Worthy Words: The Rhetoric of Speeches in Support of Exhibitions about National Socialism

Abstract

History exhibitions about National Socialism in Germany are generally endorsed by invited dignitaries who deliver speeches at the opening ceremony. Aside from a negative comment that such speeches are ‘inhaltlich völlig deckungsgleich’, they have received no scholarly attention. As part of Germany’s ‘memory mainstream’, the increasingly routine commemoration of National Socialist crimes and discrimination, this speech-making—and its undoubted tendency to repetition—requires better understanding. Drawing on concepts from the study of rhetoric and commemorative discourses, the article investigates the speeches’ conventionalized performance and verbal expression, and considers what happens when the replication of standardized ideas fails.