Remembering World War II: A Mixed-Methods Exploration of Memory Practices on an Online Forum 366266707X, 9783662667071

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D I G I TA L E L I T E R A T U RW I S S E N S C H A F T

Anastasia Glawion

Remembering World War II A Mixed-Methods Exploration of Memory Practices on an Online Forum

Digitale Literaturwissenschaft Reihe herausgegeben von Thomas Weitin, Darmstadt, Germany Evelyn Gius, Darmstadt, Germany Beiratsmitglieder Berenike Herrmann, Bielefeld, Germany Julia Nantke, Hamburg, Germany Nicolas Pethes, Köln, Germany Massimo Salgaro, Verona, Italy Holger Spamann, Cambridge, USA Inge van de Ven, Tilburg, The Netherlands

Die Schriftenreihe ist ein Forum für literaturwissenschaftliche Arbeiten, die Forschungsfragen mit Hilfe digitaler Methoden zu lösen versuchen. Sie widmen sich literaturgeschichtlichen Themen oder Problemen der Literaturtheorie ebenso wie dem medialen Wandel oder kulturellen Kontexten. Charakteristisch ist die jeweilige fachliche Fundierung der digitalen Analysen, die in der Durchführung transparent sind und im Ergebnis so kommuniziert werden, dass ein breites Publikum damit weiterarbeiten kann. Die Reihe ist der nachhaltigen Fachwissenschaft verpflichtet und setzt neben eingängigen Argumentationen auch die Reproduzierbarkeit sämtlicher Datenanalysen voraus.

Anastasia Glawion

Remembering World War II A Mixed-Methods Exploration of Memory Practices on an Online Forum

Anastasia Glawion TU Darmstadt, Germany This book is based on a version that was accepted as a dissertation by the Department of History and Social Sciences of the TU Darmstadt on June 21, 2021.

ISSN 2731-4022 ISSN 2731-4030 (electronic) Digitale Literaturwissenschaft ISBN 978-3-662-66707-1 ISBN 978-3-662-66708-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66708-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This J.B. Metzler imprint is published by the registered company Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin, Germany

Acknowledgements

This book is based on my dissertation that was written between December 2014 and March 2021, first at the Cluster of Excellence “Cultural Foundations for Integration” at the University of Konstanz and later at the Department of German Studies—Digital Literary Studies at TU Darmstadt under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Thomas Weitin. First and foremost, I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Thomas Weitin for the perpetual support through each stage of the process, the excellent supervision, and the invaluable advice he has given me on innumerable occasions over the years. Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude for providing me with a workplace offering optimal working conditions. My warm thanks also go to Prof. Dr. Ulrik Brandes for his guidance as second supervisor. His precise, insightful contributions have been of great help to me. I would like to acknowledge the various members of the Department of German Studies—Digital Literary Studies team for their assistance, enthusiasm, and the excellent working environment I am fortunate to be part of. In particular, I want to express my greatest appreciation to Katharina Herget for her friendship, critical observations, deep and insightful comments, meaningful discussions, and moral support throughout every stage of research and beyond. Judith Brottrager joined our team during the final stages of this project, but her knowledgeability and enthusiasm are a constant inspiration. My colleagues Anne Dammköhler, Ronja Gramlich, Yohan Park, Zsofia Pilz, and Tina Ternes were vital to the research at different stages, for which I am also very thankful. I would also like to express my gratitude to colleagues and friends outside the department for their continued encouragement and support. Svenja Guhr, Julia Kölling, Olga Litvyak, Alessandro Rossi, Lisa Wille, and Andrei Zavadski have,

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in this way, certainly contributed greatly to the success of this work. Also, I would like to thank James Powell for his wise comments and corrections. I would especially like to thank my mother Maria Voeikova, my sister Daria Troitskaia, my niece Alexandra, and the rest of the family. I am beyond grateful for their thoughtfulness and unwavering support in all respects. Without Lilia Filippova’s sympathetic ear, the dissertation would not even be started and I am thankful for her having my back at all times. Finally, Claire, Anna-Katrin, and Christian Schülein’s support, Clélia, Anne-Clemence and Tim Glawion’s reassurance during the final stages were all incredibly helpful for the completion of this work. Finally, I am immensely thankful to my husband Alexander Glawion for his patient listening, his help in word and deed, his love and unstinting encouragement during both this period and beyond.

Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

2 Transnational Memory in the Digital Age: Literature Review . . . . . 2.1 Memory Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Internet Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 A Mixed-methods Approach to Large-Scale Networks in Collective Memory Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5 5 22

3 The Axis History Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Online Resources Dedicated to World War II: An Overview . . . . 3.2 The Axis History Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37 37 42 108

4 The Axis History Forum as a Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 The Network Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Metadata Aggregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

109 110 118 139

5 Topic Modeling of the Axis History Forum Corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 What is Topic Modeling? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Corpus Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Examining a Topic Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Term-overlap Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

141 142 145 147 177 187

6 Practices of Memory on the Axis History Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Methodology of Practice Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Practices of Memory on AHF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

189 189 193

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6.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

249

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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List of Figures

Figure 3.1 Figure 3.2 Figure 3.3 Figure 3.4 Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11

Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

3.12 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11

The header of AHF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Negative review of Miller’s Leaders of the SS and German Police, Vol. 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Basic guidelines in January 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thematic subcategories and most popular subforums of AHF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The distribution of locations among users (min = 100) . . . The distribution of age entries among AHF users . . . . . . . . Top 20 occupations of AHF users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A user addresses his gender assumptions in passing . . . . . . Monte is remembered on the forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Obituary for Ken Jasper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Expression of condolences for a forum user (no prior interaction) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Demonstration of the rank placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Network model of AHF user relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of nodes per cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of posts on AHF per year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of posts per year (cluster 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of posts per year (cluster 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of posts per year (cluster 0) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of posts per year (cluster 4) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of posts per year (cluster 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of posts per year (cluster 6) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of posts per year (cluster 5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of posts per year (cluster 9) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

47 56 61 73 85 86 88 89 93 94 95 95 116 118 119 120 121 122 122 123 124 124 125

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Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

List of Figures

4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 4.20 4.21 4.22 4.23 4.24 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8

Figure 5.9 Figure 5.10

Figure 5.11 Figure 5.12

Figure 5.13

Figure 6.1 Figure 6.2 Figure 6.3 Figure 6.4

Number of posts per year (cluster 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of posts per year (cluster 8) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Locations on AHF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Locations of cluster 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Locations of cluster 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Locations of cluster 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Locations of cluster 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Locations of cluster 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Locations of cluster 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Locations of cluster 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Locations of cluster 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Locations of cluster 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Locations of cluster 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Corpus distribution in the topic model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Demonstration of a citation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tokens per topic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Topic 31 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Topic 61 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christianity-related topic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of topics by category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Term overlap between topic 3 and topic 15 (A-main model) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Term-overlap network of A-main model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Modified version of network in Figure 5.9.: term-overlap network of A-main model with node color representing thematic categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Topic-cluster corpus probability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Modified version of network in Figure 5.9.: term-overlap network of A-main model, where node color denotes the cluster corpus that the topic most likely appears in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Term-overlap network based on a replicated corpus that makes up for the size difference between smaller and larger clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Results of contrastive stylometric analysis of cluster 6 . . . . Bimodal network of cluster 5. Threads with the top degree centrality are marked red . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Superimposed modern and historical images . . . . . . . . . . . . Contrastive stylometric analysis of cluster corpus 3 . . . . . .

126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 149 151 153 154 155 159 176 177 179

180 182

183

186 202 209 211 217

List of Figures

Figure 6.5 Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 7.1

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Bimodal network model of cluster 9. Node size corresponds to degree centrality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Discussion categories of cluster 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Discussion categories of cluster 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Discussion categories of cluster 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary of practices of memory present on AHF . . . . . . . Practices of memory on AHF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

219 223 235 240 244 252

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Table Table Table Table Table Table

3.2 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3

Table Table Table Table

5.4 5.5 5.6 6.1

Overview of subforums and corresponding descriptive statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance markers on average per thematic group . . . . . . . First step in relational data extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adjacency matrix example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parameters of corpus constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Quantitative characteristics of cluster corpora . . . . . . . . . . . . . Topics with the lowest corpus distribution: 65, 56 and 54 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Topic 42 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Topic 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Topic 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of threads per cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

75 82 115 116 145 147 150 152 158 165 190

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Foreword

The change of memory practices in the digital age is a multifaceted phenomenon, and a proper analysis thereof requires the incorporation of findings from a mixture of fields. An interdisciplinary, mixed-methods approach is hence best-suited to address a research question connected to it. The most significant disciplines involved in this work are Memory Studies, Internet Studies, and Network Science, engaged along with the research design and methodological apparatus of Digital Literary Studies too. The study focuses on one particular practice of the digital age: coming together in online forum communities to discuss the history of World War II. This platform- and theme-oriented focus enables a detailed study of this phenomenon typical of the early years of the new millennium. At the same time, it gives rise to broader questions too: What does this interest in World War II mean? Why is this event still of crucial relevance for the members of a variety of online communities, even though they did not directly participate in combat themselves? What does a transnational perspective on World War II bring to the table and how can it be achieved? Furthermore, on another level, how can the growing amounts of data produced by digital traces best be approached methodologically? The latter question has become increasingly important in the Humanities over the past few years, even though many earlier debates would already address it in fact. In 1967, Jürgen Habermas announced that the “once lively discussion […] concerning the methodological distinctions between natural-scientific and social-scientific inquiry has been forgotten” (Habermas 1988, 1). In his opinion, the scientistic way of understanding data has proven to be appropriate for both nomologic and historically hermeneutical studies. Habermas criticized the fact that Sociology has followed the approach to data inherent to the Natural Sciences, and thus overlooked the relationship between data and method.

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Today, with the digital turn, such discussions have sparked anew in traditionally hermeneutic fields of research: On the one hand, digital methods and approaches have become well-established in Literary Studies, History, and Medieval Studies (Lordick et al. 2016; Weitin 2017; Adler et al. 2020). On the other, ethnographers and anthropologists find themselves analyzing quantitative data vis-à-vis practices of online behavior (boyd 2008; P. D. Miller, Costa, and Haynes 2016). In Memory Studies, the practices of Internet users have become the central topic of diverse research projects: different platforms are analyzed, such as Facebook (Lyons et al. 2016; Migowski and Fernandes Araújo 2019), Flickr (van Dijck 2011), YouTube (Drinot 2011; Knudsen and Stage 2013; Papailias 2016; Makhortykh 2020; de Smale 2020), and Wikipedia (Pentzold 2009; Garde-Hansen 2011; Ferron and Massa 2014), as are a variety of online practices such as searching on Google (Zavadski and Toepfl 2018) or leaving a testimony on an online platform (Young 2017). With the introduction of quantitative empirical data, debates emerged within the Humanities too on whether scholars are now obliged to change their approach to the research process—and, specifically, to the research results. One option is to follow the path laid out by the Natural Sciences and submit to the claim that those principles of data curation are a premise of the results’ scientific nature. Another is to find a separate way to analyze empirical information that is not dictated by the approach to knowledge inherent to the Natural Sciences (Groeben 2013, 48). As the epitome of hermeneutical disciplines, Literary Studies has long borne witness to these debates. Habermas’ claims mirror discussions at the root of Russian Formalism, which date back to Oskar Walzel’s interest in studies of single works of literature in the context of larger text masses (Weitin 2016, 394). These reflections would have a strong influence on the Digital Humanities tradition emerging at the beginning of the 2010s (Ustinov 2016; Matthew L. Jockers and Thalken 2020). Habermas situated philological and historically hermeneutical studies in one category of scholarship. At first glance, studies of collective memory should be included in the same category as those of history. However, it is crucial to examine the distinction between collective memory and history in this categorization context. Collective memory as a challenging aspect of nation- and group-building is a phenomenon of modernity. As Jeffrey K. Olick, Vered Vinitsky-Serrousi, and Daniel Levy point out, the link between collective memory and identity emerged long ago, but became problematic only with the shifts occurring at the end of the nineteenth century:

Foreword

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Before the age of the individual, then, the bonds of civility and foundations of solidarity were less problematic in the authentic sense of that term: how we belong together, and are constituted as groups, seemed more obvious and less in need of contemplation and special measures. The problem of collective memory thus arises in a particular time and a particular place (which is not to say there are not other versions of the problem elsewhere), namely where collective identity is no longer as obvious as it once was. (2011, 8)

The tendency toward self-reflexiveness inherent to nineteenth-century prose and the emergence of the Social Sciences (Osterhammel 2009), combined with growing urbanization and the change in social structures, led to the need to redefine group belonging. Out of the impossibility of defining what belonging to a nation means, the notion of collective memory sprung up. Ernest Renan’s famous essay “What is a Nation?” written in 1884 illustrates this dynamic well. This text, initially a lecture at the Sorbonne, contains a deconstruction of the nation’s standard definitions as a community of language, geography, religion, history, and/or race. Renan emphasizes that most unities have their roots in “violent acts,” and thus historical precision is problematic for establishing national belonging: Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation, which is why progress in historical studies often constitutes a danger for [the principle of] nationality. Indeed, historical enquiry brings to light deeds of violence which took place at the origin of all political formations, even of those whose consequences have been altogether beneficial. Unity is always effected by means of brutality […]. (2011, 80)

After demonstrating that typical criteria such as dynasty, race, language, or territory are not reliable conditions for defining the nation, Renan concludes that the latter is constituted by a common identity and shared past: A heroic past, great men, glory (by which I understand genuine glory), this is the social capital upon which one bases a national idea. To have common glories in the past and to have a common will in the present […] these are the essential conditions for being a people. One loves in proportion to the sacrifices to which one has consented, and in proportion to the ills that one has suffered. (2011, 82)

At this stage, memory is introduced as an unquantifiable yet essential and somehow still measurable (“proportion”) part of national identity. According to the historian Dieter Langewiesche (2009, 29), Renan ends up constructing a mythical interpretation of the nation—the irony being that with his text he was trying to dismantle that very position in the first place. Nevertheless, the nation and its

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shared past remain problematic vis-à-vis actual operationalization. While it draws its content from the past just as history does, it is acutely different: collective memory’s core feature is imprecision. Perhaps this is the reason why studies of memory often remain in the qualitative realm. The argument is not that qualitative studies of memory are imprecise, but they are challenging for formal operationalizations. In Wilhelm Dilthey’s terms, collective memory is a domain to be understood, not necessarily explained. In the digital age, the conditions of the access to collective memory are changing, and disputes are being conducted in a semi-public manner, leaving digital traces; and researchers can access large amounts of data connected to disputes and discussions. Thus, in the context of growing online data-generation, the operationalization of memory is central for analyzing the latter’s production in the age of the Internet. This research aims to uncover the variety of online communication practices that have emerged in the context of World War II history. In this context, I lean on a tradition of sociological approaches to memory (Olick and Robbins 1998; Keightley and Pickering 2014; Hilmar 2016; Zavadski and Toepfl 2018). The thesis targets the realm of transnational, bottom-up, collective memory production, with it being off-limits to researchers before digital data collection methods became accessible to scholars of memory. However, the work’s main innovation is not in digital methods—as had been observed over the years, novel methodological combinations become either mainstream or outdated very quickly. This study’s main advantage, rather, is the new perspective that emerges after precise analytical operations are applied vis-à-vis engaging with such data. It focuses explicitly on online-platform users, aiming to convey a naturally emergent user perspective—thereby helping bear witness to the potential directions that discussions can take. On a methodological level, this research aims to implement a mixed-methods approach in the field of Cultural Memory Studies. The growing amount of data and the rising importance of the online sphere in our everyday lives demonstrate that Memory Studies could immensely profit from the changed perspective and analyses of this kind.

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Introduction

When eyewitnesses to a formative event are no longer active members of society, it marks a crucial shift in the memorial landscape of the collective. During the past few decades, this truism has gradually come to apply to eyewitnesses to World War II—developments occurring in combination with a change in media usage and the ever-growing influence of the Internet on our everyday lives. Even the very youngest World War II eyewitnesses are now entering their twilight years. Most of the war’s participants are dead today—having been either killed in action during or passing away after the war. The end of a saeculum—the complete renewal of the population that has experienced a crucial given event— has ever since the days of the Roman Empire been regarded as a critical threshold for a society’s way of remembering events. World War II and the Holocaust have been central to collective memory research. Therefore, memory scholars pay special attention to the time of transition. Throughout this period, World War II’s importance in memory politics has been re-emphasized many times, with the new communication channels emerging over the years playing a key role in that process. Especially participatory digital media represent a significant challenge in that context (Kansteiner 2017). These dynamics are best illustrated by way of a few examples.1 In November 2017 a speech given by the 16-year-old Russian student Nikolai Desyatnichenko,

1

The examples chosen in this book to illustrate the change of collective memory regarding World War II were selected in 2018-2019. During that time, I did not see the connection between the insistence on a specific interpretation of World War II as in Desyatnichenko’s case, the growing militarization of Russian Federation’s collective memory of World War II and the different memory narratives of Eastern and Central Ukraine and the Donbass region. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the connection between these dynamics became painfully obvious. The framing of the Russian invasion as an alleged © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Glawion, Remembering World War II, Digitale Literaturwissenschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66708-8_1

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Introduction

who took part in a Russian-German school project dedicated to the oral history of World War II, would trigger significant international turmoil.2 The young pupil was invited to Berlin to present his research on the life of a German Wehrmacht soldier in front of German government officials at the Bundestag, including President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Minister of Defence Ursula von der Leyen. Desyatnichenko proclaimed that the school project had inspired him to visit German mass graves. During the visit, he realized that the people buried there probably did not even want to go to war. He concluded the speech with a quote by Otto von Bismarck and a pacifist plea to end all wars. A video of the speech quickly went viral under the keywords “Peq malqika v byndectage” [“The speech of the boy in Bundestag”], sparking heated debate. From the numerous emotional reactions on Russian social media, it became clear that he had broken a taboo in talking about World War II. Desyatnichenko did not emphasize the aggressor role of the German soldiers, and neither did he present the war’s ending as the achievement of the Red Army. The war’s outcome seemed secondary in comparison to the suffering of individual soldiers. Moreover, Desyatnichenko described the actions of the German soldiers by using the word “cpaatc,” which has positive connotations (fighting for a rightful cause) and is one traditionally used to describe Soviet military forces. An additional reason for the rumpus accompanying Desyatnichenko’s words is that rhetorical norms used to describe World War II have become very strict. According to the linguist Svetlana Drugoveyko-Dolzhanskaya (2017), violation of these leads to strife based, in part, on aesthetic differences. These norms are not limited to verbal expressions alone; they are found in images and, among other things, a recent wave of blockbuster movies dedicated to World War II that reiterate the heroic narratives of military operations: Brestskaya Krepost (2010), Stalingrad (2013), Bitva za Sevastopol (2015), 28 panfilovcev (2016), and Tanki (2018) to name just a few. The uncommon portrayal of deeds typically framed in a heroic way led to several complaints being filed against Desyatnichenko, who was accused of rehabilitating National-Socialism. There was no official statement ever made by any Russian veteran organization, even though individual war participants did not respond in a manner as critical as the incident’s online reception was (Martynova 2017). The official Kremlin position on the Bundestag speech was to “stop the exalted harassment “liberation” of Ukraine from Nazis is particularly notable in this regard as an attempt to legitimize the actions of the Russian Army by appealing to a sacralised narrative of World War II in collective memory. 2 See “Russian Boy’s WW2 Speech to German MPs Stirs Web Anger,” (BBC Monitoring 2017, last accessed February 24, 2021).

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Introduction

3

of the boy,” and to further examine the teachers and schools for apparently not providing children with the necessary education on the history of the war (TASS 2017). This position did not question the statement’s content but instead depicted the young man as incapable of independent thought, and framed the story as a precedent for further potential law-making initiatives that would enhance patriotic education. It is unclear why exactly the incident ultimately provoked nation-building discussions of such scope and intensity. Nevertheless the story demonstrates that the interpretation of World War II holds massive conflict potential, and is furthermore not in the hands of its eyewitnesses anymore. This case is exemplary of many others too: In 2018 the International Human Rights Group Agora stated that the number of cases filed against perceived incorrect interpretations of historical events in Russia was nine times higher in that year than it had been in 2007 (Agora 2018). The topic mentioned most frequently in these cases was the role of the Soviet Union in World War II. These events also lay bare the role that Internet platforms play in influencing the public and dominant meaning-making discourses. The following example does not explicitly focus on online media but refers rather to the significant role that World War II narratives across nations, specifically in the Ukrainian conflict. Jochen Hellbeck, Tetiana Pastushenko and Dmytro Tytarenko (2017) argue that the memory of that war is what marks the border between European and Russian influence on Ukrainian soil: In Western Ukraine, people choose to remember World War II and the period following it as a double occupation (first by Nazi Germany and then by the Soviet Union). In Eastern Ukraine, meanwhile, people choose the glorious victory over the Third Reich as their leading narrative. In both parts of Ukraine, members of veteran organizations participate in celebrations on both sides of these divides but do not influence the respective overarching themes. The process of transnational memory synchronization (Uhl 2009, 169) has become a potent political instrument, and World War II remains one of the most frequently used narrative bases herein. These examples show that meaning-making and opinion-building today are no longer influenced by the war’s participants per se. Desyatnichenko’s case demonstrates that the online dimension plays a vital role in these debates instead. The example of Ukraine shows that the nation is not necessarily the main actor either, because transnational narratives influence the discussion to a large degree. On these premises, this research project’s focus is not on top-down but bottom-up digital memory production: the prevailing interest is to see how World War II is debated, analyzed, and discussed in online forums. The research object chosen

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Introduction

here is the Axis History Forum (AHF), an online platform representative of people’s steady, long-term interest in World War II: since 2002, the 70,000 users of AHF have written more than two million posts on what seems to be one of the largest user-generated content collections on World War II available online. The book does not set out to analyse the forum discussions based on historical accuracy. The work’s goal, rather, is to provide insight into an understudied phenomenon of online practices of collective memory in combining computational and hermeneutic methods of research. The focus on naturally emergent user interaction is key in the data-driven online practice detection. Chapter 2 presents an overview of literature from two different academic fields, Memory Studies and Internet Studies, that establish the work’s interdisciplinary foundations. The theoretical overview provided is followed by the outlining of an appropriate research design. Chapter 3 presents insight into the object of study, the Axis History Forum. Chapter 4 elaborates the process of data collection and of creating a network model of user relations. An essential part of Chapter 4 is the separation of forum users into clusters based on dense subgroups within that network model. Chapter 5 describes the process of corpus extraction and presents the results of a topic modeling study of forum content. Chapter 6 focuses on the analysis of forum discussions and the classification of the mnemonic practices discovered on the forum into three levels: empirical, conversational and conservational practices. Chapter 7 contains the conclusions, which summarize the research findings.

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Transnational Memory in the Digital Age: Literature Review

2.1

Memory Studies

a. The end of a saeculum in theories of memory The period of transition mentioned above has been most famously termed as such by Jan Assmann (2005) in his work on communicative and cultural memory, as then further developed by him and Aleida Assmann in their subsequent joint scholarship (A. Assmann and J. Assmann 2001, 2006, 2010, 2013). The concept draws heavily on the “floating gap,” a term coined by ethnographer Jan Vansina (1997, 23) to indicate an experience threshold within oral cultures. Vansina suggested that personal stories about events within the threshold operate in a different register of memory than historical representations of events long passed do. He thus identified a gap in oral cultures between these events and the origin myths, one that reaches approximately 80–100 back from the present moment. With this mechanism in mind, Jan Assmann proposes the distinction of two registers of collective memory: communicative and cultural memory. The first deals with memories of the recent past that “an individual shares with contemporaries” (Assmann 2005, 50). There are no experts; everyone’s account is valuable, no matter how much or little they remember. Thus, communicative memory is closely connected to its primary carriers, the eyewitnesses, while cultural memory is mediated and institutionalized. The latter is bound to certain fixed points in the past, specific “figures of memory,” making the distinction between myth and history obsolete. Usually, eyewitnesses initiate institutionalization halfway through the time period allotted to communicative memory—somewhere around 40 years after the event’s occurrence. Like communicative memory, cultural memory has agents. The latter include such figures as the shaman, the griot, or the scholar, persons who have been through specific institutionalization rituals. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Glawion, Remembering World War II, Digitale Literaturwissenschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66708-8_2

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In the case of the current research object, the Axis History Forum (AHF), the attribution to either of these domains remains challenging. As demonstrated above, communicative memory is initially limited to what individuals share with their contemporaries, defying hierarchies because everyone’s account is essential. These statements do not apply to AHF: most users did not participate in World War II; very few can remember it. This impossibility of remembering or the lack of information transmitted from older generations is sometimes the reason users sign up. Upon thorough investigation, I found three users who were World War II veterans having served with the United States Army. When they participated in a debate, their opinion was deemed more important than that of other forum members—indicating an existing hierarchy wherein the eyewitness is more revered. Even if the idea mentioned in passing to implement a scale between communicative and cultural memory is seriously considered, the attribution of AHF to communicative memory remains problematic. Jan Assmann (2005) briefly addresses the ambiguity between the two registers: they are intertwined; they can and will coexist. However, for many researchers this is not enough: one of the main critiques of the dichotomy of communicative and cultural memory is the seemingly effortless distinction between the two on a theoretical level and its inapplicability to analyses of real-world data (Welzer 2008; Berek 2009). In her work on the post-memory generation, Marianne Hirsch questions, further, whether the concept considers the “ruptures introduced by collective historical trauma, by war, Holocaust, refugeehood” (2012, 33); if it does not, its applicability is indeed quite limited. As Astrid Erll summarizes, the terms “communicative memory” and “cultural memory” have been both “curse and blessing” (2017, 108) to the Memory Studies community. In her take on the proposed dichotomy she refers to the developments brought forward by Stephanie Wodianka (2005, 244–46), who introduced the dimension of distance to communicative memory—thereby reducing the importance of simultaneity in the latter. As such, [the] central difference criterion of the memory modes “cultural” and “communicative” memory is not the measurable time, […] but the way of remembering, the collective impression of the meaning of the remembered and its embedding into temporal processes. Therefore, the distinction between the two modes is not the time structure (a universal, measurable observer category), but the time conscience (a culturally and historically variable phenomenon of the mental dimension of culture). (Erll 2017, 113; author’s own translation)

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Erll concludes that communicative and cultural memory differ in their perceptions as well. If events are seen as influential in the current context, produce social meaning, they are situated in the domain of communicative memory. Thus, events do not have to be temporally close to be part of this memory mode; even those from the distant past can become part of communicative memory if they fulfil this criterion. On the other hand, if certain past events are considered to be founding myths of a social formation they should be interpreted as cultural memory. While introducing a new and valuable aspect to the discussion, this distinction does not provide enough clarity then. With these theoretical additions in mind, it might be possible to locate historical forums within the realm of communicative memory. However, this attribution would disregard the fact that they provide room for cultural memory practices as well: specific subforums and topics exist for the sole purpose of sharing, archiving, and interpreting digital copies of artifacts (such as photographs, letters, and documents). Besides, some forum discussions are focused on the interpretation and analysis of archival documents and their meaning in the context of war history. Furthermore, communication within the forum (as well as on other online platforms) is archived and curated by administrators, which contradicts the core premises of communicative memory. If locating AHF in the realm of communicative memory is problematic, will we perhaps be luckier with cultural memory? Since the forum consists mostly of informal discussions carried out by history enthusiasts and nonprofessionals, it is hard to define it as an institution of cultural memory. A platform where everyone is free to register cannot be classified as a gathering of actors specifically trained to pass on information. Additionally, AHF is cited in various publications whose focus ranges from military history to revisionist prose, highlighting the forum’s ambiguous status within the hobby history community. Nevertheless, most of the time, forum members discuss common misconceptions or critically assess rumors about World War II. The difference between history and myth, a criterion of cultural memory, is reflected upon, very prominent, and of great significance to AHF users. To sum up, while the theoretical construct of communicative and cultural memory has certainly proven fruitful for various purposes, such as describing the emergence of various institutions dedicated to World War II, it remains of little use in the case of online memory projects. As was demonstrated above, it is problematic to locate historical online forums in the register of either communicative or cultural memory. In a different context, Sara Jones (2013) problematizes the applicability of this theoretical dichotomy in her article on forums (and interactions therein) for victims of persecution in the former German Democratic

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Republic. She is rightfully skeptical of online resources’ archiving capacities, arguing that it is impossible to know how long the information will be there. However, she nonetheless acknowledges the practice of archiving on the Internet. I argue that memory situated in networked digital communication per se cannot be rightfully attributed to either communicative or cultural memory. Yet single actions performed on these platforms can be subsumed to mnemonic practices—which, in turn, can be attributed to varying modi memorandi. b. Vernacular memory, democratization, and the internet Communicative and cultural memory often go hand in hand with the differentiation between official, public, and vernacular memory. This theoretical framework thematizes the discrepancy between top-down and bottom-up memory production. As the American historian John Bodnar stated, “public memory emerges from the intersection of official and vernacular cultural expressions” (1994, 75). Bodnar further argued that official culture conveys a narrative that aims at continuity and the legitimation of power, presenting the past “on an abstract basis of timelessness and sacredness” (Ibid., 75). On the other hand, vernacular culture expressed what said “reality feels like” (Ibid., 75), encompassing a multitude of actors and possible vectors of development. These distinctions ultimately aim to point out the difference between collective memory inflicted upon people by authorities and those types of memory that instead emerge in a bottom-up fashion without governmental institutions’ involvement. That aside, recent theoretical conceptualizations of vernacular memory embrace the digital nature of modern expressions thereof. Aaron Hess (2007), for example, examines online memorials dedicated to the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, in the context of vernacular memory, using Bodnar’s proposed framework. In the selection process vis-à-vis research objects, Hess focuses on individually created web memorials—targeting “an individual response to a national event in a public forum” (2007, 817). Joyce van der Bildt (2017), meanwhile, makes use of naturally emergent online platforms and discussions: she analyzes nostalgic notions on Facebook memorials to Egyptian president Gamal Abd al-Nasser in the context of vernacular memory. Here, the theoretical framework’s choice is again necessitated by the inability to attribute Facebook pages to either communicative or cultural memory. However, the juxtaposition of official and vernacular memory is not without its problems: as Jeffrey K. Olick (2001, 264) points out, vernacular memory is often romanticized as “authentic” memory as opposed to how the official one is seen. More importantly, Benjamin Forest, Juliet Johnson, and Karen Till (2004, 358) claim that the proposed division into official and vernacular memory is

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overly simplistic. In their opinion, it is essential to acknowledge that vernacular and official memory do not exist separately from one another: official memory influences vernacular memory, and vice versa. Making this distinction is to erroneously suggest that static elites and populaces exist in societies. I argue that the theoretical framing of vernacular memory provides a crucial perspective for the researching of digital memory, namely by addressing the hierarchy of memory production. User-generated content is typically not managed by governmental institutions. Nevertheless, the influence of the latter is definitely still present—especially in the case of war memory. For example, research has demonstrated that narrative forms provided by these institutions shape both individual and group memory (Knudsen and Stage 2013; Welzer, Moller, and Tschuggnall 2014; Islam et al. 2019). Further, reconstruction of a person’s war story is often closely tied to their institutional affiliations. Finally, the theoretical juxtaposition of official and vernacular memory is not viable in researching a digital platform situated at the intersection of history and memory. Specifically, within the framework of military history related discussions are indeed influenced and framed by governmental institutions (for example in assessing source material or discussing archival access); one cannot interpret the findings in opposition to institutional memory. Vernacular memory is often closely connected to oral and subaltern history, and to the democratization of historical disciplines (Niethammer 1985; Hagemann 1990; Bauman 2008). However, as Herwart Vorländer (1990) points out, the causal connection that is often made between oral history and democratization should be viewed critically: first of all, subjects of oral-history interviews are not always groups possessing little power. Second, the main topic of interest is not necessarily everyday life but memories of important political events that later manifest themselves as so-called flashbulb memories. In many projects, oral history presents a new perspective on the event while maintaining its alleged importance. The bottom-up nature of these memories keeps the hierarchy of events in place, adding a perspective “from below.” On the other hand, Barry Lanman and Donald Ritchie (1990) argue that perspectives would change during oral history’s development as an academic field. While in the 1940s researchers were interested in interviewing famous figures of history, more projects directed at common people emerged in the 1960s. Hence different hierarchy dynamics should be understood within the different stages of the development of oral history as a research practice. Roland Leikauf (2015) even states that overcoming said subject hierarchies should be oral history’s top priority.

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It is necessary here to understand the fundamental differences between vernacular memory and oral history. The term “oral history” stands for a research methodology and the output of that in the form of narrations (Abrams 2010). The central method hereby used is the unstructured interview: the Oral History Association, one of the leading institutions in the field, lists “interviewing” as one of the four “key elements” of this work (the other three being “preparation,” “preservation,” and “access”).1 Thus, most oral historians continue to see the narrated interview as the central medium of the field. There is, however, a contrasting view: Leikauf (2015, 47) suggests that different media should be included in the concept of oral history output. In his own research, he analyzes websites created by Vietnam War veterans and proposes that ones offering personal narratives should be included in this concept. However, according to most definitions of oral history, the impact of digital media on the field is limited to the possibility of “recording interviews on computers” or enabling “virtual interviews with people on the other side of the world” (Perks and Thompson 2009, xiii)—meaning the inclusion of other methods of data collection in oral history is considered unfeasible. Even in works that thematize the impact of digital media on oral history directly, the object of study and the method remain the same: digital media only impacts how initial information is worked with (Frisch 2009, 103) and does not include other media productions. This aspect is rooted in the significant role of the interviewerinterviewee bond, as well as in the techniques of analysis and in the interpretation of testimonies. According to these definitions, websites of veterans (per Leikauf’s studies) cannot be included in oral history research; they should instead be considered expressions of vernacular memory. While vernacular memory scholars can indeed use the interview as a research method—Sabina Mihelj (2013) demonstrates that it is often the one of choice for such studies—their scope of available methods is less limited. The difference between the two research fields is thus clear: oral history considers the interview situation an integral part of its research and can include all subjects of every social status. Vernacular memory, conversely, is a broader term used for any form of bottom-up memory production. Mihelj (2013) stresses that it is problematic that scholars of vernacular memory consider the interview one of the few viable data acquisition methods given the interview situation’s impact on the information obtained is assessed more critically today. As such, it is imperative to introduce other methods into vernacular memory research too. 1

The Oral History Association website is available at: https://www.oralhistory.org/best-pra ctices/ (last accessed February 20, 2021).

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c. Reception in Memory Studies The current work borrows the focus on bottom-up memory production from vernacular memory research, but the simplistic opposition to official memory remains problematic in the context of this study too. Instead, the emphasis of this project lies in the realm of reception. So far, the latter has not been studied extensively in research on collective memory. Some authors have, however, touched upon this issue at least: Alison Landsberg (2004, 26) for example, theorizes her landmark term “prosthetic memory” as collective memory that reaches individuals who are not intended to be members of the group that a particular narrative aims to constitute. This idea is simple, but has far-reaching theoretical implications: after watching a movie and experiencing strong emotions, viewers identify with the events to such an intensity that they have “memories of experiences through which they did not live” (Landsberg 2004, 25). As a film scholar, she focuses on the effects of movies in mass culture. Her work has been widely received and has led to numerous other studies in memory and film, some of which do not agree with Landsberg’s position that “prosthetic memories open up collective horizons of experience and pave the way for unexpected political alliances [instead of] atomizing people” (2004, 143). Postcolonial researcher Nicki Hitchcott (2020) has criticized the supposedly seamless acquisition of prosthetic memories to be Western-centric, specifically in applying the theory to the 2004 movie Hotel Rwanda and its reception. Further, Hitchcott states that Landsberg’s focus is more on the emotional experience that a movie provides than on the latter’s historical accuracy or its perception by genocide survivors themselves. Landsberg’s conceptualization is problematic on at least one other account too: on numerous occasions she brings up the term “‘natural’ memories” (as opposed to prosthetic ones), referring to their “authentic” and “inauthentic” character. In 2010 Hotel Rwanda inspired an earlier reception study already, where viewers were asked what they considered to be the most important takeaway from what they had seen (Gudehus, Anderson, and Keller 2010). The authors found that there were both emotional and factual reactions to the movie. Those viewers who were more emotionally involved also voiced more criticism of the Rwandan genocide depicted in the movie. Elsewhere, Wulf Kansteiner (2017, 306) states that insights into the reception of collective memory of the Holocaust remain limited. He claims that studies of its reception remain fragmentary and qualitative, and draws attention to the paradoxical situation whereby digital data is both abundant and simultaneously inaccessible to the researcher. Data aggregated by large corporations and network

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providers could offer invaluable insight into the realm of such reception, as he suggests. This work builds on this indication of a glaring gap in reception studies of memory. In many non-digital carriers of memory, such as books, movies, or grassroots projects, research on reception requires special instruments for their investigation. Thus, the study of reception initiates situations of data collection (such as in the case of the questionnaire handed out in Gudehus, Anderson, and Keller’s 2010 study on Hotel Rwanda) that ultimately influence the reception of the viewer. Simultaneously, social networking sites provide a hitherto unprecedented amount of data for precisely that question. This information has emerged organically, without the influence of an experimental setting. Research on digital media and memory usually thematizes either the online manifestation of digital memorials (Hess 2007; Katriel 2011; Leikauf 2016; Özhan Koçak 2020) or the personal engagement with social media for the sake of identity performance (e.g., van Dijck 2011; 2017; Migowski and Fernandes Araújo 2019). However data provided on social networking sites is rarely examined within collective memory studies, even despite it providing relational, temporal, and textual components. Against this backdrop, I argue that using this data in the context of reception studies in collective memory of World War II is especially fruitful. d. Mnemonic Practices For that purpose a valuable theoretical addition to the research has been the concept of “mnemonic practices,” as coined by sociologists Jeffrey K. Olick and Joyce Robbins (1998). Olick and Robbins argue that the shift of perspective from collective memory to mnemonic practices helps to “identify ways in which past and present are intertwined without reifying a mystical group mind and without including absolutely everything in the enterprise” (1998, 112). A mnemonic practice, meanwhile, is “not the psychological act of remembering, but the social invocation of past events, persons, places, and symbols in variable social contexts” (Khalili 2007, 732). This definition allows consideration as mnemonic practices all interactions on social-networking sites with a connection to history. It also enables a more differentiated approach to the study of online platforms being taken: the implementation of mnemonic practices might have been fruitful in van de Bildt’s earlier-mentioned study for example. Perhaps the inability to attribute the interactions within Facebook groups to communicative or cultural memory lies in the fact that using a particular social media platform is not a mnemonic practice per se. Instead, a variety of practices can be identified

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on all social-networking sites, with these practices being attributable to different registers of memory. Research from Communication Studies backs this claim, demonstrating that social media platforms embody various dimensions of public and social interaction—among others, the “fluidly social and archival [ones]” (Good 2013, 558). For example, sharing one’s location on a social network is considered to represent both aspects of social media use—in simultaneously serving a communicative and an archiving purpose (Schwartz and Halegoua 2015, 1648). Michela Ferron and Paolo Massa (2014) discovered this duality in their researching of Wikipedia, recognizing that the online encyclopedia represents significant standpoints regarding a phenomenon (with the possibility of adjusting the information) while also archiving the information. In a mixed-methods study, Stephanie de Smale (2020) notes meanwhile the different mnemonic practices that emerge between YouTube video commenters and foster short-lived memory communities. To sum up, in research on digitally mediated memory the attempt to attribute all interactions on an online platform to either communicative or cultural memory appears counterproductive. I argue instead that various practices of memory are represented on any given social networking site. The purposes of these practices are not easily distinguishable, but most often they oscillate between communication and archiving. e. Digital memory and changing participation structures Another characteristic of the online sphere is the unique relationship between the production and consumption of online content, leading to the understanding of the Internet user as a “prosumer” (Esposti 2017) of content and products in ways that are often difficult to tell apart. The easy access to content production without intermediaries is the reason why Internet platforms were initially believed to foster polyphonic discussions and to lead to the emergence of more just communication structures. Central to the research on digital memory are the works by Andrew Hoskins (2009; 2018): he emphasizes the new figure of the “memory prosumer” in online contexts, the person who simultaneously contributes and consumes content. In Hoskins’ opinion, one of the effects that new digital memories have is traceable on the level of the groups that remember: he declares that digital memory leads to an end of collective memory and the emergence of a “memory of the multitude” (Hoskins 2018, 85). A multitude is a clustered social formation that lacks the traits that social communities in the classical sense have, such as personal interaction or shared value systems (Bammé 2018, 44–48). Hoskins echoes

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the culturalist critique of “online communities” that states that “the individualist attributes of the online community […] clearly distinguish it from traditional communities” (Yuan 2013, 667). While Hoskins’ claim lacks historical perspective, it does present an idea that resonates with research on the formation of online communication structures. By introducing the multitude as an opposite to the collective, he describes mechanisms of social homophily within Memory Studies that are facilitated by digital media. In a study of online video memorials to soldiers who died in combat, Britta Timm Knudsen and Carsten Stage illustrate the dynamics of interaction between memory prosumers as follows: The official state legitimization of war is in many ways reproduced by the DIY videos, but by making it possible for the viewers to express and leave traces of disagreement (via the comment function), the media space created around the videos becomes polyphonic and politically fragmented. In this way, the political, contested, and selective character of war commemorations is revealed and inscribed into the commemorative object itself via the ongoing dialectics between the encoding of the video and the decoding of the video in the comments. (2013, 430)

Here the researchers emphasize that it is the comment section of a memorial war video that contextualizes its content and provides a platform for opposing views. While the content might in some ways reflect an interpretation of the war in line with official memory, the various comments represent other positions taken on that subject. Knudsen and Stage further state that “online memorials are democratic monuments as they reveal the lack of communal consensus in relation to the war and create a hypercomplex arrangement of singular voices speaking in their own way” (2013, 431). They consider the “discursive investments” in a “web culture of commemoration characterized by easy access, openness, and interactivity” as constitutive of the “individualization of grief” (Knudsen and Stage 2013, 422). This optimistic interpretation is contested within the literature. For example, in studying online mourning, the anthropologist Penelope Papailias takes an opposing stance: The genuineness and necessity of such [online] mourning have certainly been questioned. The derision directed at grief tourists who visit on-site memorials has been extended to the growing phenomenon of “memorial page tourism,” savagely mocked by trolls. (2016, 447)

Like Knudsen and Stage, she analyzes YouTube comments on a commemoration video about a bus accident in which several Greek schoolchildren died, and points

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out that neither the video author nor the commenters have any connection to the dead children. She underlines how this video (framed as a “viral memorial”) has mostly led to expressions of national identity based on the loss of “our children” by Greeks living both in their native country and abroad. She further compares online memorial tourism to digital fandom (2016, 447), and critically highlights an overlooked aspect of the digital domain—the interchangeability of victims and mourners: The frequent reference in the comments to being “near misses,” rather than a narcissistic indulgence on the part of “frivolous” users, might be seen as an acknowledgement of interchangeability with the victim of the contingent and meaningless catastrophe of the post-historicist era. That memorials are made by anybody—for anybody—does not so much demonstrate their vernacularity (a term commonly used to describe them) as this reversibility of situation. (Papailias 2016, 449)

As this quote demonstrates, in the context of the anonymity of the Internet, memory production is in danger of being stripped of its individual component. This is a sentiment that the philosopher Tzvetan Todorov (2009) had already voiced when he claimed that calls to remember were “sterile.” She concludes that potentially “going viral” leads to a contingent and questionable exchange that destroys memory’s meaning-making component. Within the research of media and memory scholar José van Dijck (2005) a contrasting example presents itself. She describes a friend who stored every aspect of his life in meticulous detail on digital media and now finds it hard to let go of the ever-growing personal archive, despite it having become more and more complicated to manage. Here, the personalization of memory is present to a great extent. However, because of their high level of precision, the collected memories do not foster identification processes for anybody but the friend himself. The aforementioned study by Knudsen and Stage thus represents a sketch of the new possibilities of online exchange, an archived polyphony of interpretations, hinting that online media help to preserve the state of discussion. In a similar take, Ferron and Massa (2014, 27) and Christian Pentzold (2009) describe the archiving of Wikipedia talk pages as valuable for memory research. Meanwhile, the cases of Papailias and van Dijck represent the discussion of a trade-off between the precision of memories and their ability to be transmitted2 ; the study of Papailias shows how being transmittable can be maximized to a grotesque extent. 2

This idea is rooted in discussions on a similar distinction in Digital Literary Studies: the trade-off between precision in the hermeneutical access to text and the comparability of quantitative analyses. For more on this, see Weitin (2018).

