History as Mourning, Memory as Melancholia: Weimar, Past and Future

abstract:Brief in its existence, yet long-lived in its influence, the Weimar Republic is often measured less on its own terms and more by what followed. It is never what it was, but what it will become. That is as true of historical memory as it is of historiography, which is to say, Weimar shares the same structure as every other past. This article makes use of Weimar to suggest that the way we imagine the passing of time—as repetition or progress—is not simply an expression of our politics but also determines why and how we recall the past.