. Jörg Echternkamp and Stephan Jaeger in their introduction refer to highly publicized political controversies of recent years: the House of European History in Brussels, contested by Euroskeptic politicians (mostly British, as the authors mention, but one should add that they were soon joined by Poles) who rejected the idea of a common European identity and the need for a common museum; the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk that came under attack from Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party as allegedly “cosmopolitan” and not “Polish enough”; and the Memorial to the Victims of the German Occupation erected in Budapest. This last entity was the product of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s use of history for his own political purposes, glossing over Hungary’s alliance with Nazi Germany and its role in the Holocaust. Other authors analyze less-well-known but very interesting conflicts around other museums and monuments. Karola Fings describes controversies related to the Museum Hürtgenwald 1944 und im Frieden, the museum commemorating the fierce battle in Hürtgen Forest in 1944. For many years the site was glorified, but under recent pressure from various political and civic actors some modifications to this “heroic” representation were introduced.

中文翻译：

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暴力的观点：在德国和欧洲的博物馆和纪念馆中代表第二次世界大战。作者：Jörg Echternkamp 和 Stephan Jaeger，编辑，纽约：Berghahn Books，2019 年。271 页。135.00 美元。

历史博物馆每年吸引数百万游客（或至少在 2020 年冠状病毒大流行严重影响运营之前如此）。在年轻人不再喜欢读书的时候，博物馆在塑造大众对过去的看法方面发挥了巨大的作用。博物馆的公共角色也使它们与相互冲突的政治议程相关联，这些政治议程引发了围绕博物馆展览及其与其他机构和观众的联系的激烈争论。本卷由两名德国研究人员编辑，探讨了近期的景观，重点展示或纪念第二次世界大战经历的博物馆和纪念馆，主要位于德国和奥地利，但也包括来自英国、法国、比利时、波兰的例子、捷克共和国和加拿大。本书中反复出现的主题是博物馆脆弱的政治地位，一方面，它们面临来自监督和资助它们的政治家和机构的压力，另一方面，也面临公民或退伍军人组织的不同期望。 、媒体和当地居民。Jörg Echternkamp 和 Stephan Jaeger 在他们的介绍中提到了近年来广为人知的政治争议：布鲁塞尔的欧洲历史之家，受到欧洲怀疑论者的质疑（作者提到，主要是英国人，但应该补充一点，波兰人很快加入了他们的行列） ）谁拒绝了共同的欧洲身份和对共同博物馆的需求；格但斯克的二战博物馆遭到波兰执政的法律与正义党的抨击，称其为“国际化”而非“足够波兰化”；以及在布达佩斯竖立的德国占领受害者纪念碑。最后一个实体是匈牙利总理维克多·奥尔班 (Viktor Orbán) 为自己的政治目的利用历史的产物，掩盖了匈牙利与纳粹德国的联盟及其在大屠杀中的作用。其他作者分析了其他博物馆和纪念碑周围鲜为人知但非常有趣的冲突。Karola Fings 描述了与 1944 年 Hürtgenwald 和 im Frieden 博物馆有关的争议，该博物馆是为了纪念 1944 年在 Hürtgen 森林中发生的激烈战斗。多年来，该遗址得到了美化，