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Practices of digital memory are subject to high expectations of social change because they enable groups to perform agency: many scholars suggest that online media has challenged professional mnemonic agents (Haskins 2007; Ashuri 2012; Gustafsson 2017; Khlevnyuk 2019; Liebermann 2020). In Tamar Ashuri’s opinion, this happens due to the interactive medium’s “asynchronous and continuous nature,” and as a result of the fact that it takes the “role of the media as a social reminder of the tasks that the collective (as a society) ought to do” (2012, 454). In reference to the Black Lives Matter movement, Yvonne Lieberman claims meanwhile that social media can even act as alternative archives for marginalized groups (2020, 12). While the referenced publications bring forward various aspects of the current media landscape, there is one claim uniting them: that the online sphere allows a new bottom-up public sphere to emerge in ways that were not possible before. One of the reasons for this emergence could be concealment from the authorities within a national communication sphere (like in Nasser’s case), another the absence of a prior official shared communication sphere—alongside the existing need for it (like in the case of Wikipedia). It is vital to further question the correlation between an emerging communication platform and social change: many studies show that there are occasions when social change does not follow the creation of a platform; often, the online self-expression of a community does not lead to lasting positive change (Cole et al. 2011). f. World War II in collective memory: From a national to a transnational perspective? The importance of World War II in the context of Memory Studies is hard to overstate. Debates about the Holocaust as Europe’s founding myth (Leggewie and Lang 2011), a variety of oral-history projects (Terkel 1984), the impact of film and popular television (Perra 2010; Pearce 2014; Kansteiner 2017) as well as of other art forms (Frahm 2006) on historical public discourses, generational and intragenerational memory transmission (Hirsch 2012)—all these and a plethora of other topics besides have emerged out of studies of World War II in the context of collective memory. Over the past few decades Memory Studies has broadened its scope to other events, but European history between 1939 and 1945 has still continued to dominate discussions in the discipline for years now. The “meaningmaking components of large-scale memory narratives” (van Dijck 2005, 328) have been illustrated numerous times through the example of World War II. Between 1984 and 1992 the historian Pierre Nora (2003, 2004a, 2004b) published a monumental study on French country’s lieux de memoire. This examination aimed to solidify French national memory through particular “memory

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places” unique to the country. The book series was extremely popular, with similar studies following around the globe (e.g. Carcenac-Lecomte 2000; Boer et al. 2012). However it also provoked criticism because of its selections: it only included places of memory considered heroic and that had positive connotations, while those symbolizing traumatic elements of French collective memory, such as the Algerian war or National-Socialist collaboration, were not made part of the volume. The critique of Nora together with ensuing theoretical discussions led to extensive reassessment of “the nation” as a central concept in Memory Studies. It was ultimately rendered outdated by the emergence of globalized societies; transnational collective memory concepts took center stage instead. Daniel Levy and Nathan Sznaider (2006) termed the scope of Holocaust memory “cosmopolitan and global”; Jens Kroh (2008, 38) dates the beginning of a transnational perspective on memory to the 1990s, with the emergence then of a nascent global community. Throughout the 2010s and beyond, meanwhile, several seminal volumes would be published that emphasized the dynamics and malleability of collective memory across borders and cultures (De Cesari and Rigney 2014b; Crownshaw 2014; L. Bond and Rapson 2014; Sindbæk Andersen and TörnquistPlewa 2016; Törnquist-Plewa and Sindbæk Andersen 2017; Dorn, Nekula, and Smyˇcka 2021). In the previous section I argued that collective memory cannot be conceptualized without the recognition of its institutionalized components. Most of the institutions that preserve and shape collective memory are created within a national framework. The acknowledgement of the connection of collective memory to such national frameworks is at the core of transnational memory studies, as is the acceptance of changing communication structures within a globalized society. In the edited volume Transnational Memory (2014a), Chiara De Cesari and Ann Rigney underline that the “methodological nationalism” of memory research is not surprising because of memory’s close connection to national institutions; it is still problematic regardless. In their view, “‘[t]ransnationalism’ recognizes the significance of national frameworks alongside the potential of cultural production both to reinforce and to transcend them” (2014a, 4). If, institutions aside, other agents of collective memory production are considered, transnational memory becomes more graspable. Aleida Assmann and Sebastian Conrad (2010, 2–4) introduce three levels of carriers of such transnationality. First, they consider that of individual action, which includes for example migratory experiences and changes the connection between collective memory and place (Rothberg 2014). Second, they note the institutional level, which grasps the emergence of the supranational organizations instrumentalizing collective

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memory and helping forge new group identities. Heidemarie Uhl’s (2009, 169) observation of transnational synchronization of memory narratives after 1989 is an example of this level, as are the earlier-mentioned studies on Ukraine (Hellbeck 2014; Hellbeck, Pastushenko, and Tytarenko 2017). Third and finally, the level of the media stresses that the public sphere is constantly being transformed, since many people are witnessing decisive events synchronically. Transnational dimensions of memory and communication influence national myth-building: a global arena of spectatorship is created, and as soon as it transcends national borders it has “the power to critique and challenge national myths and authorities” (A. Assmann and Conrad 2010, 4). Consequently I define transnational remembrance of World War II as a shift in perspective that understands the events not only as part of different national histories but sees them also from a point of view that transcends national borders in the very process of remembering. Thus the possibility for members of different national groups to participate in that process presents itself—hopefully leading to reassessment, and a more complete and just historiographical account. As the historian Ville Kivimäki puts it, “hardly any country or people is ‘representative’ of the experience of World War II, but nor is there any country that would have been wholly unique and separate from the wider European context” (2012, 9). At first glance, it seems self-explanatory that as soon as a global communication space is created national narratives will become less influential and a “new memory culture” (Khlevnyuk 2018, 123) might emerge. However, the details of that dynamic remain vague: How exactly can different large-scale memory narratives be bridged, and which carriers of transnationality will be involved? After all, “the different actors merely promote their own [memory] narratives internationally and occasionally resist a narrative that casts their historical selves in a bad light” (Galai 2019, 2). Although many studies demonstrate a tendency toward transnationalization (Troebst 2005; Kroh 2008; Sierp 2014; Galai 2019), these works often address the level of political institutions specifically. For example Yoav Galai (2019) summarizes current research on European memory, and presents three European narratives of World War II that have become transnational. He focuses on the memory of the Holocaust that unites European countries, the memory of subsequent totalitarian regimes specific to Eastern Europe, and the memory of victory in the “Great Patriotic War” that he locates in Russia. To prove his division, Galai identifies the key political events establishing each narrative. A transnational memory narrative does not substitute the national one however. Instead, they continue to coexist: especially in times of crisis, governments tend to turn to narratives surrounding the nation. Lucy Bond (2014) skillfully

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demonstrates how in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, George Bush used World War II-inspired rhetoric to address the nation and to then later legitimize the invasion of Afghanistan, a tactic that had historical precedents in previous administrations (Adams 1994). These interpretations are often constructed simplistically and, as Aline Sierp puts it, “continue to divide more often than unite” (2014, 114). Andy Pearce is even more critical, arguing that the “transnationalisation of Holocaust memory must still be approached first and foremost through the lens of the nation-state” (2014, 120)—even in peaceful times. There is one framework that has been present across a number of different national interpretations of World War II: the “good war” narrative. The latter implies victory in a righteous, often defense-oriented conflict. This interpretation of World War II is characteristic of Great Britain’s view (Haggith 2011, 225; Pearce 2014, 121), and due to the involvement of that country’s former colonies in the war could also be extrapolated to them too (Jackson 2006). A plethora of works explore this narrative and its implications for the US and its subsequent armed conflicts around the globe, with the groundwork having been laid by the compilation of nostalgic oral history interviews by Studs Terkel (1984). Paul Fussel (1989) later deconstructed the narratives of heroism found in American culture and questioned the extent to which genuine war experience featured in their formation. John Bodnar (1994) proved that systemic social problems such as violence, racism, and post-traumatic stress disorder never found a place in the public discourse meanwhile. Popular media would play a role in the shaping of heroic war expectations: Sebastian Haak (2013) showed how the “good war” narrative was perpetuated in US cinema during the Cold War era under direct influence from the Pentagon. Galai’s work presented above demonstrates well that the idea of liberation of Europe from National Socialism is the framework that the Russian Federation uses to construct its interpretations of World War II. Mark Edele (2017, 98) describes the evolution of the World War II narrative over decades, emphasizing that glorification was present in interpretations of all governments since 1945, except under Gorbachev in 1986–1991. He further analyses the complex intricacies of Wladimir Putin’s position on the war and the strong bottom-up support of World War II commemorative events in the Russian population. In line with this, Mark Gallicchio (2013, 983) labels this interpretation as adherence to the “good war” narrative as well. Interestingly, despite not being part of the Allied Forces, Finnish national memory of World War II has embraced a “good war” narrative too (Kinnunen and

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Jokisipilä 2012; Meinander 2019). Finland gained independence from the Russian Empire in 1917; thereafter the struggle against its former oppressor became the most important staple of Finnish collective identity. Between 1939 and 1945 Finland participated in three wars in fact: the Winter War of 1939; the Continuation War of 1940–1944; and, the Lapland Wars against National Socialist Germany of 1944–1945. The sociodemographic data on these three wars’ respective casualties show that losses were nearly equally distributed across regions of Finland, facilitating lodgment into national rather than local memory (Toivonen 1998). Henrik Meinander (2019, 378) considers another factor here: despite the fact that Finland lost the Winter and Continuation Wars, its flexible geopolitical position enabled the country to make use of both the emerging European and the Soviet market—leading to it being in a favorable economic position after World War II. The fact that Finland remained unoccupied allowed it to use the latter as a constitutive event in collective national memory, setting it apart from the countries of Eastern Europe. Memory of the Winter and Continuation Wars would change during the postwar period, at different times emphasizing different levels of agency within World War II. From the 1990s the historians Tiina Kinnunen and Markku Jokisipilä would observe a “neo-patriotic turn” in Finnish national memory, one that “idealizes and romanticizes” (2012, 451) wartime years. The “good war” framework is a convenient and indeed effective way to establish community and foster belonging. However it is problematic too, because it provides grounds for notions of exceptionality and leads to the forgetting of the undesirable parts of the national memory narrative. Furthermore, not every region could adopt this framework: most Eastern European countries have embraced instead the narrative of subsequent invasions by National-Socialist Germany and the Soviet regime. As Katerina Makhotina (2017) describes in her study on memory of World War II in Lithuania, institutions that were dedicated to the commemorations of the victims of the Soviet regime were reworked into the commemoration of those of Stalinist oppression. As a result, the figure of the partisan movement has been reinterpreted by first representing agency and resistance and in subsequent stages acting as a signifier of an undemocratic and unjust past (Pušnik 2017). This is characteristic of Eastern Europe countries, where victims of National Socialism and Stalinism have been equated—usually after those concerned became part of the European Union (Radonic 2011; Kirn 2014). Finally, the German interpretation of World War II does not adhere to this celebratory narrative. There is no shortage of German-language literature about the period of National Socialism grappling with the dynamics of the country’s collective memory of World War II and the Holocaust (Fischer and Lorenz 2015).

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The Institute for Contemporary History (Institut für Zeitgeschichte), for example, has published hundreds of works since its establishment in 1949 about this period of German history. Topics cover the years of denazification between 1945 and 1951 (Falk 2017; A. F. Guhl 2019; Leßau 2020), how the Historikerstreit played out (e.g. Augstein 1987; Sabrow 2003; Port 2017), questions of culpability, the Auschwitz processes in 1963–1965 (Dobrawa 2013; Pendas and Binder 2013; Deutschkron and Kosmala 2018), and the Wehrmacht exhibition that led to the reassessment of its role in war crimes (Hartmann, Hürter, and Jureit 2005; Paver 2009; Nugent 2014). This list of events is obviously not exhaustive, yet its chronology still serves to demonstrate how step-by-step further parts of society came to be declared complicit in the war crimes of the National Socialist regime. Olick (2001, 262–64; see also, 2016) has found that different “legitimation profiles” have been gradually introduced in German society as related coping mechanisms. First, the notion of a “reliable nation”—as fostered by Konrad Adenauer’s Christian Democrat-led government—was established through legal decisions taken such as the limitation of presidential powers and the inviolability of human rights inscribed in the first paragraph of the Constitution, as well as the program of reparation payments to Israel. Through the turbulent protests of the 1960s the notion of a “moral nation” arose according to Olick; by the mid-1970s, the idea of the “normal nation” had emerged meanwhile: “West Germany as a Normal Nation, one with the same problems as other Western states and a history that included ‘highs as well as lows’” (2001, 262). As users meet in online spaces that are consciously perceived as transnational, they are confronted with different interpretations of World War II. The current work thus aims to find out what exactly happens in that coming-together process: Do the various narratives contest each other? Or is there a multidirectional dynamic, whereby the mnemonic practices dedicated to one event lead to the initiation of other commemorations? Social-networking sites provide the possibility to communicate across borders, yet Hoskins (2018) predicts, as noted, the emergence of multitudes adherent to specific memories. There is reason to assume that national memories will only be reiterated, as Paulo Drinot’s (2011) analysis of YouTube comments demonstrates. Regardless, a more extensive study of bottom-up discussions of World War II in a transnational context has not yet been undertaken.

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Internet Studies

The rapidly growing field of Internet Studies encompasses a plethora of different academic approaches and concepts. It is an interdisciplinary realm of study with roots in Sociology, Ethnography, Political Science, and other disciplines besides. This has resulted in it offering up a number of different ways to study computermediated communication, digital rights and labor, online communities, platform architecture, and the influence of all of the above on society. The term “online community” has been debated in many different studies (Lahno 2016). Among the most common definitions hereof is the one offered by Jenny Preece, Diane Maloney-Krichmar, and Chadia Abras: “An online community is a group of people who interact in a virtual environment. They have a purpose, are supported by technology, and are guided by norms and policies” (2003, 1). This definition encompasses the various parts of an online community: its members, the technical component, and a set of rules to guide user interactions. The term can mean both an attribution by platform (“online community of Twitter users”) as well as attribution by content (“online community of reenactors”), making it ambiguous to some extent. Based on the criteria presented above, AHF users are an online community. At the same time, the members thereof are part of a larger online community of military history enthusiasts. Many digital ethnography projects have been conducted to explore the influence of the Internet and social-networking sites (boyd and Ellison 2007) on society in detail (Miller 2016; Miller, Costa, and Haynes 2016). The framework of online culture is furthermore deeply connected with ideas of democratization, not only in the context of Memory Studies (as mentioned above) but also of Literary Studies (Jenkins 1992) and political processes (Wright and Street 2007) too. Online communication’s participatory nature is thematized within Internet Studies by way of the already-familiar term “vernacular,” which has slightly different connotations to it: here, it is connected with concepts of agency, in opposition to the passive notion of “vernacular memory” that requires specific agents to retrieve and conserve it. This trend most likely dates back to Jean Burgess’s (Burgess 2007) dissertation on “Vernacular Creativity and New Media.” Following her lead various researchers have since introduced the term into their own analyses of digital practices, emphasizing the role of most Internet sites in strategies of self-expression. The design of one’s profile page (Köhl and Götzenbrucker 2014) and the creation of Internet memes are framed as vernacular creativity and participatory culture (Wiggins and Bowers 2015; Milner 2016). Online-based fan fiction is labeled “digital folk tales” (Coppa 2017)—a term that also covers digital and vernacular

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aspects. In these studies, the initial dichotomy of vernacular versus official culture is considered and examined critically (Burgess 2007, 30–32); overall, however, the usage of the term brings forward its emancipatory dimensions. I will now outline additional concepts relevant to the current research project. a. Social homophily in online communities One of the most influential concepts in Sociology over the past few decades has been that of “social homophily.” This notion suggests that any given individual is most likely to connect and communicate with similarly minded people (McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook 2001, 416) and “in circumstances where people have increased choice in communication partners, they will tend to select those conversation partners with whom they share a common set of beliefs” (2018, 2). This mechanism has been especially influential in the study of online communities. The individual’s beliefs are often formed by belonging to a specific social formation, such as a social class or a religious community, which is connected to concrete sociodemographic characteristics. Incidentally, social homophily is associated with influence within social groups (Shalizi and Thomas 2011). In their seminal work, Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and James M. Cook (2001) list a variety of origins to homophily: geographical proximity, family ties, organizations that individuals are part of, status groups at work. The tendency has psychological grounds to it—“attraction is affected by perceived similarity” (Ibid., 435)—and sociological ones too, because a shared position leads to shared knowledge and easier interaction. These findings have been systematically replicated in numerous studies since wherein various types of social relations are researched (McCrea 2009; Schaefer, Kornienko, and Fox 2011; Titzmann, Silbereisen, and Mesch 2012; Kenyon and Colebunders 2013; Flashman and Gambetta 2014; McCormick et al. 2015; Lee, Kim, and Piercy 2019 to name a few), and extrapolated to organizations as well (Atouba and Shumate 2015). Even state-level trade networks follow that logic, though political alliances do not (Maoz 2012). As a general rule, studies attribute degrees of similarity to an individual’s sociodemographic characteristics: age, gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and education. Out of those, other similarities such as income, consumer behavior, and taste are derived. Despite being seemingly stable criteria in the development of social networks, this list is subject to change: in a follow-up study, Smith, McPherson and Smith-Lovin (2014) report that gender homophily is on the decline in close friendships, while religious and ethnic homophily did not change significantly in the period from 1985 to 2004. In the case of ethnic homophily,

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this stability may be rooted in a complex interplay between one’s own identification strategies and those of peers (Leszczensky and Pink 2019). There is evidence that, in some cases at least, ethnic segregation continues online—for example if ethnicity is instrumentalized for political reasons. Thus, while seemingly easy to grasp, sociodemographic homophily has in reality a variety of facets to it. Network analysis is often used in studies of homophily. Building a network model requires to assign nodes and define relations represented through the edges that connect them. Herein lies one of the differences between social network analysis of online communities compared to offline groups: in real-life social networks the connection represents a relation defined and operationalized by the researcher, such as being married to or knowing someone. In online media, interaction is usually defined by the functionality of the chosen platform instead: for example the reposting of links (Adamic and Glance 2005), retweeting (Barberá 2015), friending (Barnett and Benefield 2017), and commenting on the same topic (R. M. Bond and Sweitzer 2018) can be used in identifying a link between two nodes. The influence of secondary factors is weighted differently in online communities as well. The decrease of the effect of geography in the context of online media was already mentioned in the aforementioned article by McPherson, SmithLovin, and Cook (2001, 430). Other considerations become more important here, such as the amount of time spent online or since joining an online community, which Brooke Foucault Welles and Noshir Contractor (2015) subsume under the term “digital proximity.” Thus, online homophilic dynamics represent a different type of similarity than offline ones do: for example several studies operationalize similar information consumption patterns as akin ideological preferences or political positions (Barberá 2015; Barberá and Rivero 2015). In contrast to geographical proximity, shared knowledge and beliefs remain stable factors within online groups. As such, political and religious affiliations often become the center of attention in studies of homophily in online communities. Shira Dvir-Gvirsman (2017), for example, discovered that users with a stronger political position on the “left-right continuum” were also part of different respective homogenous audiences. She pairs survey data with logs of online behavior, constructing networks based on people visiting the same websites. As a result she connects high audience homophily with political polarization. This finding corresponds to the research outcomes of an earlier study conducted by Magdalena E. Wojcieszak and Diana C. Mutz (2009). They suggest that platforms dedicated to leisure activities are the spaces wherein users are exposed to more politically diverse views than in professional, religious, and, surprisingly, political or civic networks. The two authors further state that “the

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potential for deliberation occurs primarily in online groups where politics comes up only incidentally, but is not the central purpose of the discussion space” (2009, 40). In turn, this finding was replicated in a later study dedicated to online political forums conducted by Robert M. Bond and Matthew D. Sweitzer (2018) that confirms the lowest level of political homophily to exist on platforms not dedicated to politics. In their research, the two political scientists paint a more nuanced picture: homophily in political “subreddits” (separate subforums of the online network Reddit) was present to varying degrees depending on whether an important political event was then happening or not. They further found that ideological diversity in a discussion increases over time (R. M. Bond and Sweitzer 2018, 17–18). Nationality as a factor of homophily is examined as well: while Facebook friendships defy borders, they usually arise in the case of same-language communities, migration experiences, and of countries with shared borders, as well as the result of educational endeavors such as student exchange (Barnett and Benefield 2017). This supports Peter Kivisto’s claim from a study back at the turn of the millennium that “even in transnational spaces, places continue to count” (2001, 517). This take was, in turn, backed in later works on online media in transnational contexts (Yin 2015). Homophily is linked to ideas of deliberation and power: online communication is assessed according to its deliberative capacities (Janssen and Kies 2005; Wright and Street 2007). Deen Freelon (2015) argues that deliberation is not the only form of political communication however. He thus introduces communitarianism and liberal individualism into the framework of online research, claiming that they too can be expressed within online “discourse architecture.” Furthermore, several studies demonstrate that even if homophily within a social network of politically inclined users is low, it does not mean that the individuals in question are not polarized. In that vein, Karine Nahon and Jeff Hemsley (2014) find that most links to other blogs within the community of political bloggers are to sites with similar political affiliations. If linking to a website with a different political affiliation (“cross-linking”) occurs, it is usually done to support a previously held stance and to negatively reframe the position of the other group—which the authors label “homophily in the guise of cross-linking” (Nahon and Hemsley 2014, 1313). Yonghwan Kim (2015) notes a similar strategy in her study on political polarization and exposure to different sources. The analysis of Korean national panel data demonstrates that the highest exposure to different political opinions (= low homophily) correlated with acute polarization. She explains this as follows: “[t]he motivation for exposing oneself to dissimilar perspectives is to critique or counter rather than understand the opposite side”

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(Kim 2015, 928). Therefore it is essential to keep in mind that strong relations within the network model do not indicate a close-knit community, but can be interpreted as even greater polarization in fact. Hence a mixed-methods approach is essential in implementing a network model: not only does the analysis need to include the identification of groups, but content analysis must follow. Homophily, however, does not need to be attributed to a political position. Itai Himelboim and colleagues (2016) discovered that cohesive subgroups in Twitter networks demonstrate similar emotional valence scores. Similarity in that context means the emotional dedication people are willing to put into a given political debate, not their political position. This dynamic is not Twitterspecific: emotional valence has been considered a base for community-building on YouTube as well (Rosenbusch, Evans, and Zeelenberg 2019). Homophily based on sociodemographic factors can thus be considered “social homophily,” political ideology accounts for “ideological homophily,” while “valence-based homophily” addresses emotional engagement in a particular discussion. The findings presented above raise further questions about online discussions in general: Do they really possess the deliberative power that many researchers assume they do? Does online participation translate into offline action? The project “Internet Use and Internet Users: Cross-Country and Cross-Regional Comparisons”3 conducted at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow provides some insight here: within one of the subprojects, a network study of the (online) community of AIDS denialists was conducted. It was possible to distinguish between core denialists and the “risk group”—whose members were not as active, but did still have significant exposure to the core group’s opinions (Rykov, Meylakhs, and Sinyavskaya 2017). However it was also revealed through in-depth interviews that there was only one reason for the denialist community members to start therapy: the experience of rapid health deterioration (Ershov 2019). Thus, members’ online behavior did not affect offline action. This conclusion could only be arrived at through the addition of in-depth interviews—a strongly context-driven approach. Homophily is an essential mechanism for relation-based research on online communities with diverse userbases and shared interests. It is often implemented in research on both online and offline data, but the scholarship is presently scattered across disciplines and thus lacks systematization to date. In general, individuals tend to come together with similar-minded others—but different characteristics can be relevant for the definition of similarity in diverging contexts. 3 Project website available at: https://www.hse.ru/en/org/projects/179890343 (last accessed February 8, 2021).

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Online and offline similarity-driven group-building differs as well: online belief systems and congruent practices of behavior are expected to be grouping factors, while offline “hard” sociodemographic characteristics are likely to be constitutive for communities. Therefore, it is possible that in historical online forums users will likely unite according to the practices of memory and the collective memory narratives that they share. Apart from this, the aforementioned studies demonstrate the need for both relational- and context-oriented methods for well-rounded conclusions. b. Online forums as data repositories for network analysis I find it vital to examine how online forums as a source of information is typically approached. Of course, the approach and the method are determined in every case by the particular research question, but there seems to be a consensus among researchers about the kinds of ones that an online forum could answer. The application of a particular set of methods suggests an underlying assumption about the forum as a medium: namely that it is a text, and not a relational structure. Research on online forums often follows a specific methodological template: most of the time, a certain number of posts are chosen (randomly or not); in a next step, a close reading of these posts is then performed (Malesky Jr. and Ennis 2004; Rodham, Gavin, and Miles 2007; Hadert and Rodham 2008; Porter and Ispa 2013; Bourgonjon et al. 2016). As a result, researchers perform hermeneutic analysis of only a fraction of the overall text. They can identify topics mentioned on the forum (Porter and Ispa 2013), uncover previously overlooked aspects relevant to the overarching research (Rodham, Gavin, and Miles 2007; Hadert and Rodham 2008; Bourgonjon et al. 2016), as well as determine the self-identification strategies of users (Malesky Jr. and Ennis 2004). In the experiment of Eun-Ok Im and colleagues on African American women’s attitudes to sports, online forums are used as a data collection method. In that case, the forum functions as a questionnaire and can thus not be interpreted as an online community (Im et al. 2012). A large part of such research views the forum content as a textual entity, a representation of discourse. One example of that approach is the mixed-methods study conducted by Anton and Petter Törnberg (2016) containing a topic modeling analysis of a right-wing-leaning forum to establish the connections between Islamophobia and anti-feminism. In a first step the posts were filtered, and only those were considered that included keywords linked to both Islam and antifeminism. The topics and discussions were then read and analyzed, resulting in an overview of positioning techniques on the forum topics that included Islam and

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anti-feminism. In a further step, the authors concentrated on the user level and constructed a network of forum threads connected to Islam and anti-feminism; other related topics were added. Parts of the research design are questionable: if the corpus is filtered to contain two specific terms, the connection between them will inevitably be the result. However the overall study is impressive: the authors were able to determine the contexts in which users were likely to connect Islam and anti-feminism. The research of Törnberg and Törnberg aimed to make connections on the level of discourse visible. The methodological toolkit employed here is entirely appropriate for tackling this research question. Of course, it is not the only possible way to analyze these connections; often, qualitative analyses are used to answer similar questions. In a study on online-forum support for fathers, Martin Salzmann-Erikson (2017) follows similar goals—which he approaches by categorizing discussions from those forums. Unfortunately, it is not clear how exactly discussions are selected. As a result, he constructs a general overview of fathers’ concerns about parental leave. Janet Smithson and colleagues (2011) approached an online forum about selfharm and analyzed that platform’s discussions. They used conversational analysis to highlight the structure of problem presentation and advice-giving within a particular subforum (Crisis/Support). This approach was promising because it provided insight into the types of advice presented within the community. Further, it disproved a common assumption about online communities: that people who self-harm and seek support online will find communities that normalize and encourage this behavior. On the contrary, results clearly showed that the most frequent advice was to visit a doctor. In her work on forums for victims of the Stasi regime meanwhile, Sarah Jones (2013) chose several threads and analyzed the narrative structure via hermeneutical readings. She does not specify how exactly she chose the threads, nor gives a thematic overview of the forum. A common methodological presupposition unites all the studies mentioned above: forums—or online message boards—are essentially but collections of text. Although heavily loaded with digital peritext, their design is usually monotonous and aimed at enabling users to focus on the message’s content. The latter is also the focus of most related studies. The interactional perspective that online forums offer, like other social-networking sites also do, is omitted. In contrast, studies of Twitter and Facebook often introduce network analyses into their research design because the types of interaction on these platforms—retweeting, following, friending, sharing—lend themselves to be transformed into relational data for works incorporating an interactional perspective.

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Those research projects that do consider forums’ relational structures have, on the contrary, not examined the content at all (Faraj and Johnson 2011). A prominent example here is the study of Scott Wright and John Street (2007). These authors claim that online forums’ design encourages users to enter debates to greater extent than a previously popular online communication format did: Usenet newsgroups. Wright and Street use annotation to construct a “debate morphology” of online forums, but do not go further than investigating how many “seed posts” and “reply posts” are available. The approach could be expanded and would benefit immensely from a thematic categorization of debate types. A further remarkable work is one studying online Buddhist forums: Laura Busch (2011) viewed the E-sangha forum as a community of believers, and analyzed the power structures existing between moderators and the users as expressed via the forum rules. In her study, however, the actual content also was not part of the examined dataset. In a study on discursive practices in forum discussions concerning depression, Joyce Lamerichs and Hedwig Molder (2003) hint at the possibility of exploring the combination of relational and content data, yet do not follow through on this in their subsequent work: Rather than viewing talk as a descriptive route to what we “really” think, it must be understood as performing various kinds of discursive actions. Such a discursive social psychological approach would not be based on laboratory experiments, but rather on analyses of naturally occurring online conversations. (2003, 452)

This research project aims to bridge, then, the gap between the interactional approach and the context-oriented reading of forum discussions. The content of a forum is key to the theoretical framework and research questions here. The “Reading at Scale” project conducted in 2017–2021 at the TU Darmstadt combined interactional and context-oriented methods in the analysis of a different research object: a collection of novellas of the nineteenth century, the Deutscher Novellenschatz. In this project, network models of relations between texts were accompanied with hermeneutical, context-oriented close reading of the novellas (Weitin and Herget 2017; Weitin 2017, 2018; Weitin et al., forthcoming). Therefore, the novella collection was examined from a historical perspective, as a network model of text relations, as a corpus, and the novellas were approached hermeneutically as literary texts. The current work employs the “Reading at Scale” approach and examines AHF with a similar methodological repertoire.

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c. Network modeling of digital traces While qualitative forum analysis has tremendous benefits, such as a rich interpretative potential and extensive insight into forum discussions, I found the seemingly random corpus preparation to be a significant weak point within most studies. Therefore I aim at optimizing traditional forum research by combining it with a different methodological branch of Internet Studies: digital trace research (Choi 2020; Menchen-Trevino 2020). This subfield examines the social structure represented in online platforms, based on analysis of a variety of quantifiable interactional units. This type of research usually operates with network analysis. The studies on digital-trace research typically unfold in the following manner: after a research question is posed, it is then operationalized to focus on a specific type of interaction. Subsequently, interactional units are defined. Data is collected and modeled with the help of a network-visualization software. In a last step, network analysis is conducted—wherein the platform users are usually defined as “nodes.” Thus, these types of studies combine network analysis and Internet Studies. This methodological correlation suggests two underlying premises here: a) that it is possible to construct a model based on interactional data and b) the model represents the interactional structure, and examination of it enables a new perspective to be formed on the overall group structure. These studies paradoxically combine both poles of the scale of “formalism and fascination” that the philosopher Alexander Friedrich described as characteristic for implementing the “network” metaphor into studies of culture. He demonstrates this by emphasizing the similarity of highly formalized network applications introduced by network scientists with philosophical concepts such as the “rhizome” by Guattari and Deleuze, the actor-network-theory by Latour and Michel Foucault’s idea of power as a network (réseau) (Friedrich 2012, 121). Christian Stegbauer (2009), for example, posed the question of the motivation of Wikipedia contributors. In this type of analysis the interactional unit was participation in a discussion and contributed corrections, which he visualized as networks regarding 300 articles. Further, he performed a block-modeling analysis, identifying which actors have structurally similar network positions. This study laid the groundwork for many other subsequent projects, with Stegbauer (2010) positing that “network theory” might be a new paradigm in the Social Sciences. This is a questionable claim, especially given the long history of network analyses in the pre-digital age of social research. However it sufficiently emphasizes the possibilities that the accessibility of computers and a multitude of new analytical programs, such as visone (Baur 2008) and Gephi (Bastian, Heymann, Jacomy 2009), brought along. Stegbauer’s approach is by all means successful, and results

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in a thorough analysis of positionality of Wikipedia users—even though the complicated relationship between motivation and network position, in this case, is not wholly uncovered. While in Cultural Studies the question of the Internet’s influence on democratization has been debated there are network analysts who argue for a contrasting position. Albert-László Barabási and Réka Albert (1999) found that while many networks start with randomly distributed power relations, they form power-law distributions over time—meaning that a few actors had greater access and power than a large number of other, less influential ones. This dynamic can be observed on networks of websites, where the latter constitute nodes and links are understood as connections between those nodes: in a situation where new websites frequently emerge, scale-free networks (such as the Internet) tend to concentrate the majority of links on a few significant nodes. Most of the others are connected to the large nodes and not necessarily each other meanwhile. However, while true for networks of websites, it does not necessarily have to be so for user networks. Although statistical similarities across network structures are at the core of social network analysis, there is no guarantee that a website network and a user network will be networks of the same kind. A powerlaw distribution has been on numerous occasions found in the extent to which users participate in discussions online (Mayfield 2006), but this does not diminish the fact that the Internet contributes to supposedly more egalitarian participation structures.

2.3

A Mixed-methods Approach to Large-Scale Networks in Collective Memory Studies

As the literature review demonstrates, digital practices of memory are widespread, accessible, and traceable. After sketching the problematic state of the art regarding modi memorandi and digitally mediated communication in the field of Memory Studies, I argued that networked digital communication cannot be attributed to either communicative or cultural memory. The analytical division into vernacular and official memory was also shown to be unsatisfactory, as it oversimplifies the intertwined relationship between institutionalized and organically emerging memories. The focus of the current theoretical discussion is on the transnational and transcultural dynamics that stand in opposition to national frameworks of collective memory. Simultaneously, studies of digital memory predict the emergence of clustered formations of memory communities in the online sphere, and thereby

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echo research on homophily within networks of online communication. The theoretical review has demonstrated that the characteristics around which groups coalesce in online communities are not predefined. Therefore, it is necessary to divulge how exactly these groups form in the realm of online memory. The high accessibility of online communication opens up new research opportunities to help resolve this problem: long-standing questions about reception in the context of memory can now be addressed by conducting detailed explorations of mnemonic practices on online platforms. These pressing research questions are posed in an emergent transnational public sphere that affects collective memory. World War II continues to play a vital role in collective memories worldwide, even though research on its digital representation is still relatively scarce. In this work I thus examine one particular platform of such digital memory: the earlier-mentioned AHF, an online forum dedicated to the Axis Powers and to World War II history. The practice of coming together in an online forum was more widespread in the late 1990s and early years of the new century, with online forum usage now in decline. Nonetheless, these platforms led to the emergence of online communities with highly involved users who would participate in discussions over long periods of time—hence providing the necessary data on reception. The current research contributes to the study of online communities centered on remembrance of World War II then. There have, as noted, not been many works to date combining network analysis and Memory Studies. One reason for that might be the high time investment that one has to make to learn methods of digital research. After all, this investment does not necessarily provide a guaranteed return either: there are high expectations of computer-based methods of analysis, despite these methods having not—so far at least—revolutionized every branch of the Humanities, as optimistic assumptions would once claim. With this work I argue that digital methods can contribute to a better understanding of transnational practices of memory, and, hopefully, have more in store than just “expert knowledge demonstration” (Kansteiner 2018, 128). The methodological contribution of the project adds to Digital Humanities scholarship. During my research I was confronted with the classical “too big to read” argument from the outset; as such, methods of quantitative analysis were included in the project from the very beginning. The basic assumption of network analysis—that “empirical networks representing diverse relations […] appear to have, maybe surprisingly, some statistical properties in common” (Brandes and Erlebach 2005, 5)—is reflected in the chosen research questions.

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The object of study is AHF, whereby interaction on the forum is interpreted as a practice of transnational memory.4 It is transnational because forum users understand their exchange online as occurring in a transnational communicative space. It is considered a practice of memory, meanwhile, because at the conceptual level a very broad definition of collective memory is employed in this study. Hereby I follow Erll’s (2017, 39) suggestion to conceptualize history as hierarchically subordinate to collective memory. This framing enables us to understand bottom-up military history performed by laypersons as part of collective memory, while not denying its aspirations to objectivity or its critical engagement with sources. The current study’s contribution is twofold: First, the forum—a database-like structure of relations and textual communication—is approached as a research object. Second, the latter is analyzed via a mixed-methods approach. Because the forum is simultaneously an artifact, a system of user relations, and a collection of texts, different research methods have to be employed. Network analysis, topic modeling, content analysis, and other digital research methods are used for the analysis of mnemonic practices. The book answers the following research questions: 1) How does AHF position itself within a multitude of other resources dedicated to the Axis Powers and World War II? 2) What groups do users form through their interactions on the forum, and what overarching themes are represented in the discussions occurring with these groups? 3) Which discussions do users of these groups engage in and what practices of memory can these discussions be translated to?

Operationalization The first and second research questions represent two approaches that memory projects (online and offline) can be feasibly studied with: the project’s intended goals and how the original intentions behind it are transformed by its reception. This study’s premise is that the platform’s purpose would change over the course of its existence according to forum users’ own interests, wishes, and intentions. AHF, formerly known as the Third Reich Forum, addresses a transnational userbase and maintains a position toward National Socialism and World War II 4

The terms “mnemonic practice” and “practice of memory” are used interchangeably throughout this work.

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that attracts a diverse audience. The forum administration is responsible for the positioning strategies that are manifested—among other things, in the design and the symbols used on the website. Further, the administration formulates the forum rules and defines access-restriction mechanisms, as it is responsible for content curation. The administration’s power is performed in the appointment of forum moderators and administrators, as well as in the forum content’s categorization: namely the separation of AHF interactions into subforums and subforum groups. In the next chapter, starting with research question 1, I first describe the landscape of online World War II-related resources in the context of which AHF exists. Further, I consider the forum an artifact—focusing on the circumstances of its creation and the forum administration’s own position regarding World War II research and Holocaust denial. The second part of Chapter 3 then turns to forum users, presenting an aggregated overview of defining characteristics and a glimpse into the forum’s “Introduce Yourself” thread. Forum users possess a high level of agency: they start threads, steer the discussion in directions that are interesting for them, suggest new subforums, and voice discontent whenever there is any. AHF’s online environment can be viewed as a database of organically emerging user interactions. Moving on, and turning to research question 2, I study in Chapter 4 subgroups of users that emerge through repeated commenting on the same threads. To find subgroups of persistent interactions, I construct a network model based on user interaction and perform a cluster analysis. It results in the creation of ten main clusters within the network. These represent the densest accumulations of mnemonic practices. The cluster metadata is subsequently explored according to the posting periods, number of users, and user location. In Chapter 5, I document the creation of corpora out of the comments that the members of each of the ten clusters would write. Further, the topic modeling algorithm implemented in the MALLET application (McCallum 2002) illuminates each cluster’s thematic inclinations in a topic model. A term-overlap network of the topic model is implemented to illustrate these inclinations. Chapter 6 focuses on the content analysis of discussions representative of each of the ten clusters, and aims for a detailed description of the practices of memory that the clusters represent. During the analysis of each cluster, the topic modeling output presented in Chapter 5 is considered along with a contrastive stylometric analysis of the cluster corpora. The results hereof are compared to the examination of 50 representative threads extracted from each cluster that were read, coded, and categorized. Besides aiding the tackling of research question 2, Chapter 6 thus explores also research question 3: while all interactions on the

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forum are interpreted as mnemonic practices, explicit references to commemoration were identified in the comments. The cluster corpora exhibited instances of commemoration to varying degrees. So far there has been little research successfully bridging the gap between Digital Humanities and Collective Memory Studies. The current research project heavily draws on findings from Internet Studies about homophily in social networks, whereby the phenomenon is interpreted from the standpoint of collective memory. This findings can thus be useful for both Memory and Internet Studies.

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The Axis History Forum

3.1

Online Resources Dedicated to World War II: An Overview

Despite a modest academic interest in the online depiction of World War II (Makhortykh 2020), its presence in Internet culture1 and the number of related resources are actually very high. In this section I provide an overview of the search results on Google with several keyword combinations in different languages. As Zavadski and Toepfl have noted, “[search engines] constitute the social framework within which querying the Internet is pursued as a mnemonic practice” (2018, 1). In other words, searching for a specific topic can be interpreted as one of the most basic online practices of memory. An analysis of search results demonstrates what websites are available and how World War II is presented through Google’s lens: it is the very picture anyone gets after looking for information on a particular subject. The following overview is based on resources found within the first 40 entries of a Google search after typing in a selection of English, German, and Russian keywords signifying World War II. These were: in English, “Second World War” 1

For example, the tongue-in-cheek Godwin’s law states that: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” Originally introduced by Mike Godwin, a software engineer, in 1990, it was intended as a reflexive “counter-meme” and in 2012 received an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. The story behind the statement, as summed up by Godwin himself, is available online at: https://www. wired.com/1994/10/godwin-if-2/ (last accessed February 8, 2021).

Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66708-8_3.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Glawion, Remembering World War II, Digitale Literaturwissenschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66708-8_3

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(2,590,000,000 results), “World War II” (885,000,000 results), and “World War 2” (3,380,000,000 results); in German, “Zweiter Weltkrieg” (23,000,000 results); and, in Russian, “Btopa Mipova vona” (“Second World War”; 11,900,000 results) and “Belika Oteqectvenna vona” (“The Great Patriotic War”; 9,610,000 results). The choice of keywords is questionable in many ways: there is only one typical term in German and three in English; the Russian words “Btopa Mipova vona” denote the Second World War in general, while “Belika Oteqectvenna vona” only encompasses the military action on the Eastern Front in 1941–1945 (to name just a few differences). However these keywords were chosen because they represent the most common denominations of World War II in the three languages. The latter were themselves chosen due to accessibility; nevertheless, they represent essential target groups for cultural memory production. The search was performed on a desktop computer using the Apify Google Scraper—a browser-based tool that retrieves Google search results, including ˇ the heading, description, and URL (Kˇrivka and Curn 2020). The search was conducted with various location settings: Germany, Russia, and various Englishspeaking countries (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, India, and New Zealand). The search results were categorized according to the main website URLs and the type of institution behind the resource at hand. a. Representations of institutions Most of the resources within the first 40 search results in all three languages are institutionally supervised web portals provided for informational purposes and set up by major museums,2 universities, news conglomerates,3 or television and radio broadcasters.4 These websites are part of what Andrew Hoskins calls 2

For example, the online Second World War archive created by the German Historical Museum and the Federal Archive: https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/der-zweite-weltkrieg. html, or the United States Holocaust Memorial museum: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/ content/ru/article/world-war-ii-key-dates (last accessed February 8, 2021). 3 For example, articles from the German Tagesspiegel related to World War II: https:// www.tagesspiegel.de/themen/zweiter-weltkrieg/; there are similar ones by Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, Die Welt, and other German newspapers. Russian Agency of Information TASS: https://tass.ru/tag/vtoraya-mirovaya-voyna; RIA Novosti: https://ria.ru/20190901/155807 2732.html; Deutsche Welle: https://www.dw.com/ru/%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D1% 80%D0%B0%D1%8F-%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1% 8F-%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B9%D0%BD%D0%B0/t-17957264; Novaya Gazeta: https:// www.novayagazeta.ru/tags/vtoraya-mirovaya-voyna (last accessed March 3, 2021). 4 See “Der Zweite Weltkrieg,“ https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/Der-Zweite-Weltkrieg,zweite rweltkrieg121.html; “BBC History: World War Two,” http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldw ars/wwtwo/ (last accessed March 3, 2021).

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a “formalized, institutionalized memory culture” (2014, 60). While the website categories were similar across English, German, and Russian search results, only a small number of websites were present in two of the three languages, and only Wikipedia was present in all three. The latter’s page on World War II in English was created in November 2001, ten months after Wikipedia first launched. Its English version has been edited over 25,000 times, with peaks in 2005–2007 (365, 712, and 286 edits per month respectively).5 After these changes, the number of edits would decline and remain steady: from September 2018 to September 2019 there were 38.42 edits per month. Notable are also other related Wikipedia pages, like “WWII casualties” (7,793 edits since May 2003),6 “Adolf Hitler” (26,474 edits since November 2001), and “Joseph Stalin” (18,319 edits since October 2001).7 The total edit numbers on Wikipedia help contextualize these numbers: the site’s team regularly releases a database report on pages with the most revisions.8 Those dedicated to Adolf Hitler and World War II have been on that list at least since 2016 (McAlone 2016)—currently occupying 11th and 14th spot respectively, with two tennisrelated topics in between. Many researchers have attributed the editing activities on Wikipedia to communicative memory processes (Pentzold 2009; Ferron and Massa 2014). Following this logic, World War II is the most heavily debated armed conflict in the online sphere until today. The online game portal Steam was among the top-40 search results of the three English key terms, and also for “Second World War” (“Btopa Mipova vona”) in Russian. This finding supports the claim made by the growing body of cultural memory research dedicated to computer games: that this medium is becoming a more important channel for transmitting cultural memory norms across the globe (Kansteiner 2014; Pfister 2016; Zimmermann et al. 2020). A second overlap between the Russian and the English search results was the domain of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum—an essential website among instances of digital collective memory. However both Steam and the Holocaust Memorial Museum disappeared in the Russian search when the location was set to Russia.

5 See https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/World_War_II (last accessed October 14, 2019). 6 See https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/World_War_II_casualties (last accessed March 3, 2021). 7 See https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Joseph_Stalin (last accessed March 3, 2021). 8 See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:MostRevisions&limit=250&off set=0 (last accessed March 3, 2021).

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Another result that could be understood as an overlap between the three languages—even though the domains were different—was the suggestion to purchase books on World War II on large online retailers’ websites. The ones proposed varied: While the search term “Second World War” suggests Churchill’s seminal volume of the same name, the German key term offers an extensive overview of the topic on Amazon. The Russian search results, meanwhile, recommend a classical World War II dictionary from 1988, as well as a children’s book on the war on the Eastern Front.9 The books offered with “Second World War” in Russian were less sensitive to browser location: Second World War. Hell on Earth by Max Hastings and Second World War by Winston Churchill would be the ones advised. Hastings is suggested to audiences worldwide, but Churchill is only presented to online users when they are located in Russia. Thus, Churchill’s volume is a resource that both the English and the Russian language communities face. A complete overview of the search results can be found in the corresponding repository on GitHub.10 It is striking that in all three languages the most represented agents were news portals11 —within this small-scale overview, their influence dominates the landscape of World War II resources. Within the Russian search results, government-funded news portals outnumbered oppositional ones. This division is unsurprising, as World War II is a topic that has had a vital nation-building component to it in the Russian Federation since the early 2000 s. The number of portals provided by museums was higher in the English-speaking queries than in the German or Russian ones. German-speaking users were more likely to see educational websites directed at school children (six out of 40) than anybody else. Russian search results revealed a larger number of online encyclopedias than either of the other two languages. Slight differences can be traced in the three English key terms: “Second World War” leads to more websites hosted in the UK than in the US, and all the news portals in the search results were British. A curious mnemonic practice was detected while browsing the results 9 Key term: “Belika Oteqectvenna vona”; result occurred with location set to both Germany and to Russia. 10 See “Transnational Memory Practices: A GitHub Repository,” https://github.com/anasta siaglawion/transnational-memory-practices (last accessed March 1, 2021). 11 This category includes both digital-only web portals and online representations of traditional newspapers. The web representations of traditional newspapers and TV channels have become increasingly similar, and thus within the respective categories they are sometimes merged into “news portals.” Those news outlets that started out online fall into the same category. However, a website is marked with “Television” when it is specifically aimed at promoting a certain TV channel.

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for the Russian term “Great Patriotic War”: several local-government institutions ranked among the top-40 results. These websites do not provide any information on World War II, but represent a commemorative practice performed by the institution in question. The overview demonstrates that, except for Wikipedia, there are no common online platforms that would unite members of different language communities. Wikipedia holds a very stable position in generic search queries. However, it does not bridge the language gap because the highest-ranking websites for each key term are articles written in the respective languages. Commercial actors such as Steam, Netflix, and Amazon might become a uniting source for all three languages in the future, yet, as of today, their positions are most robust within the English-language search results. The landscape of resources is institutionalized, strongly mediated, and thoroughly curated. b. Grassroots platforms This work’s interest lies in the realm of bottom-up memory production, which operates by a different set of rules. To target grassroots platforms, I included “forum” in the search query. The results did not yield any URLs present in all categories: like institutionalized platforms, grassroots ones are also divided by language. Except with Russian keywords, the results did not differ as greatly if the search locations were altered. The English-language results demonstrated a large number of military history forums (in each case, at least a half to two-thirds of the results), several references to computer-game forums, a few reenactor or collector communities, and one or two educational websites. Most forums were generic and of varying activity.12 Some were explicitly dedicated to types of equipment13 or a given region.14 The German key term yielded only a few military history forums, while at least half of the results were information sources provided for educational purposes. To a certain degree, the results reflected the language’s ability to cross national boundaries, as several websites with Austrian URLs appeared in the results.15 12

The most common websites were: http://ww2f.com/, https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wforum.php?f=92, and http://ww2talk.com/index.php (last accessed March 3, 2021). 13 See “Aircraft of World War II Forums,” https://ww2aircraft.net/ (last accessed March 3, 2021). 14 See Italy in World War II: https://comandosupremo.com/forums/index.php; Romania in World War II: https://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/ (last accessed March 3, 2021). 15 See “Forum für Geschichte,” http://www.forum-geschichte.at/Forum/archive/index.php? forum-28.html; https://austria-forum.org/af/AEIOU/Weltkrieg%2C_Zweiter (last accessed March 3, 2021).

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Interestingly, two websites for genealogy research came up when the location was set to Germany—which did not occur within the English key terms. Russian queries offered the most varied results if the location was altered: each of them contained a few military-history links, many links to news stories, and some links to picture repositories of World War II photography. The growing usage of the word “forum” in the sense of “assembly” in Russian was notable within the results. Summing up, the landscape of World War II-related online resources contains various website categories. These include liberal and conservative media outlets, commercial actors like Netflix, Amazon, and Steam, and numerous communityspecific institutions connected to collective memory. For example there are many museums and archival institutions in the English-speaking segment, but in the Russian or German resource lists these are found to a much lesser extent. Further, the list of German-speaking resources seems more focused on educational purposes. In Russia, some institutions perform mnemonic practices connected to World War II and thus appear in the search results. If the search query contains the word “forum,” the search results return online forums mostly in response to English-speaking keywords being entered. It can be concluded that the English-speaking-forum sphere is more likely to contain fruitful and well-frequented debates. The Axis History Forum (AHF) was chosen as the one to hone in on due to its higher level of activity and greater size compared to other forums on military history that occurred in the results. None of the queries returned “Wehrmacht Awards,” which was the largest online forum thematically dealing with World War II. Seemingly, collectors’ queries are different, which could be addressed in a follow-up study.

3.2

The Axis History Forum

AHF is a bottom-up, grassroots community with the self-proclaimed aims to provide access to objective knowledge and to discuss historical facts about the Axis powers and military history. Commemoration is not listed within the main goals of the forum. However, by creating a platform with a broad focus to its activities and engaging in historical discussion about World War II the community also provides a space for mnemonic practices. This chapter outlines various aspects of AHF’s creation, demonstrating how the forum administration balances the goal to aid hobby researchers while also upholding a flexible position toward revisionism so as to retain high audience numbers and active discussions. This is first performed by providing an overview

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of the key figures in the forum administration. The next section offers a reading of the forum rules, providing insight into the administration’s position on Holocaust denial. Thereafter the current subforum structure is presented, while the final part contains an overview of users’ sociodemographic profiles. a. Key actors in forum creation and administration AHF is a historical online forum with over 70,000 registered users who between them have written approximately two million posts in roughly 200,000 discussions between March 2002 and December 2018. The textual collection of the forum encompasses over 152 million tokens. It is one of the largest user-generated content collections on World War II available online. I consider the forum users an online community, and see interactions on the platform as practices of collective transnational memory on the Internet. The story of AHF is the history of an emerging community of users. The forum’s endurance and ongoing popularity have to a large extent been ensured by several key influencers, who would become the forum’s administrators over time. According to the information available on the forum, its creator is Marcus Wendel—a hobby historian living in Sweden. A seemingly real name, it appears to be a pseudonym in fact: a related website that is often linked to throughout the discussions on AHF, the skalman.nu forum, has a user calling himself Marcus Holst. This individual also works in marketing, lives in Sweden, and is highly esteemed within the WWII hobby-historian community. On several occasions, Wendel refers to skalman.nu as “his Swedish-language forum.”16 Unfortunately he did not answer any emails requesting an interview and inviting him to make any kind of statement about the forum. AHF’s founding myth—as presented on the forum and replicated in the interview with its current moderator, Christian Ankerstjerne17 —is that of a small group of history enthusiasts who came together on ezboard, a popular hosting service for image and message boards, to form the “Third Reich Forum.” Ezboard provided free data-storage space for online communities of all sorts and would exist until 2008, but had major problems with upload speed in 2002 already— which led many user communities to seek other hosting possibilities elsewhere.

16

See comment 1 in “Tiger 1, Ausf. e/h1 by JaGer,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?p=1830917#p1830917 (last accessed January 10, 2020). 17 In January 2019 Ankerstjerne agreed to a Skype interview (see Electronic Supplementary Material 1).

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Although Wendel claimed to have archived the discussions from the first platform,18 and until 2004 there was a subforum entitled “Ezboard” incorporated into AHF, they are not accessible today. This particular ezboard forum was aimed at exchanging information on the history of National-Socialist Germany. It soon became a highly frequented resource for anyone looking for information about the period of reign of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party: collectors were able to find World War II militaria, authors of fiction could check the historical accuracy of their material, and some users could seek out the stories of relatives. After the closing down of the forum, many users quickly joined AHF. Thus, the AHF community possessed preexisting social ties—which is rarely the case for online interest groups (Butler et al. 2007). At the same time, these ties were not ones (first) established in the offline world—as is the case for social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn (boyd and Ellison 2007). According to Ankerstjerne, AHF was, apart from all the above, aimed at enabling “serious researchers” to enjoy access to a variety of sources across the world.19 Within the first congratulatory posts after the launch of a successor AHF platform, the idea of “seriousness” comes up again. User Timo writes:20 I am not a particular fan of these ‘emoticons’, but otherwise the forum looks nice. Hope it can become a place for more serious discussions and research and less political clashes. Thumps up!!!

18

See comment 1 in “Archive,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=13 (last accessed November 27, 2019). As many other comments in this section, this one is part of the subforum “The Lounge” which is only accessible for registered users. 19 Christian Ankerstjerne, interviewed by author, 28:32. See “Interview with Christian Ankerstjerne” in the Electronic Supplementary Material. 20 See comment 1 in “Looks nice…” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p= 32#p32 (emphasis added; last accessed November 27, 2019). All spelling and grammar per the original posts.

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Wendel concurs:21 I’m glad you like the new forum and I too hope it will be a place for civilized and serious discussions instead of the ‘political’ clashes we have seen so much of recently.

While “seriousness” is declared to be a shared value of the community that migrated to the new hosting platform, the reasons for moving seem to be practical: better functionality, lower maintenance costs, and more control over hosting.22 The website provides a large amount of data for free, and thus needs server capacities—which need to be financed somehow. While initially bankrolled by Wendel alone,23 AHF would acquire other financial supporters over the years. Members of the forum were eager to donate very quickly in fact: only three days after AHF’s founding, one user asked how exactly donations are supposed to be carried out.24 The forum also generates income via affiliate marketing links and advertisement.25 As discussed on the forum in December 2019, the server costs amounted to around EUR 1200 per year depending on the provider—being covered by advertising revenue.26 Whenever a user registers, advertisements no longer pop up on content—serving as motivation to register oneself, and explaining the large number of registered users who do not participate in discussions (> 50 percent).27 The identity of “serious researchers” is evidently part of forum users’ core reasons for joining the community. It might also be a strategy to encourage selfcensorship: when joining a group of pseudonymous “serious researchers,” one is expected to be critical about the content and quality of one’s own questions. As 21

See comment 2 in “Looks nice…” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p= 33#p33 (emphasis added; last accessed November 27, 2019). 22 See comment 2 in “why third-reich forum is moved from ezboard wildboar is back,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=351&p=1686 (last accessed November 29, 2019). 23 See comment 2 in “Good Job,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t= 161&start=0 (last accessed November 27, 2019). 24 See comment 1 in “DONATIONS,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22& t=77 (last accessed November 29, 2019). 25 See “Support AHF,” https://forum.axishistory.com/app.php/support (last accessed November 27, 2019). 26 See comments 3 and 5 in “It’s time for me to leave,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?f=22&t=246042 (last accessed January 7, 2020). 27 A second reason is the access to „The Lounge“ subforum, where informal discussions are carried out.

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in the quotes above, “serious” discussions are positioned in opposition to “political” ones within the forum. This proclaimed shared value is thus an exclusion criterion, and creates a clear distinction to other platforms. On the other hand, the definition of a serious researcher is very vague, and it is precisely the ensuing “clashes” that generate activity on the forum and which are of interest for its administration. Ankerstjerne confirms that the ezboard platform was established in 1999 under the name “Third Reich Forum,” and states that the name was changed in 2002 to “Axis History Forum” when the message board was moved to a privately funded server. Several posts by Wendel and others, however, indicate that the renaming occurred in 2003,28 a year after the forum was moved to the new platform. In initial posts, users refer to the platform as “The Third Reich Forum” and Wendel states that thirdreichforum.com was AHF’s first domain name.29 From the end of 2003, due to the dissolution of another platform, the “Military History Forum,” AHF gained numerous new followers who influenced the discourse and shifted the attention from Third Reich-related questions to military history, leading some members to complain whether “Third Reich Forum” was even an appropriate name anymore.30 On December 28, 2003, the forum was officially renamed; the main reason for this, as stated, was the changing focus of activity.31 Ankerstjerne notes that the renaming occurred for two reasons: first, the scope of discussions began to cover all Axis powers,32 and, second, “there were some preconceptions about the name ‘Third Reich.’”33 When asked whether the change of name was supposed to indicate distancing from far-right groups, Ankerstjerne replied that “neo-Nazis knew that they were going to get banned from the forum

28

See comment 1 in “Over 1 500 000 posts!” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? p=1543048#p1543048 (last accessed November 27, 2019). 29 See comment 1 in “Welcome,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=5 (last accessed November 27, 2019). 30 See comment 1 in “Should the forum’s name be changed?” https://forum.axishistory.com/ viewtopic.php?f=22&t=17190&p=146055#p146055 (last accessed January 9, 2020). 31 See “Third Reich Forum -> Axis History Forum,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?f=22&t=39023 (last accessed January 9, 2020). 32 This stance is in line with Wendel’s post from 2011, where he addresses the expansion to Minor Axis Nations: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=1543048#p1543048 (last accessed November 27, 2019). 33 Christian Ankerstjerne, interviewed by author, 09:02. See “Interview with Christian Ankerstjerne” in the ESM.

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anyway.”34 He further concluded that the new name sounded “more neutral.” Preconceptions regarding the forum’s ideological stance were sometimes voiced by new members: for example the user Smoke20286 stated that after the “demise of the Military History Forum,” posting to AHF seems to be the typical thing to do; however, he “thought long and hard before posting to this site” and it made him “rather uncomfortable to do so.”35 He goes on to explain this feeling:36 Anyway I have little or no respect for the whole concept of Nazi-ism and i fail to see what the fascination is in this day and age that keeps people interested in it other then I suppose guarding against it rise again.

This demonstrates how some users perceive the forum despite its declared antineo-Nazi position, as articulated by the forum moderators and evident also in the forum rules and several other references besides. It also echoes an existing debate among scholars regarding the use of the term “Third Reich”: some refrain from its employment, as they believe it has a glorifying component, others, like historian Gavriel Rosenfeld, refute that claim out of fear that it might result in “granting the phrase the kind of aura that is common to all taboos” (Rosenfeld 2019, 20). Rosenfeld emphasizes that “employing the term in the scholarly sense does not mean to endorse it” (Ibid., 20). In the case of the forum header, however, it is unclear whether critical engagement with the history of the term has ever taken place: many of the elements appearing on the site can be interpreted as symbols of a National-Socialist-sympathizer community.

Figure 3.1 The header of AHF

34

Christian Ankerstjerne, interviewed by author, 09:38. See “Interview with Christian Ankerstjerne” in the ESM. 35 See comment 24 in “I might as well start to post,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?p=117750#p117750 (last accessed January 9, 2020). 36 Ibid.

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The unease voiced by Smoke20286 might be rooted in the fact that the website’s header conveys the impression of an uncritical handling of the history of the Third Reich. The existence of a previous platform explains why 1999 is listed as the site’s founding date (see Figure 3.1.), despite the first messages being posted in March 2002. It also explains how the platform could acquire its first users so fast: between March 8 and March 15, 2002, some 180 users would register, even though the forum only officially launched on March 12.37 The forum header consists of a standard38 blue background with a forum logo made up of clearly identifiable Third Reich symbols: a soldier’s helmet, a sword, leaves, and a Knight’s Cross tied around them. This image represents one of the highest military awards of the Third Reich army: the Knight’s Cross with oak leaves and swords.39 It also copies the central element of a famous propaganda poster by Gottfried Klein, the prominent Third Reich graphic artist. In comparison to the original, the swastikas and a quote from Hitler’s speech (“Es kann nur einer siegen und das sind wir”) on November 8, 1939, have been removed.40 Bearing in mind that the forum logo copies a Third Reich propaganda poster, it seems incongruous that the first description of the forum’s nature one encounters in the header is “apolitical”: 37

See comment 1 in “The official launching of this forum,” https://forum.axishistory.com/ viewtopic.php?f=22&t=142&p=532#p532 (last accessed November 29, 2019). 38 The style of the forum follows the “prosilver” style template, which is the default free theme of the phpBB scripting package—a popular open-source service for online forum curation. See: https://github.com/phpbb/phpbb for the phpBB code; https://www.phpbb.com/ customise/db/style/prosilver/ for more information on the prosilver theme. This is the latest design of AHF: the website’s visuals enjoyed several redesigns over the years (last accessed November 27, 2019). 39 Only two other awards were considered of higher merit: the Knight’s Cross with oak leaves, swords, and diamonds and the Knight’s Cross with golden-oak leaves, swords, and diamonds. The latter was only ever awarded to one person (Maerz 2007, 310). 40 The aforementioned poster was printed in 1939 as an artist’s postcard (“Künstlerpostkarte”) by Heinrich Hoffman’s publishing house together with the citation. See: https://www.philasearch.com/de/i_9068_114338/110_Deutsches_Reich_Postka rten/9068-3201200451.html?breadcrumbId=1551709901.7304&row_nr=19. They were part of the set “Die deutsche Wehrmacht” http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/german-photog raphs-postcards/gottfried-klein-postcards-728516/. This set had definitely been issued by July 1940: https://www.marhistorical.com/en/i_9068_113515/662500_Third_Reich_Pro paganda_Artist_Drawn_Postcards/3000601953.html?treeparent=TO-6625&set_sprache= en&showCountry=0&showTopo=0&viewNo=1000&postype=PH&row_nr=11&breadcrum bId=-1. For a high-quality picture see: https://bhzmilitaria.com/militaria-shop/ansichtka art-es-kann-nur-einer-siegen-und-das-sind-wir-gottfried-klein-2/ (last accessed January 9, 2020).

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This is an apolitical forum for discussions on the Axis nations and related topics hosted by the Axis History Factbook in cooperation with Christian Ankerstjerne’s Panzerworld and Christoph Awender’s WW2 day by day. Founded in 1999.

In this context, apparently, “apolitical” signifies that interest in the historical matters at hand does not equate to a neo-Nazi political agenda, or at least this cannot be abided in the discussions. Claiming that interest in the Axis Powers is apolitical, however, is naïve: the forum provides a space for both subtle and overt glorification as well as an overall normalization of Third Reich-inspired culture.41 Despite being a questionable strategy with insufficient “moral flagposting,” as Rosenfeld (2014) puts it, I argue that this perceived ambiguity turns out to be a sustainable strategy in regards to acquiring users and maintaining a high level of user engagement. This controversy is of particular interest. How does the forum manage to position itself as opposed to neo-Nazism and at the same time be centered around and focused on the history of National-Socialist Germany, using the latter’s imagery in its own self-representation? Can the official statements made be regarded as mere pro forma acts of distancing from Third Reich glorification? I will first address these questions by addressing the figure of the forum administrator, and then afterward by examining the resources that AHF is closely connected to. Wendel’s status change In April 2018 Wendel stated in a thread in the “Lounge” subforum that he was stepping down as the main forum moderator. From that moment on, two other users, Ankerstjerne and David Thompson, were announced as the forum administrators going forward.42 After stepping down, Wendel changed his username. Over the years he would make many of his posts unsearchable, which is evident in the discrepancy between the number shown under his username (33,963) and the number of actually searchable posts (16,438).43 The fact that the number of posts appearing under the username on the user page represents the total number of posts written (including deleted ones) was confirmed by Ankerstjerne. 41

For example in the topic on “Men’s hairstyles,” users post pictures of their favorite looks from men during the Third Reich: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t= 62312 (last accessed January 9, 2020). 42 See comment 1 in “My absence—Christian & David becomes admins,” https://forum.axi shistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=234948&p=2136425#p2136425 (last accessed January 9, 2020). 43 Can be found here: https://forum.axishistory.com/search.php?author_id=2&sr=posts (last accessed January 9, 2020).

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However for a moderator with Wendel’s record, the high number of total posts might also have something to do with the organizational part of his moderation activities. In December 2019, Wendel passed on the server costs and is no longer associated with AHF at all.44 Several members suggested different ways to pay for the server costs and eventually a GoFundMe campaign was started to collect money.45 It remains unclear why Wendel’s interest in World War II has faded, or indeed why it was there to begin with. The digital traces of his activity are accessible to a limited extent, but some evidence remains in print: he and his websites appear in the “Acknowledgements” sections of several publications about World War II. All references remain scarce; only one provides a certain amount of additional information regarding his position. After referring to the skalman.nu forum, Douglas Smith and Richard Jensen, authors of World War II online: The very best sites, state: “Created by the Swede Marcus Wendel; focuses on the military history of the Third Reich and other Axis Nations; Wendel overtly disclaims any association, affiliation, or sympathy with neo-Nazi organizations” (2003, 182). Tracing down the forum creator by no means represents the goal of this work. Instead, I consider Wendel an excellent example of the malleable nature of an online persona. There is a range of different snippets available about this avatar on the one hand, and a total impossibility to verify them on the other. Everything that Wendel made public could be easily changed and distorted, as well as rendered completely inaccessible, in later circumstances (except citations in print). It also suggests that the forum’s creators, while not prioritizing a modern website design today and thus providing an old-fashioned picture, had a clear understanding of the possible negative implications of affiliation with an Axis powers-centered World War II resource, and were conscious about the way they are portrayed online. While stating the open exchange of information being their main motivation, with a democratizing plea for open access (the slogan of the axishistory.com website is “Information not shared is lost!”46 ), they understood the many possible ways in which their motives for creating the forum could also be interpreted. Ultimately, while not openly supporting neo-Nazi causes the platform’s birth resulted in the construction of a large, accessible, and searchable 44

See comment 1 in “It’s time for me to leave,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?f=22&t=246042 (last accessed January 6, 2020). 45 See “Help the Axishistory Forum to survive,” https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-theaxishistory-forum-to-survive?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_cam paign=p_cf+share-flow-1 (last accessed January 7, 2020). 46 See header of “Axis History,” https://www.axishistory.com/ (last accessed January 9, 2020).

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database—which can by itself be regarded as an act of glorification, no matter what position the administration takes. AHF in the context of other resources As already mentioned, the forum is embedded in a network of WWII-related resources. The thread “Show us your website” from December 2002 demonstrates this very well: many users created their own information websites while at the same time being regular users elsewhere, which highlights the prosumer aspect of their online activity.47 Within that particular discussion, numerous other resources are mentioned. However only carefully chosen resources are included in the header of the forum website, as only the site’s administrators can change its content. This section gives a brief overview of the websites linked in the header as resources that AHF endorses. These include the Axis History Factbook, the equipment information portal Panzerworld, the web archive World War II day by day, and the collection of biographies of prominent members of the National-Socialist Party listed on Axis Biographical Research. Axis History Factbook The first resource is the Axis History Factbook, a website created by Wendel just like AHF. According to a previous version of the Factbook website, its very goal was to bring so many history enthusiasts together and to establish a related forum in the first place. A subforum dedicated to the Factbook used to be incorporated into AHF, but by 2019 all information regarding the Factbook had perished from the forum (and it was never published in print). The website contains a variety of snippets of information dedicated to the Axis Powers. Herein the emphasis lies on minor Axis nations in Europe: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. The nature of the Factbook enables the authors to list details about the armed forces of each country without merging them into a coherent narrative of events.48 These details include 47

See “Show us your website,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t= 12284&p=110356; a similar discussion unfolds in “WW2 websites” too: https://forum.axi shistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=16369 (last accessed March 3, 2021). 48 For example the link to “Campaigns and Operations” contains a list of Third Reich campaigns (https://www.axishistory.com/other-aspects/campaigns-a-operations) and cites the divisions that were involved in them (e.g. “Occupation of Austria” and its divisions). See: https://www.axishistory.com/list-all-categories/134-campaigns-a-operations/campai gns-a-operations/1918-axis-order-of-battle-12-march-1938-the-occupation-of-austria (last accessed January 9, 2020).

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the ranking systems of each country’s armed forces, lists of units, and names of operations. This type of information system therefore avoids the meaning-making part of research.49 Panzerworld The second website is Panzerworld,50 created by the current forum administrator Christian Ankerstjerne, who joined AHF community in 1999 and was appointed co-host and moderator in 2004.51 Ankerstjerne is a data-science specialist from Denmark who would take an interest in World War II due to the involvement therein of his grandfather as a Danish resistance fighter.52 Similar to Wendel, Ankerstjerne’s name is mentioned in several print acknowledgements. His influence on the publishing world appears to be more diverse in comparison to Wendel’s though—another indication that the latter is a pseudonym used only in military-history contexts. The books whose authors have thanked Ankerstjerne cover a variety of topics and are dedicated to different aspects of modern (Internet) culture, as well as the history of World War II. These include: Panzer II vs 7TP: Poland 1939 by David Higgins (2015), who gives Ankerstjerne credit for the pictures used in the book; The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years’ War to the Third Reich by military historian Robert Citino (2005); and, Hitler’s Doubles, a revisionist book by Peter Fotis Kapnistos (2015) that was discussed on AHF.53 The reference added by Kapnistos is a citation of Ankerstjerne’s comment on the book in that very discussion. The reference is framed sarcastically however, as Kapnistos used an incomplete version of it wherein the negative descriptions of his book by Ankerstjerne are left out. Panzerworld was last updated in August 2018, and is constructed as an online encyclopedia about tanks. Initially it also had a forum, but it was closed down in

49

Information on the various divisions of the Axis Powers is established on a similar basis, containing the date of formation, the commanders, and the militaria assigned to the members of the division (e.g. 3rd Army Corps, Finland). See: https://www.axishistory.com/list-all-cat egories/37-finland-army/finland-corps/59-iii-army-corps-finland (last accessed January 10, 2020). 50 See “Panzerworld,” https://panzerworld.com/ (last accessed January 9, 2020). 51 See comment 1 in “New co-host of the forum,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?f=22&t=43369 (last accessed January 9, 2020). 52 Christian Ankerstjerne, interviewed by author, 17:44. See “Interview with Christian Ankerstjerne” in the ESM. 53 See “Book: Hitler’s Doubles,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t= 219977 (last accessed January 9, 2020).

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2004. The website provides information on a variety of hard facts regarding different pieces of equipment, such as respective weapons’ production times as well as links to related photographic collections. Furthermore, operating experiences from field reports are added. Similarly to the Factbook, there is no general interpretation of the accumulated facts. The “About and Contact” page is very brief: here, the author of the page asks to only send questions regarding the website and redirects all inquiries regarding World War II to AHF. WWII day by day The third page is WWII day by day54 created by Christoph Awender, which according to its “News” page enjoys more frequent—albeit irregular—updates in comparison to Panzerworld. The website’s main language is German; it contains information on German military branches and divisions: original military operation reports, tips on how to recognize various uniforms, and the like. The creator’s full name, Christoph Widmann-Awender, is mentioned on the website, but there is no information provided about who he is—the website has an American host server, which facilitates not having to provide reliable information about its creator (contrary to the German legal obligation of adding an Impressum). Upon further investigation the name “Christoph Widmann-Awender” appears in the “Acknowledgements” sections of various books on World War II as well, where the authors mainly make use of the documents accessible on the website (Bertke et al. 2009; Houlihan 2009; Edwards, Pruett, and Olive 2013, 2015; Nash 2015). These acknowledgements provide insight into the activity of the website as well as vis-à-vis its target group: In the book World War II: Sea War the authors mention that the website was “laying fallow for a few years,” but regardless “provides a fascinating view into what the German command saw of the war” (Bertke et al. 2009, 6). One of the authors mentioning Awender is Douglas Nash, a former colonel of the US Army and current military historian. His book is dedicated to the 272nd Volks-Grenadier Division and its involvement in battles around Hürtgen Forest in 1944. The title of the book is Victory was Beyond their Grasp, and the foreword is provided by Helmut Aretz—a former commander of that very division. Echoing Erll’s broad definition of cultural memory, Aretz pleads for the importance of historical research as a means for remembering the fallen, and emphasizes that German soldiers of this division (as well as “their colleagues on the Eastern Front”) were fighting to protect their families and not National Socialism (Nash 2015, viii). This statement, is a typical form of argumentation by Wehrmacht 54

See “WWII day by day,” https://www.wwiidaybyday.com/ (last accessed January 9, 2020).

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soldiers in the post–World War II period: despite the fact that memory of World War II was not thematized within families (Welzer 2008; Nugent 2014), using family as an abstract moral motive for combat became a common trope of a “usable past” in the postwar period (Moeller 2003; Neiman 2015). At the same time, Stahel (2017) has pointed out the structural, intrinsic similarities between the Wehrmacht and the Bundeswehr, suggesting that similar argumentation might be applied in both armies. The argument sets up certain expectations for the book: precise attention to technical detail and strategy, description of heroism, emphasis on the hardships of soldiers, and awe at their sacrifice. Nash is mentioned on AHF 64 times,55 his books being overall very well received by forum users.56 Robert Edwards, author of Scouts Out (2013) and Tip of the Spear (2015), thanks Awender very warmly—praising his website for its organization and attention to detail. Edwards’s books are also fondly mentioned on AHF.57 Given the references in them, it is possible to label the information that is provided on WWIIdaybyday.com as fruitful for someone taking a traditionalist, combat-focused perspective on World War II. Axis Biographical Research This website is currently not listed in the header, but enjoys a special position within AHF-related web sources. According to the introductory posts58 on AHF, the forum was initially hosted by the Third Reich Factbook and by the website Axis Biographical Research created by Michael Miller. Since one of the largest subforums on AHF is named “Axis Biographical Research,” it is obvious that a connection between the website and the subforum exists—but the nature of that 55 See “Axis History Forum—Search,” https://forum.axishistory.com/search.php?keywords= douglas+nash, (last accessed March 3, 2021). 56 See, for example, comment 15 in “Now Available at Amazon ~ “For Multiple Deeds of Exceptional Bravery”,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=223558&p= 2035427#p2035427, comment 2855 in “What is everyone reading on AHF,” https://forum. axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=28892&p=2003246#p2003246, and the thread “New Douglas Nash book on the IV SS Panzer Corps,” https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wtopic.php?f=19&t=240925& (last accessed January 9, 2020). 57 See, for example, comment 2842 in “What is everyone reading on AHF,” https://forum.axi shistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=28892&p=1985802#p1985802, comment 16 in “SSSturmbannführer Heinz Werner,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=142 414&p=1896641#p1896641, and comment 41 in “Recommended books on the Winter War & Continuation War,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=130079& p=1665924#p1665924 (last accessed November 27, 2019). 58 See comment 1 in “Welcome,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=4#p4 (last accessed November 27, 2019).

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link remains unclear. Did AHF simply absorb the audience of Axis Biographical Research and thus make the latter’s continued existence obsolete, or is the forum an auxiliary platform instead? As of today the website Axis Biographical Research is still accessible, although its footer informs the visitor that it has not been updated since 2006.59 The page’s header reads that the site is “an outdated, user-generated website brought to you by an archive,” adding that it was mirrored in October 2009 and no further updates would be posted. This is reflected in the homepage’s outdated design. The description offered on the “About the Author” page states: The primary objective of this site, and one which will take a lifetime or two to complete (if it can ever be completed) is to provide a free and easily accessible source of general biographical details for the serious researcher, family members tracing their geneology, and anyone else wishing to learn more about the men and women who served on the “other side” in the Second World War. I developed this interest when I was eight-years-old, at a time when my only resources consisted of “Hogan’s Heroes” reruns and “Sgt. Rock” comic books. Rest assured that those resources are not part of my current research.60

The intended reception as a “serious researcher” is invoked again here, just like in the initial posts of AHF. The author is inclined to create an aura of grandeur around his creation: as he states, his intended project is going to “take a lifetime or two to complete (if it can ever be completed).” The goal is to gather information about people involved with the Axis Powers: “the men and women who served on the ‘other side’ in the Second World War,” as the statement declares, which suggests that the author himself identifies with the Allied Forces. The first paragraph ends with a piece of information that hints both at which generation the author is of and that is intended as a humorous statement too. Miller was born in 1971, and, according to Goodreads, has authored five books as well as self-publishing a CD-ROM entitled The SS-Brigadeführer.61 Two more books are awaiting publication. His written works enjoy mostly positive reviews both on Goodreads and Amazon,62 which most probably come from the online 59

See https://www.oocities.org/~orion47/index2.html (last accessed November 27, 2019). See https://www.oocities.org/~orion47/author.html (last accessed November 27, 2019). 61 See “Michael D. Miller,” https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5373639.Michael_D_ Miller (last accessed November 27, 2019). 62 See reviews to “Leaders of the SS and German Police, Vol. 1,” https://www.amazon.com/ Leaders-SS-German-Police-Vol/dp/9329700373/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8# customerReviews (last accessed November 27, 2019). 60

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community of military-history enthusiasts. The reviews for the books are either 1 or 5 stars, with no rating given in between. The negative reviews leave the impression that a discussion started elsewhere has spilled over into the Amazon reviews (see Figure 3.2.).

Figure 3.2 Negative review of Miller’s Leaders of the SS and German Police, Vol. 1

In the second part of his statement on the Axis Biographical Research website Miller tries to define his own political stance: A work of this kind is easily subject to misinterpretation, so I feel I must emphasize that I am strongly opposed to the philosophies of Nazism, racism, and a great many other “-isms.” Neo-Nazi types, though welcome to peruse the site, should be advised that I’m not here to champion their cause. Many unsavory and downright awful characters will appear in these pages, but I leave it to the reader to decide whatever labels they deem appropriate. Hopefully it will also be readily evident that there are decent and heroic people listed as well, serving and defending their country just as any decent person would in a time of national crisis. In any case, my task is simply to provide their names, their details of service, their significant deeds, and any other facts in as objective a manner as possible. Thanks for visiting.63

Miller distances himself from National Socialism and the New Right movement. However he reflects upon the fact that neo-Nazis could also be interested in the content he is providing, indeed actively welcoming them to “peruse the site.” Distancing himself a second time (“not here to champion their cause”), he nonetheless accepts that his project is, among other people, aimed at them too. The sentence about “unsavory and downright awful characters” reads almost as a 63

See https://www.oocities.org/~orion47/author.html (last accessed November 27, 2019).

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fairytale-like introduction. This narrative introductory phrase leads to the assumption that the motivation to create this project lies in a dark fascination with the armed forces involved in World War II. The content of his project is, however, quite dry, as it contains only the basic facts regarding each person’s biography (as announced in the project’s description). Miller also included a research service, where for a fee of USD 25 he will provide biographical information on a requested person. This fee is for additional research only, as most of the other sources are openly available on the website. Miller also endorses Mark Yerger, a revisionist historian, who until his death was a prominent member of AHF.64 Narrative and database in the context of transnational memory AHF is part of a network of historical online resources that reproduce very similar depictions of World War II. Within that network, the forum and some of its most prominent users are connected to varying degrees to the works of institutionalized military historians, hobby historians, war participants, and alternate-history authors. The websites share a traditional military-history perspective, and thus attract individuals with similar interests. In the context of online communities, overlapping userbases of different resources have proven to have a negative effect on people’s activity over a longer period of time (Wang, Butler, and Ren 2013). On the one hand, the types of interactions vary across resources: the large-scale exchange certainly sets AHF apart from Panzerworld and WWII day by day; at the same time, the latter provide information for AHF arguments. As we can see in the example of AHF merging with Panzerworld, some of the platforms had to give up their forum feature and concentrate on providing information. A similar fate awaited Axis Biographical Research, which presumably merged into AHF as a separate subforum—and thus continued to exist in a different form. The three subforums that are listed as constituent parts of Axis Biographical Research take a prominent place within AHF, and the combined userbases have guaranteed the status of the latter as an enduring social actor. Similarly to the concepts of “storage memory” and “functional memory” (A. Assmann 2003, 133), most of the satellite resources took over the role of storage memory, while discussions on AHF became the mechanism for reactualization in the domain of functional memory. The means of self-presentation of the forum seems ambivalent at first: while claiming to be apolitical, it places strong emphasis on finding information about the Axis Powers and making it accessible, creating a space for discussions about the Axis nations and thus legitimizing and honoring the perpetrators. In Hi Hitler! 64

See https://www.oocities.org/~orion47/YergerSS.html (last accessed January 12, 2020).

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How the Nazi Past is being Normalized in Contemporary Culture, Rosenfeld writes about the normalization of National Socialism in different media and thematizes the problematic aspect of insufficient positioning of personal websites online, claiming that many “are often ambiguous about their intentions” and “may appear insufficiently critical” (2014, 299–300). I argue that the composition of online “exhibition spaces” (Hogan 2010) devoted to National-Socialist culture is problematic in itself, even if the intentions are actually only ambiguous at worst. Even if the website creators do not support National-Socialism and clearly state so, their actions—such as the creation of an overview of biographies of all Axis Powers soldiers—are valuable to the very groups they are opposing; there is inadvertently still an aspect of glorification to them then. In the case of Miller, this aspect is reflected upon in the project description. At the same time, the websites’ outdatedness suggests that these issues are of decreasing importance. Consequently, the existence of these websites in their current state—unmaintained, old-fashioned, and archaic—may make the “fascination with fascism” (Sontag 1981) seem obsolete as well. AHF’s history spans varying platforms: starting as a free ezboard, it migrated to a private server financed by affiliate-marketing schemes, advertising, and financial support from users. The fact that it exists for 19 years speaks to the strong intracommunity bonds that users share, as well as to the forum’s reputation in the larger online community of military historians. AHF and some of its most prominent members have found their way into print media. Most of the publications that mention the forum are representative of a conservative view on World War II, taking the form first and foremost of a military history presented from a male perspective and coming with a focus on technology and strategy. The documents used within that network are subject to multiple processes of the remediation and of redistribution when they are used in the books and magazines of like-minded historians. Further, we can see a difference between the forum administrators’ respective self-presentation strategies: Wendel’s name is a pseudonym, which he uses in English-speaking World War II-related contexts. This alias is mentioned in a few books on military history in a very factual manner, referring only once to a position on neo-Nazism that he personally does not hold—but without providing any further information. Contrary to that is Ankerstjerne’s approach: his affiliations are diverse, he provides personal information on the Panzerworld website (which leads to a higher level of trust among the online community), and apart from that he readily agreed to give an interview too. Awender’s name is mentioned in a variety of books as well, but he is referred to as a military-history specialist

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only: the concerned works all fall within the thematic scope of World War II. Similarly, Miller’s name is most often found within military-history contexts. Forum users’ desire to create a space for “apolitical” and “serious” discussions and research indicates that World War II and the period of the Third Reich are represented in public history in a way that is ultimately not satisfactory to them. In the context of the globalized public sphere, the ubiquitous instrumentalization of memory has led to the “counterpublic” intention of nurturing an alternative representation of events—one that is taking place online. It is striking that the websites introduced in this chapter as the satellite ones of AHF are united by a strong fact-oriented, database-like presentation of information (applied to military formations of the Axis Powers, weapons, biographies, and time periods). It is tempting to conclude that the interplay between these types of platforms—collections of information on the one hand, forum discussions on the other—mirrors not only the opposition of functional and storage memory but also that of narrative and database—as two different systems of knowledge organization frequently brought up by media scholars in the context of the digital age (Manovich 1999; Aas 2004; Hallam and Roberts 2011; Bassett 2014). As Nancy Katherine Hayles elegantly puts it, narrative and database structures are “not necessarily opponents, but rather symbionts in knowledge organisation” (2012, 76). She notes that in contemporary information society, it is not sufficient to explain large-scale events with narrative but rather through data analysis that serves to encompass both of these cultural forms. It could be suggested that a highly simplified, “inspirational” history of World War II and especially the Axis Powers in pop culture has given rise to the intention among a significant number of people to collect large datasets for creating more sophisticated narratives based on such data analysis. In the “Introduce Yourself” thread, a user thus explains his wish to join AHF as follows:65 For some years I’ve been slowly planning and developing a sort of catalogue program, which would contain information of probably every type of aircraft used in the European theatre during WW2 (no Pacific, since it’s not really my cup of coffee), with information about possible survivors on display, some trivia, photographs etc. The task is huge (which is my excuse for not having anything really ready even after these years), and I’ll most likely run into some copyright-issues with the photographs sooner or later, but I hope some day I can finally present a somewhat working “database” of my greatest passion.

65

See comment 413 in “Introduce yourself,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? p=451900#p451900 (last accessed January 12, 2020).

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In this case, the aim of the author is to create a database of aircrafts of the European theater—a transnational catalogue with the basic facts, similar to Ankerstjerne’s Panzerworld. He quickly dismisses the Pacific theater, but the fact that he wants to include all European countries is in line with Hayles’s next characteristic of the database. She notes that the latter are more inclusive than narratives, because narratives rely strongly on the order of events that they are constituted of. Faced with the complexity of constructing an appropriate transnational narrative, the users circumvent this challenge by creating database-like structures in their place instead. Discussion of these databases and the possible related narratives takes place in AHF then. This is how in the digital age academic and lay historians alike address one of the most pressing questions of historical research: “What happens to historical narrative in a digitised world?” (Rigney 2013, 186). On a final note, the existence of a network of websites that aim to influence the bottom-up representation of World War II shows how complicated the analysis of online discursive practices can be: theorizing one online forum as a representation of discourse will always be a simplification, as a plethora of other resources are now available and perused by its audience. b. Negationism and Holocaust denial In this section I examine AHF’s rules in general, and the position it takes regarding historical negationism and Holocaust denial in particular. The analysis is conducted through the hermeneutical reading of the forum’s rules and via comparison with various definitions of Holocaust denial and World War II negationism elsewhere. Jennifer Preece, a scholar of Internet Studies focusing on online communities, considers the existence of a set of rules is as important as the members of the community themselves (Preece 2000; Preece, Maloney-Krichmar, and Abras 2003). However, not only the existence of rules is of primary importance: processes of user-driven content moderation and rule enforcement have also proven vital to online-community development (Seering et al. 2019); AHF is no exception in this regard. Forum rules—an overview Besides being a means to creating an online community, the stipulated rules provide valuable information on AHF’s position on Holocaust denial and historical negationism, as well as regarding the standards of research and netiquette ideals that are imposed on forum members. As demonstrated in the study of moderator behavior by Seering et al. (2019), online-community rules are constantly evolving

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and adjusted according to user behavior. Most often a rule is changed when the forum staff or the forum members need to make a seemingly self-explanatory, implicit norm explicit in order to discipline the forum community at large.66 AHF’s own rules, meanwhile, are linked to in the top menu of the website, just below the header, making them readily visible and accessible from every subpage on the forum. The rules begin with the “Basic guidelines,” and this leading position, along with their title, suggests their primary importance vis-à-vis expected behavior (see Figure 3.3).67

Figure 3.3 Basic guidelines in January 2020

Apart from the basic guidelines, the rules include a list of detailed elaborations. Some of the them are additional rules of conduct, others are expanded versions of the basic guidelines. In the following, I will address these elaborations. Comments on posting images. This addition differentiates between sharing a collection of images and posting them to prove a point. In the first case, it is advised to provide a watermark, in the second to limit the number of pictures shared. An additional comment at the end of the page is made regarding the posting of atrocity photographs. The posting of images is thus categorized into 66

For example, in “A question of pictures involving the Holocaust,” a user addresses the problem of graphic photographs that feature corpses, which leads to an addition in the forum rules regarding atrocity photographs. See comment 1 https://web.archive.org/web/202203 19141534/https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=414&p=2194 (last accessed January 7, 2020). 67 See “Board rules,” https://web.archive.org/web/20200106213206/https://forum.axishi story.com/app.php/rules (last accessed January 6, 2020).

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archiving (sharing a collection), illustration of an argument (accompanied by the request to not post too many photographs), and posting for shock value (with a comment about the graphic depiction of violence ensuring viewer’s comfort when reading the forum). Comments on discussion tone. Here, moderators are explicitly voicing their expectations regarding the level of “informedness” of a user before submitting a question to the forum, as well as an additions on “low forms of speech.” The fact that users are engaging in a process of “discursive knowledge constitution” (Gustafsson 2017, 187) is referenced in this addition. The elaborations clarify the existing basic guidelines regarding insults and racism (“Civility”), Holocaust denial, glorification of dictatorships and various guidelines about research (“Questions, Claims and Proof”). The forum rules address users’ different levels of contribution and interaction. They can be subsumed into three categories: netiquette guidelines, research standards, and ethical, content-oriented guidelines. Under the netiquette guidelines, I consider the following: a) No insults are tolerated (that includes serious national and religious insults). b) Keep the message on topic. c) Using your real name as username, or at least signing your posts with your real first name is appreciated. d) Posting in the forum using more than one account is not tolerated. e) Using anonymous proxies or similar services to post in the forum is not tolerated. f) Don’t use images/videos or bold, large or colored text in the signature. If you use non-English text in the signature, include a translation. g) Links to non-related commercial sites in the signature is not allowed. h) Only post enough images to make your point.68 These rules regulate behaving together in an online environment, and are not specific to the overarching thematic focus of the forum. In a way, these are universal online-community rules.69 They enable a minimum level of credibility by ensuring a “one person, one account” policy (d, e) and encouraging the use of 68

See “Board rules,” https://web.archive.org/web/20200106213206/https://forum.axishi story.com/app.php/rules (last accessed January 6, 2020). 69 For example, the rules of “Dharma Wheel,” a Buddhist discussion forum, contain similar community guidelines regarding advertising, insults and racism, and topicality. See “Posting rules,” https://dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=109&t=30555 (last accessed on February 22 2021).

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real names (c), at the same time fostering relevant (b, h) and civil (a) exchange without unnecessary distraction (f, g). The next group of rules defines the research standards imposed on AHF user community. The notion of the “serious researcher” established in the introductory posts of the forum is manifested in the regulations falling under this category. a) When quoting from a book or site, please provide info on the source (and a link if it is a website). b) To avoid causing problems for those searching in the forum, please do not use the name of historical figures as username. c) By adding text and/or images to the forum you approve that they remain in the forum. d) We recommend that you mark your image(s) or note in the post that the image(s) are from your personal collection. e) We require that our members list the source of the photographs they post. On the one hand, these are requirements regarding visual and textual sources; on the other, they prohibit the use of copyrighted material and ensure the consent of posters to the information’s retention on forum servers. The forum claims to distinguish itself by attracting knowledgeable posters. This is an identification that is enforced by a rule regarding citations, and by another concerning the choice of usernames—which, if chosen incorrectly, will make the search for others more complicated. This category is enhanced by the additions that dwell on the steps that a user should have already taken before starting a thread on the forum; preferably, the latter should not be the first consulted source. At this stage, forum moderators prescribe an interactional scenario to users whereby those who post a question appear as researchers handling a difficult case who turn to the forum community for help. The words “opinion” or “claim” are used throughout the rules as a pejorative counter to knowledge and proof: Posts which express unsolicited opinions without supporting facts and sources do not promote the purposes of the forum.70

The community thus emphasizes its extensive factual knowledge, cultured tone, and quality of discussions, and presents itself as a multitude of self-made

70

See “Board rules,” https://web.archive.org/web/20200106213206/https://forum.axishi story.com/app.php/rules (last accessed January 6, 2020).

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experts. Therefore, while identifying as mostly non-academic lay historians, the community also distances itself from complete novices in the field. The third category of rules is highly specific to the overarching thematic focus of AHF, and thus includes ethical restrictions regarding Holocaust denial, racism, atrocity photographs, offensive usernames, and the glorification of dictatorships. a) No Holocaust denial is tolerated (note that this also applies to events such as the mass murders of Armenians during WWI and the interwar famine in the Ukraine). b) No racism is tolerated. c) No glorifying of nazism/fascism or those dictatorships, or other totalitarian dictatorships, is tolerated. d) Use of potentially offensive usernames (such as names of war criminals, leading Nazis) are not allowed. e) Potentially offensive avatars are not allowed, this includes for example political avatars, swastikas, violence or nudity, this also applies to avatars that distract from the posts by for example excessive animation. f) Atrocity photographs are not specifically covered in the forum rules. The policy here is, if the photos are “graphic,” the contributor should post a link to the photographs, rather than the photographs themselves, so that the other viewers have a choice as to whether or not to take a look. Summing up, the forum rules provide guidance on three levels for AHF users: as an online community, as a community of researchers, and as a collective bound by ethical standards that ensure a safe browsing experience. These three levels are recreated on different accounts, for example regarding photographs or the usage of usernames and signatures. Several guidelines address the choice of usernames, recommending to refrain from picking potentially offensive ones (e.g. “leading Nazis”), to not use historical figures (so that searching on the forum is not affected), and, last but not least, to use real names (or at least to sign posts with one’s first name). These guidelines, thus, operate on all three levels as well. Within the elaboration of the netiquette rules regarding civility, it seems moderators perceive users to be predominantly male: “If you disagree with a contributor, please use your energy to show why his argument is mistaken.”71 The rules prohibiting insults do not include those based on one’s gender, further supporting this assumption. 71

See “Board rules,” https://web.archive.org/web/20200106213206/https://forum.axishi story.com/app.php/rules (last accessed January 6, 2020).

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Consequences The rules include a gradation of their importance in the form of the consequences for their contravention. These are disclosed in the elaborations on the rules, and reveal that the banning of users—the ultimate punishment—is the result of breaches of those on civility, Holocaust denial, and copyright—thereby again addressing the three levels outlined above. Breaking other rules results only in the deletion of posts, with or without warning. Some rules’ contravention does not have clearly defined consequences at all: while the usage of certain username groups is prohibited, it is not always reprimanded. Forum administrators request, as noted, not using historical figures as usernames, voice that “it is appreciated” to use real names, and are the strictest when it comes to the “[u]se of potentially offensive usernames (such as names of war criminals, leading Nazis)”—they are “not allowed.” There is hence no user named Hitler, Goebbels, or Goering; however, a quick search of the names of those accused in the first Nuremberg trial reveals that some of them have made it to AHF.72 Since the consequences hereof are not described, there can be no punishment in this particular case. Holocaust denial in discussions Apart from being part of the basic guidelines, Holocaust denial is mentioned in elaboration #3 (“Holocaust Denial”73 ) as well as in an additional text entitled “A note on denial”74 written by Wendel in November 2002, six months after the forum first launched. Forum staff takes a strict and concrete position regarding the Holocaust. In “A note on denial,” which precedes the elaborations on the forum rules, Wendel lists three reasons why Holocaust denial is “not tolerated” on AHF:75

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Several users disobey these rules (ribbentrop, von papen, keitel, Dr. Fritzsche). The latter might not be a reference to the propaganda minister Hans Fritzsche, but in this context it evokes very definite associations however. Many users tend to choose a username related to World War II. 73 See “Board rules,” https://forum.axishistory.com/app.php/rules#rule-0c (last accessed January 6, 2020). 74 See comment 1 in “A note on denial,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t= 10881 (last accessed January 3, 2020). 75 Ibid.

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3 The Axis History Forum 1. Holocaust denial is an insult to those that suffered and died. 2. Allowing holocaust denial will scare away many of the regular posters, both those that find it generally offensive and those that do not in any way wish to be connected with such nonsense. I’ve seen it happen in many forums, more deniers & neonazis begin frequenting the forum and less of those that are non-deniers or not interested in that discussion at all will frequent the forum, eventually bringing down the forum. We’ve even seen it begin to happen in this very forum at a time when I was too relaxed in enforcing the rules. 3. Allowing holocaust denial would make it (even) harder to make people understand that this is an apolitical forum, not a pro-nazi or denier forum.

The first reason, which frames Holocaust denial as an insult, adds a moral dimension (Margalit 2004, 8) to the elaboration in the basic guidelines, which simply stated that the “essential aspects of the holocaust are well-known,” emphasizing the Holocaust as a research standard. The second reason is not rooted in a moral obligation, but is of strategic nature: It is concerned with the implications and consequences of allowing Holocaust denial on AHF, which eventually will “bring the forum down” due to the public it attracts. Hereby Wendel does not remain neutral, calling out Holocaust denial as “nonsense”—while also acknowledging its implicit political agenda. This is in line with the third reason for not tolerating Holocaust denial: if allowed, the reputation of the forum as an apolitical site (a mantra that forum members evidently hold on dearly to) would not be credible anymore. Based on that statement, we can conclude that Holocaust denial is not considered an absolute taboo by the forum administration, but is also used strategically: the moderators are aware of other similar resources and want to keep a specific kind of poster away. Further, they acknowledge the destructive group dynamic that the enabling of denial leads to. This position is backed up by a reference to Wendel’s extensive experience as an online user and administrator (“I’ve seen it happen in many forums”). In all instances, the Holocaust is mentioned together with large-scale systematic mass murders such as the Armenian genocide. This situates it alongside other atrocities, and can it therefore be concluded that the forum community does not support the position of the Holocaust’s exceptionality in human history.76 This demonstrates just how complicated it is to find common ground in (online) discussions on mass murders in history: the guideline addition 76

The concept of the Holocaust’s uniqueness has been debated in academic circles for decades. Works that have captured concept’s transition within the academic discourse include: Alexander (2009), Hirsch and Spitzer (2009), Rosenfeld (2014), Kansteiner (2018), and many more. A recent installment of the debate is connected to the German translation of Rothberg’s book “Multidirectional memory” (Schmid 2021; Zimmerer and Rothberg 2021).

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regarding “glorification of dictatorships” simply states that “this should be self-explanatory.”77 The statement regarding Holocaust denial obviously is not self-explanatory, as there is a need to elaborate on it and to write an additional post contextualizing the decision. No comments are allowed to the post, mirroring the closing sentence of the statement (“this decision is not open for discussion”). However the forum administration adds that “legitimate questions” about a variety of aspects connected to the Holocaust are permitted. This note manages to address different kinds of users that are welcome on AHF: those for whom the Holocaust is an integral part of the history of the twentieth century and thus remembering it is a central moral duty, and simultaneously those who do not consider this moral common ground in the postwar period. The position of the forum remains somewhere on the spectrum between these two groups: the need to frame a moral argument strategically undermines the moral position of the forum staff. The forum administration does not provide a fixed definition of the Holocaust to ensure that none of its aspects are negated. Holocaust researcher and Professor of Jewish Studies Deborah Lipstadt (2019, 125) categorizes Holocaust deniers into “hardcore” and “softcore” deniers, thereby addressing the scales on which this negationist belief exists. Hardcore deniers claim that there was no mass murders of the Jewish people at all. This category of user is evidently excluded by the forum administration in the aforementioned part of AHF’s rules. Softcore deniers, on the other hand, admit the existence of anti-Jewish sentiment but also in parallel they raise other questions often dealing with the quantifiable intricacies and details of the Holocaust: Were there really six million victims? Were there really gas chambers involved, and how exactly did they operate to reach that number of deaths? The historian Robert Wistrich (2012, 1) adds that deniers usually seek to banalize and relativize the facts; the usual number of victims that deniers cite is around 300,000. Many scholars of antisemitism point out that Holocaust denial is often disguised as academic, high-brow, evidence-based research (Lipstadt 1994, 154–55; Daniels 2009, 674). Holocaust denial is, of course, part of the larger problem of historical negationism. Within the French and Anglo-Saxon traditions, neutral reinterpretations of history are subsumed under the term “revisionism,” while “negationism” is the one used to address the deliberate reinterpretation of historical record so as to gain political power. In German, however, this latter meaning is attributed to the

77 See “Board rules,”https://forum.axishistory.com/app.php/rules#rule-0c (last accessed January 3, 2020).

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term “Revisionismus”—which thus denotes ways to distort historical record, often with the goal to seize power (an extreme case of which is Holocaust denial). The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (FOPC) defines negationists as follows: [T]hose right-wing extremists who propagate a specific conception of history that downplays National Socialism. […] Even though in reality they follow ideological goals, they provide the illusion of scientific research in their claims. […] Right-wing extremist negationists do not want to present scientific research results: they aim to change the historical record about the time of the “Third Reich” in order to provide value to the National Socialist system and destigmatize its ideological elements. (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz 2001, author’s own translation)

Negationism, according to this definition, centers around two thematic subfields: German responsibility for starting World War II and the mass extermination of European Jewry. The FOPC allows for both a narrow and a broad definition of historical negationism: the former includes “only” the mass extermination of Jews (a popular key term being “The Auschwitz Lie”) whereas the latter definition encompasses “denial of the guilt of war, relativizing comparisons, defamation of dissenters as traitors.” Keeping these definitions and dimensions of Holocaust denial in mind, we now turn to a selection of forum discussions in order to examine how exactly these rules are applied in practice.78 There are several instances of denial to be found, where the consequences outlined in the forum rules have not ensued. For

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AHF features several lengthy discussions about Hitler’s responsibility for starting the war. For example “Hitler’s Decision to attack Poland,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?f=55&t=162600 (last accessed January 7, 2020): The discussion was started on January 28, 2010, and features 319 responses added up until November 22, 2016. Throughout the discussion, Michael Mills, a frequent poster on AHF, argues that it was the agreement between Poland and Great Britain that led to the attack on the former—and thus this was not the intention or long-term plan of Hitler. At some point he states: “Hitler was pursuing a policy of peace and friendship with Poland. It was only when Poland allied itself with Britain and France against Germany, and allowed itself to be made into a hostile power confronting Germany from the east and contributing to its military, political and economic encirclement, that Hitler abandoned his policy of friendship and decided to attack Poland.” (https://forum. axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=1432048#p1432048, last accessed January 7, 2020). This statement can certainly be considered negationist within the scope of the broader definition thereof offered by the FOPC.

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example the post “A Derelict Convergence” by the member Snafu starts with “From a revisionist point of view…” and poses the following question:79 [W]hat killing capacities could actually be utilized daily at the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau?

This post was written in April 2002, in the period before “A note on denial” was composed (November 2002). Snafu implies that the killing capacities of Auschwitz need historical revision, since they have been exaggerated. The long post (> 1,800 words) includes several further allegations: Snafu claims that there is a standard story of the Holocaust propagated by “Holocausters” that needs to be “debunked,” and cites several sources that all specify the number of victims that could be gassed in the extermination camps in a 24-hour period. The fact that all sources bring up the exact same number of people is evidence for Snafu that the official accounts were manipulated. This empirically empty statement ticks all the boxes of softcore Holocaust denial, and amassed 53 replies. The thread accommodates two discussion stages: One occurred in the period between April 19–26, 2002, and includes a number of both denialists and nondenialists (posts 1–40). The second stage is an addition by a Sergey Romanov in October 2016, with them continuing irregularly up until February 2017 (posts 41–53). In the first stage of the discussion, the sources, allegations, and claims made in the original post are called out and criticized. This first happened two hours after the post appeared: Roberto, a user with a very strong anti-denialist position (evident from his website entitled “Holocaust controversies—What Part of the Word Genocide do you not understand?”80 ), thoroughly addresses every expression in Snafu’s text,81 which other users express their appreciation. What also becomes evident in this post is that there are several other users sharing the denialist position of Snafu, and it results in none of them being banned.

79

See comment 1 in “A Derelict Convergence,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?f=6&t=1609&p=12358 (last accessed January 3, 2020). 80 See “Holocaust Controversies,” https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/ (last accessed January 3, 2020). 81 See comment 2 in “A Derelict Convergence,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=12358#p12358 (last accessed January 3, 2020).

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Other threads82 demonstrate the problem of Holocaust-denial posts occurring on AHF right after its launch, which Wendel addressed in the addition to the forum rules. The issue of Holocaust denial and revisionism is problematized on the forum a number of times.83 In some cases, discussions that begin in the thematic field of revisionism are subsequently peacefully guided in a different direction.84 Most of these findings date back to the period right after launch: in 2013, for example, an attempt to post a link to a revisionist source was nipped in the bud at the very beginning—not through argumentation, but by alluding to forum rules.85 Based on these examples we can see that posts that contain at least softcore Holocaust denial are not subject to deletion, and there are several users who admit to being denialists but who are not banned. Snafu is not one of the most active members on AHF, but there are also others too—individuals who reference their views openly at various times.86 Forum moderators can both ban members and rescind that status, complicating the tracing of these activities.87 82

See comments 11–42 in “Treblinka I/II,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? f=22&t=43. See also “’Note that Holocaust Denial is not allowed.’ (OK;” https://forum. axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=312. Here, users discuss whether a new subforum dedicated to the positive sides of National Socialism could be opened (which is denied). See also “PRAVDA: ’holocaust myth’” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6& t=2564. Here, a user brings up a revisionist article published in the Russian newspaper Pravda. (last accessed January 3, 2020) 83 For example, “Mr. Webmaster’s definition of ’Holocaust denial,’” https://forum.axishi story.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=575, and “Waffen-SS fanboys and others,” https://forum. axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=216989 (last accessed January 3, 2020). 84 See comments 32–42 “Treblinka I/II” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6& t=43&start=30 (last accessed January 3, 2020). 85 See comment 2 in “Primary sources related to WW2 concentration camps,” https://forum. axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=196434&p=1765875#p1765875 (last accessed March 3, 2021). 86 For example Dan (https://forum.axishistory.com/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile& u=20), who on several occasions sympathizes with David Irving, the doyen of Holocaust denial, and who furthermore discloses his own such views in a comment on the thread “Two types of denialists” (https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=23334#p23334, last accessed January 3, 2020). 87 For example the member Scott Smith, who mentions that he is a denialist, was banned for a period of time before the ban was eventually lifted. In this post he writes “Test—am I still banned at AHF?,” to which the moderator David Thompson replies “Nope. Merry Christmas amnesty!”, see comments 242–243 in “Hiroshima and Nagasaki… warcrimes?” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=1419731#p1419731 (last accessed January 7, 2020).

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Heated debates that Holocaust denial ignites are guaranteed to attract a large number of replies. Claims that question important aspects of the Holocaust have been debated frequently, and many posters have had a chance to form a definitive position. The latest installment of the forum rules, published as “Holocaust and XXth century War Crimes,” contains the following passage that encourages debate and different opinions:88 The policy and general purpose of the forum is to provide for an exchange of views and facts on the topic, and to allow discussion of the different points of view. The viewpoints expressed by contributors to this forum are so divergent that general agreement on almost any aspect of the holocaust is unlikely and disagreement will be the rule.

The forum administration is interested in acquiring new users and gaining more power within the online military-history field, explaining why conveying mixed signals (such as using a propaganda poster as the forum’s icon or allowing softcore negationism) is important. Most of the frequent posters are neither Holocaust deniers nor negationists; at the same time, allowing some of those minority camps to participate ensures ongoing activity: as soon as a post suggesting the Holocaust did not happen is published, regular posters correct this assumption. Simultaneously, it is evident that while AHF cannot be accused of propagating Holocaust denial, it is contributing to the trend of National Socialism’s trivialization. Especially in the subforum “Life in Third Reich and Weimar Republic,”89 a large number of posts address the minutiae of everyday life in National-Socialist Germany. In one thread, for example, members discuss the hairstyle trends during that period90 ; the question attracted 289 replies, with some users claiming to “take [the] pictures to the barber.”91 Whether this is intended for reenactment purposes or for everyday use remains unclear, however it is certainly part of a whole body of discussion that focuses on trivial details, along with: “Did Hitler

88

See comment 1 in “H&WC Section Rules,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? f=6&t=53962 (last accessed January 20, 2020; emphasis added). 89 See comment 1 in “Life in the Third Reich,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? p=317877#p317877 (last accessed January 12, 2020). 90 See “Men’s hair styles,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=62312 (last accessed January 6, 2020). 91 See comment 15 in “Men’s hair styles,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p= 578381#p578381 (last accessed January 7, 2020).

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ever drive?,”92 “Did Joseph Goebbels dance?,”93 “Positive lasting contribution of the Third Reich,”94 and many others. The trivialization problem is partially addressed within the forum, but no conclusion is offered.95 These discussions partly undermine the standing of AHF as a historical resource—but at the same time reflect a bottom-up interest in the Third Reich in all its dimensions. c. Structure AHF consists of 54 subforums, which are divided into eight overarching thematic groups: Axis History; Axis Equipment; Militaria & Collecting; The Allies and the Neutral States; World War II and Inter-War Era; Other Eras; Research Help; and, Other Areas. Subforums within each group have either a thematic focus or a specific interactional scenario: for example those in the category “Research Help” suggest that users support each other in a variety of research practices, such as translating, consulting archives, and navigating through the vast amount of World War II-related literature. In the subforums belonging to “Militaria & Collecting,” users ask for information on specific artifacts as well as purchase them (in the “For Sale and Wanted” subforum). On the “What if?” subforum of “Other Areas”, users are encouraged to suggest a counterfactual chain of historical events (the scope is restricted, with special subforum rules96 ); this is then assessed by other users according to probability and plausibility. Similarly, on the subforum “Axis Biographical Research” of “Axis History” users are expected to ask questions regarding persons associated with the Axis Powers and events.

92

See “Did Hitler ever drive?” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t= 127432 (last accessed January 6, 2020). 93 See “Did Josef Goebbels dance?” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t= 240010 (last accessed January 6, 2020). 94 See “Positive Lasting Contribution of the Third Reich,” https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wtopic.php?f=46&t=12494 (last accessed January 6, 2020). 95 In “Waffen-SS fanboys and others” (https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22& t=216989, last accessed January 6, 2020), users discuss the disproportionate fascination with the forces of the Axis Powers. Discussions regarding a selective, romanticizing interest in the Third Reich also unfold in the discussion “Life in the Third Reich,” where a user voices his wish to live during that period because “if we took out the anti-semitism, the nastiness of the Gestapo and Hitler’s obsession with war, living in Nazi Germany would have been a nice place to live?” Users give mixed reactions, ranging from similar viewpoints on to criticism of this escapist position. https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=35355 (last accessed January 7, 2020). 96 For example, it is forbidden to imagine that National-Socialist Germany won World War II or that Hitler survived the war, see https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t= 77436 (last accessed January 10, 2020).

3.2 The Axis History Forum

73

AHF subforums—an overview In Figure 3.4., the categories and subforums of AHF are depicted according to the number of comments found in each. The vertical lines represent the mean (blue) and the median (green) of posts across the forum as a whole. The mean is higher than the median, indicating that there are a few extremely popular subforums and a large number of subforums with a collection of threads lower than the mean. Already at first glance attention is drawn to the forum’s strong structural focus on the history of the Axis Powers: two of the eight thematic groups are dedicated solely to themes connected to them (“Axis Equipment” and “Axis History”). Ten

Median = 25,031 Mean = 38,052.46

Axis Equipment

Subforum

Economy Winter War and Continuation War WW2 in Africa & the Mediterranean WW2 in Eastern Europe WW2 in Western Europe & the Atlantic WW2 in Pacific & Asia Spanish Civil War & Legion Condor / Legion Condor The United Kingdom & its Empire and Commonwealth 1919−45 USA 1919−1945 France 1919−1945 Poland 1919−1945 China At War 1895−1949 The Soviet Union at War 1917−1945 The Allies and the Neutral States in general Archives Translation Help: Breaking the Sound Barrier Books & Other Reference Material The End of the Ottoman Empire 1908−1923 German Colonies and Overseas Expeditions Imperial Germany Other Eras First World War Austria−Hungary 1867−1918 Reenactment Movies, games & other fiction

Axis History Militaria & Collecting Other Areas Other Eras Research Help The Allies & Neutral States WWII and Inter−War Era

The Lounge Model Building What if? Axis Documents, Feldpost numbers, Postcards & Other Paper items For Sale & Wanted Other WW1 and WW2 Militaria Axis Awards Axis Uniforms, Headgear & Insignia U−Boats Music of the Reich Women of the Reich German Strategy & General German Military Discussion Italy under Fascism 1922−1945 Japan at War 1895−1945 Kriegsmarine surface ships and Kriegsmarine in general Foreign Volunteers & collaboration Heer, Waffen−SS & Fallschirmjäger Luftwaffe air units and Luftwaffe in general / Aircraft Life in the Third Reich & Weimar Republic NSDAP, other party organizations & Government Propaganda, Culture and Architecture The Phil Nix SS & Polizei Section Holocaust & 20th Century War Crimes Axis Biographical Research Minor Axis Nations Small Arms Fortifications Artillery & Rockets The Ron Klages Panzer and other vehicles Section Other Equipment

0

50,000

100,000

150,000

Number of comments

Figure 3.4 Thematic subcategories and most popular subforums of AHF

200,000

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out of 17 subforums that have a number of posts higher than the average fall into these two subcategories, and 14 are above the median. This is not surprising, as the initial focus of AHF lies within that thematic range. We can also see that apart from enabling a detailed discussion on armed forces, AHF offers a platform for exchange on other themes elaborated in the “Other Areas” section—where four out of five subforums have a number of discussions higher than the mean. Another strong focus lies in objects that are representative of the period, situated in the thematic groups on “Militaria & Collecting” and “Axis Equipment.” We can also identify subforums that attract an extremely high level of attention and which have a number of replies more than double the mean: “Heer, Waffen SS and Fallschirmjäger,” “The Phil Nix SS & Polizei Section,” “Axis Biographical Research,” “Holocaust & XXth Century War Crimes,” “Fortifications & Artillery,” “Panzer and other vehicles,” “What if?,” and “The Lounge”—the latter is by far the largest subforum on AHF. Here users are supposed to engage in discussions not directly related to World War II. Originally, it was “a place for the regulars of the forum to get to know each other better.”97 The extraordinary popularity of the “Other Areas” section in general and of “The Lounge” in particular shows that AHF is not simply a place to exchange information on World War II. The interest in military history and the Axis Powers indicates other commonalities, such as a nostalgic joint appreciation of an imagined past. Table 3.1. presents a detailed overview of AHF’s subforums, their internal unique forum ID, the number of threads, replies, and users involved on each, and the thematic group that the subforums each belong to. The table demonstrates that the numbers of topics and of replies vary greatly: the first ranges from 360 (“Economy”) to 17,964 (“The Phil Nix SS & Polizei Section”), the second from 2,383 (“For Sale and Wanted”) to 197,335 (“The Lounge”). However these numbers are not especially indicative of the interest of users in a certain thematic area. The thread-post ratio (column 5) is calculated by dividing the number of posts by the number of topics, and shows how long the average discussion in each subforum is. This measure is aimed to distinguish shorter and more prolonged debates. While the subforums “The Phil Nix SS & Polizei Section” and “The Lounge” reveal both high topic and reply numbers, their average discussions lengths vary greatly. The average discussion in the first subforum is only 7.7 comments long, which is a comparatively low number lying within the first quarter of the dataset (mean = 11.6, stdev = 4.4). “The Lounge” is in the upper quarter of the discussion-length averages with 14.1 meanwhile. The subforum with 97

See comment 1 in “New requirements for posting in the Lounge,” https://forum.axishi story.com/viewtopic.php?p=359472#p359472 (last accessed March 3, 2021).

The Ron Klages Panzer and other vehicles Section

Fortifications, Artillery & Rockets

Small Arms

Minor Axis Nations 1,399

Axis Biographical Research

Holocaust & 20th 6,990 Century War Crimes

The Phil Nix SS & Polizei Section

Propaganda, Culture 2,175 and Architecture

47

70

71

4

5

6

38

44

17,964

13,533

1,963

6,896

5,913

2,061

Other Equipment

20

Number of threads (avg = 3410.6)

Subforum title

Subforum ID

30,496

139,769

130,951

126,859

14,662

22,672

96,093

71,255

19,040

Number of comments (avg = 38052.5)

Table 3.1 Overview of subforums and corresponding descriptive statistics

14.0

7.8

18.8

9.4

10.5

11.5

13.9

12.0

9.2

Average Discussion length (thread-post-ratio, avg = 11.6)

2,538

5,054

4,145

4,802

1,571

2,177

2,590

3,756

2,388

Number of users present on the forum (avg = 2157.8)

(continued)

Axis History

Axis History

Axis History

Axis History

Axis History

Axis Equipment

Axis Equipment

Axis Equipment

Axis Equipment

Thematic group

3.2 The Axis History Forum 75

Life in the Third Reich & Weimar Republic

Luftwaffe air units and Luftwaffe in general / Aircraft

Heer, Waffen-SS & Fallschirmjäger

Foreign Volunteers & collaboration

Kriegsmarine surface ships and Kriegsmarine in general

Japan at War 1895–1945

46

49

50

51

61

65

4,325

1,391

2,888

10,916

3,557

5,723

NSDAP, other party 5,327 organizations & Government

45

Number of threads (avg = 3410.6)

Subforum title

Subforum ID

Table 3.1 (continued)

45,920

17,028

29,400

86,939

40,684

83,919

46,950

Number of comments (avg = 38052.5)

10.6

12.2

10.2

8.0

11.4

14.7

8.8

Average Discussion length (thread-post-ratio, avg = 11.6)

1,669

1,525

2,747

5,944

3,122

6,952

3,109

Number of users present on the forum (avg = 2157.8)

(continued)

Axis History

Axis History

Axis History

Axis History

Axis History

Axis History

Axis History

Thematic group

76 3 The Axis History Forum

German Strategy & General German Military Discussion

Women of the Reich 812

Music of the Reich

U-Boats

Axis Uniforms, Headgear & Insignia

Axis Awards

Other WW1 and WW2 Militaria

For Sale & Wanted

76

77

81

110

8

9

10

13

688

5,434

5,871

6,650

963

527

1,336

1,508

Italy under Fascism 1922–1945

75

Number of threads (avg = 3410.6)

Subforum title

Subforum ID

Table 3.1 (continued)

2,383

33,556

46,558

42,447

8,937

4,646

12,184

26,583

12,586

Number of comments (avg = 38052.5)

3.5

6.2

7.9

6.4

9.3

8.8

15.00

19.9

8.3

Average Discussion length (thread-post-ratio, avg = 11.6)

494

3,724

2,611

3,722

1,039

750

1,569

2,228

1,313

Number of users present on the forum (avg = 2157.8)

(continued)

Militaria & Collecting

Militaria & Collecting

Militaria & Collecting

Militaria & Collecting

Axis History

Axis History

Axis History

Axis History

Axis History

Thematic group

3.2 The Axis History Forum 77

Subforum title

Axis Documents, Feldpost numbers, Postcards & Other Paper items

What if?

Model Building

The Lounge

Movies, games & other fiction

Reenactment

Austria-Hungary 1867–1918

First World War

Other Eras

Imperial Germany

German Colonies and Overseas Expeditions

Subforum ID

23

11

18

22

24

40

26

31

58

72

73

Table 3.1 (continued)

448

2,313

3,089

2,255

593

3,435

3,384

13,981

2,677

3,933

3,183

Number of threads (avg = 3410.6)

4,968

17,067

45,723

32,288

6,071

47,771

44,690

197,335

21,879

108,287

22,442

Number of comments (avg = 38052.5)

11.1

7.4

14.8

14.3

10.2

13.9

13.2

14.1

8.2

27.5

7.0

Average Discussion length (thread-post-ratio, avg = 11.6)

369

1,311

2,529

1,666

633

2,102

3,171

5,935

1,578

2,467

2,444

Number of users present on the forum (avg = 2157.8)

(continued)

Other Eras

Other Eras

Other Eras

Other Eras

Other Eras

Other Areas

Other Areas

Other Areas

Other Areas

Other Areas

Militaria & Collecting

Thematic group

78 3 The Axis History Forum

Books & Other Reference Material

Translation Help: Breaking the Sound Barrier

Archives

The Allies and the Neutral States in general

The Soviet Union at 2,345 War 1917–1945

China At War 1895–1949

Poland 1919–1945

France 1919–1945

19

36

48

12

79

101

111

112

717

612

736

1,517

1,032

2,490

4,792

1,068

The End of the Ottoman Empire 1908–1923

80

Number of threads (avg = 3410.6)

Subforum title

Subforum ID

Table 3.1 (continued)

6,216

9,553

6,792

26,313

19,334

5,868

13,232

32,429

10,901

Number of comments (avg = 38052.5)

8.7

15.6

9.2

11.2

12.7

5.7

5.3

6.8

10.2

Average Discussion length (thread-post-ratio, avg = 11.6)

773

863

534

1,906

1,359

1,169

1,412

69

467

Number of users present on the forum (avg = 2157.8)

(continued)

The Allies & Neutral States

The Allies & Neutral States

The Allies & Neutral States

The Allies & Neutral States

The Allies & Neutral States

Research Help

Research Help

Research Help

Other Eras

Thematic group

3.2 The Axis History Forum 79

Subforum title

USA 1919–1945

The United Kingdom & its Empire and Commonwealth 1919–45

Spanish Civil War & Legion Condor / Legion Condor

WW2 in Pacific & Asia

WW2 in Western Europe & the Atlantic

WW2 in Eastern Europe

WW2 in Africa & the Mediterranean

Subforum ID

113

114

32

33

54

55

56

Table 3.1 (continued)

1,121

1,987

1,563

1,289

710

2,056

1,593

Number of threads (avg = 3410.6)

16,320

34,042

27,089

15,359

7,719

23,749

14,880

Number of comments (avg = 38052.5)

14.6

17.1

17.3

11.9

10.9

11.5

9.3

Average Discussion length (thread-post-ratio, avg = 11.6)

1,220

2,325

1,924

1,061

752

1,631

1,484

Number of users present on the forum (avg = 2157.8)

(continued)

WWII and Inter-War Era

WWII and Inter-War Era

WWII and Inter-War Era

WWII and Inter-War Era

WWII and Inter-War Era

The Allies & Neutral States

The Allies & Neutral States

Thematic group

80 3 The Axis History Forum

Winter War and Continuation War

Economy

59

66

Total

Subforum title

Subforum ID

Table 3.1 (continued)

184,174

360

2,085

Number of threads (avg = 3410.6)

2,054,833

7,539

36,460

Number of comments (avg = 38052.5)

20.9

17.5

Average Discussion length (thread-post-ratio, avg = 11.6)

730

1,096

Number of users present on the forum (avg = 2157.8)

WWII and Inter-War Era

WWII and Inter-War Era

Thematic group

3.2 The Axis History Forum 81

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the highest discussion length (27,5), however, is “What if?”—the one dedicated to counterfactual historical narratives. At the same time, subforums dedicated to collecting military artifacts, such as “For sale and wanted,” have the shortest discussions (all below average, ranging from 3.46 to 7.93). The number of users taking part in discussions within the eight thematic groups varies, as indicated in Table 3.2.: the “Other Areas” subforums enjoy the highest average number at 3,051 users per subforum, followed by “Axis History” (2,946) and “Axis Equipment” (2,727); “Militaria & Collecting” has on average 2,599 users per subforum. Then a sharp decline occurs: subforums belonging to “World War II and Inter-War Era” have on average 1,301 users, “The Allies and Neutral States” have 1,221, “Other Eras” see 1,162, while “Research Help” attracts the lowest number with 833 users involved on average. Table 3.2 Performance markers on average per thematic group Thematic group Mean number of users

Mean number of threads

Mean number of comments

Thread-post-ratio based on mean values

Research Help

883.33

2,771.33

17,176.33

5.92

Other Eras

1,162.50

1,627.67

19,503

6.74

The Allies & Neutral States

1,221.43

1,368

15,262.43

7.74

WWII and Inter-War Era

1,301.14

1,302.14

20,646.86

11.17

Militaria & Collecting

2,599

4,365.20

29,477.20

12.34

Axis Equipment 2,727.75

4,208.25

52,265

12.56

Axis History

2.945.71

4,784.35

50,500.76

11.21

Other Areas

3,050.60

5,482

83,992.40

10.70

The forums belonging to the groups on “Axis History” and “Axis Equipment” are not only the ones with the most threads and comments; they also attract the most users too. The only group that can compare with this output is “Other Areas,” which has one extreme outlier, “The Lounge,” one high performance subforum (“Movies, games and other fiction”), two subforums performing slightly above average (“What if?” and “Reenactment”), and one below average (“Model Building”). While the thread-post-ratio provides additional insight into the numeric information, it does not distinguish between unanswered threads (“Other Eras”) and quickly resolved issues (“Research Help”).

3.2 The Axis History Forum

83

Not all subforums emerged simultaneously.98 When “Wayback Machine” first archived AHF in December 2003 the latter consisted of 35 subforums.99 While some have not changed since, others have undergone massive transformations: for example the subforums “Life in the Third Reich and Weimar Republic,” “NSDAP, Other Party Organisations and Government,” and “Propaganda, Culture and Architecture” used to be one subforum entitled “The Third Reich.”100 From a quantitative perspective on comment numbers, the years 2003–2006 were the most active ones vis-à-vis AHF. After peaking in 2004, the number of posts then declined: in 2013 AHF users wrote only one-third of the volume written in 2004, before contributions declined even further from then on. Interestingly, these are the same years when Wikipedia would experience the highest rate of edits. Perhaps the launch of Facebook in 2004 (and similar social-networking sites then following) would take away a large amount of user activity from other websites. Overall, it can be concluded that different themes, represented through different subforums, attract varying user numbers. Various interactional scenarios, represented through the different thread lengths, seem to be present as well. However, the descriptive statistics of AHF in general do not provide enough clarity, because it remains unclear, what forum combinations users are frequenting and how they interact therein. d. Users This section now offers an overview of the sociodemographic information of AHF users as provided on the forum itself, as well as a top-down division of them into groups and rankings according to their activity levels. Registration and user-profile data To interpret the discussion dynamics on the forum, it is important to understand which user data is accessible to the researcher. There were over 70,000 users registered on AHF as of December 2019. Most of the forum content can be accessed without registration (the only exception being “The Lounge”), while contribution is limited to registered users. It is thus reasonable to suggest that people register 98

The emergence of new sections and subforums is referenced on AHF several times. See: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=918&p=6622#p6622 and https:// forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1753&p=13182#p13182 (last accessed January 10, 2020). 99 See https://web.archive.org/web/20031229185042/http://forum.axishistory.com:80/ (last accessed January 10, 2020). 100 See “New sections in the forum,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t= 40649 (last accessed January 11, 2020).

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on AHF to become part of the forum community: either through engaging in discussions or through gaining access to “The Lounge.” Another motive is the possibility to view, as mentioned, the forum’s content without advertising, which would explain why more than 50 percent of the registered users did not write any comments on the forum. When someone registers, they can choose what personal information to reveal: the profile has designated space to share their location, occupation, age, overall interests, and the specific historical period that they are interested in. Metadata on each user’s interaction patterns is then added automatically. While a user’s location is visible to everyone, the rest of the details are accessible only to other registered users via each person’s individual profile page. Since it is not obligatory to fill out any of the personal-information fields, the user profiles are incomplete. All conclusions derived from that information are based on parts of the userbase. Even the metadata, which is automatically added by the forum database, is not always complete. The metadata includes temporal entries, such as “Joined” and “Last active,” which consist of not only the date but also the exact time a user was last online. Another piece of data is the “Total posts” account, which supposedly shows how many comments someone has left on the forum to date. The figure shown in “Total posts” does not necessarily match the number of searchable posts however. A list of the latter for a given user can be accessed when clicking on the link “Search user’s posts.” The number in the list is usually lower than the one indicated in the user profile. This means that the user has participated in discussions that are now deleted, while the “Total posts” score lists all comments ever written. The user-profile dataset In the following I will present the user-profile dataset in aggregated form. The dataset was scraped in December 2018, and contains only users that had contributed to the forum. It features data on 30,863 users, and provides information on user ID, username, location, location code, age, occupation, date joined, lastactive status, total posts in November 2017, and total posts in December 2018. The total-posts count stands for the number of accessible ones here. The data from a previous scraping session in November 2017 was added to see how active users were between the two scraping sessions. The number of posts remained the same in 26,744 cases, meaning that in the time period of November 2017 to December 2018 some 4,119 users contributed to AHF.

3.2 The Axis History Forum

85

Location AHF users had entered 152 different countries as their location. In Figure 3.5., the most frequent ones given are plotted. Only those countries are included here that featured at least 100 times in the dataset. The lowest frequency value in the graph belongs to Hungary (103 entries). Figure 3.5. includes the locations of 29,233 of a total 30,863 AHF users (94.7 percent). Most often, users did not enter any location—coded in the dataset as “0.” Those users who did not enter a location were less active (20.65 comments on average per user versus 83.78 for those with an entered location). One-third of users were located in English-speaking countries, which is not surprising given English is the main language of the forum. European countries are also highly represented: almost 30 percent of users either entered a European country or alternatively Europe itself as their location. The English-speaking part of Europe dominates this group as well: people from the UK already formed the largest user group, and together with Ireland they lie far beyond other countries. The nonEuropean and non-English-speaking countries include China, Brazil, and Russia. Japan is not included in the visualization below, as only 62 users entered it as their location.

0 1000 3000 5000 7000 9000

Number of users

Geographical distribution of AHF users

0 US UK DE CA AU 1 NL FR SE PL IT FI RU BE ES EU NO DK CN AT RO CZ IE NZ BR UA GR HR EE HU

Location codes (min = 100)

Figure 3.5 The distribution of locations among users (min = 100). (Note: Locations were coded using the two-letter country codes based on the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 standard)

Age There were only 2,656 users who entered their age, representing about 8.6 percent of forum users. These individuals would be quite active on average, since they produced about 20.5 percent of the forum’s content between them. The age is

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distributed normally (see Figure 3.6.), with a slightly higher number between 28 and 55 years old. Presumably, the entries below 10 and over 100 years old were fake. Occupation From the 30,863 users on the forum who left at least one comment, only 4,767 clarified their occupation (15.4 percent). On average, these users would be slightly more active than those who did not provide this information: they contributed 32.4 percent of the forum’s content (mean total posts 130, in comparison to 63 in the complete dataset). Figure 3.7. demonstrates the top-20 most common occupations among AHF users (out of an overall 2,531 unique entries). The top-two occupations are “student” and “retired.” This is interesting, as these two do not constitute actual jobs, signifying instead age groups and stages in life. Several possible conclusions come to mind here: perhaps these two age groups have more time for hobbies than those who are amidst their career path, and thus are more likely to register on the forum. As we are not speaking of the forum userbase as a whole, but only about the 15 percent who were inclined to share their occupation, it might be that these two groups experience a higher need to signify their stage of life. Perhaps they consider themselves to not be the main target audience of the forum: as we have seen from the age data, the most represented age group of the forum is 28 to 55 years old. A much more debatable conclusion in the context of collective memory would be that the forum topic attracts these two groups specifically, providing the opportunity to bridge the generational gap and exchange views on World War II. This period is mediatized enough to be interesting for students, and close enough on the timeline to be reported from by older generations. That aside, students are more likely to be digital natives, while the retired are most likely not as experienced in the online sphere. The fact that they come together in an online medium (where students can be considered experts) in order to talk about World War II (where, most likely, elderly users would be considered experts—or at least, in some cases, eye witnesses) creates a space of mutual respect, and thus facilitates more fruitful exchange. However even though this idea is very compelling, there is a more likely explanation here: these occupations are extremely unspecified, as they unite different career paths that at other points in the user’s life would be divided into separate occupations. From third place onward, specific niches take over. Most of the entries feature jobs where higher education is either a must or highly likely: teacher, engineer, writer, historian, sales, IT, military, lawyer, journalist, manager, artist, pilot, researcher, and similar. The interest in military history can thus be connected to

Amount of users

80

60

40

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Figure 3.7 Top 20 occupations of AHF users

people who can afford higher education, as the first jobs that do not require it begin only after rank 50: “truck driver” and “builder” occupy positions 52 (8 users) and 53 (7 users) respectively. Gender There is no field where users can mark their gender identity within the individual profile. Nonetheless, users would perceive the community as predominantly male. This view can be operationalized in how the users addressed each other. In a short experiment, I considered the address “Ladies and Gentlemen”—signifying a community perceived to consist of both men and women. More frequent occurrences of “ladies” would signify that the users perceive their audience to be predominantly female, while the higher appearance of “gentlemen” would signify that the posts are addressed to a community that is considered predominantly male. Since the forum posts are a searchable database, I simply inserted the queries “ladies” and “gentlemen.” The forum lists 1,424 occurrences of “ladies”101 and 7,533 of “gentlemen.”102 To assess the probability of these words occurring in the comment text (e.g. “the two ladies in the picture”) rather than in a post’s formal address, I read the first 300 posts where each of these two words occurred. Out of the first 300 101

See “Axis History Forum—search,” https://forum.axishistory.com/search.php?key words=ladies (last accessed January 11, 2020). 102 See “Axis History Forum—search,” https://forum.axishistory.com/search.php?key words=gentlemen (last accessed January 11, 2020).

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occurrences of “gentlemen,” 273 were part of greetings directed at forum users and 27 were quotes, references to third persons, and the like. Out of the first 300 occurrences of “ladies,” 50 were related to greetings while 250 contained the word as part of the text body. This supports the assumption that users perceive AHF as a community of males. Paraphrasing the claim that Maltby, Thornham, and Bennett (2018) made in their research on misogyny in online military forums, the issue of whether military history “actually” is predominantly male is only relevant insofar as it is widely perceived and imagined to be so: it is a popular imaginary that AHF must seek to fit.

Figure 3.8 A user addresses his gender assumptions in passing

This tendency is not surprising, as Military History both as an academic discipline and as a hobby is traditionally a male domain. The military historian Mark Grimsley (2007) notes in his essay “Why Military History matters” that the high number of incidences of “inspirational military history” appearing in popular culture drives men into this particular field—both academically and privately. He concurs with fellow historian Michael C. C. Adams, who writes that “war functions as folklore, the epic tradition of male culture” (Adams 1993, 1687), and points out the influence of military history specifically on male socialization. The perceived gender imbalance (see Figure 3.8.103 ) on AHF is a result of this influence, seemingly being a view shared transnationally too. 103

See comment 1 in “14. Pz. D. stalls in front of Novograd-Volinksy 7jul41,” https:// forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=184214&p=1652355 (last accessed February 23, 2021).

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In a nutshell, the sociodemographic data indicates that AHF users are mostly men located in the Global Northwest, who either have a higher education or are working toward a degree. However this picture is based only on accumulated parts of the dataset, as many users did not fill out their profiles. Almost 34 percent did not enter neither their location, nor their occupation, or their age in their profile, leaving no sociodemographic information to theorize about. Yet even though the number of such users is high, their overall contribution level is not: comments made by them constitute only about one-tenth of the forum’s content. It can thus be concluded that more-filled-out profiles correlate with higher activity levels on AHF. At the same time, descriptive statistics provide only a generic overview in the case of the userbase as well. Top-down grouping Apart from the sociodemographic characteristics in the user profile, each user on the forum belongs to a “Group” and is categorized into a “Rank.” A brief overview these groupings within the community of users provides insight into the vertical hierarchies (groups) and the horizontal divisions (ranks) on the forum. Within a forum so strongly embedded in military-history contexts, the definition of people having both a group and a rank evokes associations with military units; these associations are not replicated within the forum community itself however. Since both groups and ranks are assigned by the forum administration, I understand them as top-down categorizations of users based on their activity: for example ranks are assigned when certain quantifiable actions are carried out, such as the provision of financial support or reaching a certain number of comments made. This top-down assignment of groups is opposed to the users’ group-building based on the practices of commenting analyzed in chapter 4. I will now outline the groups that users are assigned to by forum moderators in the following. Groups Groups set regular users apart from forum staff. Belonging to a group goes hand in hand with certain privileges and responsibilities, with the groups organized hierarchically: every user is inevitably among “Registered users,” yet only 12 registered users belong to the “Global moderators” and just three of the latter are also “Administrators” (Wendel, Ankerstjerne, and Thompson—the latter two listed as “members” of the group “Administrators,” while Wendel is its “leader”). Global moderators constitute the forum staff and can amend all entries: they can delete posts, move topics from one forum to another, ban users, impose restrictions on

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certain subforums, and in general are considered figures of authority. They usually occupy deescalating positions within discussions, and are often appealed to by other users when misconduct has been spotted. The digital governance scholar Nathan Matias (2019) highlights the important work that moderators do to sustain online communities, in the course of which they are accountable to platform participants, to management staff, and to other moderators. The appointment of a new member to the forum staff is post-worthy: usually, members of the “Administrators” group identify a new moderator.104 While on some platforms debates around moderators abusing their power occur on a regular basis (Matias 2019), for AHF this does not seem to be a problem: the appointment of a host or moderator is usually received very positively judging by the evidence. The appointment to administrator has only occurred once, when Wendel stepped down as the overall forum administrator. Groups signify the division of the community of contributors into users with various rights and levels of access: as Ankerstjerne would state, there is a special subforum exclusively for AHF moderators, where overall forum policies are discussed and decisions such as the banning of a particular user are made.105 Furthermore, moderators have access to all deleted posts on the forum. The role division and its regulation mechanisms are not specific to AHF, but replicate a fairly typical architecture found among online communities.106 The research literature differentiates between “user-driven” and “platform-based” governance, where the latter is implemented in a more institutionalized manner—such as on Reddit, Facebook, or Instagram. AHF is clearly a user-governed platform, as users are appointed by the forum administration based on their participation patterns, knowledge, and interests (Seering et al. 2019), thus further establishing its status as a bottom-up project. Ranks The ranking system aims to distinguish users horizontally, and helps one assess counterparts during discussions. The ascription of a rank does not come with any concrete privileges. In a communicative situation that by its very nature offers reduced social cues, the assigning of these ranks informs discussants about their

104

For example, see “New host of this section,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?f=31&t=180267 (last accessed February 23, 2021). 105 Christian Ankerstjerne, interviewed by author, 55:03. See “Interview with Christian Ankerstjerne” in the ESM. 106 A similar division into global and local administrators could be found in other forums; see Busch (2011).

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counterpart’s status and helps manage their expectations regarding future behavior too. New member The first rank a user gets is “New member,” which is tied to the number of comments they have left on the forum: anybody who has left more than one is considered to be a regular member. AHF users participate in the discussions to varying degrees. Out of 71,486 registered users, 48,977 had the status of “New member;” of these, over 10,500 had posted only one comment. This means that of 71,486 users, 38,386 (53.7 percent) had registered and not posted anything at all, putting the large number of registered users in perspective. While this number seems high, it is important to keep in mind that registration removes advertising on the website and is thus of definite interest for “lurkers”—consumers of online content who do not participate in its creation. According to Internet entrepreneur Ross Mayfield (2006), noncontributors usually constitute up to 90 percent of online communities’ members. Active posters are assigned the following ranks: Hosts (13 users) Even though hosts are not forum staff, they enjoy certain modification privileges on a local level—like renaming topics, removing parts of a post (such as pirate links),107 and deleting segments of a conversation.108 One discussion explains the reasoning behind creating this particular rank: here, a user suggests to Wendel to start a model-building subsection—to which the latter replies that he could not moderate it, as he does not have the expertise or interest in this particular branch of military history. He then appoints a host to this section.109 Thus, we can conclude that hosts make up for any shortfalls in the forum staff’s own areas of interest and expertise. Just like moderators, hosts are invested in the subject at hand, deriving personal value from their involvement with it. In memoriam (22 members) This rank is attributed to users who have passed away. Now-deceased users differ considerably in the number of comments written while alive (ranging from four 107

See comment 4 in “Willst du ein Deutscher sein,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?p=2226942#p2226942 (last accessed January 11, 2020). 108 See comment 11 in “Fighting the British at Arnhem Book Review,” https://forum.axishi story.com/viewtopic.php?p=2163548#p2163548 (last accessed January 11, 2020). 109 See comment 4 in “Any Model Builders on the Board???” https://forum.axishistory.com/ viewtopic.php?f=18&t=918&p=6622#p6622 (last accessed January 11, 2020).

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to 9,498). At first glance, the degree of involvement of users with a low comment number could not have been very strong. On the other hand, even the user with the comment count of four, monte (Imants Rutkovskis), seems to have left his mark on the forum community. It is mentioned that monte died in 2006, and even five years later a different user remembers him fondly in a comment (Figure 3.9.).110

Figure 3.9 Monte is remembered on the forum

Due to the fact that monte signed his posts with his first and last name, we know that the post is about him. The ascription of the “In memoriam” rank also means that the forum administration is somehow notified when a member passes away. AHF must have had a place in their lives that was perceivable by friends and family. The user Ken Jasper, for example, evidently had that kind of bond with the community of online military historians and collectors, which is clear from his wife’s letter to one of the administrators (Figure 3.10.): she writes that these were “some of his best times.”111 All deceased users, apart from getting a special rank, are mentioned also in a continuous “In memoriam” thread on “The Lounge.”112 Almost all of the deceased are commemorated with separate discussion threads,113 or mentioned 110

See comment 34 in “Information about Latvian Flakhelfer Units?” https://forum.axishi story.com/viewtopic.php?p=1547649#p1547649 (last accessed January 11, 2020). 111 See comment 1 in “In memory of Ken Jasper,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=118103#p118103 (last accessed January 11, 2020). 112 See “In memoriam,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=147232 (last accessed January 11, 2020). 113 See “Phil Nix passed away,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t= 196108; “Ron Klages has passed away”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f= 22&t=117240; “In memory of Ken Jasper”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f= 9&t=14094 (last accessed January 11, 2020).

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Figure 3.10 Obituary for Ken Jasper

during other discussions afterward.114 Two users would be commemorated in a unique manner after their passing: Phil Nix and Ron Klages each have a subforum named after them.115 The expressed condolences contain reflections on the nature of forum relations and their meaning to users,116 as well as on personal relations to the deceased. But also: just condolences to a forum member are expressed, even if the person doing so had no interaction with the deceased (Figure 3.11).117

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See comment 19 in “DCC is back!”, https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=119 4461#p1194461 (last accessed January 11, 2020). 115 The Phil Nix SS and Polizei Section: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewforum.php? f=38; The Ron Klages Panzer & other vehicles Section: https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wforum.php?f=47 (last accessed January 11, 2020). 116 See comment 11 in “In memory of Ken Jasper,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=118323#p118323 (last accessed January 11, 2020). 117 See comment 5 in “Feanor has passed away,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=599929#p599929 (last accessed February 23, 2021).

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Figure 3.11 Expression of condolences for a forum user (no prior interaction)

The condolences also reveal that there was a variety of media used by the members for their exchanges, and show that their relationships incorporated other communication channels beyond just AHF, speaking for the constitution of the community and the strong transmedial ties between some of its members. Expressing condolences motivates the users to reflect on their own forumusage practices. As Faraj and Johnson remark in their studies of exchange in online communities, “the extent of anonymity in the online community appears to affect the kind of ties that people build online. Instead of attachment to specific individuals, anonymity fosters attachment to the online community (as a whole) and, in turn, supports norm sustenance” (2011, 1465). While the interaction on AHF is pseudonymous, not anonymous, the described tendency is present. There is a curious interplay between the levels of attachment witnessed especially on “In memoriam” pages: users express condolences both when they did or did not know the person in question, thereby expressing them also to the online community at large after losing one of its members. While both the rank and the “In memoriam” thread are ways to communicate the same information (the death of an individual), their goals are different. The rank of each user is visible under the username next to every post written (see Figure 3.12.). As such, when someone encounters a comment by a deceased user then the reader is informed that they will evidently not participate in further discussions.

Figure 3.12 Demonstration of the rank placement

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Contrary to the rank, the threads dedicated to individual users constitute practices of commemoration performed by members of this online community. Thus, while not every interaction on the forum can be considered a practice of transnational memory of World War II, it surely can be said to be true about this particular kind of interaction. The online community that is AHF remembers not only the varying platforms it was interacting on; it also mourns the passing of its members. The attribution of a rank also enables the viewer to see the deceased users all at once, and inspect some of the threads about their passing. A particularly curious case presented itself vis-à-vis the user walterkaschner.118 The forum administrator posted a long, carefully crafted obituary and commented on a peculiar fact surrounding his username choice. The last paragraph of the obituary, entitled “Walter Sapp (walterkaschner) has passed away,” reads as follows:119 Please find below the obituary of Walter as it appeared in the Houston Chronicler on 24th December. This includes information about his most beloved charities, should somebody wish to make a donation in his memory. What you will not find there is the reason for his choice of username. His nom-de-plume was the maiden name of his wife, the daughter of German Generalmajor Dr. Erwin Kaschner, General Officer commanding 326.ID/VGD, 1944/5, and maybe the reason of why he spent so much time contributing to our forum.

The post reveals that the username itself is a tribute to his wife’s father, who was a prominent general in the Wehrmacht—which initiated the user’s interest in World War II and led to his participation on the forum. In their research on the preservation of the profiles of deceased users on Facebook, Öhman and Watson (2019) emphasize that this act must be considered profitable for the organization concerned for it to be maintained, as the growing number of such profiles poses the practical problem of data storage. For AHF, keeping the contributions of deceased users is vital, as deletion would disrupt discussion flow. In one case, a deceased user’s son comments and asks the profile of his father to be deleted, which is not followed through on—only the “In memoriam” rank is ascribed. A glance at the commemoration threads reveals that the death of users is an integral part of community identity. The memorial threads reveal the multilayered 118

See “Walter Sapp (walterkaschner) has passed away,” https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wtopic.php?f=2&t=113295 (last accessed January 11, 2020). 119 See comment 1 in “Walter Sapp (walterkaschner) has passed away,” https://forum.axishi story.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=113295 (last accessed January 11, 2020).

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transmedial relationships that users had with each other, and it is thus highly unlikely that the community will decide against preserving the memory of its users who have passed away. Financial supporter (158) Just like with “In memoriam,” users assigned this rank had varied participation patterns, but nonetheless, financial supporters tended to be more active users. Users with a lower post count raise questions—why would they support a platform they do not participate in? While not all posts by such users were available, some are revealing of the personal gain people have gotten from the forum: one user is excited about having found a community of people who share this particular historical affinity,120 another has discovered users interested in his grandfather,121 while two others received a couple of answers to their enquiries.122 Whenever personal information is available, it is revealed that these users have a higher education and might thus have better-paying jobs—allowing them to finance their hobby. Banned (182) Banning of users occurs if someone violates the forum rules. On some occasions, the last posts made are subject to deletion. Thus, in some cases, it is impossible to trace the interaction that ended in a user being banned. As a result, there are users who were banned despite writing only one comment—or even none at all. The traceable banning cases leave the impression that the practice occurs more often with forum-netiquette violations123 than with issues concerning historical accuracy. Forum staff (13) This encompasses all the forum staff, as well as every member of the group “Global moderators.” 120

See comment 992 in “Introduce Yourself,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? p=1120259#p1120259 (last accessed December 2, 2019). 121 See comment 15 in “Pim-Oberst von der Linde,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?p=1264789#p1264789 (last accessed December 2, 2019). 122 See “Suppression of religious dissidents,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? f=46&t=195884&p=1761305#p1761305, and “IJA Air Units,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=161096 (last accessed December 2, 2019). 123 See “How to handle two pictures?” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=23& t=75455 (last accessed December 3, 2019).

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Member The rank of “Member” signifies that a person falls under none of the above, and so is attributed to a denomination encompassing the rest of the users. As shown in Figure 3.9., 3.10 and 3.12 above, one’s rank is situated in the box on the right next to the comment text, along with user location (if specified), the number of total posts made, the date a user joined the forum, and a link via which to write them a personal message should one wish to do so. Thus, within the communicative situation of the forum discussion, these pieces of information compensate for the social cues otherwise missing in users’ online interactions. The rank reflects a role within the social structure of the forum, and helps manage expectations regarding replies. The group and rank divisions demonstrate that even with the broader access to information that comes with the Internet, an internal hierarchy is still necessary to uphold a functioning online community. e. The “Introduce Yourself” thread In this section I focus on the practices of memory referenced on the “Introduce Yourself” thread in the subforum “The Lounge.” In the latter users can, as mentioned, exchange information on topics not necessarily related to World War II. In this specific thread, users contextualize their interest in the latter through the biographical information offered. Since other topics and other subforums have a very specific thematic focus or suggest a certain interactional scenario, this thread marks the space for personal introductions and identity performance. It has a certain interactional scenario as well: the biographies are not commented upon, and as soon as a discussion emerges around someone’s story the moderators ask to move it to a more appropriate setting. Therefore an individual story cannot be commented on in detail. I understand identity performance as self-presentation and impression management. Herein I follow Bernie Hogan’s (2010) interpretation of Erving Goffman (1990), in which he clarifies a distinction between “exhibition spaces” and “performance spaces” in online communities. Exhibition spaces are those environments “where individuals submit artifacts to show to each other” (Hogan 2010, 377), while in performance spaces individuals “behave with each other” (Ibid., 377). Within the forum, both spaces coexist: every single discussion, no matter the interactional scenario, is a performance space where people behave with each other. At the same time threads can be started for archiving purposes, where users submit artifacts they want to share—for example documents or photographic collections. Together with user pages and the “Introduce yourself” thread, these can be considered exhibition spaces. As the posts of each user are accessible from

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one’s profile, the “exhibited material” plays into future discussions and has an effect during the performance. So far, practices of memory performed on the forum were presented in the form of the “In memoriam” status. Meanwhile, the “Introduce Yourself” thread presents a collection of practices of collective memory that were performed outside of the forum setting: here, users summarize the pursuit of their interest in World War II and the Axis Powers, selecting details that make them eligible to be members of AHF online community. As it turns out, these practices are often subject of AHF discussions. The “Introduce Yourself” thread is, of course, not the only place to disclose personal information. For example the thread “What do you look like in front of a PC?”124 consists of images of forum users in front of their PC or of their PC tables alone. Often, these places are surrounded by bookshelves stacked with works on World War II, miniature soldier figures, tanks, and Third Reich militaria. This extensive imagery is rarely commented on by others. The visual input provided here calls for thorough analysis, but unfortunately not many pictures are accessible because most of the hosting links had stopped working. Therefore a thread consisting of 237 posts only contains 17 accessible pictures. Other posts either thematize the fact that they are unable to find a way to upload, or pictures were added but have by now disappeared. The “Introduce yourself” thread had accumulated 2,115 comments, a figure revealing of the fact that providing personal introduction is not obligatory: even if each post contained an introduction, it would mean that less than 3 percent of users had contributed. “Introduce yourself” was set up by Wendel on August 3, 2002, around six months after the forum was created:125 If you want to tell the other visitors a bit about yourself, this is the thread to do it in, a sort of ““Who’s Who””. Please, only bios in this thread, no discussions, thanks.

The interactional scenario is defined in the initial post. The idea to create a “Who’s Who” resonates with the theoretical construct of exhibition and performance spaces outlined above. The introductions echo the sociodemographic data acquired in the user-information pages: most are male (86 percent), around 12.5

124

See “What do you look like in front of the PC?,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?f=22&t=24074 (last accessed November 21, 2018). 125 See comment 1 in “Introduce yourself,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p= 44323#p44323 (last accessed November 16, 2019).

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percent are working toward a degree, while over 16 percent already have one. A surprising number of contributors are still in school (18.6 percent). The texts deal with a wide range of topics: from marital status and occupation to favorite pastimes and pets. It is possible to outline different activities within the forum community: World War II-related fan practices such as reenactment, collecting militaria, and model-building are mentioned. Some users were inspired by their own military experience, or by the service of someone in close proximity. There are also writers in need of historical verification, gamers, historical tourists, and prosumers who launched a website themselves. The pictures that users attach of themselves serve different purposes: to show their engagement with the subject, to provide visual input, or to make oneself recognizable offline. Many users mention their location, and invite others to contact them. The descendants of veterans tend to be guided by their ancestors’ involvement in military operations. This means that they are seeking information about the divisions their relatives fought as part of, eyewitness reports offered by them, or regarding the experiences of soldiers of the same occupation—thus incidentally showing active interest in the history of a certain national army. In the following quote, one such case is presented. Without intending to place his interest in family history within a national framework, the user nonetheless focuses on a specific unit. The attention to family history is thus situated in a particular national setting:126 Hullo/Hello/Czesc/Salud (that’s all I know/can remember right now, sorry!) I found this site a few months ago but only came back a few days ago, started reading, and decided to register. I rediscovered it through what I now know as the old ezboard forum (really enjoyed some of the Civil War debates there); as it more fits my interests, I especially hope that the History Forum reopens. I’m American, late twenties, laying out of school yet another semester. My interest here is in this forum is in learning about some of the battles my grandfather (U.S. Army 508th Parachute Inf.) was in, from the Allied and Axis point of view. I’m just now starting to sort out the nuts and bolts of his placement in the service, time of service, etc -- regretfully, I can’t ask him (and he’d never talk about much when I did ask as a child), because he left this vale of tears 10 years ago.

126

See comment 143 in “Introduce yourself,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? f=22&t=5378&p=116581#p116581 (last accessed December 16, 2019).

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I know my political history and domestic history, but am pitifully weak on WW2 battle history—I’ve come to pick your brains. :)

The beginning of this description is very typical: The user starts by describing his interactions with AHF before he registered on the forum. Perhaps this aims to show that registration was a considered decision. The need for missing information and the experience of the previous generations to fill a knowledge gap is stated to be one of the main motives behind his interest. The focus of his questions lies within the realm of family history: he is interested primarily in the battles that his grandfather was in. Yet the user also seeks an enhanced version of his grandfather’s experience, as he voices interest in both the Allies’ and Axis Powers’ points of view. The interest in WWII battles continues, and deepens the existing interest in US history that the user claims to have. In the following post, meanwhile, various commemoration practices are present, such as visiting battlefields and cemeteries further to joining a different community of shared interest as well:127 Post by Colbro » 09 Jan 2003, 18:51 Hi there everybody. My name is Colin and I’m 59 years old. Have been interested in WW2 since I was a kid, when we were very much caught up in the aftermath, with rationing, utility and austerity. I am now retired but worked as a geologist and later in marketing and quality control. I am also interested in WW1 and am a member of the Western Front Association, have visited the battlefields, Ypres, Somme, Chemin des Dames, Verdun etc. This Sept I visited Arnhem, Colditz, Berlin, Moehne Dam and the Reichswald war cemetery, where I found the grave of my second cousin. He is buried with another 5 crew members of his Lancaster, the 7th member survived and was taken POW. The raid was called Operation Ladbergen, I’ll tell you more about it later. The photo is me outside the Reichstag.

This introduction differs a lot from the previous one in its drier tone, which may be due to the authors being of different generations. If Colbro was 59 in 2003, he must have been born in 1944—hence his comment about being “caught up in the aftermath of the war,” mentioning “rationing, utility and austerity.” He further references his job, then proceeding to list the various lieux de memoire 127

See comment 148 in “Introduce yourself,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? p=118070#p118070 (last accessed February 27, 2021).

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that he visited. The description of destinations and experiences takes up about two-thirds of the text. It is Colbro’s main way of presenting himself: not only does he mention places and the experiences connected with them, but also shares a picture of himself standing outside the Reichstag. From his post, it is unclear whether he deliberately went to the Reichswald war cemetery searching for his cousin’s grave or just happened to find it (the latter is, however, highly unlikely given it is home to over 7,500 fallen soldiers). The ambiguity in his description hints at the interchangeability of grieving for his family member and grieving for the whole bomber crew. According to studies that examine location-based identity performance on social media (Schwartz and Halegoua 2015; Yin 2015), appointing a location is both an “intentional sociocultural practice of self-presentation” (Schwartz and Halegoua 2015, 1645) as well as a strong tool for a curated media presence: “[F]iltered, choreographed displays of mobility and experiences of place that play a significant role in identity performance as well as sociability: they are not absolute or precise, but abstracted, symbolic, and performative” (Ibid., 1649). Colbro’s referencing of his travels are a tactic to display authority and a demonstration of his affinity for military history, which he uses to compensate for having little experience within the forum community per se. It is also important to ask: “[H]ow are these locations being used as a form of self-presentation as well as (re)productive practices of experience and reception” (Ibid., 1657)? Schwartz and Halegoua further propose to treat the location used in identity performance “as a lens through which to read some of the texts produced over social media” (Ibid., 1657). While this cannot be done for every introduction on AHF, we can take a look at other posts by Colbro. His introduction is his very first post of a total 150, of which 134 are accessible.128 Already within the first 30 it is evident that he occupies the position of an educated eyewitness, grounding his opinions within his own experiences. In a comment on the post “Can Germany ever be forgiven?,” he uses his memories as a child in postwar-Britain to argue his opinion.129 Further, he contextualizes the reaction to German soldiers in his native country immediately after the war as well as following the Berlin Blockade of 1949 by framing it with his childhood impressions, and via referrals to other eyewitness reports from his immediate surroundings.130 128

As of November 25, 2019. See comment 637 in “Can Germany ever be forgiven?,” https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wtopic.php?p=128304#p128304 (last accessed November 25, 2019). 130 See comment 21 in “’Totenkopf”s Surrender 1945,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?p=120661#p120661 (last accessed November 25, 2019). 129

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He also expresses his disgust about today’s youth with a romanticizing fascination with the Hitler Youth: “We could do with something like that in the UK today and then we wouldn’t get huge teenage gangs hanging about and terrorising the older people with the police impotent.”131 Further, to justify an opinion on the Third Reich’s contribution to scientific progress, he uses an anecdote related to his wife’s personal experience.132 In other statements, where opinions are not directly framed as his own, he does not provide source material.133 Based on this strategy of opinion-based argumentation,134 the visits to battlefields and his personal encounters seem to be central to his experience of the history of World War II—as mediated through his own bodily experiences and sympathetic interpretation. As the cultural scholar Marita Sturken puts it in her intriguing book Tourists of History: “By visiting these places, tourists can feel that they have experienced a connection to these traumatic events and have gained a trace of authenticity by extension” (2007, 11). Thus, his location-based presentation of the self in the introduction appears as a part of a specific kind of understanding of the war, which is put into a national framework due to his own affiliations. Even more interesting is the introduction strategy of those users who cannot identify with one nation when it comes to war history. In the following, transnational family history is stated as the reason for the user’s interest in WWII:135 Post by seaburn » 07 May 2013, 21:54 Hi all, I joined last month and am enjoying browsing the topics and tapping the brains of the multitude of venerable members. I live in Ireland with my husband and three children. I attach a photo as some have done to encourage others to do so, it’s nice to put a face to a post, n’est pas? The military history of my family is chequered, my maternal Grandfather volunteered for the British army and fought in the trenches of WW1. He was injured by shrapnel on the first day of the battle of the Somme, 131

See comment 83 in “Positive Lasting Contribution of the Third Reich,” https://forum.axi shistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=120221#p120221 (last accessed November 25, 2019). 132 See comment 87 in “Positive Lasting Contribution of the Third Reich,” https://forum.axi shistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=120472#p120472 (last accessed November 25, 2019). 133 See comment 5 in “Allied motives for D Day,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=120054#p120054 and comment 43 in “Great Britain,” https://forum.axishistory.com/ viewtopic.php?p=120518#p120518 (last accessed November 25, 2019). 134 Another example is comment 11 in “The holocaust (what if?),” https://forum.axishistory. com/viewtopic.php?p=128297#p128297 (last accessed November 25, 2019). 135 See comment 1813 in “Introduce yourself,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=1790860#p1790860 (last accessed November 25, 2019).

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but returned to the front after convalescing. Meanwhile some years later my paternal grandparents met and fell in love while fighting against the British in the cause of Irish freedom! I also have a great uncle who fought on the Irish Republican side after independence and had to go on the run to England. He subsequently joined the British army and fought in WW2….So as you can see we are all a bit mixed up….I put it down to being an Island people (Not enough genes in gene pool!). I took my mother to the WW1 battlefields some years ago to follow her Dad’s footsteps. But since I was a child and first saw the ‘World at war’ I have been interested more in WW2. I am intrigued by the personal stories from those times and my bookshelves reflect this interest. I have also over the years read up on The Vietnam war, The formation of the State of Israel, the conflict in Northern Ireland among others but it’s the ‘The third Reich’ that has always been the main interest for me, it both repulses and fascinates me in equal measures. Cheers !

The post is by seaburn, a financial supporter of AHF who joined the forum in 2013. This user is female, which is evident from the picture attached to the post. The latter is clearly added so as to provide missing visual cues (“to put a face to a post”). She describes that her interest in World War II was triggered by the 1973 British documentary series The “World at War”; however the “chequered” military record of the user’s family gave it a rich context from which to emerge. The family military record she mentions is mostly attributed to World War I; World War II only features in the second half of the post when she describes her uncle’s involvement therein. World War II is thus one of the many wars that shaped her curiosity; it is viewed in the context of different military conflicts: World War I, the Vietnam War, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Unlike Colbro, seaburn notes reading literature on the subject multiple times throughout her posts. It is clear from other comments that she takes citing academic work very seriously and criticizes those who ignore the research standards imposed on AHF users.136 Nonetheless, she also mentions the practice that was so prominent in Colbro’s own post: seaburn went to see the battlefields with her mother. In contrast to his strategy, she considers her family history an impulse for research, not a source of knowledge—a referenced motive that spans many introductions. This reasoning is especially prominent for users who have ancestors on different sides of the conflict divide. In the following statement the user Tim first states that he is interested in the war “purely for historic reasons,” and then proceeds to describe instead a complicated family history. This makes it obvious that a “purely historic” interest is a hard thing to grasp: 136

See comment 7 of “Waffen-SS fanboys and others,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?p=1958250#p1958250 (last accessed November 25, 2019).

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Post by sr20ser » 22 Dec 2005, 19:16 Hello all. My name is Timothy Hill. I am a 24 year old engineer at a small company that manufactures many different items with lasers. I have live in the US my entire life, but have had the great honor of visiting many countries via. work. I have visited many historic sites in Germany, Poland, France, and the list goes on. i have been interested in the axis powers for a very long time in my short life. My motives for doing so are purely for historic reasons. My family is of Polish decent (mother side) and my fathers side is from Sweden. My grand father was a member of the German army during WW2, and much of his military past is never spoken of by him or the family. i am trying to learn more about what he did while he served, but am finding it hard. My mothers mom was an inmate of Sobibor and her mother was presumable killed in Auschwitz. For the stated reasons, it is the purpose of me trying to learn more about the war and the history of what caused the war and the motives as to why such horrible things happened during. -Tim

Just like in the other introductions, Tim mentions the fact that he has visited historic sites in many European countries. He then describes that his parents are a Polish-Swedish couple, further explaining that his “grand father was a member of the German army during WW2”—never specifying which grandfather it was, only that this aspect of the family’s history is never spoken about. It can be concluded that at the time Tim writes this, the grandfather in question is still alive. A further crucial detail is added by mentioning that his maternal grandmother “was an inmate of Sobibor” and his great-grandmother was killed in Auschwitz. This family history leads Tim to believe that “it is a purpose” for him” to learn more about World War II, even though he finds it hard to do so. His “purely historic” interest is one in both family history and national history. Some of the introductory statements are highly personal. One user, irina456, tells the story of her search for relatives in East Prussia, detailing how her mother was taken captive and sent to a concentration camp. In her emotional introduction she also states her plan to revisit the places that her mother had traveled to:137

137

See comment 1334 in “Introduce yourself,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=1381193#p1381193 (last accessed November 25, 2019).

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hi–my name is Irina and i am searching for relatives from east prussia! I have just recently found my nephews and nieces in germany from my brother Gunter Assmann– My mother came from Angerapp East Prussia and said on time grandfathers brother came to the United States in the early 1900’s and they lost contact with him and no one knew where he went–so Assmann any Assmanns in United States might be related to me also–Anyone with that last name please contact me–we might be related–you never know–I find trying to follow my mothers steps during her captured by the russians fascinating–she never said much except going thru poppy fields and then to the concentration camp where she was kept 4 yrs after the war–i want to see the holes she had to crawl thru to bring those trees into the coal mines–this has been driving me insane for the last year and i dont know why–maybe i have a brother there also–my cousin let it slip out when he visited a few years ago–maybe i am the one who brings the whole family together after being thrown all over the world–just maybe you never know–well you all have a great day ciao :D

This testimony is interesting in many ways: First, it shows a complex transnational family constellation, one that includes both victims and perpetrators. She states a strong desire for gaining knowledge about the family history and the route that her mother was forced to take through Europe. The memories she shares seem to be intrinsically personal, yet are posted on a semipublic platform. In a way, this type of message embraces varying aspects of what Ferron and Massa call a new hybrid form of memory: “[P]ublic but also private in that although personal digital memories can be continuously modified, they are also resistant to total erasure” (2014, 25). The identification of her brother’s full name provides a feeling of authenticity, even though it is a very common one. Her username does not offer enough information about her, this is the only post she would ever write on AHF, and as such the message reads as anonymous testimony. It is notable how she frames the ending of it with a netiquette phrase and a smiley after providing a very raw and impressive description of her wish to revisit her “mother’s footsteps.” In this particular case the key to interpretation seems to lie not just in the transnational component but in an essential aspect of online communication: reduced social cues. While considered a source of misunderstanding in business communication, an environment of reduced social cues facilitates the exchange of intimate stories and alleviates the fear of being judged (Hsiung 2000; Duguay 2016; McCosker 2018). The pseudonymous online community provides a space where people with a complex transnational family history have the option to perform their identity without assigning their story to a particular national contour.

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The introductions provide additional insight into users’ motivations, simultaneously supporting the sociodemographic profile that emerged out of the user-information dataset. Further, various collective memory practices come to light: users collect militaria, join historical societies, reflect on their family histories, play computer games, and write books. The verbalization of location is prominent across this website section. Out of 2,115 analyzed posts, 1,691 are actual introductions. Of these, 993 feature a reference to location; in the remaining ones, location is implied in a further 42 cases.138 In two-thirds of instances, therefore, a user feels the need to reference their location, which is unexpected within an online-community setting—as here location should supposedly play an insignificant role. Nonetheless users not only frequently refer to their own locations, but also consistently mention travels to specific sites of memory too. In a volume on tourism and war, Richard Butler and Wantanee Suntikul state that in spite of the recent trend of interpreting visits to battlefields as “dark” or “death tourism” the motives herein are actually different: “Most visitors […] do so out of a sense of pilgrimage and even obligation […], as well as personal loss, confirming one of the key links to heritage tourism” (2013, 4). Butler and Suntikul further note, as do other scholars (e.g. Sharpley and Stone 2009), that the link to heritage tourism and the idea of tourism as pilgrimage are more likely to be present if there is a personal connection involved, which is certainly the case for the introductions presented above. The ethnologists John Gatewood and Catherine Cameron (2004) stress that battlefield tourism can be traced back to the nineteenth century, and is embedded in the nation-building context, thus reiterating the connection between collective memory and the nation. Sturken (2007, 50) claims that the simultaneous engagement with and distance from the subject that a tourist experiences is crucial to understanding this phenomenon: the range of reactions experienced during a sightseeing visit at the site of battle are limited, yet hold the promise of a deeper sympathy, understanding, and coming to terms with grief for the visitor. In the introductions presented above, the users did not frame their visits as transformative experiences in hindsight. However, especially in the case of the last testimony, it is evident that expectation of the aforementioned “promise” is to be found.

138

I would like to thank Anne Dammköhler here for her meticulous annotation of the comments of the “Introduce Yourself” section.

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Conclusion

In this Chapter, AHF is explored as an artifact, focusing on the forum’s position within a plethora of other bottom-up grassroots projects and the history of the forum’s creation, alongside taking a glance at its visual elements, community rules, and structure too. AHF is embedded in a network of websites dedicated to World War II, ones similar in their schematic information organization—evoking associations with database structures. Based on Katherine Hayles’s (2012) claim of the inclusiveness of databases, I interpret such projects as the desire for a transnational perspective on World War II that embraces the possibilities that digital platforms provide. Bottom-up platform creators accumulated data connected to different national histories; then, in the discussions on AHF, they attempted to incorporate that information into transnational interpretations of World War II episodes. Throughout its existence AHF has absorbed several other platforms due to its team of administrators and an engaging userbase. The analysis of the stylistic elements of AHF demonstrated that in using a number of visual elements from the Third Reich, the forum provided an initial impression of being open to Nazi sympathizers; nevertheless, strict rules have been enacted by the site’s administrators to neutralize Neo-Nazism and Holocaust denial. The governance strategy serves to attract a greater number of individuals and ensure ongoing discussions. On a number of occasions the notion of “serious researchers” was expressed by the team of administrators, underlining that academic discourse is favored on the forum. The forum structure reveals a strong focus on the Axis Powers and shows that each thematic subforum sees a different number of engaged users and posts: informal discussions in the subforum “The Lounge” turned out to be the most prolific, followed by discussions on Axis personnel, on war crimes, and on equipment. Users provide metadata sparsely, yet it could be concluded that many of them were located in the United States and other English-speaking countries, while a large proportion thereof were based in Europe too. The division into groups and ranks helps manage users’ expectations during interaction. A set of interactional scenarios helps to commemorated deceased users, signifying the presence of mnemonic practices aimed at the forum community. The “Introduce Yourself” thread showed that users were engaging with the events of World War II with the help of a variety of sources, using their own experiences, reading academic literature, by traveling, and in combining family histories with national memories.

4

The Axis History Forum as a Network

The AHF website offers channels for private conversations, specifically via a messaging service, as well as for public ones everyone can access, in the form of forum threads. In this chapter I present the public interactions on AHF as a network model to observe organically occurring accumulations of interaction. These discussion-dense areas will then be examined in terms of metadata, the corresponding corpora topics, and their most distinctive discussions. The idea behind the network model is simple: this work aims to examine AHF as a platform for transnational mnemonic practices. AHF is too large for one person to read and meaningfully analyze; as such, the corpus of forum conversations must be divided into graspable parts. There are different ways to do that: one possibility is to follow the method of categorization into thematic subforums present on the website itself and manually extract several threads from each. This approach was discarded for two reasons: first, out of concern that it would only replicate the forum’s self-image and not provide meaningful further insight, and, second, the manual choice of threads would not ensure that significant discussions were selected. Therefore, I decided to use a categorization of the forum content that is guided by the analysis of a network model representing the most frequently occurring interactions between users. The network model is divided into clusters of users; in a subsequent stage, cluster corpora are then created. This approach includes topic modeling for corpus exploration and close reading of the discussions for a more context-oriented assessment of results. This methodological combination is not yet widely used in Internet Studies, although some such works do exist (Weingart 2011; Surian et al. 2016; Yoon et al. 2020). It has not been applied to studies of culture or, in particular, of cultural memory. It partly implements the “reading at scale” approach proposed by Thomas Weitin and Ulrik Brandes for

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Glawion, Remembering World War II, Digitale Literaturwissenschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66708-8_4

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literary corpora (Weitin 2017, 2018; Weitin et al., forthcoming), reframing it for exploratory purposes vis-à-vis a corpus of nonliterary texts. This set of methods aims to map out the thematic spectrum making up AHF. First, I construct a network model based on AHF users’ commenting patterns and perform a cluster analysis of this model, thus focusing on groups of users who interacted with one another especially frequently. Subsequently, the metadata is evaluated to observe whether a given cluster’s users are active during the same periods or are of similar profile. Different corpus-constitution logics are evaluated in a next step, and selected texts are combined into corpora—opening up possibilities for computer-assisted corpus analysis. Here, I apply topic modeling to the selected portions of text to see where their thematic inclinations differ. After studying different topic models, I inspect the relationship between topics by constructing a term-overlap network and assessing thematic coherence within cluster corpora. Afterward, stylometric analysis is implemented to carve out the most prominent thematic fields in the corpus at hand. Finally, several representative discussions are selected from each cluster to check the assumptions that emerged after analyzing the topic modeling output. Hereby I am ultimately able to identify the different communicative practices of transnational memory to be found on AHF.

4.1

The Network Model

Particularly at the beginning of the research project, it was often unclear what exact data is necessary to construct user networks. While many social-networking sites incorporate the possibility of “friending” or “following”, on AHF this type of user-to-user interaction is not embraced by the community (there is a possibility of adding someone as “friend” or “foe,” but it is rarely used). Therefore, a different type of connection between users had to be introduced. The close reading of the forum hinted at the fact that some of the users had a history of interaction and kept coming across each other during similar discussions. Sometimes these users formed communities within the forum userbase and kept interacting within these established groups. For the first network model in this study, I decided to target groups of frequent co-commenters. Therefore, the network connects users if they have contributed to the same discussions. The more threads two users have jointly commented on, the higher the value of the connection between them becomes. The edge value is calculated as the sum of the product of the respective numbers of comments. The model used in this section incorporates 2,068,211 comments written across

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183,189 threads, thereby including all interactions on AHF from March 2002 to December 2018. a. Edge-value calculation: An Example Consider two AHF users, user A and user B, who have come across each other once during a discussion in thread X. User A has written two comments in thread X, while user B has written three. The connection between A and B is therefore calculated as follows: √ √ 2 × 3 = 6 = 2,45 The square root calculated from the product ensures that the Euclidean distance between two nodes is calculated. Consider that A and B have also commented on thread Y. User A has written one comment, and user B has written four. Then, their connection value is calculated as follows: √ √ 2 × 3 + 1 × 4 = 10 = 3,16 There are several limitations here. First, this type of calculation leads to a model with undirected edges—implying mutual relations between users. This is not crucial in the example above: after all, the difference between the number of comments of users A and B is not substantial. However, if one user was significantly more active than the other, their mutual relationship would become stronger despite their activity being distributed unequally. Therefore, it is essential to note that the connection’s value does not denote the number of comments exchanged between the two users (this becomes especially significant in higher registers: the maximum value in the network is 1,911). Second, based on this method of edge-value calculation, participation in a (long) thread with many participants creates a large number of connections. Thus, the user’s position in the network is influenced by the number of comments left and the kinds of threads interacted with. Besides targeting specific World War II-related questions, users of AHF create long threads with different scenarios: for example quiz threads or introductions. Participation in these kinds of threads connects a user with a large number of other forum goers. Third, participating in a long thread does not necessarily mean that two users have conversed with one another directly. An excellent example of this is the thread “Battle of Britain”1 that started in April 2003 and contained over 1,100 1

https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=20620 (last accessed February 17, 2021).

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posts. The user David Brown, who was active on AHF between 2003 and 2007, would write 42 posts on this thread. Threadcutter, who joined AHF in September 2016 around nine years after David Brown last commented on AHF, would write six posts in total, with one of them being in “Battle of Britain.” Thus the connection between them will be calculated as the square root of 42—despite the fact that they did not actually post on AHF during the same decade. Technically, this issue could have been addressed: after all, creating a date filter for connections would be possible and could eliminate connections that are too far apart in time from one another. However, herein lies a critical difference between analyzing online communities as social systems and analyzing the forum’s interactions as mnemonic practices. While the findings from these two approaches may overlap, nuanced understanding is essential on this particular question: for the purposes of analysis from the perspective of mnemonic practices, there is no difference in whether the two users conversed with each other or not; it matters only that they both expressed interest in the same thread within the AHF setting. b. Data acquisition: Web scraping To create the network model described in this chapter, the data needed to be acquired from AHF. The first step in acquisition and analysis was to extract the data from the forum. The process of data extraction from a website is known as “web harvesting” or “web scraping.”2 The term stands for any form of data extraction: manually copying information from a website is, strictly speaking, web harvesting as well. If a large amount of data needs to be extracted, it is advisable to automate the process with computer software. In the case of this project, I used R and R Studio. The most commonly used package for web scraping in R is the rvest package (Wickham 2016). It enables one to navigate certain elements of the HTML code of the website and extract its content. In combination with Selector Gadget, a supplementary software (Cantino and Maxwell 2013), identifying the elements that I wanted to scrape was simple. The URLs for each user-information page, thread, post, and subforum were built comprehensively and enabled precise navigation. It was possible to determine the object in question solely from its URL. For example the URL of the thread “What music are you listening to right now?” of the subforum “The Lounge” looks like this: 2

I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Simon Munzert for his outstanding course on web scraping offered at the University of Constance in the summer term of 2015. A more extensive description of the process can be found in his corresponding guide on automated data collection with R (Munzert, Rubba, Meißner, Nyhuis 2014).

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https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=39455 The URL consists of the forum address (https://forum.axishistory.com/), the query (“viewtopic.php?”), the forum number (“f=22”), the connector (“&”), and the thread number (“t= 39455”). Both the forum and the thread number are unique, which is essential for data organization. Each page contains 15 posts, and if the next 15 comments are to be addressed then only a simple extension needs to be added (“&start=15,” “&start=30,” etc.). On top of having well-developed instruments at my disposal, I unintentionally chose an object that perfectly lent itself to a project of this kind. AHF is built up monotonously because the forum aims to enable users to focus solely on its content. The website has a simple static layout, and each website element fulfills a specific purpose and has a CSS code; hence, the scraper can quickly identify the information. The forum uses the standard phpBB forum software, one of the most popular freeware forum softwares. Details and complications Web scraping is very straightforward in theory; many complications occur in reality however, leading to a more extensive data-acquisition period. These complications can be summarized in the following two key points: 1. Despite its static design, the forum is a malleable structure. Administrators can delete, move, and rename threads,3 create new subforums,4 and ban forum users. 2. Server accessibility has to be considered. When the scraper extracts information from a website, it visits each subpage at very high speed—burdening the server’s capacities and affecting website maintenance. This problem can be 3

For example in the case of “The death of Major Wolfgang Schellmann,” where the discussion shifts numerous times from fact-checking the pilot’s cause of death, to assessing the criminal nature of the NKVD, to critiques of national biases in sources. The thread occurs under the title mentioned above, as well as under "Was NKVD a criminal organization?"; the thread ID remains the same throughout however. The change of direction and the thread naming are briefly reflected upon in comments 32 and 34. See: https://forum.axishistory.com/ viewtopic.php?f=6&t=112215 (last accessed February 17, 2021). 4 There are a range of threads dedicated to Poland in the “Holocaust and XX century war crimes” subforum. However, as the platform grew, a separate subforum dedicated to events connected to Poland was established. The moderators then reassigned the related threads to the subforum “Poland 1919–1945.” Several threads were then made accessible from both subforums (e.g. “Poland wanted war with Germany,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?f=111&t=179570; last accessed February 17, 2021).

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solved if a pause is made in the scraping process, consequently drawing out the data-collection period however. Despite the delay, this practice is essential for ethical data collection and for data quality. All data was stored on a laptop provided by the TU Darmstadt, and backed up on a local university server. From scraping to a network model For the network model, I needed to know which users had commented on the same threads. Therefore, I extracted the thread and user IDs of commenters for each thread. This resulted in a matrix (see Table 4.1.). Here, the first column represents the thread ID, while the other 15 contain the user ID of the poster of each comment. In a further stage, with the help of the reshape package (Wickham 2007), I transformed the matrix containing all thread-user information into an adjacency matrix (see Table 4.2.). Both the row and column names (the top row and the left column) contain user IDs; therefore, each user is assigned both a row and a column. Each cell contains a value, signifying the connection between two users. These values are calculated in the same way as in the example above. I considered self-referential relations (from user 2 to user 2) unimportant; therefore, the diagonal is left blank. The adjacency matrix can be directly imported into the network software visone to construct a network model. c. Preprocessing of the network model The network data underwent several preprocessing steps. First, connections with value 1 were deleted, as they stand for a situation where two users have each commented on the same thread once and have had no other interactions. This filtering reduced the number of connections by almost half (from 3,153,075 to 1,666,911) and simplified the model. Second, isolated nodes were deleted. The latter were either users who have written posts not commented on by anyone else or only by users connected with a link of value 1. Third, 37 nodes that were part of components consisting of two and three nodes with a link value ranging from 2 to 11 were removed. The remaining nodes constituted one component of 24,958 nodes and 1,666,911 connections (Figure 4.1.). The volumes of text produced on AHF become more evident now. Most nodes and connections are not visible in Figure 4.1. because the network depiction is inevitably two-dimensional, while the network model has three dimensions (and most of the connections overlap). A network model of this size and density is typically referred to as a “hairball”: it neither uncovers network structures nor

C1

2

656

35

1330

1088

Thread ID

t=5378&start=0

t=5378&start=15

t=5378&start=30

t=5378&start=45

t=5378&start=60

1594

1448

49

656

21

C2

1605

1381

548

656

89

C3

312

1454

1346

254

20

C4

Table 4.1 First step in relational data extraction

1630

1426

1221

254

804

C5

C6

439

1480

453

89

555

C7

63

899

929

137

58

C8

97

1493

1219

801

89

C9

97

1199

137

1294

1285

C10

179

1491

1219

1230

1187

C11

1229

107

53

1187

136

C12

1680

1462

30

1273

2

C13

1682

1408

1263

18

1370

C14

83

1473

466

85

1370

C15

20

349

1330

627

656

4.1 The Network Model 115

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4 The Axis History Forum as a Network

Table 4.2 Adjacency matrix example

Figure 4.1 Network model of AHF user relations

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generates insights vis-à-vis the data. Further steps in the process of information reduction must be taken in order to achieve these desired goals then. d. Modularity clustering One of the various possibilities to reduce information in a network model is applying a clustering algorithm. Given the network size, it is crucial for the algorithm to be fast and efficient. Therefore, a particular type of the modularity algorithm application—the “fast and greedy” version of Clauset, Newman and Moore (2004), also known as “Louvain modularity”—was chosen. This algorithm has proven to be a reliable way to determine communities within network models (Papadopoulos et al. 2012). Modularity is a measure of “the decomposability of a network into modules [and] can be used as a merit function to find the optimal partition of a network” (Meunier et al. 2009, 1). Modularity clustering via the Louvain algorithm is a technique that iteratively splits the network into clusters and assesses the sum of their modularity values. The formula for modularity is:

[1]

[2]

Assume that there is an undirected graph G = (V, E). It contains vertices (n: = |V|) and edges (m: = |E|). C is a cluster within that graph; therefore, C is a partition of V. C is trivial if it contains either 1 or 0 nodes (k = 1, k = 0). In this context, it is important to differentiate between inter-cluster edges and intra-cluster edges. The modularity of cluster C x denotes the difference between the observed share of links in C x (calculated by dividing the number of links within cluster C x by the number thereof in network m, marked as [1]) and the expected share of links (square of the sum of nodal degrees within cluster C x divided by double the number of links in the network, marked as [2]). Therefore the highest modularity value is the one constituting the greatest difference between the observed and the expected number of nodes (derived from the nodal degree). As Brandes et al. note, “[there is] an inherent trade-off: to maximize the first term, many edges should be contained in clusters, whereas the minimization of the second term is achieved by splitting the graph into many clusters with small total degrees each” (2008, 2). Modularity value calculation is performed iteratively: the algorithm

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assesses the modularity values of various partitions and settles on the one with the highest such value. The Louvain modularity clustering function is included in visone, and computes the clustering figures relatively quickly for a network of this size. The clusters are diverse in size: there are four with less than ten members, three with over 4,000 members, one with 2,698 members, and four clusters with 1,500–1,800 members. One cluster has 323 members, another 112 members (Figure 4.2.).

Figure 4.2 Number of nodes per cluster

4.2

Metadata Aggregation

The main reason behind the exploration of the metadata is the assumption that there are characteristics that unite users, ones interpretable either in terms of collective memory or of Internet community-building. In this section I explore two such characteristics: temporal activity and the geographic location of users.

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posts

a. Posting timeframe The forum interface prompts the user to visit discussions that have been updated since the person in question was last online. This feature encourages engagement with others on “active” threads. Thus, it is crucial to consider the possibility that clusters represent sets of users united simply by being active in the same period. In this section, I explore this assumption further by determining how many posts were written by each cluster user each year during the observed timeframe. Further, I compare the cluster’s posting dynamic with that of the forum in general. Posting frequency on the forum is depicted in Figure 4.3. A clear trend is visible: after launching in March 2002, the number of posts reaches its peak in 2004, before steadily declining thereafter. Potential explanations for this trend could be the rise of alternative social networks and a decline in interest in forum communities.

Year

Figure 4.3 Number of posts on AHF per year

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Visualizing the temporal data per cluster reveals that they would develop differently over time. The tendencies could be grouped into: 1) one toward decline that vaguely mirrors the overall development of comment numbers on the forum (clusters 0, 1, 2, 4, and 7); 2) a growth tendency (clusters 5 and 6); and, 3) steady presence, or a parabola pattern (clusters 3, 8, and 9). 1. Tendency toward decline

6000 0

2000

Number of posts

10000

Cluster 1 (Figure 4.4.) is the most extreme example of this tendency. Most posts written by its members were composed in the first few years of the forum’s existence (20,000 between 2002 and 2004; over 12,000 in 2003 alone). The decline post-2006 is much more rapid than that for the forum as a whole: after that year the number of posts never reached 1,000 per annum again. Figure 4.4. demonstrates that cluster 1 members were highly active in the years 2002 to 2006, but almost completely vanished after 2008. Cluster 1, therefore, could be an example of a temporal accumulation of users and discussions.

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

Year

Figure 4.4 Number of posts per year (cluster 1)

2012

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4.2 Metadata Aggregation

121

250 200 150 0

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100

Number of posts

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350

Cluster 7 (Figure 4.5.) also follows a pattern of decline even though the number of posts here is overall much lower (note the y-axis values in Figures 4.4. and 4.5.). Cluster 7’s maximum and minimum values are precisely one year later than those of cluster 1: the highest number of posts is in 2004 (2003 for cluster 1); a notable decline can be observed beginning from 2008 (2007 for cluster 1). The previous chapter demonstrated that around the end of 2003 a significant shift would occur: users from the Military History Forum switched to AHF, influencing discussions on the latter extensively. As such the difference between a peak in 2003 and in 2004 respectively is significant, and so the corresponding threads will be observed closely.

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

Year

Figure 4.5 Number of posts per year (cluster 7)

Similar tendencies can be found in clusters 0 and 4 (Figures 4.6. and 4.7.). Cluster 0 is the only other cluster besides cluster 1 that reaches its top comment number in 2003, revealing a trend of decline in the following years. The distribution of posts in cluster 4 seems similar, except that its maximum number of posts is in 2011. Besides that peak, cluster 4 also demonstrates a tendency toward decline.

4 The Axis History Forum as a Network

600 400 0

200

Number of posts

800

1000

122

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

2012

2014

2016

2018

Year

1000 500 0

Number of posts

1500

Figure 4.6 Number of posts per year (cluster 0)

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

Year

Figure 4.7 Number of posts per year (cluster 4)

123

6000 4000 0

2000

Number of posts

8000

10000

4.2 Metadata Aggregation

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

Year

Figure 4.8 Number of posts per year (cluster 2)

The last of them with such a downward tendency is cluster 2 (Figure 4.8.). Here, the decline is not as evident as it is in the case with cluster 7 or the forum overall. But still: After peaking in 2004, the cluster follows a series of up-anddown shifts (2006–2009, 2011–2014, 2016–2018). Each peak is smaller than the previous one too. 2. Growth tendency Figures 4.9. and 4.10. demonstrate a different tendency vis-à-vis posting numbers. Most posts by users from cluster 6 (comprised of a comparable number of posts to cluster 1) were written in a later period of the forum’s existence. Cluster 6 is the only other one that mostly follows a pattern of growth. However, the picture with cluster 5 is not as clear: a growth tendency is visible in the years 2002–2007, a spike in 2008, and a slightly lower number of comments in 2009 meanwhile. Afterward, in 2010–2013, a slight increase occurs. A much lower number of comments was posted in the period 2014–2016, with comment numbers rising again in 2017–2018.

4 The Axis History Forum as a Network

3000 2000 0

1000

Number of posts

4000

5000

124

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

2012

2014

2016

2018

Year

600 400 0

200

Number of posts

800

1000

Figure 4.9 Number of posts per year (cluster 6)

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

Year

Figure 4.10 Number of posts per year (cluster 5).

4.2 Metadata Aggregation

125

3. Steady presence / parabola pattern

200 150 100 0

50

Number of posts

250

300

The third group of clusters demonstrates a pattern that cannot be defined as one of growth or decline,: the maximum number of posts is reached in the middle of the observed period. Figure 4.11. shows the temporal distribution of posts written by members of cluster 9. The highest number of posts is in 2007; overall, they seem to rise and fall over the course of several years: a peculiar up-and-down pattern is seen in the years 2008–2010, 2011–2014, and 2015–2018. The peaks in 2009, 2013, and 2017 are significantly lower than the one in 2007 meanwhile. Users of cluster 3 reach their peak number of comments in 2010–2011, and their forum presence is steady (see Figure 4.12.). Similar to cluster 9, active years are surrounded by less active ones—especially the period between 2013 and 2015 would see a massive difference in the number of comments left per year.

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

Year

Figure 4.11 Number of posts per year (cluster 9)

2012

2014

2016

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4 The Axis History Forum as a Network

1500 1000 0

500

Number of posts

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126

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

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Year

Figure 4.12 Number of posts per year (cluster 3)

Cluster 8 users steadily increase the number of comments made per year through 2009 (Figure 4.13.). Afterward, the number of comments declines; the peaks in 2011 and 2015 are lower than that in 2009. Cluster 8 is the only one that saw a large number of comments in 2015—overall not a year of frequent activity on AHF. Core performance years can thus be observed for the respective clusters: for those of type 1, they lie in the first years of the forum; for clusters of type 2, the middle period is the most active one; and, for clusters 5 and 6 the last third of the observed period was the most prolific era.

127

1500 1000 0

500

Number of posts

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2500

4.2 Metadata Aggregation

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

Year

Figure 4.13 Number of posts per year (cluster 8)

b. Location Let us now turn to one of the scrutinized sociodemographic characteristics of AHF users. In this section, the location data entered in the user profile is aggregated by cluster. Figure 4.14. shows a pie chart with the location data entered by users on AHF in general. The diagram also includes the code for non-entries (0) and the code for unidentifiable location (1). As a bottom-up platform, AHF aims to provide wider transnational access to information and bring together users across and beyond national borders. The location data demonstrates that transnationality has limited reach: users are primarily located in the Global Northwest and are from English-speaking countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, as well as from the European Union. Other World War II participant countries as well as states affected by theaters in that conflict elsewhere are comparatively rarely entered as the user location meanwhile.

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4 The Axis History Forum as a Network

0

US CN DK NO EU ES BE RU FI IT PL UK

SE DE

CA

AU

1

NL

FR

Figure 4.14 Locations on AHF

Many clusters replicate this pattern: while the largest number of users did not enter an identifiable location, those that did were predominantly in Englishspeaking countries—followed by Germany and then other European states. This distribution is observed in clusters 0, 2, 3, and 5 (Figures 4.15.–4.18.). At the same time, there are small differences between these clusters: cluster 3, for example, attracts even more users from English-speaking countries than the others do (see Figure 4.17.), while cluster 2 has more users from Europe within the top ten—and especially from Germany (see Figure 4.16). Clusters 0 and 5 seem to have an almost identically ranked list of locations.

4.2 Metadata Aggregation

129

0

US

RO IE GR EU ES DK IT FI BE SE PL FR

UK

NL DE

CA

AU

1

Figure 4.15 Locations of cluster 0

Cluster 1 reveals a different location distribution (Figure 4.19.). Almost onequarter of cluster 1 users claim to be located in the US, whereas the non-entries coded with 0 move to second place here and comprise only one-eighth of the dataset. Does that mean that cluster 1 is more likely to incorporate a significant number of users from the US? It might be so, but there could be a different explanation too. The temporal overview above demonstrated that posts written by cluster 1 are concentrated in the timeframe of the early years of the century. At this point, the differing location distributions should be questioned from another perspective: they may reflect conventions regarding the disclosure of personal information in that period. The awareness of problems connected to sharing personal data increases over time (Goldfarb and Tucker 2012), and the new

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0

US

AT CN NO DK ES EU BE IT RU SE PL

DE

UK

NL

CA

FR

AU

1

Figure 4.16 Locations of cluster 2

millennium’s early years could be a period where privacy concerns have not significantly arisen yet. The fact that cluster 7 (which has a similar temporal pattern to cluster 1) is the only other one where the amount of non-entries is comparable in terms of users located in the US supports this assumption (Figure 4.20.). A significant shift in the top-location distributions can be found in cluster 4. As Figure 4.21. demonstrates, this cluster has a relatively high percentage of users located in Finland (over 7 percent, compared to approximately 1 percent in the general distribution of forum users). Sweden is also within the top-ten locations within that cluster. The strong connection of AHF to Scandinavian and

4.2 Metadata Aggregation

131 0

GR FI ES NZ RO DK RU SE EU IT NL FR

US

PL DE UK

AU

CA

1

Figure 4.17 Locations of cluster 3

specifically the Swedish World War II community was established in the previous chapter; as such, it will be interesting to see whether the discussions herein were connected to the Winter and Continuation Wars. Further, it is notable that many users were located in English-speaking countries: besides the US and the UK, ones situated in Canada and Australia also somewhat prominently featured. If the focus on the Winter War is indeed accurate, it will be intriguing to see what role these users played in discussions.

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NO FI DK IT AT AR SE CZ EU BE PL FR

US 1 NL AU UK

CA

DE

Figure 4.18 Locations of cluster 5

In clusters 9 and 6 (Figures 4.22.–4.23.), besides the typical dominance of users situated in the US and those who did not enter a location at all, most top locations are in the EU. In contrast, Canada and Australia occupy positions lower here than within the overall distributions. Finally, the locations of cluster 8 demonstrate the presence of users in Asia and the Middle East: Figure 4.24. shows China, Turkey, and Japan listed as locations even ahead of the European theaters.

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133

US 0

UK

NO RO RU DK IT EU BE FI ES

DE

PL

CA

FR 1

AU

SE

NL

Figure 4.19 Locations of cluster 1

Overall, the location distribution demonstrates that no cluster is dominated by users from one individual country. Those located in English-speaking countries dominate in terms of forum presence however. Simultaneously, two types of location combinations are to be found: those based either on language (English) or on regional proximity, as in the case of Scandinavia or Europe.

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0

US

DK BG AU AT FI ES SI SE PL NZ

UK

CA 1

Figure 4.20 Locations of cluster 7

DE

NL

BE

RU

NO

4.2 Metadata Aggregation

135

0

US

GR EE BE NO EU

FI

NL IT FR UK

PL 1 DE SE

Figure 4.21 Locations of cluster 4

CA

AU

ES

RU

136

4 The Axis History Forum as a Network 0

SE RU NZ NO IL HK FR EU CZ BE IT

US

CA 1 PL

DE NL

Figure 4.22 Locations of cluster 9

UK

FI

4.2 Metadata Aggregation

137 0

US UA CZ EU ES DK SE IT

UK

NO 1 AU

DE FR

Figure 4.23 Locations of cluster 6

NL

PL

BE

CA

RU

138

4 The Axis History Forum as a Network 0

MY BR BE NZ NL IT FR RU SE PL JP TR

US

CN UK

Figure 4.24 Locations of cluster 8

AU

DE

1

CA

4.3 Conclusion

4.3

139

Conclusion

This chapter addresses AHF as a network of user relations. First, the idea behind the network model is presented, then the meticulous web scraping process is described. The network of user relations of AHF is demonstrated, in which a connection between two users was drawn if they had both commented on the same threads. Then, the modularity clustering algorithm is applied to the network, dividing it into 14 clusters. Four of these clusters are too small to be comparable, as they consist of single interactions only. Subsequent analyses will focus on the other ten clusters, which incorporated broader user groups. The chapter closes with an overview of the posting timeframe and the aggregated locations of each cluster’s users. The temporal data can described by grouping the clusters in three categories: clusters with a declining posting tendency (1, 7, 0, 4, and 2) that reflects the forum’s overall posting numbers, clusters with a growing posting tendency (5 and 6), and clusters demonstrating a steady presence on the forum (9, 3, and 8). Cluster 1 stands out, because its users were only active in the first few years of the forum’s existence. The location data that was presented in the previous chapter was now aggregated according to clusters. In almost every cluster (except cluster 1), most users did not provide a location. Those who did usually reside in countries of the Global North. Most often, users are located in the United States and other Englishspeaking countries. In cluster 4, Finnish users were prominent, clusters 6 and 9 demonstrated a high number of users in Europe, whereas in cluster 8 more users from Asia and Middle East were present. The location data is problematic however: it does not reflect the degree of participation each user demonstrates, and, on a further note, focusing on the locational constitution of clusters could lead to essentialization of memory narratives and the equalization of a user’s place of residence and his or her commitment to a national narrative.

5

Topic Modeling of the Axis History Forum Corpus

In the previous chapter, I divided the network model of user relations on AHF into dense clusters based on the calculated modularity value. In this first section, I extract the forum’s textual content based on that division and approach it from a distant-reading perspective. The clusters of the user network remain the frame of analysis; however the main focus of this chapter are the themes that users touch on within these dense subgroups. To determine those themes, I employ topic modeling—a probability-based method of topic extraction from large volumes of text. For better comprehension of the topic modeling output, certain definitions should first be established for the purposes of this chapter. When I refer to “clusters,” I speak of those presented in Chapter 4. These clusters are numbered (0–13) and represent groups of users who communicate with each other especially frequently. These groups were calculated based on modularity scores. When I refer to the texts that the users of each cluster wrote, I use the term “cluster corpus” (more information on the ways in which the cluster corpora were constituted is given in section 5.2.). The numbers of cluster corpora correspond to the numbers of the respective clusters. The chapter proceeds as follows: first, a definition of “topic modeling” is presented, then I describe how cluster corpora suitable for topic modeling were created. Subsequently, I introduce topic models of cluster corpora and explore them in terms of their most likely topics, the least-exclusive words, and the content categories identified across several different models. In the final part of this chapter, I explore the term overlap between topics within a topic model and use Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66708-8_5.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Glawion, Remembering World War II, Digitale Literaturwissenschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66708-8_5

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that metric to construct a “term-overlap network.” Finally, the dense subgroups of that term-overlap network, which contain an interactional and a thematic component, are used to elaborate hypotheses for further analyses of the mnemonic practices found to exist on the forum. These hypotheses will be reviewed with the help of discussion analyses and stylometric data from each cluster corpus in the next Chapter.

5.1

What is Topic Modeling?

Probabilistic topic modeling is a statistical method of text analysis aimed at providing insight into extensive collections of text. The input hereby is a collection of text chunks; the output is a model of the text divided into groups according to the probability of terms occurring together within the same chunk. Essentially, it is the corpus text stripped of words with little “topical content” (D. M. Blei 2012, 78; also known as “stop words”) and rearranged into a previously defined number of word fields. Words are placed into the same field if the statistical probability is high of them occurring within the same text chunk; their placement is reassessed over a defined number of iterations. The term “topic” thus combines the semantic component associated with it nowadays with the historical etymology of the Greek τ´oπoς, which primarily indicates a notion of “place” or “location.” In David M. Blei’s words, the method tries to “capture the intuition” (Blei 2012b, 78) that a text comprises a certain number of topics that dominate therein to varying degrees. One of the most widespread implementations of topic modeling and one of the standard tools for its application in Digital Humanities is the Java-based MALLET (McCallum 2002). MALLET is available as a command line-based application or a wrapper package for users who are more comfortable with other environments, such as RStudio or Python. The essential requirement for the textual input is for the corpus to be divided into at least two parts, or chunks. The program then filters the stop words and creates a replica of the corpus, where the order of words is unimportant (also known as the “bag of words”). In the next step, the Latent Dirichlet allocation algorithm splits the corpus into a previously defined number of groups (“topics”) and iteratively assesses whether the words within one of those groups are likely to occur together in the original corpus.1 1

There is a plethora of better, more grounded and more vivid descriptions of what LDAbased topic modeling does. Matthew Jockers has explained it on numerous occasions for example, highlighting different facets of the method and aiming at varying audiences in both his books (2013, 122; 2014, 135) and in his blog (2011). Blei (Blei, Ng, and Jordan

5.1 What is Topic Modeling?

143

a. Preprocessing Topic modeling with MALLET allows for variations in the program setup that can considerably influence the output. I understand these variations as options for the researcher in seeking to control and influence the analysis. Some of these variations are on the level of corpus manipulation; others are included in the software commands. Transparency about these variations and the choices made are vital for ensuring the results’ validity and reproducibility. The first option is lemmatizing or stemming the words, which means that each word is brought to its original form (“lemmatization”) or reduced to its stem (“stemming”). There are different views in academia on the importance of this reduction. For example, Schofield and Mimno (2016) claim there to be no significant improvement to a topic model after stemming. Moreover, they consider the variety of word forms an indicator of the importance of a word within a topic. Reducing that variety by stemming would strip topics of that word-weight indicator. In opposition to that, while language variety within one topic increases, the inclusion of more words broadens our understanding of what the topic contains and provides a better insight into the surrounding context—something often omitted in computational analyses of language. Hence, the corpus I use for topic modeling was lemmatized using the Stanford Tagger (Manning et al. 2014). The Stanford Tagger named entity recognition (NER) feature was used to extract all URLs from the corpus.2 The second preprocessing option is chunking. In this case, chunking means the simple segmentation of each cluster corpus’s texts. As mentioned above, the corpora have to be divided into at least two chunks, and a fixed number of words per chunk selected. As the corpora still include stop words at the time of partition that will be extracted during MALLET’s application, creating chunks with the same number of words is illusory—not to mention unnecessary. The primary model examined within this chapter is calculated based on chunks of 5,000 words each; within the thematic-grouping part of this chapter, I reference topic models based on chunks of 500 words meanwhile. Third, the list of stop words can be enhanced and altered. MALLET features a stop-word list, which I supplemented with several loose URL snippets as they 2003; Blei 2012b, 2012a), the creator of MALLET, has provided a grounded mathematical explanation of the method and highlighted how it could be used in the Humanities meanwhile. 2 The application of the Stanford Tagger allows for even more variation: for example I exemplarily created a topic model that included only nouns, which did not change the outcome significantly. This piece of information is especially useful for projects where even greater information reduction is needed.

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did not contribute to better comprehension. It quickly became apparent that other languages besides English are used on the forum (most often, German). I chose not to include stop words from other languages however. Fourth, the number of topics can be selected by the researcher themself. This choice is one of the most crucial decisions that has to be made and yet to which there is no straightforward answer. While selecting a low number of topics leads to higher stability and reproducibility, the result is a model that represents the corpus based on only a small fraction of the text. Simultaneously, selecting a large number of topics conversely leads to lower stability and might result in interpretations based on chance more than on stable results per se. Instead of making an inevitably erroneous decision, I created several models with different numbers of topics. In the end, the goal of topic modeling is to draw conclusions about the contents of the textual collection, and every topic model represents it to some degree. If some of the topics are part of one model but not of another one created with the same settings, we can assume that the texts comprising that unstable topic are smaller in size but still part of the corpus. For the analysis, I propose the following solution: out of the many topic models created with MALLET, I chose one 100-topic model and label it the “main model.” A second model created with the same settings is considered a “control model” (designation in the text: “A-main” and “A-control”). Two other models (“B-main” and “B-control”) created from a corpus segmented into chunks of 500 words are referenced for comparison. I also consider one 50-topic model (“C-main”) to see whether a coarser division into topics yields similar results or represents devotion to a theme proportionally. Finally, MALLET provides the possibility to adjust the number of iterations that are implemented in a given model. As noted above, after dividing the bag-ofwords model into topics, the algorithm verifies the probability of cooccurrence a certain number of times, respectively shuffling the words and reassembling them with more probable “neighbors.” Based on previous topic modeling examinations within the working group at the Institute of German Studies and Digital Literary Studies, I chose 10,000 iterations—which has so far provided satisfactory results (Weitin and Herget 2017). All models in this chapter were created with 10,000 iterations. Therefore, the corpus I used for topic modeling was preprocessed via lemmatization. The usual MALLET stop words were removed, several topic models were created, and the algorithm rearranged the words into topics according to their probability some 10,000 times.

5.2 Corpus Constitution

5.2

145

Corpus Constitution

After describing how exactly the corpus was preprocessed, I now somewhat counterintuitively take a step back and define how the corpus is constituted. Chapter 4 established that the modularity clustering algorithm defines users as cluster participants based on the strength of their mutual connections. The question that will be addressed in this section is: How exactly were the texts that users wrote selected so as to create cluster corpora suitable for analysis? It is essential to keep in mind that the decision on corpus constitution influences the analyses greatly (Guo et al. 2016), both content-wise and from the point of view of the technical feasibility of further examinations. The first corpus-constitution logic that came to mind included all comments written by all cluster members. However, this way, comments would be included that were not part of the cluster in the form of intra-cluster edges. The representation of users as nodes and comments submitted within the same thread as edges in Chapter 4 considers only intra-cluster edges to be part of the cluster. Therefore, if we follow the network-model logic, only those comments should be part of the corpus that were written in a thread wherein another cluster member had already been active. This idea leads to a differentiation between a single-user-based and a dyad-based corpus constitution, as outlined in Table 5.1. A corpus consisting of comments from threads wherein at least two users from one cluster participated mirrors the distinction between intra-cluster and inter-cluster edges of the network model—and is, therefore, analytically more precise. Thus, the decision to pursue a dyad-based corpus constitution was made. The dimension of restrictiveness was also vital: should only comments written by cluster members be included in the corpus, or is the context of the debate important as well? Suppose a discussion repeatedly emerges around the same set

Table 5.1 Parameters of corpus constitution Single-user-based corpus constitution

Dyad-based corpus constitution

Low restrictiveness

All comments in all threads wherein at least one cluster member participated

All comments in all threads wherein at least two cluster members participated

High restrictiveness

Comments only by cluster members in all threads wherein at least one cluster member participated

Comments only by cluster members in threads wherein at least two cluster members participated

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of issues, and members of cluster 1 are advocating for one position while one member of cluster 0 backs a different one. If only contributions by cluster members are included, cluster corpus 1 would contain posts of cluster 1 members but not the position they are arguing against.3 To avoid this problem, I briefly considered a corpus-constitution logic with low restrictiveness that includes all postings in a thread wherein at least two cluster members participated. This approach was discarded for two reasons. First, there was high overlap across threads because longer ones tend to include more users and are more likely to include members of different clusters. Second, there was a lack of technical feasibility because the corpora became too large to examine within one topic model. Different corpus-constitution logics correspond to different research questions. Models with low restrictiveness are appropriate for ones regarding the context in which a specific discussion theme arises (for example: In what contexts does a question about the Holocaust attract Holocaust deniers?). In the current case, I focus on the differences between clusters. Specifically: What makes the contributions of cluster A different from those of members of cluster B? Therefore, the dyad-based corpus-constitution logic with high restrictiveness was chosen. a. Communicative strategies and cluster corpus size In Table 5.2. several quantitative characteristics of the clusters are listed. The different characteristics put the number of users per cluster into perspective: although cluster 1 has the highest number of users, it is not the most extensive cluster corpus according to word count (where cluster corpus 3 is top). According to the number of threads users participated in, or the number of posts they wrote, cluster corpus 2 is the largest of all meanwhile. It is expected that larger corpora will influence the topic model to a more substantial degree. The metadata hints at different participation strategies. While the number of users directly influences the number of posts and the cluster corpora’s overall word count,4 the average word count per post differs greatly: members of cluster 6 contribute shorter texts, while members of cluster 4 opt for longer ones. The “comments per user” column also demonstrates that members of cluster 6 are more likely to write more comments, while members of clusters 0 and 5 are 3

This argument might seem formalistic at first, but has been subject of sociological debates for some time now. As an example I point to a review written by the sociologist Arthur Stein many years ago already, wherein he summarizes different positions within the field occupied with the proposition that “external conflict increases external cohesion” (1976, 143). In the context of online debates, the issue has only become more problematic with the passing of time. 4 This was examined via the Kendall rank correlation coefficient, which in every case showed significant correlation between the number of users and other values.

5.3 Examining a Topic Model

147

Table 5.2 Quantitative characteristics of cluster corpora Cluster

Word count of cluster corpus

Number of comments included in cluster corpus

Word count per comment

Number Comments of users in per user cluster

Number of threads

0

241,034

8,562

28.15

1,731

4.94627383

3,237

1

1,304,078

39,124

33.33

5,909

2

1,115,890

60,038

18.58

5,035

6.62108648

45,262

3

1,756,298

24,541

71.56

4,130

5.94213075

22,122

4

885,972

10,662

83.09

1,758

6.06484642

13,117

5

212,883

8,110

26.25

1,685

4.81305638

6

652,804

42,721

15.28

2,698

11.9241311

15.8343217 5.18885449

35,053

4,957 13,041

7

27,935

1,676

16.67

323

8

843,234

16,048

52.54

1,556

10.3136247

6,447

628

9

69,100

1,612

42.87

112

14.3928571

82

10

1,071

19

56.37

8

2.375

1

11

1,011

14

72.21

6

2.33333333

1

12

297

19

15.63

3

6.33333333

2

13

189

6

31.50

4

1.5

1

inclined to share less. Clusters 10–13 are so small that it is hard to compare them validly.

5.3

Examining a Topic Model

In this section I will examine the “A-main” topic model (see ESM for the complete topic model). First, I look into the model’s numeric metadata, then the topics are arranged into thematic groups. a. Corpus distribution When creating a topic model MALLET offers the option to create a diagnostics file, where metadata about the model is presented.5 This file contains information about each topic and extrapolates some of the findings to the level of words. For 5

A detailed description of the information provided is available online at: http://mallet.cs. umass.edu/diagnostics.php (last accessed March 1, 2021).

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example the word length is presented on the topic level, where it demonstrates the average word length of all words in the topic; on the level of words, however, it depicts the actual number of characters in a given word. I focus on one of the metadata values: the corpus distribution, described as a metric that “measures how far a topic is from the overall distribution of words in the corpus.”6 Including the lowest corpus distribution in the topic model’s assessment provides insight into the most represented words in the corpus. These topics are considered ultra-proliferative, and are not especially meaningful at first glance. As demonstrated in Figure 5.1., the corpus distribution ranges from 1.4 to 5.4. Overall, the more topics in a model, the higher the minimal corpus distribution becomes and the more extensive the range of corpus distributions will be. This is not surprising: the more nuanced a topic model is, the more diverse and modular its individual topics become. Topics with a specifically high corpus distribution are usually ones that contain rare foreign-language words (here these are topics 75 and 80, which contain Finnish and French words respectively). As the figure demonstrates, the first three topics have the lowest corpus distribution: these are topics 65, 56, and 54 respectively. The 100 top words identified in these topics are presented in Table 5.3. Mainly topic 65 is hard to grasp thematically, as it consists mostly of “cohesion elements” of language—words that “form the basic framework of a text, namely the structure of the dependencies between the text elements” (Uglanova and Gius 2020, 57). The topic contains words associated with discussions in general,7 and online ones in particular.8 These words do not directly reference a specific thematic field but hint at the circumstances in which the exchange is taking place. Notably, online discussions demand a specific type of language being used. As the linguist David Crystal notes, in an asynchronous online environment “the adequate indexing of messages […] is critical” (2006, 142). By the term “indexing” he understands the designation of particular messages as belonging to other conversation chunks—a crucial instrument in this setting. For example occurrences of “write” include the lemma “wrote,” which is used in the automatic framing of 6

See “corpus_dist,” http://mallet.cs.umass.edu/diagnostics.php (last accessed March 1, 2021). 7 I specifically mean the following words: “make,” “point,” “fact,” “question,” “reason,” “problem,” “agree,” “opinion,” “claim” “wrong,” “issue,” “understand,” “real,” “discussion,” “prove,” “show,” “difference,” “doubt,” “true,” “talk,” “correct,” “argument,” “statement,” “compare,” “suggest,” “suppose,” “discuss,” “quote,” “support,” etc. 8 For example, “thread,” “post,” “comment,” “write,” “thread,” “read,” “forum,” “topic.”

corpus_dist

5.5

4.68

3.86

3.04

2.22

1.4

Figure 5.1 Corpus distribution in the topic model

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Table 5.3 Topics with the lowest corpus distribution: 65, 56 and 54 65 make don’t time point thing post fact write give question good case didn’t read reason problem agree people find thread happen matter simply opinion wrong show doesn’t lot put true talk regard back quote start change issue understand year answer wasn’t state base idea mind real long part view mention claim discussion prove bit end difference important support term doubt remember situation hard call clear leave sense suppose isn’t topic correct bad work argument comment i’ve hand feel compare suggest high statement expect kind sort number lose interesting accept place word side discuss result deal pretty history level big forum 56 photo find picture regard post time show don’t book pic good make lot forum information question info interesting great site back part nice link guess hope war year i’ve kind search guy correct front page give detail end view start idea image read left answer bit add small mention check thread original photograph place call thing leave friend remember close website write wrong long didn’t early attach day miss side copy jpg area ill ago put cheer mark top share work similar identify note interested follow notice belong topic reply change army reason doesn’t google complete understand forget agree don 54 state government political make force national party time give order power part lead war country follow general public call foreign action begin official present year act minister leader policy issue include support continue view decision work military bring member matter plan control situation remain law place case authority form regard people world nation end position press concern declare international president fact office reason demand receive return set great economic accept attempt report day interest future hold sign show armed result provide exist create seek peace article union change movement establish attack influence relation august decide november security condition hand event

a quote within a thread (see the sentence “Caldric wrote:” in the yellow frame in Figure 5.2.).9 The indexing is additionally present in the text itself: the author of the post repeats the other user’s name in the post (“I’m a lager man myself Caldric”), even though a technical reference has already been made. The technical and sometimes intentional reiteration of names is why usernames often form part of the topics. Within topic 65 there are also words explicitly associated with the assessment of right and wrong.10 Most words, however, could also be part of an 9

For deeper engagement with cross-referencing, Crystal (2006, 148) recommends the analysis of opening sentences of forum postings. This is definitely one possible way to engage with forum postings on a different level, but exceeds the scope of the current work. Figure 5.2. references comment 5 in “Alaskan Stout!” See: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? p=199517#p199517 (last accessed November 13, 2020). 10 “wrong,” “true,” “prove,” “correct,” “doubt,” “bad,” “good.”

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Figure 5.2 Demonstration of a citation

extended stop-word list. They are not meaningless, but their semantic value is relatively low; those with semantical value (“history”) are too few in number and too generic given the context. Topic 56 bears some similarity, as several references to online discussions are present here as well.11 But the first words in the topic—and therefore those with the highest likelihood of appearing—are different: here, a definite connection to the depiction and discussion of visual materials as well as research practices can be identified. This is not the only topic that mentions visual materials: topic 90 does so too, but many words refer to badges and insignia—meaning that the latter is likely to represent discussions about the identification and trade of artifacts. It is important to note that, as these words are absent from topic 56, this configuration stands for another kind of discussion. The combination of visuals, research practices, and a number of words that denote personal attachment12 leaves us with the impression that these are discussions about identifying places based on photographs. Although a specific incident cannot be attributed to topic 54, its general inclination is apparent. Within the corpus, there are many words dedicated to matters

11

“post,” “forum,” “site,” “page,” “link,” “answer,” “website,” “attach,” “write,” “thread,” “share,” “topic,” “reply.” 12 “leave,” “remember,” “long,” “hope,” “forget,” “miss,” “back.”

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of hierarchy and political institutions. Topic 54 seems to be much more specific than topics 65 and 56: it is centered on politics, government,13 and power.14 The fourth-lowest corpus distribution belongs to topic 42 (see Table 5.4.). This topic is more closely connected to research practices: it references source types,15 different actions connected to research,16 actors in the field (“author,” “historian”), and terms connected with verification.17 We can thus assume that the thematization of research practices enjoys significant representation on the forum. Table 5.4 Topic 42 42 book source information write find document report read number give page mention work article list publish research post order time date note record accord include author history detail day provide reference link official archive war subject question english make interesting material copy story follow fact account evidence refer study claim original quote show period state interested describe receive present translation datum place text group file hand discuss thread volume part end year confirm wiki diary issue topic search site officer translate personal unit historian special exist event april late html case letter march cover july send version explain word library

There is a final topic that I would like to draw attention to here. It is important to note that topics, naturally, are not the same size—each represents a different fraction of the corpus. This is portrayed in another numeric variable provided by MALLET: the token number for each topic. Corpus distribution and token number usually correlate, which is understandable—the largest token fractions should have a corpus distribution closest in to the corpus itself. The correlation, in this case, is not perfect however: Figure 5.3. shows that a different topic, 31, follows topics 65 and 56 sequentially. Topic 31 is characteristic of an ultra-proliferative topic with no semantic coherence or content, as demonstrated in the word-cloud

13

“state,” “government,” “political,” “national,” “party,” “country,” “public,” “foreign,” “official,” “minister,” “policy,” “law,” “nation,” “international,” “president,” “office,” “union.” 14 “force,” “order,” “power,” “lead,” “follow,” “action,” “act,” “leader,” “plan,” “control,” “authority,” “demand,” “accept,” “peace,” “article,” “movement,” “influence,” “relation.” 15 “book,” “source,” “document,” “report,” “page,” “article,” “record,” “archive,” “material,” “study,” “library,” “diary,” “account,” “translation.” 16 “find,” “reference,” “read,” “explain,” “mention,” “research,” “question,” “refer,” “show,” “quote,” “translate,” “describe,” “search,” “write.” 17 “evidence,” “fact,” “claim,” “original,” “state”), publishing (“author,” “publish,” “copy,” “cover,” “volume,” “version,” “story.”

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Figure 5.3 Tokens per topic

visualization of Figure 5.4. In this visualization, size corresponds to the probability of the word occurring within the text in close proximity to other words from the topic at hand. On average, words of this topic are the shortest within the model.18 The creators of MALLET state that word length correlates with a word’s specificity.19 In this case, it is true—the words indicate simple, unspecific chitchat. Only on the periphery do references to war come up (“soldier,” “fire,” “fight,” “dead,” “death”). While topic 31 encompasses a relatively large part of the corpus, its corpus distribution is slightly lower than that of the other topics introduced above. The discrepancy between the ranking of topic 31 in the corpus distribution and the token number suggests that although the fraction of low-complexity words is high, their distribution across the corpus is uneven. As such, there might be a difference between the discussions’ levels of complexity. Based on the relation of corpus distribution and token number, it can further be concluded that a large part of the corpus is connected to the performance of discussion. Hereby, those 18

Topic 31’s average word length is 4.39 characters, compared to 5.04 for topic 56, 5.29 for topic 65, 5.77 for topic 42, and 6 for topic 54. The longest words are in topic 94 (8.42 characters on average), which contains mostly German words—a large number of which are composite nouns. 19 See “word length,” http://mallet.cs.umass.edu/diagnostics.php (last accessed on March 1, 2021).

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acts thematize power structures and refer to visual materials. Discussions about research practices and written sources are also essential. Figure 5.4 Topic 31

b. Exclusivity A further interesting aspect of the topic model are words that appear in different contexts within it. These have a low “exclusivity” metric: a number that demonstrates “the extent to which the top words for this topic do not appear as top words in other topics—i.e., the extent to which its top words are ‘exclusive.’“20 A peek at words with the lowest exclusivity demonstrates the themes a given corpus is mostly concerned with. Words with low exclusivity have the most extensive semantic connectivity to different subjects and themes derived from the text corpus. In grouping topics into thematic categories, these words play an essential role: while identifying the central theme of a topic, some words might be interpreted differently depending on the context. For example, if I had to describe the topic in Figure 5.5., I would label it “mechanical killing and executions.” In this context, the words “hang,” “remove,” or “original” would all be counted as supporting the thematic inclination toward execution devices. In contrast, within a topic connected to art, these words would be interpreted differently. 20

See “exclusivity,” http://mallet.cs.umass.edu/diagnostics.php (last accessed March 1, 2021).

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Figure 5.5 Topic 61

Words with low exclusivity are thus connective to different discourses. With that in mind, I chose 10 percent of the words contained in the topic model: out of 10,000 words within the diagnostics file (100 topics × 100 words), I selected the 1,000 with the lowest level of exclusivity. The words were then summarized with the table function, a basic R function that counts the occurrences of identical elements within a vector.21 21

The complete list of words includes: “war” (appearing 43 times), “german” (32), “time” (25), “year” (22), “regard” (21), “source” (21), “write” (21), “army” (19), “military” (19), “order” (18), “number” (16), “post” (16), “germany” (15), “make” (15), “part” (15), “unit” (15), “force” (14), “hitler” (14), “man” (14), “die” (13), “group” (13), “officer” (13), “general” (12), “russian” (12), “world” (12), “british” (11), “soviet” (11), “accord” (10), “nazi” (10), “soldier” (10), “von” (10), “gun” (9), “kill” (9), “american” (8), “area” (8), “good” (8), “major” (8), “place” (8), “september” (8), “state” (8), “august” (7), “find” (7), “forum” (7), “france” (7), “give” (7), “member” (7), “people” (7), “service” (7), “show” (7), “thread” (7), “bear” (6), “country” (6), “day” (6), “death” (6), “document” (6), “french” (6), “july” (6), “june” (6), “march” (6), “page” (6), “photo” (6), “poland” (6), “reich” (6), “side” (6), “type” (6), “air” (5), “berlin” (5), “camp” (5), “division” (5), “dont” (5), “fight” (5), “million” (5), “november” (5), “question” (5), “russia” (5), “work” (5), “ally” (4), “april” (4), “attack” (4), “case” (4), “date” (4), “december” (4), “der” (4), “field” (4), “great” (4), “han” (4), “include” (4), “italian” (4), “list” (4), “operation” (4), “regiment” (4), “appoint” (3), “base” (3), “book” (3), “claim” (3), “commander” (3), “iii” (3), “information” (3), “japanese” (3), “polish” (3), “send” (3), “sentence” (3), “ship” (3), “tank” (3), “woman” (3), “aircraft” (2), “artillery” (2), “battalion” (2), “battle” (2), “company” (2), “crime” (2), “des” (2), “east” (2), “end” (2), “follow” (2), “front” (2), “guard” (2), “history” (2), “italy” (2), “japan” (2), “jew” (2), “john”

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Within that list, there are many references to forum communication—much like with the words in topic 65. A second common type of token references the forum members’ practice of discussing military action. It is impossible to identify a specific event within the list, which is not surprising: their lowest exclusivity is enabled through their universality; they reference military action (and actors) across all fronts. These words in particular, and this way talking about the war, I label “militaryspeak.” Its facets are explored in more detail within the categorization of the topics. It might seem obvious, even trivial, to conclude that a forum about World War II is to no small extent focused on military action and military-speak. However if the massive, all-encompassing social change that the war brought about is considered, it seems remarkable that minor details of different military actions are still extensively debated and scrutinized. Within these discussions, soldier’s names are typically preceded by their ranks; when military units move, they do so in a particular manner: they “attack,” “advance,” or “retreat.” Soldiers of other armies are either “allies” or “enemies”; deaths are referred to as “losses” or “casualties.” Each event is considered an “operation,” the surroundings are “areas,” and the “soldiers” or “men” need to “take position” therein. Since battles usually spread across long time spans, the occurrence of months is likely to indicate battle descriptions. In some cases, a high occurrence of months was even considered an indicator for military-speak; in others, high occurrence of those indicates written documents being referenced. This kind of speaking is not to be confused with the actual jargon that soldiers use, which has its specific traits—such as vulgarity (Cherubim 2017, 443), albeit this was one not discovered within the texts of AHF. The users that engage in military-speak-dominated discussions on AHF create an almost scholarly distance between the discussion and the event, thereby performing their expert identity. This kind of language stands in a long tradition of works by military theorists dating back to nineteenth-century writings such as On War by Carl von Clausewitz (Cherubim 2017, 453). The reference to von Clausewitz is not merely motivated by associations. In the book Makers of Modern Strategy published during World (2), “leave” (2), “michael” (2), “october” (2), “picture” (2), “site” (2), “south” (2), “start” (2), “troops” (2), “und” (2), “act” (1), “action” (1), “anti” (1), “back” (1), “call” (1), “car” (1), “cgerman” (1), “cheer” (1), “city” (1), “class” (1), “command” (1), “criminal” (1), “defense” (1), “enemy” (1), “english” (1), “fighter” (1), “finland” (1), “finnish” (1), “fire” (1), “government” (1), “holocaust” (1), “image” (1), “infantry” (1), “info” (1), “issue” (1), “jan” (1), “klasse” (1), “law” (1), “long” (1), “maru” (1), “max” (1), “panzer” (1), “police” (1), “position” (1), “rank” (1), “red” (1), “report” (1), “serve” (1), “trial” (1), “vehicle” (1), “waffen” (1), “weapon” (1), “winter” (1).

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War II (Earle 1973), historian Hans Rothfels defines Clausewitz as one of the most influential philosophers for the modern understanding of war. Hence this type of speaking about World War II has an institutionalized tradition. In Erinnerungsräume (2003), a seminal book that explores cultural memory forms, Aleida Assmann devotes a chapter to memorial spaces. She distinguishes between “space” and “place,” whereby the former is “researched, measured, colonized, annexed and networked” and the latter is considered semiotically charged, “unspecifically meaningful” (A. Assmann 2003, 300). In her view, the quantifiable space represents “fungibility and disponibility” (Ibid., 300) and is closely tied to the epoch of modernity—to which von Clausewitz’s writings can be attributed. Military action encompasses a strictly functional “resemiotization” of space (for example as an “area”), with military-speak facilitating this process. This semantic field lays bare how strongly military institutions influence and continue to thrive within discourses of everyday life. The influence of military institutions mirrors the argument that Forest, Johnson, and Till (2004) make regarding the artificiality of the theoretical distinction between official and vernacular memory. It is crucial to face up to the fact that despite AHF’s grassroots nature, the practices of memory performed on it are strongly influenced by—and sometimes continue to reproduce—official discourses. c. Topic model stability Most topic modeling analyses in the Humanities work similarly to the process just outlined. After creating a topic model, authors manually assemble the topics into groups and derive conclusions according to these categorizations of data. For example, in their paper “Falkentopics” (2017), Thomas Weitin and Katharina Herget first construct thematic fields of topics before then turning to ones that represent individuals novellas—labeling them “falcon topics.” It is impossible to create an exclusive set of categories, because most topics cover several well-identifiable subjects. An excellent example of this is topic 5 (Table 5.5.): while it contains references to equipment, it also features militaryspeak; that aside, it contains a large number of Finnish words too. The topic must reference incidents of the Winter War, but it is hard to categorize it regardless.

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Table 5.5 Topic 5 5 man hakkarainen sika russian move truck back gun finnish road joukkue side girl juha linna driver officer good armoured bit ahead komppania order machinegun firing radio pass arabella kitchen command line nco fight ryhmä forward lahti vehicle burst position herra net kapteenus grin pataljoona voice check run ground field infantry tank half front kaarina lammio lotta salo word couple red sihvonen forest nod engine minute fast gunner soldier bridge vanhala sir osasto jaeger turn sound susitaival cannon army jukka wave sig body hit group anssin close unit ruoska signal movement scream hell instructor autio lehto ambush kapteeni artillery anti grenade

In the following, I will construct categories that topics could be grouped into. These categories are chosen based on the A-main model, but within each group I provide information on whether topics of other models contain topics that fit in that category. Using several models allows for the addressing of the problematic field of topic stability. Because topic modeling is an unsupervised method, its outcome is somewhat different each time the method is implemented. This makes grouping topics into thematic fields especially complicated, because some topics might not be replicated again. Within Digital Humanities, topic model stability is an often-overlooked issue. There are several methods to assess topic model stability (Guo et al. 2016). In the following example, I present a stability-calculation method proposed by Yang, Pan, and Song (2016)22 based on the word overlap between topics of a main and a control model: Consider two topic models created with identical settings, X and Y. First, for each topic of model X a list of topics from model Y is created, ranking the topics according to the number of overlapping words. In the next step, the algorithm assigns each topic from model X a topic from model Y, choosing the topic with the greatest overlap. If the topic with the most overlapping words is already taken, the algorithm reassesses which of the two candidates has a higher word overlap. Apart from determining the pairwise overlap ranking for each topic, this method offers a generalized assessment of the topic’s stability in the form of a score. The latter is created by adding up word overlaps for each pair of topics and then dividing the sum of overlaps by the product of the topic number and number of words per topic.

22

The script for the topic modeling stability calculation was created by Judith Brottrager. I am very grateful for the opportunity to tap into the collective expertise of the brilliant team led by Professor Thomas Weitin.

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After applying this stability-assessment method to different models, I discovered that smaller models are more likely to be stable than larger ones are. The smaller model’s topics are very generic and cannot represent the corpus in all its facets. For example, the 10-topic model had a stability score of approximately 80, whereas it sank to 65 in the 100-topic model.23 This undoubtedly very formalized method allows us to compare stabilities across models and assess different setups. It is not without its drawbacks though: for example a topic could touch upon the same subject but use different words, calling into question the validity of word-level stability calculations. Figure 5.6 Christianity-related topic

It is also important to note that unstable topics are not invalid topics, rather ones representing but a small fraction of the corpus. During one of the test runs of 100-topic models of type A, for example, a topic about Christianity appeared (see Figure 5.6.). Neither of the models chosen for analysis contained a topic like this. However when I created a 200-topic model, I found two topics related to Christianity—one of which could be identified in the 200-topic control model. In this case, the unstable topic represents a part of the corpus that is not large enough to dominate a topic in a 100-topic model in every run. As soon as the corpus is divided into 200 topics, this part is large enough to “claim” a topic 23

This score was similar across all corpora, no matter the chunking or whether the corpus consisted of all parts of speech or only of nouns. The score at 50 topics was surprisingly high: stability between C-main and C-control was 78.

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each time. Thinking about unstable topics in this manner helps to consider them representative of a smaller text chunk instead of as a drawback to the method per se. d. Thematic categories of the topic model In this section I will explore the groups of topics that the A-main model exhibits. The groups are sorted in ascending order per the number of topics they contain. In the description of each category, assessment of its presence in other models (A-control, B-main, B-control, C-main) is provided. This allows for a stability assessment that lacks simple score comparability yet provides greater insight. 1. War crimes and their consequences (topics 4, 17, 21, 36, 37, 44, 58, 66, 73, 74, 76, 79, 91, 92, 93; total: 15) Included here is a topic on sexuality-related war crimes (#37), which contains references to rape, crimes against homosexuals, and experimenting on humans (stable across all models). Further, a topic that explicitly mentions Holocaust denial is part of this group. The words in the topic cover the main actors of Holocaust-denial discussions on AHF (“roberto,” “scott,” “smith”) and in the public sphere (“irving”), appearing alongside other keywords indicative of similar debates (#21).24 This topic is stable across the 100-topic models, but is not present in the smaller C-main model. A group of topics within this category references debates about concentration camps and the Holocaust. Usually, these topics include words like “camp,” “extermination,” “concentration,” “victim,” and “holocaust” (#17, #73, #92, #93); “genocide,” “atrocity” and “massacre,” as well as “mass” and “murder” are often referenced within this category too. However the focus on war crimes is not limited to the Shoah, encompassing other such acts as well: #91 mentions “katyn”; #17 includes “katyn” and “babi”—likely a reference to the events of Babiy Yar— as well as “malmedy”—the site of 84 American prisoners of war’s massacre in Belgium in December 1944. Topic #93 also focuses on prisoners of war instead of anti-Semitic war crimes. Topic #74 contains references to racially charged categories and policies but does not mention the keywords listed above.

24

I consider the following keywords likely to indicate a debate connected to Holocaust denial: “revisionist,” “revisionism,” “evidence,” “denier,” “denial,” “deny,” “lie,” “witness,” “eyewitness,” “conspiracy,” “prove,” “truth,” “argument,” “historical,” “review” (as in Institute for Historical Review, a prominent Holocaust-denial organization).

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The legal dimensions of war crimes are also present in several topics. For example, topic 4 contains over 35 keywords related to the legal system,25 while topic #76 references the Hague and the Geneva Conventions, wherein the contemporary definition of “war crime” was first established. Similarly, topic #44 contains many references to the Nuremberg trials and several keywords connected to the law. Topic #36 is concerned with the infamous three-decade-long trial of John Demjanjuk, who was ultimately convicted of the mass murder of at least 26,000 people in the extermination camp Sobibor (Sharfman 2000). Although “demjanjuk” is mentioned in other models, the A-main model is the only one with a topic dominated by his case. Topic #66 is connected to war crimes in Eastern Europe, as it contains, besides related terms, many geographical references combined with mentions of local partisan movements. Topic #58 focuses on war crimes from the perpetrators’ perspective: most of its words concern the Schutzstaffel (SS). Topics #79 and #91 encompass generic references to war crimes and their punishment, except for a number of foreign words in the latter topic. Overall, it is notable that references to war crimes constitute a large part of the topic model: across different models, the fraction was approximately 10 percent. In the case of the 50-topic model this figure was even higher: eight out of 50 topics were interpreted as war-crime-related ones. 2. German words, names (and Hitler) (topics 0, 9, 18, 25, 30, 33, 39, 43, 52, 55, 64, 78, 87, 94, 97, 98; total: 16) This category is extremely stable across all models as well. These topics consist to a large extent of references to German officials and ranks, and contain German names and words. In general, they can be considered military-speak topics. However, the German language being present to such a high degree herein led to their ultimate assignment to a separate category. Topics with short German words (#9 and #33) slightly differ from ones with longer such words. It becomes clear why topic modeling needs a stop-word list: essentially, topic 33 contains German words with little semantic value that would however be included in that list in other circumstances. One topic (#78) contains several references to the 25

“trial,” “court,” “law,” “case,” “criminal,” “commit,” “evidence,” “judge,” “legal,” “sentence,” “justice,” “charge,” “accuse,” “convict,” “prosecution,” “guilty,” “testimony,” “prisoner,” “defendant,” “arrest,” “military,” “prosecutor,” “tribunal,” “prison,” “witness,” “allegation,” “investigation,” “rights,” “suspect,” “lawyer,” “investigate,” “prosecute,” “punish,” “conviction,” “accusation.”

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Spanish Civil War. Notable also is the appearance of a topic that only contains German first names (#98). They might be connected to the subforum on “Axis Biographical Research,” or other threads focused on German officials. One subtheme within the thematic field of German officials—and one furthermore stable across all models, albeit to differing degrees—is a small collection of topics specifically about Hitler. The A-main model has three topics in this category (#39, #52, and #64). One refers to Hitler’s residence Berghof (Obersalzberg) and the existence of images and video footage of that location. The rest of the vocabulary in topic 64 reads like that one would associate with a holiday resort26 or vacation spot.27 It seems as if a particular interest in Berghof (Obersalzberg) is present on the forum. Topic #52 is also connected to Hitler and architecture, but this time the focus is a very different kind of building: the infamous bunker in Berlin, marking Hitler’s last days. Unsurprisingly this topic is heavily connected to Hitler’s death, and ultimately to speculation about whether he might still be alive. Several words within that topic signify such musing.28 Topic #39 contains terms that reference Hitler’s political biography, and his inner circle, ascent to power, as well as militaristic style of political conduct. Topic #97, at first, seems like a combination of German and French words. However, at second glance, it becomes clear that all German words are either names or ranks29 and all French ones are toponyms of military graveyards.30 Many German ranks and awards are at the core of topics #0, #25, #30, #43,

26

“room,” “house,” “show,” “view,” “wall,” “area,” “painting,” “art,” “entrance,” “hotel,” “window,” “visit,” “located,” “walk,” “open,” “wing,” “interior,” “style.” 27 “museum,” “memorial,” “monument,” “walk,” “picture,” “portrait,” “artist,” “portrait,” “original.” 28 “double,” “wasnt,” “witness,” “evidence,” “survive,” “hide,” “alive,” “secret.” 29 “strm,” “rttf,” “uscha,” “karl,” “heinz,” “josef,” “johann,” “pzrgt,” “han,” “franz,” “kurt,” “wilhelm,” “walter,” “lommel,” “heinrich,” “herbert,” “gerhard,” “werner,” “helmut,” “erich,” “rudolf,” “georg,” “götz,” “hscha,” “alfr,” “willus,” “ernst,” “otto,” “paul,” “erwin,” “anton,” “fritz,” “albert,” “gunther,” “martin,” “scharf,” “horst,” “richard,” “johanne,” “gunter,” “hermann,” “bauer,” “emil,” “becker,” “friedrich,” “muller,” “michael,” “betz,” “ewald,” “blumau,” “max,” “schutz,” “aloi,” “alfon,” “jakob,” “sandweiler,” “adolf,” “ludwig,” “andrea,” “bruno,” “braun,” “peter,” “adam,” “berger,” “stefan,” “theodor,” “hetzel,” “egon,” “bernhard,” “albrecht,” “artur,” “zenker,” “august.” 30 “niederbronn,” “marigny,” “bastogne,” “recogne,” “mont,” “huisnes,” “saint,” “desir,” “lisieux,” “orglande,” “champigny,” “cambe,” “bergheim,” “dagneux,” “lommel,” “berneuil,” “ysselsteyn,” “bourdon,” “sandweiler,” “andilly,” “oberwoelbling,” “blumau,” “malmaison,” “beauvais.”

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#55, and #94. Thus, it is safe to assume that these topics also reference discussions in the realm of “Axis Biographical Research.” Based on that premise, topic 18 was included in this category—even though the number of German words therein is lower than in the others (n = 33 words). The other words featuring in topic 18 designate stages of a military biography, such as promotions and award reception,31 as well as forum- and search-related terms. 3. Equipment and technology (topics 3, 12, 27, 28, 60, 67, 83, 95; total: 8) The third category contains topics that reference discussions on equipment and technology. Within the A-main model, there are eight topics in this category— which is very similar across all models (the A-control model contained ten topics in this category, the C-main model five). The topics can be divided into wearable guns and cannons (#27, #83); large equipment, such as aircraft, navy, and a variety of vehicles (#3, #12, #60, #67, #95); and, radio technology (#28). Topics #28 and #67 contain several references to the Finnish army; therefore a connection to the Winter and Continuation wars can be assumed, especially as radio-technology topics contain references to the Winter and Continuation wars across all models. Topic #27 points at a specific communicative practice: keywords connected to weapons32 are combined with references to images.33 It seems as if forum members help each other to either identify a weapon based on a picture or pick out an artifact before buying it (“ebay” and “ebayde” are both present in this topic). 4. Generic military-speak: Operations and ranks in English (topics 6, 47, 59, 62, 70, 72, 81; total: 7) Military-speak encompasses several different thematic fields: discussions on strategy, battle development, and alternative possibilities in the same situation. All these themes include references to equipment, but are still quite easily distinguishable from topics in the previous category. The latter contained mostly references 31

“officer,” “rank,” “award,” “bio,” “promotion,” “party,” “hold,” “badge,” “commander,” “death,” “cross,” “police,” “follow,” “join,” “unit,” “date,” “serve,” “promote,” “give,” “leader,” “camp,” “advance,” “member,” “number,” “service.” 32 “gun,” “sturm,” “flak,” “battery,” “mortar,” “skl,” “skc„” “howitzer,” “mkb,” “bofor„” “mle,” “turret„” “canon,” “artillery,” “weapon,” “sfh,” “type,” “wheel,” “mount,” “carriage,” “shield,” “barrel,” “model,” “inch,” “design,” “shell,” “heavy,” “caliber.” 33 “regard,” “image,” “photo,” “picture,” “identify,” “capture,” “source,” “version,” “show,” “drawing,” “photocaption.”

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to types of equipment and their parts without the corresponding military-speak vocabulary. In general, some terms that could be labelled military-speak were part of most topics in the model, because, as mentioned above, many of these words have low exclusivity. Topics in this category contain mostly military-speak terminology. Military-speak topics were present in each model: seven in A-control, seven in B-main, eight in B-control, five in C-main. Topic #47 is a classic example of a military-speak topic: several terms connote the Western Front and D-Day operations,34 but the dominant number of words—most of them with a higher probability of occurring together—refer to the operational component of military action.35 Similar topics here are #59, #62, and #81. The latter exhibits the largest number of monthly references (16 out of 100). Table 5.6. shows a topic that was ultimately added to the military-speak category, but which could in fact have been categorized differently: while there are 33 words typical of military-speak, there are also a comparable number of German ones (29). The final decision was made because other topics attributed to category 2 were almost exclusively in German. Further, based on exemplary forum reading, I concluded that frequent use of “months” is an indirect indicator of describing battle. Another trait of military-speak topics is numerous references to quantifiable power indicators, either in connection to soldiers (#6)36 or the wartime economy (#72).37

34

“french,” “british,” “land,” “landing,” “june,” “beach,” “day,” “rommel.” “army,” “force,” “attack,” “troops,” “division,” “battle,” “fight,” “operation,” “line,” “unit,” “front,” “move,” “advance,” “offensive,” “area,” “invasion,” “ally,” “tank,” “enemy,” “infantry,” “artillery,” “combat,” “position,” “hold,” “reserve,” “capture,” “corps,” “campaign,” “defend,” “situation,” “man,” “general,” “strength,” “order,” “defensice,” “commander,” “command,” “group,” “lose,” “defense,” “soldier,” “victory,” “destroy,” “loss,” “retreat,” “supplies,” “defeat,” “assault,” “major,” “defence,” “counter,” “reach,” “surrender,” “withdraw.” 36 References to soldiers include: “loss,” “manpower,” “casualty,” “force,” “wound,” “personnel,” “troops.” Numeric references include: “million,” “total,” “number,” “figure,” “strength,” “ton,” “compare,” “average,” “superiority,” “increase,” “resource,” “rate,” “count,” “thousand.” 37 References to economy include: “production,” “produce,” “factory,” “industry,” “cost,” “project,” “company.” Numeric references include: “number,” “increase,” “size,” “rate,” “capacity,” “reduce,” “amount,” “half.” 35

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Table 5.6 Topic 70 70

division unit panzer regiment battalion bataillon german div waffen company kompanie form abteilung volkssturm heer iii command brigade man area grenadier july part christoph infanterie wehrmacht normandy action cheer battle mot april infantry june march training flak information time info korp stug number inf soldier kstn rgt panzergrenadier formation combat order armee fight operation stab pzdiv attach front btl transfer police abt sept corps luftwaffe jan send august equipment reich receive commander skorzeny element divisional january lssah vehicle lah schwere reg battery kampfgruppe oct france eastern regard train source operational personnel tiger lehr date batallion location accord zug platoon leibstandarte

5. Geographically specific topics (Pacific Front, Winter War, Eastern Front; total: 22) In this category, I subsume those topics featuring consistent geographical references. The latter are combined with military-speak vocabulary or with terms hinting at political discussions. a. Pacific Front and Second Sino-Japanese War (topics 10, 15, 19, 29, 34, 45, 49, 84; total: 8) Similar to the Winter War category, topics here are stable across all models. Their occurrence is proportional to the number of topics (within the C-main model there were three, the various A and B models contained 6–8). This category represents a mixture between geographical designations and either military-speakor equipment-related terms (#15, #19, #29, #34, #45, #49). Many of the topics contain the username fontessa, a very active user within the document-translation part of the forum (#19, #34, #49). The number of month references was striking (five in #19, four in #34, seven in #49). One subcategory I labeled “Food and East” (stable across all models, with two topics): topic #10 contained 33 direct references to food and ten adjectives denoting descriptions of dishes and tastes, perhaps addressing Western soldiers’ everyday experiences abroad. Apart from that, the topic included military-speak and geographical references typical of the category. Topic #84, on the other hand, contains references to the Bengali famine of 1943, such as “genocide,” “famine,” “starvation,” and “death”—based on which it could also have been attributed to the category of war crimes too. Geographically and geopolitically, the topic references Britain,

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India, and Ireland—probably thus drawing parallels between events in Bengal and those in Ireland during the Great Famine of 1845–1852. b. Winter War and Continuation War (topics 5, 8, 14, 16, 24, 75; total: 6) Topic #75 contains mostly Finnish words, references to places connected with the Winter and Continuation Wars, as well as translation terms. A balanced combination of references to Finland and military-speak can be found in topic #24. Topic #8 includes references to youth, military education, and probably military service’s function in an adolescent’s life. Topic #16 seems to contain critical contextual data about the Winter War. It references Molotov,38 and several important battles such as the Petsamo and the Vyborg offensives (both 1944) and the Battle of Hanko (1941). Topic #14 contains words connected to the organization of Finnish forces. Interestingly, this topic is the only one that references female involvement in battle: the words “lotta,” “svärd,” and “woman” are included alongside mention of the other actors involved in the Winter War on the Finnish side.39 That is thought-provoking because, this instance aside, women are otherwise referenced only in the context of crime, art, and domestic life. “Woman” is contained in two topics within the “War Crimes” category, thus framing women as victims, and another time in the topic about music within the “Hobbies” category. The final occurrence of “woman” is within the “Introductions” category, where it is most probably used in the autobiographical descriptions of users. Other words signifying the presence of women have a similar occurrence pattern. “Wife” appears twice within the gendered war-crime topic #37; in the topic connected to autobiographical descriptions (#69), “female” features only once in connection to war crimes. “Girl” follows a pattern similar to “woman,” also occurring in the context of war crimes, music, and of topic #5 connected to the Winter War, whereas “mother” and “daughter” also appear in connection to music and war crimes. These findings mirror studies on women’s memory in Auschwitz, wherein women feature as mothers and victims of war crimes—thereby reinscribing 38

As the Finnish historian Olli-Pekka Vehviläinen (2013, 208) notes, the outbreak of the Winter War is typically considered to be an outcome of the Hitler-Stalin nonaggression pact—known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in Russian-language historiography—after which the Soviet Union placed troops in Eastern Europe and was expected to extend its influence in Finland as well. 39 “Lotta svärd” is the female military organization of the Finnish army. Other organizations mentioned are “suojeluskunta,” a voluntary militia, and “maavoimat,” the Finnish army.

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“into public consciousness the bifurcating images of endangered motherhood and sexual captivity” and enforcing “images of women’s powerlessness rather than representations of their heroism” (Jacobs 2008, 222). Within AHF, the Winter War is the only context wherein women are mentioned as actors on the battlefield and not as victims or muses. This pattern continues in topic #5, where the main focus is military-speak; the word “lotta” does appear herein however. As a category, the Winter War is stable across all models. The A-control model includes six topics in this category, among which “lotta,” “svärd,” “woman,” and “girl” are present in four topics in various combinations. The C-main model contains three topics in this category; in one of those, the terms “lotta” and “woman” are to be found. The models with smaller chunks contain fewer Winter War topics but maintain that female involvement regardless: within the B-main model, there are five topics in the Winter War category—”svärd” and “girl” are present herein, with one occurrence each. The B-control model contains only three Winter War topics, and one instance of “lotta.” iii. Eastern Front (topics 46, 53, 57, 86, 96; total: 5) Topics about the Eastern Front are also stable across all models. Topic #86 is similar to the previous categories, as it combines military-speak,40 toponyms,41 and national affiliations.42 The other three topics demonstrate a slightly different pattern, as they contain more references to politics and less to military action. Topic #53 focuses on the Independent State of Croatia (ISC). It contains several words connected to religion, probably referencing the practice of forced conversions of the Serbian population during the ethnic and religious persecution of the ISC’s fascist government. The initial words of topic #57 are, at first glance, about the Soviet Union, but throughout the topic other Eastern European states make an appearance too (“ukraine,” “estonia,” “poland,” “lithuania,” “romania”). Remarkably, there are only very few words denoting military-speak—this topic

40

“campaign,” “lose,” “loss,” “destroy,” “encirclement,” “scenario,” “advance,” “strategic,” “flank,” “fall,” “tank,” “resource,” “june,” “november,” “kursk,” “don,” “capture,” “reserve,” “offensive,” “front,” “production,” “manstein,” “august,” “supply,” “million,” “september,” “luftwaffe,” “army,” “panzer,” “barbarossa,” “war,” “wehrmacht,” “winter,” “red,” “win,” “operation,” “paulus,” “december,” “july,” “capacity.” 41 “moscow,” “stalingrad,” “germany,” “leningrad,” “russia,” “city,” “caucasus,” “romania,” “ussr,” “ukraine,” “volga,” “kiev.” 42 “german,” “soviet,” “union,” “russian,” “romanian.”

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is mostly about politics and revolution.43 Topic #96 is similar: there are almost no references to military action, only to politics and Eastern European history.44 Finally, topic #46 is not easily attributable. It contains references to badges and insignia, forum discussions and members, several names of National-Socialist officials, and references to the assembly of biographical data. However, it also contains geographical references to the southern part of the Eastern Front that was known as the “operational zones,”45 and some of the names referenced are of officials especially prominent during a particular period of World War II: the aftermath of the Armistice of Cassibile, signed in September 1943. The armistice was a critical moment that led to Italy’s surrender and the creation of the “Operationszone Alpenvorland” and “Operationszone Adriatisches Küstenland” by National-Socialist forces. The topic references military action connected to this period. iv. Other regional topics (20, 38, 41; total: 3) Here, several minor references are subsumed together: first, the A-main and both B models contained topics about Italy (#38), and the A-control and both B models included one about the Spanish Civil War. Second, most topic models contained one topic referencing both Greece and Turkey (#20), presumably during the First World War, as keywords connoting the Armenian genocide are included herein.

43

“communist,” “state,” “country,” “bolshevik,” “people,” “communism,” “party,” “republic,” “support,” “regime,” “border,” “great,” “political,” “mass,” “pact,” “leader,” “eastcommissar,” “independence,” “territory,” “occupy,” “liberate,” “liberation,” “region,” “nationalist,” “citizen,” “minority,” “stalinist,” “revolution,” “nation,” “propaganda,” “civil,” “population,” “independent.” 44 “territory,” “population,” “state,” “ethnic,” “part,” “land,” “century,” “people,” “area,” “city,” “king,” “border,” “country,” “empire,” “rule,” “live,” “nation,” “province,” “town,” “war,” “world,” “west,” “settle,” “settlement,” “minority,” “annex,” “large,” “region,” “inhabitant,” “space,” “place,” “period,” “kingdom,” “great,” “conquer,” “claim,” “citizen,” “western,” “capital,” “republic,” “duke,” “conflict,” “knight,” “monarchy,” “lebensraum.” Geographical affiliations include: german,” “germany,” “poland,” “prussia,” “russia,” “russian,” “polish,” “eastern,” “east,” “czech,” “prussian,” “ukraine,” “pole,” “lithuanian,” “ukrainian,” “silesia,” “slavic,” “austrian,” “baltic,” “austria,” “slav,” “bohemia,” “europe,” “latvia,” “pomerania,” “berlin,” “estonia,” “lithuania,” “hungary,” “moravia.” 45 “slovenia,” “maribor,” “slovene,” “marburg,” “slovenian,” “untersteiermark,” “italien,” “ljubljana,” “italy,” “triest,” “trieste,” “celje.”

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Finally, topic #41 pertains to the involvement of British forces, with a special focus on British politics and colonies46 —being mixed with military-speak. 6. Politics in general (topics 7, 54, 82, 99; total: 4) As we have observed in the previous categories, World War II is discussed on AHF within a scale of contexts: there are perspectives on the war that hone in on individuals or artifacts, while others view the conflict as part of more extensive historical processes. In this category, I subsumed those topics that were not concerned with military action but with the political contexts surrounding World War II. The category remained stable, and the fraction of topics changed proportionally to the number of the latter across models. A topic was considered part of this category when most terms within it referenced political systems, decision makers, and actors of a different sort. In particular, this category’s topics often contain a substantial number of country names: it is in political discussions on AHF that a whole country appears as an actor. The verbs within political discussions change as well: contrary to military-speak topics, where actors are “assigned,” “commanded,” “transferred,” “organized,” and “ordered,” within politically themed topics actors instead “decide,” “send,” “mobilize,” “support,” and “expect.” Topics #7 and #82 contain references to countries that are part of the Axis Powers and the Allied Forces. In contrast, topics #99 and #54 encompass terms denoting political institutions, deeds, and, in general, abstract political ideologies and concepts (“fascism,” “communism,” “democracy,” “ideology,” “authority,” “movement,” “community”), with topic #99 also adding religion to the mix. None of the topics referenced a particular event. There were, however, others that were added to specialized subcategories: the start of World War II and contemporary United States political discourse. 7. Contemporary US politics (topics 48, 71; total: 2) A peculiar element in the “politics” category is the stable presence of topics (two in the A and B models, one in the C model) that refer to contemporary politics in the US. These topics seem to have no connection to World War II but pertain to discussions that originated within this context at least. Topic #48 46

“british,” “australian,” “australia,” “zealand,” “sydney,” “commonwealth,” “canadian,” “canada,” “rhodesia,” “rhodesian,” “prime,” “minister,” “churchill,” “royal,” “london,” “lord,” “king.”

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contains multiple references to slavery and racial tensions in connection to the US political system.47 Presumably, a discussion would evolve in the context of a particular presidential election there. Topic #71 mainly refers to the situation in the Middle East, but encompasses other conflicts too: this is evident from the toponyms and other keywords present.48 8. Start of the war (topic 22; total: 1) This is not a remarkably stable topic, as it can be found only in A-main and C-main. Because many names are mentioned that were especially important at the start of the war and are inevitably connected to particular incidents (e.g. “chamberlain,” “dahlerus,” “danzig”), the topic is likely to have originated from a discussion about World War II’s inception. 9. Introductions (topics 31, 69, 89; total: 3) A stable set of topics was labeled within the first round of analyses as “simple life story.” This category remains stable across all models, although it is only represented with one topic in the C-main model and in the A-control model with four. The A-main model exhibits three topics in this category. They are not attributable to any World War II-related event. Topic #89 has gathered names,

47

Almost all words from topic 48 can be included here: “black,” “american,” “white,” “bush,” “president,” “state,” “republican,” “vote,” “south,” “kerry,” “george,” “flag,” “slave,” “confederate,” “election,” “civil,” “democrat,” “america,” “african,” “regard,” “conservative,” “union,” “party,” “issue,” “race,” “federal,” “southern,” “slavery,” “candidate,” “washington,” “reagan,” “campaign,” “clinton,” “united,” “color,” “liberal,” “texa,” “virginia,” “lincoln,” “whites,” “media,” “free,” “support,” “system,” “africa,” “rights,” “economic,” “democratic,” “csa,” “social,” “immigrant,” “elect,” “yankee,” “racial,” “economy,” “labor,” “congress,” “northern,” “education,” “win,” “evil,” “run,” “republic,” “politics,” “negro,” “community,” “california,” “blue,” “political,” “john,” “senator,” “cut,” “recall,” “group,” “confederacy,” “minority,” “brown,” “house,” “bill,” “represent,” “business,” “serve,” “voter,” “trade,” “percent,” “raise,” “senate,” “florida,” “louisiana,” “center,” “governor.” 48 “terrorist,” “terrorism,” “terror,” “power,” “control,” “saddam,” “Islamic,” “pentagon,” “president” and “bush,” “nato,” “threat,” “cia,” “qaeda,” “freedom,” “oil,” “democracy.”

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short words (many of which should be added to the stop-word list),49 as well as words that are most likely to be used in small talk.50 Topics #31 and #69 stand in slight opposition to each other. Topic #31 contains short, nonspecific words that, as mentioned in reference to Figure 5.4., are semantically incoherent. Because of the simplicity of these words, one cannot help but establish a vague associative connection to everyday activities.51 Topic 69 is similar, as it is not attributable to World War II. The topic contains terms that reference reflection on the passage of time and more profound notions of legacy and tradition also rooted in everyday life. It seems as if the latter thematize the introduction to World War II for each user—which is typical, for example, of the “Introduce Yourself” thread.52 10. Hobbies (topics 88, 26, 11; total: 3) In some form or other, a combination of hobbies is present in all models. A-main exhibits three topics in this category: on movies, sports, and music. A-control contains only one topic that combines movies and sports (same for C-main), while the music topic seems to be least stable as it only occurs in the A-main and B-control models. B-main has two topics in this area (movies and sports). Both the sports and the music topics seem to contain no references to World War II. However, the movies topic contain both references to the film industry and several titles of popular movies about World War II combat.53 A comparison of several “Best WWII Movies” lists show that the films represented on AHF lack all-time Holocaust classics such as Schindler’s List. Therefore, it can be assumed that discussions are focused on films depicting battle.

49

“dont,” “wont,” “doesnt,” “yeah,” “ive,” “isnt,” “didnt,” “youre,” “ill.” “thing,” “guy,” “friend,” “work,” “job,” “company,” “pay,” “money,” “buy,” “stuff,” “car,” “kid,” “run,” “check,” “beer,” “computer,” “dog,” “place,” “lot,” “funny,” “big,” “nice,” “people,” “cheer” and “regard,” “make,” “hell.” 51 “day,” “call,” “work,” “run,” “home,” “walk,” “sit,” “watch,” “call,” “talk.” 52 “family,” “history,” “live,” “time,” “work,” “world,” “child,” “father,” “school,” “wife,” “people,” “military,” “great,” “life,” “visit,” “germany,” “learn,” “mother,” “book,” “story,” “interested,” “son,” “brother,” “ago,” “grandfather,” “serve,” “parent,” “die,” “love,” “veteran.” 53 “save,” “private,” “ryan,” “band,” “brother,” “enemy,” “gate,” “boot,” “stalingrad,” “bridge”—which could be anything from “Bridge at Remage” to “Bridge on the River Kwai.” 50

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11. Debates about the forum (1, 40, 63; total: 3) Topics in this category reference debates about the forum. For example, topic #1 contains several technical forum terms54 and some others hinting that discussions about forum rules and forum identity are connected to Holocaust denial.55 Topic #40 connotes conflict situations on the forum that might elicit a forum moderator’s involvement, citing the “guidelines.” Topic #63 contains references to a popular interactional scenario: the quiz thread,56 whereas other words within this topic are very scattered. Within the B-models, there are three topics of this category—they too are divided into conflicts with and conflicts without Holocaust denial accompanying. 12. Militaria collecting (topics 32, 56, 90; total: 3) While topic #32 contains almost exclusively references to collecting militaria, topics #56 and #90 also include many visual references.57 Hereby, topic #56 exhibits more conversational snippets (see Table 5.3.).58 It is notable that topic #94 also contains many references to badges and insignia in German and, therefore, is attributed to German-language-dominated topics.

54

“forum,” “post,” “thread,” “section,” “member,” “topic,” “discussion,” “moderator,” “site,” “avatar,” “ahf,” “link,” “poster,” “server,” “rule,” “discuss,” “lounge,” “ban,” “online,” “message,” “click,” “user,” “internet,” “search,” “access,” “comment,” “email.” 55 “holocaust,” “denial,” “denier,” “insult,” “nazi,” “reason.” 56 “hint,” “question,” “correct,” “answer,” “quiz,” “guess,” “write.” 57 Vocabulary connected to visuals: “pic,” “jpg,” “regard,” “photo,” “picture,” “show,” “photograph,” “foto.” References to artifacts include mentioning the collection process, designations of badges and awards, military ranks, and instances of verification: “rkt,” “holder,” “source,” “identify,” “collection,” “award,” “cross,” “ritterkreuzde,” “dkig,” “wear,” “confirmation,” “agree,” “ritterkreuzträger,” “caption,” “luftwaffe,” “oberleutnant,” “pilot,” “oberfeldwebel,” “hauptmann,” “knight,” “winner,” “confirm,” “gebjägrgt,” “series.” 58 Conversational terms: “find,” “time,” “dont,” “good,” “make,” “lot,” “great,” “nice,” “hope,” “year,” “ive,” “kind,” “guy,” “give,” “end,” “start,” “bit,” “thing,” “leave,” “friend,” “remember,” “close,” “didnt,” “early,” “day,” “miss,” “ill,” “ago,” “put,” “cheer,” “doesnt.” Vocabulary related to identification: “guess,” “search,” “correct,” “wrong,” “idea,” “check,” “similar,” “original,” “identify,” “note,” “follow,” “belong,” “change,” “army,” “reason,” “google,” “complete,” “understand,” “forget,” “agree.”

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13. Language (topics 23, 80; total: 2) This category is only present within the 100-topic models. The A-main model includes one topic that references different languages, nationalities, and cultures (#23). Topic #80 contains French stop words, along with several designations of equipment in German. The B-models contain one topic with Spanish words only. 14. Death (topics 13, 61; total: 2) These topics are stable across all models: even the C-model contains two topics in this category. The most likely words of topic #61 are references to executions; the geographical references59 include mostly famous prisons where the latter were carried out (see Figure 5.5.). Names referenced in this topic are either those of executioners60 or, in the case of “mannhardt,” those of inventors who enhanced the guillotine’s efficiency; some of the names potentially refer to executed prisoners too.61 Topic 13, while containing several references to death and executions, also includes words denoting German ranks and some terms connected to the installment of concentration camps and to the Holocaust.62 Nonetheless, this topic seems more dispersed thematically than the previous one despite being stable across all models. 15. Bunkers and fortifications (topics 2, 50; total: 2) This category is stable across all models and seems to occupy a proportional number of documents within the corpus, as the 50-topic model contains only one topic within the category. The topics are similar and contain terms that reference the location of bunkers, probable visits, and their original construction. Visiting bunkers is common among World War II enthusiasts, and these edifices an important topic in contemporary urban architecture too.63 59

“pankrac,” “pankraz,” “plotzensee,” “brandenburg,” “stadelheim.” “gropler,” “gröpler,” “reichhart,” “reindel.” 61 Hans and Sophie “scholl” were executed at Stadelheim Prison by guillotine. 62 “auschwitz,” “lodz,” “jew,” “ghetto,” “stutthof,” “torun,” “kapo.” 63 The practice of discovering bunkers, along with the idea of them being “an organisational response to technological advances in warfare” as well as “a material testimony to the anxieties of their creators,” (Bennett 2011a, 4) are well-documented (Blank et al. 2009; 60

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16. Written sources (topics 42, 35; total: 2) While topic #42 is devoted solely to publishing and books (see Table 5.4.), topic #35 is quite disparate in nature. The most coherent references in the latter are to newspapers and the publishing process.64 Other words in this topic are dissimilar: several references to different units, to Hitler’s father, and to other World War II history elements that could not be amalgamated into one coherent theme. Presumably, this topic represents those cases where a thread was initiated to share a newspaper article—hence the coherent references to the medium but also disparate thematic keywords. 17. Other (topics 51, 65, 68, 77, 85; total: 5) Not all topics could be neatly attributed to thematic categories. Topic #51 contains a set of terms that presumably refer to the lengthy discussion on the “Battle of Britain” that was mentioned in the previous chapter, containing both references to aerial forces and keywords that indicate probability assessments.65 Topic #65, as demonstrated in Table 5.3., incorporates almost exclusively conversational snippets. Topic #68 could not be attributed to any particular event or practice: its geographical references were scattered; parts of internal AHF conversations included indicators of politeness and holiday greetings; words in at least six different languages were mentioned. Topic #77 is a stable one about uniforms and garments. Topic #85 is not present in any models but A-main, and can be described as references to nature or self-sufficient production. Figure 5.7. demonstrates the fractions of topics that each category entails. The categorization reflects an interpretative process, and is thus somewhat inconsistent. For example most categories are determined by the discussions that topics presumably represent, but the largest group is ascertained by language (“German Virilio 2009; Bennett 2011a; 2011b; Fings 2012; Maltzahn and Schieren 2019; Postiglione and Lenzini 2019). New ideas in the architectural repurposing of bunkers are continuously explored (Heinemann and Zieher 2008; Bennett 2020). 64 “newspaper,” “correspondent,” “journalist,” “press,” “news,” “daily,” “york,” “reporter,” “write,” “media,” “journal,” “photograph,” “source,” “photographer,” “image,” “publish,” “papers,” “reporting,” “editor,” “author,” “picture,” “article,” “photo,” “film,” “tidende” (Norwegian newspaper). 65 “happen,” “scenario,” “question,” “ignore,” “impossible,” “explanation,” “require,” “reality,” “plausible.”

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words”). As this work’s primary focus is on user relations regarding World War II memory’s communicative practices, the categorization helped uncover several aspects on the lexical level that might be indicative of such practices and will be explored in the chapters to come. Besides the division into groups, several observations could be made: First, the only topic connected with the economic context to the war is part of the “military-speak” category, mainly due to the similarity in describing resources— economic in one case, human in others—as quantifiable and interchangeable. The resemiotization process mentioned in the description of military-speak seems to be similar to the objectified, economic perspective on wartime resources. Second, any categorization aside, it is clear that different memory media play a role within these recollection processes. They also lead to the various practices performed on the forum. Artifacts such as insignia, equipment, and uniforms are documented, verified, and exchanged; written sources are translated and discussed. Third, different types of memory places are present within the topics: users mention and discuss camps and other traumatic places, they locate, map, and visit bunkers that in their disconnection from surrounding spaces can be considered modern ruins, they locate mass graves, and they visit memorial sites that have since integrated into modern cityscapes. Fourth, other media of memory are present within the topic model: users engage in research practices and connect with the subject via literature. Compared to other hobbies, the stability of the movies topic leaves the impression that World War II films considerably influence AHF users. Keeping in mind how close-knit the ties are between Hollywood production and the military-industrial complex in the US (Haak 2013), the fact that World War II serves as a framework for discussions about that country’s politics is not surprising. Finally, the topic modeling results provide the impression that discussions about World War II differ across world regions. While there are references to recent political issues in the US, Winter War discussions seem to recognize the efforts of different groups among the population in combat. Discussions on Eastern Europe circle around the complex heritage of political ideologies and revolutionary movements present in the region. As for those connected to the Pacific Front, the forum appears—at least partly—to offer a meeting place for users with limited language resources, therefore ultimately remaining Western-centric.

5 Topic Modeling of the Axis History Forum Corpus

Figure 5.7 Distribution of topics by category

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5.4 Term-overlap Network

5.4

177

Term-overlap Network

While categorizing the topics provides essential insight into a topic model’s content, there is an additional, more insightful way to present the thematic structure. In the previous section I described a stability metric that iteratively compared two models based on the term overlap between them. I turn now to the term overlap within one model, as this helps to visualize connections between topics. To illustrate this, I present the first 100 words of topics #3 and #15 of the A-main model (Figure 5.8.). Topic #3 belongs to the category “equipment and technology” and contains words connected to aircraft (some aspects of strategic bombings of cities could be read from it too). Several keywords in topic #15 indicate its focus on battles on the Pacific Front, which from a strategic point of view was a complicated endeavor that required well-planned combinations of aircraft and navy (K. Smith 2013). In Figure 5.8., I highlight ten pairs of words that the topics have in common in the overall 34 words that overlap between them. The words I chose pertain to aviation and are more prominent in topic #3 than in topic #15; nevertheless, it is evident that these two topics share a connection.

Figure 5.8 Term overlap between topic 3 and topic 15 (A-main model)

While categorizing the topics I noticed that term overlaps were very frequent within topic models derived from AHF cluster corpora, and consequently decided to visualize this term overlap as a network. In the network model presented in

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Figure 5.9., topics are pictured as nodes while links represent the number of overlapping words. Thus, the network model visualizes connections between topics that are indicative of the previously constructed interactional network. The probability of words occurring within the topic is not considered in this particular network. a. Simmelian backbone The initial version of this network that visualized all overlap was a hairball, and, like in the case of the interactional network in Chapter 4, an additional step in information reduction was necessary. In this case I did not implement modularity clustering for information reduction; the main goal was to reveal the network model’s structure rather than to divide a large network into clusters to create corpora. For the uncovering of a structure within the network a backbone algorithm suits best. The Simmelian-backbone algorithm assesses links in a network according to their embeddedness: after its application, those links remain whose neighboring nodes are part of a certain number of triangles. Thereby, a network is restricted to relationships “most strongly embedded in social groups” (Nick et al. 2013, 1). This idea is grounded in the works of the sociologist Georg Simmel, who suggested that the number of individuals in a group affects the dynamics of it considerably. On the most basic level, this can be observed when we compare relationships in pairs (or dyads) to relationships between three individuals (or triads), as the immediate relationship between individuals A and B is altered and influenced by their joint relationship to individual C (Simmel 1908, 93 ff.). Simmel focused on the social component, and concludes that relations within triads are the smallest element wherein the social structure can be observed. Therefore it is plausible to determine a network’s structure by focusing on the number of triads that each pair of nodes is part of. Essentially the Simmelianbackbone algorithm deletes connections that are not part of similar triads, considering these less critical for the social structure. An additional work by Simmel (1970) is relevant here: in his theoretical conceptualizations of human interaction, he specifically emphasized the connective nature of quarrels and discussions. Within this study I used the visone implementation of the Simmelian-backbone algorithm via the “transformation” tab. This enables the researcher to define the number of pairs within the network that should be kept, as well as the range within which the algorithm should look for similar connections. In the current case, I determined that visone should retain connections between users if they have at least three overlapping ones among their six-closest neighbors.

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The results of the Simmelian backbone’s application is demonstrated in Figure 5.9. The application of the Simmelian-backbone algorithm reveals the structure of cohesive subgroups within the network very well. Topics #3 and #15 from the example above have kept their connection (see red box in Figure 5.9.), meaning that they fulfilled the condition set by the Simmelian-backbone algorithm and there was an overlap between their closest neighbors. In fact, topics #3, #15, #67, and #12 form a strongly connected group (or clique). As is evident from the categorization process, topics #3, #67, and #12 are part of the “equipment and technology” category and include several terms connected to aviation and the navy. Topic #15, on the other hand, belongs to the “Pacific Front and Second Sino-Japanese War” category.

Note: nodes represent topics, edges denote the number of words that overlap between the topics.

Figure 5.9 Term-overlap network of A-main model

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b. Network visualization of thematic categories Figure 5.10. shows the same network, but in this case the node colors represent the thematic categories that the topics were assigned to. This visualization confirms that thematic groups can be identified based on word overlap. For example the dense subgroup in the middle of the network comprises topics of the “war crimes” category. Topics belonging to the “German ranks” category are a closeknit group as well, and are connected to some topics from the “Pacific Front” and “generic military-speak” categories. The “Equipment and Technology” category occupies a branch on the bottom right of the model, encircled by the “bunkers” category and some “Pacific Front” topics. Four dark-red “Winter War” topics are at the center, next to those categorized as “Eastern Front” ones. A dense subgroup containing several topics of different categories is found top right. Despite being distinct categories, the proximity of these topics makes sense on an intuitive level: two topics belong to the “debates about the forum” category; two others were labeled “introductions”; topic #65 containing many conversational snippets is part of this group as well. The yellow topic #56 is from the “militaria collecting” category; the gray topic #42 is about written sources and research practices. This dense subgroup contains topics with large fractions of conversational words.

German words and names Language Militaria Collecng Pacific Front Hobbies Wrien Sources Equipment and Technology War Crimes Eastern Front Winter War Discussion about the forum Other Polics in general Other regional topics Death Bunkers and Forficaons Generic militaryspeak Introducons

Figure 5.10 Modified version of network in Figure 5.9.: term-overlap network of A-main model with node color representing thematic categories

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Several nodes are not connected to the main component of the network. One of the disconnected elements is the dyad of topics #48 and #99 from the category “politics in general,” which connects racism in the US with keywords on largescale historical processes focusing on religion. The second pair contains one topic each from “generic military-speak” and “Winter War.” Previously, the categorization of topics into thematic groups was presented to obtain an overview of the topic model’s contents. The visualization of the termoverlap network sets different levels of categorization in relation with one another. The categories presented above referenced both geographical designations (for example Pacific or Eastern Front) and the subject of discussions (for example war crimes or equipment and technology). From the visualization above it becomes apparent how these levels relate to one another. Discussions about the Pacific Front are partly equipment and technology-oriented and partly toponym-dense, similar to discussions on the Winter and Continuation Wars. On the other hand, discussions about the Eastern Front are connected to war crimes, politics, and strategic discussions, whereas equipment and technology do not come up. c. Network visualization of cluster affiliation After establishing that topics can be assembled into a network of thematic fields, the latter will be enriched with more information obtained from MALLET. Apart from creating a topic model, MALLET provides data about the text segments that a topic is likely to appear in. As each text segment can be traced back to a cluster corpus, it is thus possible to assign topics to clusters. The results are depicted in Figure 5.11. The figure demonstrates that, for example, topic 65—which contains the most tokens—is present in most cluster corpora but is most likely to be found in discussions within cluster corpora 1 and 3. Topic 5, on the other hand, is represented across the corpus to an almost unobservable degree but is likely to appear in cluster corpus 4. Similarly, topics 79 and 94 are likely to be found in texts from cluster corpus 2 alone. This information allows us to bridge the gap between the interactional clusters and the topics yielded by the topic model. In the next network visualization, nodes are colored according to the cluster corpus that a topic is most likely to be found in. It is clear that in some cases the initial position of a cluster corpus is contested (as in topic #65), but in others they are extremely well-pronounced (as in topic #5). In Figure 5.12. nodes of the term-overlap network are colored according to the cluster corpus in which each topic most likely occurs. The new metric demonstrates that most dense subgroups also belong to a single cluster corpus. For example the bright-green dense subgroup on the left almost entirely consists of topics from the “German names and ranks” category, and is furthermore

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Figure 5.11 Topic-cluster corpus probability

5.4 Term-overlap Network

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Cluster 0 Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3 Cluster 4 Cluster 5 Cluster 6 Cluster 8 Cluster 9

Figure 5.12 Modified version of network in Figure 5.9.: term-overlap network of A-main model, where node color denotes the cluster corpus that the topic most likely appears in

most likely to be found within discussions by members of cluster 2. I already mentioned the assumption that the topics containing many German words were connected to the previously created subforum “Axis Biographical Research.” Discussions by cluster 2 members may belong to that area of interest and be connected to a specific set of practices. Below the subgroup of cluster 2 is a group of topics colored pink, denoting ones likely to be found in cluster corpus 8. This group suggests that most likely cluster corpus 8 comprises users who demonstrate an interest in the Pacific theatre. Topic 20, on the other hand, belongs to the “other” category, and contains references to Greece and Turkey during World War I—yet it is still part of cluster 8. Topics of cluster corpus 6 are colored brown, and appear bottom right. These topics are mostly from the “Equipment and technology” category; however, the two topics that revolve around bunkers are included here too. The topics of cluster corpus 6 do not entirely mirror the “Equipment and technology” category, which includes topics #3, #67, #12, and #28. Topic #12—the other nearest neighbor of topic #15—contains vocabulary about the navy, which aligns with the Pacific

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Front’s equipment-and-technology constellations. Overall, topics dominated by cluster 6 are mostly concerned with the war’s matériel. Topics #67 and #28 and the four topics in the center that belong to the “Winter War” category are dominated by cluster corpus 4. Topics #67 and #28 both contain a number of references to the Winter War, but their main themes are different: topic #67 focuses on aircraft, topic #28 on radio technology. Overall, the orange nodes of cluster corpus 4 are scattered across the network—but at the same time they almost identically correspond to the “Winter War” category. This means that cluster 4 users have a thematic focus on the Winter War, but also a variety of approaches to it. They might discuss the technology that was used or engage in both specific and generic military discussions. As the data from Chapter 4 shows, cluster 4 encompasses a large number of users from Scandinavia. In a way, this supports the hypothesis that user location correlates with interests, but the case of cluster 4 demonstrates that many facets of a geographical focus can be explored. Topics dominated by cluster corpus 1 are also dispersed across the model. Some of them belong to the conversational subgroup on top. As mentioned in Chapter 4, cluster 1 is the one to which a large number of US citizens belong. This cluster dominates a large number of topics as well, among those isolated topic #48 about racism as well as topic #71 dedicated to contemporary US politics. Potentially these findings also support the hypothesis about the correlation of user location and thematic preferences; however, in contrast to cluster 4, those preferences make themselves known in discussions on issues not related to World War II. It is also essential to note that American users are more fluent in English and so might be more inclined to discuss a broader range of subjects. Hence, topics from the “hobbies” category are dominated by this cluster as well. Cluster corpus 3 dominates the entire dense group in the middle that belongs to the “war crimes” category. Besides a series of topographic designations, several topics here indicate discussions on institutions that define what a war crime is. A topic referencing David Irving, the infamous British Holocaust denier, is connected to this cluster via a tenuous link. Users of cluster 3 also are likely to engage in discussions that lead to topics surrounding the “Winter War” category: in the model, these are topics belonging to the categories of “politics in general” and “Eastern Front.” It is striking that cluster 3 dominates the largest number of topics in the model, but this was nevertheless expected since it is the largest cluster within the network. d. A topic model that defies text size Cluster corpora 0, 5, and 9 are scarcely visible as they only dominate one topic each, while cluster corpus 7 does not dominate any at all. The topic dominated

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by cluster 5 is related to Hitler’s bunker (#64), which is located close to the topics on bunkers associated with cluster corpus 6. Its position demonstrates that closeness in the network does not signify similar communicative practices, only term overlap: topics about Hitler’s final days in the bunker and visiting bunkers may have term overlap but are not discussed by the same users. We see that topic #1—dominated by cluster corpus 0—contains mentions of the forum; topic #61 belongs to cluster corpus 9, and is about executions. These timely findings are not enough to formulate hypotheses about the clusters however. The influence of cluster corpora’s size on the number of topics that they dominate is obvious: large cluster corpora constitute a greater fraction of the whole forum corpus; hence larger cluster corpora dominate more topics than smaller ones do. While the model presented in the previous section served to carve out the possible thematic inclinations within clusters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 well, it cannot do the same for the smaller clusters (0, 5, 7, 9). There is a way to change that though: to see what topics are contained in the smaller cluster corpora I constructed a model where the corpora of the smaller clusters are replicated until they become of comparable size to the larger ones. This topic model only aims to provide an insight into the topics that the smaller cluster corpora dominate and does not contradict the dense subgroups presented in the previous section. A network model of term overlap in this new topic model is depicted in Figure 5.13. The corresponding topics will not be analyzed in detail; instead, I use a network visualization that situates the first three words identified as node labels. The model differs from the previous one, but some similar clustering tendencies are still observable regardless: several topics containing German words are dominated by cluster 2 on the bottom. Topics dominated by cluster corpus 6 are again about equipment and technology, and are connected to a beige dense subgroup dominated by cluster corpus 7. Topics most likely to be found in cluster corpus 3 are scattered, but one dense clique—again—thematizes war crimes. Topics of cluster corpus 8 are most prominently present in a dense subgroup situated in the top-right corner, and contain several references to the Pacific Front. However the focus of the model is, as noted, on the smaller cluster corpora. In this network structure, replicated cluster corpora have a high thematic coherence—as visible in the densely connected groups of corresponding topics. This is unsurprising, as the topics are based on replicated texts. Cluster 7 is colored beige and dominates three dense subgroups on the left-hand side. The lowest subgroup is made up of several topics on uniforms and reenactment. The group in the middle shares a number of connections with topics from cluster 0 and is about militaria collecting: words like “item,” “badge,” “size,” and “find” emphasize this. The upper subgroup pertains to wearable weapons and equipment (“gun,” “rifle,”

Figure 5.13 Term-overlap network based on a replicated corpus that makes up for the size difference between smaller and larger clusters

186 5 Topic Modeling of the Axis History Forum Corpus

5.5 Conclusion

187

“bolt,” “pistol,” “carbine”). Therefore, it can be assumed that users of cluster 7 experience World War II based on material goods that either imitate battle, belong in battle, or were obtained as a result of battle. Cluster 9 is represented by the dense subgroup on the bottom right, expanding the previously established focus on executions. It seems as if the new model did not add much new insight here: the texts on the basis of which the execution topics were formed only demonstrate more facets. The second concentration of topics dominated by cluster corpus 9 is the clique in the top-middle part of the network, referencing discussions on police battalions. It seems as if the cluster’s users came together around the topic of executions but were also interested in the police’s involvement and role too. The transformation of the corpus confirms cluster 5’s focus on Hitler and his home, Berghof (Obersalzberg). Its nodes are concentrated in the center of the network and close to the police-focused clique of cluster 0. Several topics reference Hitler’s private residence as well as other buildings he used (“chancellery,” “building”). One topic close to the dense subgroup of cluster 2 contains Spanish words, and can presumably be attributed to discussions on the Spanish Civil War. It is hard to determine the thematic focus of cluster corpus 0 (red, mostly situated in the middle). Interestingly, the name “marcus” occurs six times within the topics: the fact that forum founder Marcus Wendel is a member of cluster 0 certainly has its effect. With over 17,000 posts, he is one of the most prolific authors on the forum. However, in this case, we mostly see his signature’s effect, which leads to his name’s exceptionally high occurrence. The other top words rarely clarify what the topic at hand is about. Due to a large number of lowexclusivity words, I assume that this topic encompasses conversational posts.

5.5

Conclusion

This chapter describes which forum contributions by users were included in the corpora of each cluster and presented the application of topic modeling to those corpora. The interactional network and the metadata analysis presented in Chapter 4 showed different strategies for using AHF. The topic network demonstrates that these different strategies possess certain levels of thematic coherence. Traditional categories of memory play a significant role in the emergence of these practices: namely nationality and language, places of memory, and other material objects, which can be considered media of memory, institutions, and law. The analysis of the topic modeling diagnostics led to a number of insights regarding the model in general. For example, the examination of low-exclusivity

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words demonstrated that one of the most connective communicative practices is engaging in discussions on measurable elements of battle (“military-speak”). The relationship between corpus distribution and token number suggests that a large part of the corpus is connected to the performance of discussion. The most evenly distributed topics also referenced power structures, visual materials, and research practices. This provided grounds to suggest a broad spectrum of discussion complexity levels existing across AHF. After an overview of topic categories, the topic modeling output was visualized in the form of a term-overlap network. The document-frequency matrix of the topic model was used to assign topics to clusters, uncovering the fact that most cluster corpora were also thematically coherent. To assess these practices in greater detail, the next chapter presents exemplary discussion analyses from each cluster.

6

Practices of Memory on the Axis History Forum

So far, the forum has been analyzed as a platform (Chapter 3), transformed into a network model of user relations wherein dense subgroups were identified (Chapter 4), and perused in the form of text corpora based on those dense subgroups using topic modeling (Chapter 5). In this next chapter, I now consolidate the findings so far by adding interpretations based on close reading of the discussion threads of each cluster. This procedure is in line with the “Reading At Scale” approach (Weitin et al., forthcoming), which connects network and corpus analyses with close reading and context-rich interpretation. I assemble AHF clusters into three groups according to the mnemonic practices discovered within them: empirical practices of memory; conversational practices of memory; and, conservational practices of memory. Further to the topic modeling results presented in the previous chapter, the basis of this categorization is a coded sample of discussions, the bimodal networks of each cluster, and a contrastive stylometric analysis of each cluster corpus. The visualizations can be found in the corresponding GitHub Account (see ESM).

6.1

Methodology of Practice Detection

a. Thread Selection For each cluster, 50 threads were selected. Although this number is not representative of the entire discussion pool, the revealed differences in thematic constellations did offer insight into the discussion types regardless. This suggests Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66708-8_6.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Glawion, Remembering World War II, Digitale Literaturwissenschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66708-8_6

189

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that certain themes or specific interactional scenarios dominate within the clusters. All categories’ validity was further tested by looking into groups of similar and most popular threads using a bimodal network model, as discussed below. For each cluster, I selected threads that exhibited an exceptionally high number of comments by users from the cluster in question. First, a thread-length filter was implemented: to have sufficient exchange, I only considered those more than five comments long. Second, a filter was applied to the remaining threads too, ensuring the selection of those wherein users from the cluster in question had written at least 50 percent of the comments. Table 6.1. reveals how many threads the cluster members dominated in each case, and contextualizes the cluster sizes according to threads. Table 6.1 Number of threads per cluster Cluster

No. of threads wherein cluster connections happened

No. of threads with more than 50% of comments written by users of each cluster (“dominated threads”)

0

3,237

540

1

45,262

25,704

2

35,053

17,813

3

22,122

10,070

4

13,117

3,531

5

4,957

1,678

6

13,041

6,560

7

628

108

8

6,447

3,270

9

82

22

Out of the group of “dominated threads” for each cluster, 50 random ones were selected using the sample function from R’s base package. Subsequently, these threads were read and categorized. When coding the threads I aspired to find meaningful answers to the question: What kind of a request does this thread represent? Here, special attention was paid to the initial comment and how the discussion then unfolded. I thus followed the standard methodological steps of

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content analysis: sampling, coding, and theory development (Messinger 2012, 360).1 b. Bimodal networks To illustrate the influence of extraordinarily long threads or unusually active users on cluster constitution, I constructed networks for each cluster. In contrast to the network model of user-to-user relations in Chapter 4, in this case I opted for bimodal networks—which contained nodes representing threads and nodes representing users respectively. The network model helped assess the status of the 50 discussions randomly selected among all discussions where cluster connections emerged. Further, it enabled navigation of the other threads on the basis of three fundamental characteristics: 1) degree centrality. Centrality indices aim to ascribe a numerical value to a single node’s importance within a given network. In the case of degree centrality, this importance is defined by the number of connections that exist to other nodes. The highest degree centralities belong to the most active users and the largest threads. Focusing on them allows the researcher to single out each cluster’s most prominent users and discussions. 2) maximal core. The core denotes a subgroup in a network with a “threshold in terms of a minimal degree for each member of the subgroup” (Kosub 2005, 129). Thus, a “k-core is a subgraph, in which each node is adjacent to at least a minimum number, k, of the other nodes in the subgraph” (Wasserman and Faust 1994, 266). A maximal core is the subgraph with the highest k possible in the network; in this work, it is calculated via the max core feature in visone. In the bimodal network, the maximal core is a densely connected group of adjacent users and threads. Threads that are part of the maximal core might not have the highest degree centrality, but they are part of a dense subgroup at the core of the network. These discussions contain the greatest number of contributions by different cluster members, and constitute threads where active cluster members are most likely to come together. The number and content of threads in the maximal core provide additional insight into the cluster focus then. 3) structurally equivalent threads. Paraphrasing Stanley Wasserman and Katherine Faust’s (1994, 356) definition hereof, two threads are structurally equivalent if they have identical ties to and from all other network users. Stephen 1

An accurate implementation of content analysis would entail using several coders and the measurement of intercoder reliability (Lacy et al. 2015), ensuring the intersubjective layer of understanding that this methodology aims to achieve (Früh 2011, 133).

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Borgatti and Travis Grosse define two nodes as structurally equivalent, meanwhile, “if they have the same neighborhoods—that is, they are connected to the same others” (2015, 1). Each group of structurally equivalent nodes can consist of either users or threads: such threads are ones commented on by the same handful of users, whereas structurally equivalent users are those who have commented on the same threads. The premise is that structurally equivalent nodes have high internal homogeneity. Groups of structurally equivalent threads are interactions by the same users; sometimes they demonstrate thematic coherence. Examining them allows us to offer a more granular description of practices within the forum. For our purposes, they show what types of discussions AHF users typically engage in. c. Contrastive stylometric analysis The results of a contrastive stylometric analysis, as generated by the oppose function of the stylo package (Eder et al. 2020), were used to gain better insight into each cluster’s primary focus. This function compares words used within the cluster corpus to those used in all other cluster corpora, determining words that are “avoided” and “preferred” respectively within the cluster corpus in question. The distance measure used for contrastive analysis is called “Craig’s Zeta” (Craig and Kinney 2009), although the measure was first proposed, in fact, by John Burrows (2007; see also, Schöch 2018). Burrows’s (1989; 2002; 2007) seminal work on word frequency-based text analysis has been most widely applied in authorship-attribution studies of literary texts. He proposes to divide the wordfrequency list of a corpus into three strata. Ubiquitous words that all authors use to a different extent constitute the first strata; words of the second strata are those used “with some consistency by a target-author but more sporadically by others” (Burrows 2007, 27); finally, making up the third strata, some words are used “sporadically by the target-author but not by most others” (Ibid., 27). While distance measures such as Burrows’s Delta (2002) focus on the first frequency stratum, contrastive analyses concentrate on the second and the third ones. In the current context, I apply the method for additional insights into theme, not style; the second and third frequency strata of the word-frequency list suit this well. The preferred words often replicated the topic modeling results. However, the avoided words demonstrated themes that a cluster corpus did not reference. For example, topic modeling output demonstrated that military-speak appeared highly connective to different thematic fields. The contrastive stylometric analysis demonstrated that it was present in most of the avoided-words lists of the cluster corpora. Cluster corpus 3, on the other hand, contained a lot of military-speak and avoided words that could be labeled as “informal chitchat.” This information

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is valuable to the research, because it provides additional insight into a cluster’s focus and thematic fields. The particular example above demonstrates that while military discussions are unavoidable, they are not the only perspective on World War II present on AHF.

6.2

Practices of Memory on AHF

The ten clusters discovered in Chapter 4 are henceforth divided, as noted, into empirical practices of memory, conversational practices of memory, and conservational practices of memory respectively. Four clusters (0, 5, 6, 7) were focused on external objects, such as militaria or specific sites of memory, and hence empirical practices of memory. Within these clusters, the experience of the place or the object was crucial for the thread that ensued. These discussions were usually uncontroversial and harmonious, and AHF was used to obtain more information on memorial objects or sites of memory. This way of interacting contrasted with the conversational practices of memory (clusters 1, 3, 4, 9) also witnessed. The main goal of discussions in this cluster was the act of conversing itself—users were interested in the exchange on a particular historical fact or a figure of memory. Hereby, different degrees of objectivity were reached: while clusters 3 and 9 were considered the most neutral and labeled “History and memory,” cluster 1 demonstrated a more emotional approach and a more disparate focus in incorporating different non-World-War-II-related questions. Cluster 4 had a clear focus on the Winter and Continuation Wars meanwhile, and oscillated between historical accounts and emotional neo-patriotic discussions. Finally, clusters 2 and 8 demonstrated a third type of mnemonic practice: conservational practices of memory. In these two clusters, users most often worked with primary sources (such as archival documents) and assisted each other in creating “counterpublic” archives. In the case of cluster 2, the archive contained formalized biographies of German National Socialists. Cluster 8 focused on the sharing of documents about units and persons from the Japanese Army. In this latter cluster, users with the highest degree centrality were brokers2 who enabled access to non-Western archival institutions and assisted with translations. 2

Brokerage is “the process of connecting actors in systems of social, economic, or political relations in order to facilitate access to valued resources […]. The crucial characteristics of brokers are that (a) they bridge a gap in social structure and (b) they help goods, information, opportunities, or knowledge flow across that gap” (Stovel and Shaw 2012, 141).

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a. Empirical practices of memory: Experiencing objects and sites of memory Clusters 0, 7, 6, and 5 were categorized as empirical practices of memory. They centered on sensual and bodily experiences of memorial objects (clusters 0 and 7) and sites of memory (clusters 5 and 6) respectively. Memorial objects: Clusters 0 and 7 Clusters 0 and 7 center on militaria collection, exhibiting different facets of it. The practice is extensively described from the collector’s perspective in handbooks and practical overviews (Stephens 1973; Rosignoli 1974; Rosignoli and Werner 1977; Salerno and Colombo 2017). In general, collecting is often viewed through the lens of the history of science and specifically the Enlightenment era (A. Assmann, Gomille, and Rippl 1998); most often, collectors are adult men (Moshenska 2008, 111). This seems to be in line with the user characteristics of those participating in the exchange on collection in clusters 0 and 7 too. However, comprehensive contextualization of militaria collecting from the perspective of World War II collective memory practices remains absent from the literature regardless. This gap is surprising: not only is collecting considered an anthropological constant (Person 2001, 513), it was also constitutive of one of the previously largest online forums about World War II, “Wehrmacht Awards”—a resource that was focused, indeed, solely on collecting and exchanging militaria. The range of collected objects on AHF is broad, including insignia, weapons, and other equipment such as boxes of anti–mustard gas salve tablets or binoculars. The material culture of the Third Reich is vast for a number of reasons. First, the needs of wartime production led to huge output vis-à-vis equipment. Second, as the anthropologist Paul Connerton noted, the newly emerged National Socialist regime established its legitimacy through many commemorative ceremonies that ensured “subjects of the Third Reich were constantly reminded of the National Socialist Party and its ideology” (1989, 41)—resulting in a variety of related material objects taking form. Historian Robert Kohler breaks collecting down into “finding, selecting, extracting, recording, transporting and designing, and assembling collections and developing methods for classifying objects” (2007, 432). This multifaceted nature of collecting as a cultural practice is reflected in the different kinds of threads that play out within cluster 0: users discuss the trustworthiness of sellers and web auctions, the object in question’s authenticity and condition, and optimal shipping methods. Members of cluster 0 have a specific range of artifacts in their collection practices, mostly amassing badges and white arms. Cluster 0 users benefit

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from the collective intelligence existing on AHF, as this instruction to a fellow collector demonstrates3 : by don » 12 Sep 2002, 19:29 Reaserch before you buy over there. There are some good items and bad ones. Bring a picture of item over here before you bid. The guys will tell you if good or not. don

Don describes cross-checking across platforms, a frequently seen scenario for cluster 0. He encourages users to post pictures from online auctions on AHF, and other members to assess the authenticity and the appropriate price of the object at hand. Out of the 50 selected threads for cluster 0, 25 were related to collecting and 12 were evaluation requests. Price estimation was also a unifying feature of several groups of structurally equivalent threads. Its central position and the frequency of cross-checking are therefore confirmed via both discussion categorization and network analysis. Further, the comment above is representative of the fact that users often deploy words sparingly in discussions related to collecting. This scarcity leads to a smaller token number in the cluster corpora. It might be one reason for the misrepresentation in topic modeling results in Chapter 5, where cluster 7 did not define any topics. Cluster 0 dominated a topic that was more connected to within-forum debates. In a slightly different scenario, users who possess items that they consider valuable turn to AHF to find out their objective worth on the market. Collectors assign subjective value to collectibles by definition (Muensterberger 1995, 24–25), but in several cases it seemed like a specific additional relationship emphasized this (“my great uncle gave me one that he collected during the war when he was over there”4 ; “[r]ecently I have obtain a baton and a knife from my neighbor. I helped him to clean up his loft and that was my ‘reward’ for helping him”5 ). It could even be concluded that the value here is intersubjective, because

3

See comment 6 in “Question for the members”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=65390#p65390 (last accessed February 24, 2021). 4 See “ANOTHER QUESTION ABOUT HITLER YOUTH KNIFE”: https://forum.axishi story.com/viewtopic.php?p=228083#p228083 (last accessed February 24, 2021). 5 See “SiPo baton”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=2120621#p2120621 (last accessed February 24, 2021).

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it is assumed that the knife in the example given is considered an appropriate expression of gratitude by both the giver and the receiver alike. In both scenarios AHF users assist each other with assessment and offer the possibility to synchronize systems of value. These practices are constitutive of a community of collectors emerging on AHF—the second-largest category of discussions is labeled “Community-building.” This category includes questions about the forum’s organization and generic celebratory threads, such as birthday wishes or Easter greetings. Other AHF-related discussions are included in that group as well, such as the “Introduce Yourself” thread mentioned in Chapter 3— it turned out that cluster 0 members were the users most frequently interacting therein. The objects that users are collecting can most often be classified as memorials or memorial objects. They are “pieces of evidence of cultural development, to which special meaning is assigned. The special meaning aims to document the development, and the memorial should be conserved because of it” (Horn 2001, 116, author’s own translation). Kyoto Murakami furthermore underlines the importance of military insignia in the remembering processes of veterans: Not only do artefacts constitute the context and help structure the rituals and activities of the commemoration of the war, but they work as an aide de memoire, triggering particular memories. They work as a memento, or a reference point, with which people talk and interact with others. (2014, 344)

Sarah De Nardi comes to similar conclusions in her research on the role of objects via interviews conducted with Resistance veterans, even equating objects with memories: “Mementoes, of course, are memories of the past” (2014, 446). However, AHF users are rarely World War II veterans—yet they nevertheless still assign value to these memorial objects. This value “is predicated on memories of experiences through which they did not live” (Landsberg 2004, 25), and echoes the concept of “prosthetic memory”: the idea that through experiences, individuals can begin to identify with memories of groups to which they do not belong. As discussed in Chapter 2, Alison Landsberg (2004) derives this theory from the empathy generated through cinema, and is specific about the concept of the embodiment of memories—which happens on an emotional level. I argue, however, that cinematic experiences are not the only triggers of prosthetic memory; it can also occur through participation in discussions on World War II and via the interaction with memorial objects, such as in the discussions of cluster 0. Considering the aspect of embodiment, it becomes possible to contextualize another thread that does not fit into collecting directly but which was still part of

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the thread selection of cluster 0. In this particular thread, a user asks about the specific brand of aftershave that Felix Steiner, an SS commander, would use6 : by PiretBCN » 03 Feb 2013, 01:42 Léon Degrelle writes in his book that every time he met Felix Steiner, Steiner was in a good mood and well perfumed. Does anyone know which fragrance/aftershave Steiner used? Is it still being made? Which fragrances were popular back then among senior officers? Are some of these fragrances still available and popular?

The attitude of the original poster, who is eager to buy the same product (after the first suggestion, he responds that he would purchase it “immediately”7 ), is problematic in its fascination (for example, in another post, the user claims “Steiner is a big obsession [of mine]”8 ). After criticizing the poster’s intentions, other users present an overview of brands and sources. Throughout the discussion, more users express interest in the question (one writes: “This has been informative. As a reenactor, little details such as aftershave provide insight to the times”9 ). Cluster 7 exhibits similar uncategorizable threads too: discussions on army food10 and types of heaters used on the Eastern Front11 do not fit with collecting. However, the concept of embodiment broadens the framework and allows these questions to be included in the realm of empirical war experiences. The implementation of a shaving routine similar to that of a National Socialist official, the focus on the smell, and contemplating the way that product might have felt on the skin per its original formula could also be interpreted as an embodied instance of prosthetic memory. The same interpretation encompasses questions about food and shelter in times of combat too. The embodiment of memories is a powerful theoretical construct, as illustrated by Connerton in How 6

See comment 1 in “Felix Steiner’s aftershave”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=1767807#p1767807 (last accessed February 24, 2021). 7 See comment 6 in “Felix Steiner’s aftershave”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=1768058#p1768058 (last accessed February 24, 2021). 8 See comment 4 in “Felix Steiner’s postwar photos”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?p=1847834#p1847834 (last accessed February 24, 2021). 9 See comment 23 in “Felix Steiner’s aftershave”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=1768625#p1768625 (last accessed February 24, 2021). 10 See “German Army Food”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t=100796 (last accessed February 24, 2021). 11 See “Sajer heater”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t=149217 (last accessed February 24, 2021).

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Societies Remember (1989). He identifies the existence of commemorative reenactment rituals performed through gestural repetition, where “gestural mimesis is translated from a realistic to a symbolic mode” (Ibid., 70)—which is how shaving becomes a mnemonic practice involving a specific object of memory, as enacted by the user. The goal of that commemorative ceremony is fostering a feeling of belonging and identification: “[A ritual’s] master narrative is more than a story told and reflected on; it is a cult enacted” (Ibid., 70). The theory of prosthetic memory and the notion of embodied memories together offer an interpretation of the demonstrated need to amass artifacts and communicate about World War II militaria in the context of collective memory. Members of cluster 7 reveal via their discussions a different aspect of the interplay between collecting and collective memory meanwhile. As referenced in several threads, at least some cluster 7 users were situated in the Balkan Peninsula. In this case, collecting is understood as the preserving of artifacts before they are discarded. The user Domagoj references this several times in different posts12 : [1]

[2]

by Domagoj » 15 Dec 2003, 02:57 I found this helmet in the house of my aunt. She wanted to throw it away, so it seems that I came in the right time to save it. Here in Croatia, it is possible to find a lot of theses things in the attics, old barns etc. because our country was a big battlefield in that time. I found a lot of things here that are the reminders of the WW2. […] by Domagoj » 19 Apr 2004, 00:59 […] It is a bit hard to find those things here because nobody collects German WW2 militaria in Croatia. People are throwing these things away :cry:

In the case of cluster 7 members, the objects’ value is only recognized by AHF users but not by the objects’ owners per se. Therefore, in contrast to cluster 0’s members, those of cluster 7 engage in collecting practices with asymmetric assignments of value. As noted in Chapter 2, minor Axis nations such as Croatia were not able to incorporate World War II into their collective memory as “the good war,” hence objects related to the period are not mementos of glory and are not considered valuable or worthy of preservation by people at large. In a situation like this, strategies of obtaining objects for local collectors become abundant. Other posts reveal that users scour flea markets, ask neighbors, 12

For [1], see comment 5 in “German helmets”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=343008#p343008 (last accessed February 24, 2021). For [2], see comment 23 in “German equipment collection”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=430093# p430093 (last accessed February 24, 2021).

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relatives, and acquaintances for militaria, and even dig for artifacts on former battlefields. Hence, cluster 7 users are not involved in intricate practices of price assessment. The threads’ examination demonstrates that it is essential to add communicating about the collection to Kohler’s (2007) suggested list of components to the practice referenced above: sharing, receiving praise, and communicating about their collection are all vital for users. In another thread, users discuss the purchase of an anti-aircraft gun located in Slovenia, also thematizing the legal dimensions of buying and owning heavy weapons. The complex issue of price assessment is mentioned here too (“it’s all about how much the buyer and the seller THINK it’s worth—the price may be just the cost of it as scrap metal, […] or it might jump to a couple of thousand dollars”13 ). Besides offering a different perspective on collection, cluster 7 focuses on guns as well: some 17 of 50 discussions were dedicated to them and to shooting. In several posts, users debate the pros and cons of different gun models and their experiences firing them. Here, for example, user JTV assesses a possible weak point of the Mosin–Nagant rifle by comparing it with his own experience14 : by JTV » 06 Dec 2014, 23:40 […] Just that you know—the most typical part to break in Mosin-Nagant bolt is extractor claw—while part broken it two different ways in these videos is connecting bar. I have been active among persons who shoot old military rifle competions with Mosin-Nagant rifles for maybe about 15 years or so by now—and I have never heard about broken connecting bar. […]

JTV mentions that he has been part of a group of people interested in firing historical guns within a discussion of users who seem equally well-informed. Shooting is, of course, also an embodied practice, as the next comment shows15 : by phlarris » 02 Aug 2006, 19:01 […] The gun is really nice. Shame it’s been de-activated, but it’s really nice to be able to see and handle one up-close-and-personal as it were. […]

13

See comment 2 in “flak88”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=699380#p69 9380 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 14 See comment 10 in “91/30 Mosin Nagant vs Mauser 98k”: https://forum.axishistory.com/ viewtopic.php?p=1913118#p1913118 (last accessed February 24, 2021). 15 See comment 9 in “MP 34”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=934749#p93 4749 (last accessed February 24, 2021).

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In the quote, phlarris describes seeing a high-quality image of a gun in terms of sensual experience and physical proximity. Therefore, the demonstration aspect mentioned above aside, users of cluster 7 add to the list of collection subpractices more explicit embodied actions too. Seeking out uniforms is also of the essence here: users try to assemble a “complete” picture of a particular unit’s attire, and until they have found all the pieces they substitute it with reproductions in the meantime. The uniforms are sometimes used for reenactment—another embodied practice embraced by members of cluster 7. Cluster members also discuss other objects that impacted on bodily experience during the war: heating systems, food, elements of personal hygiene. AHF provides wider access, enables additional communication channels, and facilitates knowledge exchange between users. For users of cluster 0 who are interested in symmetrical value assignments to artifacts, this allows for a more thorough assessment of each particular item. Some cluster 7 users reside in areas where the objects’ value is recognized by them but not by others meanwhile. In that case, the forum provides a space to display one’s collection and discuss new means of artifact extraction. However, due to the seminal importance of sensual experiences and social interaction in the process of collection, the purchase often entails additional interactions in the offline sphere as well: such as is the case with meetups of collectors from cluster 7, or the personal relations connected to the obtaining of memorial objects in cluster 0. The corresponding social relations and the bodily engagement connected to artifacts lead De Nardi to the assumption that the embracing of material objects in studies of history and memory facilitates more inclusive historical discussions: “Through storytelling, person-object relations open up the past to dialogue and negotiation” (2014, 445). The reasons for this acquired harmony are debatable: in her research on bunker museums, Karola Fings (2012, 35) finds that an increased focus on militaria fails to provide insight into the historical dimensions of World War II. The contrastive stylometric analysis (see ESM) demonstrates that both cluster corpora avoid military-speak, confirming that the focus on objects shifts the attention toward individual experiences instead of toward military strategy and tactics. Sites of memory: Clusters 6 and 5 The next two clusters engage in empirical memory practices centered on visits to sites of memory and the accompanying discussions. Hereby cluster 6’s members focus on military fortifications, while cluster 5’s discuss places of commemoration connected to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist regime. While cluster 6 users demonstrate an interest in weapons similar to cluster 7 above, the objects in

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this case are larger and bulkier. Some of the discussions focus on military vehicles’ technical specifications and on heavy arms such as cannons and anti-aircraft artillery. In contrast to the practice-oriented cluster 7, the interest in weapons is theoretical here—with these users attentive to technical details instead. However the main feature that sets cluster 6 apart from the others is the focus on bunkers and bunker visits. Twenty of the 50 threads selected for analysis are attributable to that category, as are several groups of structurally equivalent threads in the network model and a large part of the maximal core. A typical scenario is a photo-sharing thread, where either a bunker visit or a bunker structure is thematized. If a new object or type is mentioned, users respond with short, appreciative comments—as expected from the quantitative assessment of commenting practices in Chapter 5. Notably, both discussions dedicated to guns and bunkers are focused on specifications such as size, build, and function. Apart from the discussions, this is visible in the contrastive stylometric analysis output illustrated in Figure 6.1.. The results demonstrate that users are, above all, interested in the fortifications and in weapons’ material characteristics.16 At the same time, words signifying the military and the war’s political dimensions are underrepresented.17 These findings reaffirm an impression from the discussion analysis: users focus on bunker types and connected artillery, and not on bunkers’ construction history. However, the historical dimensions of bunker architecture are vital for the contextualization of this type of fortification. Political decisions, usage practices, and cultural norms surrounding bunkers were extensive. The Siegfried Line (German: Westwall) and Atlantic Wall (Atlantikwall) were both built at immense speed, whereby almost 25,000 bunkers were constructed between 1936 and 1943 on the basis of vast monetary and human resources—the latter being mostly provided through “foreign workers, conscripted labour, and prisoners of war” (Blank et al. 2009, 413). Officially, in 1946, Allied Forces began to destroy the Siegfried Line’s bunkers, but local private investors would intervene and create historical museums in some of them (Fings 2012, 26). Such institutions predominantly focus on

16

The preferred words include: “cm,” “bunker,” “type,” “concrete,” “build,” “turret,” “mount,” “location,” “model,” “wall,” “entrance,” “inside,” “map,” “roof,” “version,” “atlantikwall,” “construction,” “design.” 17 The avoided words include: “government,” “political,” “nazi,” “leader,” “people,” “party,” “country,” “state,” “nation,” “military,” “world,” “crime,” “million,” “cause.”

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Figure 6.1 Results of contrastive stylometric analysis of cluster 6

the military aspects of the bunker’s history, even though the period of postwar (re)use ran considerably longer (Heinemann and Zieher 2008). From a culturalist point of view, the bunker is a complex space at the intersection of various symbolic orders. As a site of memory, it is simultaneously a

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reminder of both the presence and absence of a bygone era. While symbolizing protection and shelter, its existence also hints at the defenselessness of the surrounding environment. It is an alien object: “Purposely interred, dug deep within the bowels of landscapes, the bunker is a concrete fortress that cuts through the natural environment” (Bartolini 2015, 7). It also represents a set of social changes foisted on the local population by the National Socialist government: the myriad of workers who, in the case of the Siegfried Line, were forced to move to border districts in Western Germany, replaced farmers living on the contested lands, and changed the social fabric of the region (Fings 2012, 31–32). Urban bunkers, meanwhile, were intended “to fit in architecturally with the surrounding residential premises […], and at the same time reflect the ‘sturdy resistance of the German people’” (Blank et al. 2009, 418)—thus reiterating the intersection between symbols of safety and danger. This symbolic value was instrumentalized in multiple different ways: At the beginning of World War II, the fortifications forming part of the Siegfried Line were a show of force visà-vis the French and British governments (Fings 2012). At the end of the war, meanwhile, bunkers continued to be built—albeit with insufficient resources—so as to raise morale among the population (Heinemann and Zieher 2008, 17). These symbolic layers inherent to bunkers are never addressed or reflected on AHF. The historical content or the practices and rules of bunker usage, such as bunker hierarchies (Blank et al. 2009, 424) or the incidences of “bunker panic” (Blank et al. 2009, 430) documented in eyewitness reports, are also avoided. In fact, users only voice interest in bunkers as inanimate objects. Geographically, those of the Atlantic Wall constitute the main focus herein. Among the selected discussions, users were found to be reporting back on their visits to these bunkers. In the descriptions thereof, they usually refer to a bunker by its standard design number18 : by Bunkerfreak » 17 Nov 2015, 10:18 102b (Bauwerk 52) (????): We think an 102b must been build here, but i is also possible it was an 101d (the symbol on the German map is not so clear to see the difference).

Here the designations are cited without explanation, thus assuming that other users will understand which kinds of bunkers they refer to. A thread providing an overview of existing bunker types, numbers, photos, and functions is part 18

See comment 22 in “Westwall: Forst Roetgen”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=1978929#p1978929 (last accessed February 24, 2021).

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of cluster 6’s maximal core.19 The following is from an exchange on bunkers, where users struggle to agree on the distinctions between the room functions in two different types thereof20 : by Chazette » 08 Nov 2012, 17:13 632 and 648 are not the same Regelbau !! 632 is for 3 Schartenturm and 648 for one the room of life is : 2,80 m x 4,90 m for 632 and 2,80 m x 5,20 m for 648 the hight on this room for 632 is 2,30 m and for 648 = 3 meter and you have a lüfter room near the Scharten of the 632 and no room at this place in 648 and for 632 the ring in concret is bigger than 648 because the scharten is biger

The large-scale building of bunkers throughout the late 1930 s and early 1940 s led to the unification of different types and their systematization according to purpose. In this particular discussion, users debate the differences between two such types. They seem to be fascinated by the intricate planning of the bunkers and the systemic repetition of structures. Not all bunkers have been used as memorials, and the chance still exists to seek out deserted ones. In comment 82 of the discussion above, a user finds a “new” bunker of type 632 and shares their discovery with others—with them most appreciative and excited (“Aïe aïe Aïe Tus …… my heart stop ! Very nice found of very rare 3p7”21 and “Wow Tønnes.. That is too damn nice! Very cool!! And in Denmark!!!:-D”22 ). The possibility to discover a rare bunker is one of the numerous motivations at work here. Locations forming part of the Atlantic Wall include France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway. Primarily local activists are inspired to embark on a search. Hence, most of the users active within cluster 6 are located in European countries and, as with the one cited above, are not native English speakers. This might be a reason for the limited thematic range of the discussions: 19

See “Regelbau collection”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=52930 (last accessed February 24, 2021). 20 See comment 2 in “632 and 648”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=174 7888#p1747888 (last accessed February 24, 2021). 21 See comment 91 in “632 and 648”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=178 0711#p1780711 (last accessed February 24, 2021). 22 See comment 93 in “632 and 648”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=178 0730#p1780730 (last accessed February 24, 2021).

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one on a bunker’s materiality is more comfortably pursued with limited linguistic resources. The focus on the material, measurable side, however, reproduces the idea of bunkers as memorial spaces—hereby highlighting that space is understood by these users “as something usable, malleable, and therefore capable of domination through human action,” as the sociologist David Harvey (1989, 176) would note. He explicitly referenced expansive building initiatives in the process of “[consolidating] space as universal, homogenous, objective, and abstract” (Ibid., 177). Aleida Assmann (2018, 288) meanwhile connects the notion of space to military initiatives in the colonial context. The term “place,” in contrast, is shaped by a point of view taken on a location or an object that considers its historical context: “[S]omething that is already there as a distinct entity with a name, a quality and a (hi)story” (2018, 289). The alien quality of bunkers allows them to be perceived as spaces, and the discussions connected to the latter concern functions and classifications—as characterized by the bunkers’ comparability. Fings (2012, 33–34) suggests that the fascination with bunker architecture is magnified by the extensive effort applied by the National Socialist government to build them and by the dimensions of fortification lines too. The fact that these structures will never be built again because they would not withstand modern weapons (Heinemann and Zieher 2008, 24; Virilio 2009, 197) might add another layer of transience and nostalgia to bunker expeditions. Fings also critically assesses the role of local-history initiatives, which mostly replicate heroic narratives and further decontextualize bunkers. In her opinion, this adds to the perception of bunkers as mythic and fascinating sites. She further underlines the sensual, immersive aspect of entering a bunker, which played a role in attributing this cluster to the realm of empirical practices. In her critique of local bunker museums, she claims that they could have done more to encourage distance and reflection in the visitor. However, instead, the exhibitions enhance the “empathy […] that reaches identification” (Fings 2012, 35) that the visitor experiences during a bunker visit. These sites do not evoke traumatic memories anymore, especially if the historical context is removed. Instead, the visitor engages with the object and identifies with its former short-term inhabitants. Finally, communities have emerged around bunker visits. In the following example from the thread “What is your bunkerholiday destination,”23 members discuss the bunkers that they will visit during the summer of 2007: 23

See comment 1 in “What is your bunkerholiday destination”: https://forum.axishistory. com/viewtopic.php?p=1066896#p1066896 (last accessed February 24, 2021).

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by ducatim901 » 03 Jun 2007, 14:42 Yep vacations are coming closer and closer, but where is everybody going to see bunkers. We are going to Alderney and a few days to St.Malo. Is there anybody that has some maps of Alderney??? Or are there any Alderneians that could show us some hard parts of the Island?? Greetings Jack.

This thread accumulated 50 comments in June 2007 and amassed a number of proposed destinations, thus representative of these users’ need to share and discuss the community of “bunkerpeople.”24 Hence, a final motivation to engage in the embodied practices of memory in the form of bunker visits might be the feeling of belonging to a transnational bunker-enthusiast community. Cluster 5 is centered on sites of memory as well, although its thematic focus is more disparate than that of cluster 6. Content analysis of the discussions has demonstrated that this cluster is focused primarily on Hitler. Discussions dominated by cluster 5 members partly thematized the diachronic perspective on Hitler’s biography: threads included questions about his childhood, his parents, and the people who had supported him from the early 1920 s onward. During the initial reading, I characterized this cluster “Hitler as a celebrity” because the discussions contained questions directed at trivial information similar to that of tabloid profiles. This is echoed in the opening post in a thread about families of National Socialist officials25 : by Max Williams » 25 Jul 2007, 11:36 For those interested in football (soccer), the UK press has a fascination with the wives and girlfriends of the football stars. They are nicknamed WAGS and their habits and misdemeanours are always splashed across out tabloids. Victoria Beckham’s boobs are as famous as her husband. I thought it might be an idea to run a thread on the WAGS of Third Reich officials and personalities. I’ll begin with the one I consider to be the beauty of them all....Inga Ley.

24

See comment 19 in “What is your bunkerholiday destination”: https://forum.axishistory. com/viewtopic.php?p=1071547#p1071547 (last accessed February 24, 2021). 25 See comment 1 in “wives and girlfriends of Third Reich officials”: https://forum.axishi story.com/viewtopic.php?p=1089674#p1089674 (last accessed February 24, 2021).

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Here, a user compares the women close to National Socialist officials to the tabloid depictions of the wives and girlfriends of soccer players in Great Britain. Despite acknowledging the sexism in those representations by thematizing that tabloids focus on the negative aspects (“misdemeanors are splashed”) or on women’s bodies (“Victoria Beckham’s boobs”), the user does not address it. After that introduction, 166 posts follow, depicting women in traditional domestic roles: with children, accompanying their husbands during ceremonies, or on a promenade, thus replicating the sexism inherent to “WAG” representation. A thread similar in tone is “SS and National Socialists at Home,”26 which ultimately gains much less attention. The goal in assembling their photographs remains ambiguous: by J. Duncan » 14 Jan 2009, 12:52 I was wondering if some of the experts here could post a few photographs of famous SS and / or Nazi leaders at leisure—private, and more intimate photographs. […] Someone here also posted some really good photos of the Kochs of Buchenwald which really illustrated the banality of these people...one would never suspect (without their uniforms on) these people being the killers history has made of them. We see so many historical photographs of SS and Nazi leaders in their regalia.....what were they like as ordinary people with the same pleasures, pursuits, and hobbies?

On the one hand, J. Duncan wants to find out more about the private lives of National Socialist leaders to bear witness to their “banality”; on the other, the focus on them as “ordinary people with the same pleasures, pursuits, and hobbies” seems like an empathetic take, aimed at reducing the felt distance from questionable historical figures. A similar ambiguity is observable throughout the threads dedicated to Hitler. In “Hitler’s reaction to the Berghof destruction,” users speculate what that reaction might be, but there are no sources offered to back up any of the interpretations articulated: the various claims are therefore based on empathetic imaginings of what it might feel like if you loose your home. Overall, the focus on Hitler’s personal life provides grounds for the relativization and depoliticization of his persona. Members of cluster 5 develop a pronounced interest in Hitler’s private residence, Berghof (Obersalzberg). Within the 50 selected threads, there were five connected to this place; the maximal core also contained several threads hereon too. While the fraction of threads is not particularly high, the one entitled

26

See “SS and Nazis at Home”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t=148348 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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“Berghof Obersalzberg” is one of the longest and contains 6,189 comments—of which cluster 5 users wrote 5,265. Figure 6.2. depicts the bimodal network of cluster 5, aiming to demonstrate the cluster’s core focus on sites of memory. The node size represents degree centrality, and the threads with the top-ten degree values are colored red. The thread “Berghof Obersalzberg” has the largest degree centrality in the network; eight out of ten threads with the largest degree centrality reference places meanwhile: three of them are about Berghof (Obersalzberg) (“Berghof Obersalzberg,” “Hitler’s home,” “Obersalzberg going…gone?”), the second-largest degree belongs to a thread wherein photographs of the interior of the Reich Chancellery are shared. Two threads (“The Munich Thread” and “Nuremberg Party Rally Grounds”) reference early stages of the becoming of the National Socialist party and notable memorials of that period. In one thread, a user shares photos from a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The final one is dedicated to the place where Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking SS official and one of the main architects of the Holocaust, was assassinated in 1942. One notable other thread is “Lost German Girl,” an extensive discussion wherein members try to identify a woman caught on tape by American soldiers in Czechoslovakia. Overall, the focus on places and architecture was pronounced yet not dominant in the 50 threads that were selected for analysis. However, the network depiction demonstrates how central that theme is within cluster 5 regardless. The long thread on Berghof (Obersalzberg) contains users’ impressions of their visit there. They combine technical questions (“What type of wood did they use for The Berghof’s beautiful paneled Dining room?”27 ) with personal, almost mythical, impressions of the place28 : by SteveFBS » 11 Aug 2013, 14:27 I walked the ruins of the Berghof for a little over an hour, back in 2003. It had a very eerie air about it, most likely because I was poking around all by myself. I could definitely feel the weight of history bearing down upon me, and at the time, like now, I wished I could see the intact house. Oddly, in a way, it almost felt like the mass of the structure was still there, and I was the ghost walking through walls and rooms I had no business being in.

27

See comment 4 in “Berghof Obersalzberg”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? p=1232598#p1232598 (last accessed February 24, 2021). 28 See comment 3001 in “Berghof Obersalzberg”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=1812165#p1812165 (last accessed February 24, 2021).

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Figure 6.2 Bimodal network of cluster 5. Threads with the top degree centrality are marked red

The receptivity to mystical historical experiences appears strong in this comment. The definition of a place of commemoration as one “that is marked by rupture and discontinuity” (A. Assmann 2011, 292) certainly applies to Berghof (Obersalzberg). In her take on places of commemoration Assmann describes the stroll of Petrarch and Giovanni Colonna, who walked through Rome admiring its glorious past while simultaneously feeling contempt for the city’s contemporary inhabitants:

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For Petrarch, cultural identity is based on the kind of cultural memory that he and his friend embody. They are the ones who are able to make the places as silent witnesses of the past speak again, restoring their lost voices. For the text of this memorial landscape can only be read by someone who already knows its content—it entails reading into and not out of the text. A memorial space is projected onto the ruins of the city, which amounts to a kind of screen memory: ‘the textual space of memory related to Rome is projected on the spot, in Rome, over the remains of the city.’ The ruins are signs that encode both forgetting and remembering. (2011, 295)

Assmann describes how travelers consider knowledge gain a motivation for their journeys, but demonstrates the logical fallacy behind that statement: it is only possible to identify a place of commemoration as such if one already possesses knowledge of it. The quote above describing how the “weight of history bear[s] down upon [the user]” illustrates a similar experience in Berghof (Obersalzberg). The visitor to the latter is “fascinated” by the place because of its particular history (“However, I am fascinated with what went-on the then enemy side. Hence the ambiance of the Berghof is something very special to me because it was here that the enemy leader made all his most important decisions”29 ), thus interpreting it as a place of commemoration30 —standing in contrast to the decontextualized bunkers presented above. A user shared digital art in another thread, specifically an image wherein historical and modern pictures are overlaid (Figure 6.3.).31 In this picture, the old photograph represents the memorial landscape “projected […] over the remains of the city”—just like in Assmann’s citation above. Members of cluster 5 seem to repeatedly connect the historical past and the present in their engagement with memorial places. Pierre Nora (1997d) outlined the three key elements constituting a site of memory: a material dimension, a functional dimension, and a symbolic dimension respectively. Hereby Nora seems to understand the latter of the three as the meaning that is collectively assigned to a site of memory. It is only through this symbolic dimension that a place can become such a site. In the case of Berghof (Obersalzberg), the material one aside, both of the other two dimensions are 29

See comment 2674 in “Berghof Obersalzberg”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=1761307#p1761307 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 30 Other threads referencing places of memory within the 50 coded discussions include: “Horst Wessel grave almost gone,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t= 137032; “Munich Feldherrnhalle 1933,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?& t=91658 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 31 See “Then and Now photo’s ”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=44&t= 202644 (last accessed February 24, 2021).

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Figure 6.3 Superimposed modern and historical images

present for the user community. Although the place is in ruins, they know that it possessed a representative function in the era of National Socialist Germany; they assign a symbolic meaning to it, as visible in their comments. The situation with bunkers is more complicated: while the material and functional dimensions are undeniable, it is unclear to what extent users consider these structures’ symbolic value. While it is possible to assume that symbolic value is assigned, I did not find evidence for this in discussions. The short forum contributions rarely reveal the meaning behind bunker visits; even the excitement voiced in response to a bunker discovery does not contain any hints regarding the meanings that users associate with it. The struggles that several users had with the English language might be a reason for that silence. From a researcher’s

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perspective, the realm of the unsaid remains a gap that even large amounts of data cannot ultimately bridge. b. Conversational practices of memory: Historical discussions and national influences The second group of interest are conversational practices of memory, as represented by clusters 3, 9, 1, and 4. Instances of embodiment or experience do not guide discussions in these clusters; instead, users engage in conversations about the events of World War II. Hence, each thread was longer on average in comparison to clusters belonging to the previous category.32 The sequence of cluster presentation matters in this category, as it represents the perceived increasing emotional valence in discussions across clusters. Clusters 3 and 9 concern discussions in the realm of military history, whereby cluster 3 comprises those of enthusiasts involved in factual military strategy and equipment discussions with low emotional valence. Cluster 9 indicates a similar line of interest, but its focus is on execution techniques and devices instead—leading to the occasional expression of shock or piety. Cluster 1 discussions are very diffuse, and often demonstrate lower levels of historical knowledge. Given the cluster’s exceptional metadata (short posting timeframe, mostly users from the United States), I conclude that the cluster’s posting strategy should be viewed in the context of the interaction between the collective memory of World War II (the “good war”) and the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in the form of multidirectional memory specifically. Finally, cluster 4 shows a clear tendency toward national memory narratives, containing emotional discussions around Finland’s Winter and Continuation Wars in line with observations of a Finnish neo-Patriotic turn occurring in war memory (Kinnunen and Jokisipilä 2012). History as memory: Clusters 3 and 9 The first subgroup of conversational practices of memory encompasses clusters 3 and 9 respectively. They both engage in historical discussions, each striving for ideals of objectivity. Cluster 3 discussions are focused on military history; among the 50 discussion threads selected for analysis, there was only one instance where a family member’s involvement in World War II was mentioned. However, although the user alludes to his grandfather’s lived experience,33 it is hard to 32

The average thread in clusters categorized as empirical practices contained 118 words, while the average thread in clusters categorized as conversational ones contained 361 words. 33 See comment 1 in “Fake airfields in northern Germany”: https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wtopic.php?p=1101758 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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define the following as commemoration because the story is approached as a historical source: by Rends » 22 Aug 2007, 00:33 Here is a story my grandfather told me more than one time. At the end of war in 44 and 45 he was stationed on a Luftwaffe airfield near Husum (Schleswig-Holstein) His job was to repair damaged airplanes... damaged by ground strafing allied fighters. The funny thing is that the Luftwaffe fighters he had to repair were all fakes. Those planes were made out of wood and textiles and painted in camoflages colors. […] I´m not sure but i have read it that allied air forces also counted ground kills. If this is true than there might be the one or another ace pilot out there honored because of counting fake plane kills.

The final passage demonstrates that the story of Rends’s grandfather is assessed from the position of historical research, not to reminisce about his involvement in World War II. In the rest of the short discussion, users bring up other pieces of information regarding dummy airplanes. In general, members of cluster 3 demonstrate a high affinity for military history and extensive knowledge of relevant World War II-related literature. For example, in the discussion about a certain unit (“German Reserve Police Battalion 101 in Poland”34 ), users mention the two critical publications on this topic: Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (1997) by Daniel Goldhagen and Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (1998) by Christopher Browning. The two books are exemplary of the two conflicting historical approaches to studying the Holocaust emerging at the end of the twentieth century: namely the “functionalist” and the “intentionalist” ones. In short, these approaches differ in their attribution of the politics of the Final Solution: while functionalists lay responsibility for the initiation of the Holocaust with the lower-ranking bureaucratic structures of National Socialist Germany, intentionalists consider the Final Solution to have its roots in the history of ideas (Lawson 2010, 74). The evaluation of these respective approaches is

34

See “German Reserve Police Battalion 101 in Poland”: https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wtopic.php?&t=214069 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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beyond the scope of this work, yet their mention on AHF serves to demonstrate forum users’ level of background knowledge. The interest in secondary historical sources is further exemplified in book reviews. Within the 50 selected threads, there were four with clarification requests about historical publications. Three of those threads were inspired by books about the Soviet Union,35 one by a book about genocide and ethnic cleansing.36 All books were published by renowned historians with established academic affiliations. Users’ knowledgeability enables them to identify moments of strategic or technical serendipity, which manifest themselves in elaborate “What if” threads. These are ones wherein a specific scenario about World War II’s possible alternative events and outcomes is presented and discussed. Specific scenarios are off-limits: for example the forum rules expressly prohibit the imagining of Hitler’s survival or of a situation whereby National Socialist Germany won World War II, as they are considered “too shallow” and “unworkable in reaching a feasible conclusion.”37 Among the threads selected for analysis, eight were such “What if” scenarios. The maximal core also contained several such scenarios too (24 “What if” threads were connected to equipment,38 a further 43 strategical questions were also formulated as “What if” threads39 ). Here is an example of a detailed “What if” scenario: by kenmac » 12 May 2011, 13:52 35

See: “McMeekin: ‘The Russian Origins of the First World War,’” https://forum.axishistory. com/viewtopic.php?&t=192104; “Army and Front Supply Units,” where a question regarding the book Soviet Economy and the Red Army 1930–1945 is posed, and a detailed discussion of supplies in the Red Army emerges, https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t= 196014; “Forward Detachments 1943–45,” a thread that discusses a specific strategic move mentioned in the book The Soviet Conduct of Tactical Maneuver, https://forum.axishistory. com/viewtopic.php?&t=206666 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 36 See “‘The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing’ by Michael Mann”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t=218178 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 37 See comment 1 in “WI Guidelines & Time Expansion-PLEASE READ CAREFULLY”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=695271#p695271 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 38 See: “If Bismarck didn’t sink!,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=149330; “Yet Another Germany What-If: Strategic Bomber fleet in WWII,” https://forum.axishistory. com/viewtopic.php?t=70367 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 39 See: “Sucess of Alternate 1944 Western Strategy,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?t=199659; “British invasion of Norway summer 1941,” https://forum.axishistory. com/viewtopic.php?t=123333 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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Lets just say the Japanese acted on the information of their codes being broken before Midway and lured the US navy into a trap. Say the Japanese get lucky and lose no carriers and the Americans lose Enterprise, Yorktown and Hornet. This would leave the fleets in terms of carriers looking like this. Aircraft in brackets US Saratoga (88), Wasp (76) 164 aircraft. Japan Kaga (90), Akagi (91), Soryu (71), Hiryu (73), Zuikaku (84), Shokaku (84), Ryujo (38), Zuiho (30) 561 aircraft. This would leave the Japanese with naval superiority until late 1943. This gives the Japanese a strategic window. What do you think the Japanese should do campaign wise in this time?

The original poster names very specifically what carriers of the US Army were absent and how much more vital the Japanese Air Force’s and Navy’s involvement would be at what time (1943). The reason for “luring the US navy into a trap” is listed too: it is based on a piece of evidence received by the Japanese Army (but not acted upon). Formulating such a question requires a thorough engagement with relevant historical sources. Within the discussions of cluster 3, the focus is more or less evenly distributed between Axis and Allied Powers across categories. The war is discussed in a dry manner, maintaining distance from emotional experiences, and framed from the standpoint of strategy, economy, and matériel. The equal division between Axis and Allied-themed posts suggests no particular interest in the National Socialist government or its armed forces within this particular cluster. The analyses of two other large clusters below (clusters 1 and 2) will paint a somewhat different picture regarding the interest in the Axis Powers. Members of cluster 3 will reflect on that enforced interest among other subgroups on the forum, among other things, in the thread “Why the Waffen-SS.”40 The thread has the second-highest degree centrality. It contains over 3,000 posts and thematizes the infatuation with the 40

See “Why the Waffen-SS”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=190068 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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military branch within the forum. The thread’s prominence hints at the fact that users reflect upon forum engagement practices that differ from their own. In this thread, members of cluster 3 represent a community that sees other AHF members engaging in glorification practices and consequently expresses its discontent. Cluster corpus 3 is the most extensive one according to word count. Its preferred tokens (Figure 6.4.) include generic words, such as actors of World War II (for example, “germany,” “poland,” “britain,” “ussr,” “nazi,” “europe,” “ukraine,” “soviet,” “union”), military-speak (“attack,” “against,” “force,” “territory”), and politics (“statement,” “policy,” “government”). Other words within the preferred words list contain references to the Holocaust and other mass murders (“commit,” “holocaust,” “concentration,” “massacre,” “jew,” “jewish,” “mass,” “murder”). Within the 50 selected discussions of cluster 3 and the maximal core discussions, no threads dedicated to war crimes or mass murders were discovered. However, the topic modeling results demonstrate that a large fraction of the corpus was indeed dominated by that theme. Only the examination of structural equivalence revealed that many groups of structurally equivalent threads were dedicated to such a discussion. In those threads, the Holocaust is considered alongside other mass murders. On the one hand, this could be viewed critically as a lack of piety among users. On the other, it could be understood as a failure of the academic discourse to create connective narratives of the Holocaust’s uniqueness that would speak to lay military historians.41 Simultaneously, as the editorials of the Journal of Perpetrator Research demonstrate, the academic discourse connected to war crimes asks very similar questions: How to define a perpetrator who also became a victim? In one exchange, Ruth Morag (2018) and Christian Gudehus (2018; 2020) debate whether it is institutional affiliations or actions that matter more in defining a perpetrator. The moderators’ central role within the threads becomes very clear here: usually, members post a question about a related misconception; moderators then direct them to the thread where that misconception was first discussed.42 It would 41

The Holocaust’s uniqueness has been labeled problematic in a number of works on memory studies and public history. For example, Michael Rothberg (2009, 9) marks the notion of the Holocaust as a unique event as a necessary step in the intellectual debate, but ultimately criticizes it because of the competitive memory framework that it is engrained in. The historian Eugen Pfister (2016) notes, meanwhile, that the perplexed reaction of the gaming industry to criticism regarding inappropriate Holocaust representation in computer games is another indicator of the academic inability to find a proper way to communicate about the Shoah. 42 This happens, for example, in the thread “Use of shorn hair from camp inmates,” where a user asks why the idea to use inmates’ hair for textile production was dropped; the moderator

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Figure 6.4 Contrastive stylometric analysis of cluster corpus 3

be wrong to assume that all users belonging to cluster 3 follow the goal of conducting objective research: the user michael mills frequently comes up in these discussions and leaves comments that users find anti-Semitic. Because he is drawn to questions about the Holocaust to express his anti-Semitic views, he frequently posts in related threads and becomes part of the cluster. This

then appoints him to the thread where this is debated extensively. See: https://forum.axishi story.com/viewtopic.php?t=68842 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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dynamic is in line with Georg Simmel’s idea that a conflict is a form of socialization: although they are defending diametrically opposed positions, users still demonstrate an impressive record of interaction regardless (Simmel 1983, 129). Cluster 9 is the smallest of the ten clusters examined in this chapter. Members of cluster 9 dominate only 22 discussions. Therefore, all of these threads were read and categorized during discussion analysis, with them exhibiting a strong interest in executions—as evident from the topic models in Chapter 5. In this cluster, there exists a strong imbalance between thread sizes: the central thread was “Beheadings in the Third Reich,” where different kinds of information on the subject are collected. Its central position within the cluster is demonstrated in the bimodal network model presented in Figure 6.5.. It is the largest thread of all, and almost half of cluster 9’s members are part of that cluster because of their participation herein. The 22 discussions contain altogether 6,966 comments, of which 6,645 are written in the “Beheadings in the Third Reich” thread alone. There are four more threads in the “Executions” category, while the other discussions represent typical categories in most clusters on AHF (photo threads, translation requests, questions about the history of a given unit). Discussions within the “Beheadings in the Third Reich” thread take a certain distance, handling the subject in a fact-oriented manner. Users discuss the executioners’ hierarchies, their salaries, and the places where beheadings were carried out. Mostly, it is a discussion between a handful of users. Among the latter, Frederic, Pete26, and Paul53 demonstrate the highest degree-centrality values within the cluster and contribute to it the most (represented in Figure 6.5. by the three triangles to the central node’s left). Frederic is writing a book about guillotines, while Pete26 and Paul53 do not contextualize their respective interest in the topic at hand. Paul53 has visited many execution sites and appears to be a lay historian. His information is not always reliable: at the beginning of the thread, he references soap production from human fat in National Socialist Germany twice—but is reminded by another user that this is just a myth, with a number of discussions on AHF having already reiterated that. Pete26 provides fewer sources meanwhile, reflecting instead on executions on the level of bodily experience43 :

43

See comment 201 in “Beheadings in the Third Reich”: https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wtopic.php?p=1107294#p1107294 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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Figure 6.5 Bimodal network model of cluster 9. Node size corresponds to degree centrality

by Pete26 » 02 Sep 2007, 06:46 I honestly cannot imagine how would an executioner and his assistants feel after guillotining 30 or so people in a single session. One must be physically sick of the sight and smell of blood and seeing the horror in each victim’s expression when being led to the guillotine. And as I understand it, there are hideous gurgling noises a body makes when the last of air is expelled from the lungs. Yet is seems that they were most unnerved when things went wrong, i.e when the machine malfunctioned. As I mentioned before, I find it shocking that they would actually behead some people with their face up, staring at the blade. […]

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And how much skill is really required of a guillotine operator? The machine is the one that does the work. An executioner wielding a sword or an axe must be skilled, but not one that pulls a guillotine lever. It like calling an electric chair executioner skilled because he pulls the switch. But he also prepares and applies the electrodes, so some skill is required to ensure successful execution. So what real skills must a guillotine executioner show? His assistants do all the hard work: drag the victim to the machine, place the victim on the bench and hold him/her down and clamp the neck in the lunette. After the execution, it is they who remove the body and the head and wash the machine. All the executioner does is pull the lever at the right time. Does he do anything else? Seems to me any cynical money hungry, or sadistic individual would perform well.

Pete26 empathizes with the executioner and his team, trying to follow what their bodily experiences, such as smell or vision. Pete26’s comments at the beginning of the thread contain links to pictures of the executed—which triggers strong criticism from another user, Penn44 (a member of cluster 0). The latter sees no value in the discussion being had44 : […] I don’t think this thread has any to do with legitimate research or concern for “war crimes.” Instead, this thread seems to have degenerated into an avenue for the expression and satiation of the morbid curiosity of some people. There are other websites on the Internet where these people get their “needs” met, and they should seek their pleasures there.

After this rebuke, Pete26 limits himself to textual contributions only. Other threads mentioning executions include a discussion about the trial of Irma Grese, the infamous concentration-camp warden, and her execution,45 the execution of Gestapo personnel in the Battle for Berlin, and the chain of command during the final days of National Socialist Germany.46 There is also a thread about war criminals who were hanged.47 The latter first contains a request for videos of executions, then drifts off to discuss an American executioner named “Woods.” 44

See comment 109 in “Beheadings in the Third Reich”: https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wtopic.php?p=1104117#p1104117 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 45 See “Irma Grese—Convictions and sentences (Original Documents)”: https://forum.axishi story.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=167893 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 46 See “Gestapo personnel in the Battle for Berlin?”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?&t=125999 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 47 See “War Criminals: Sentence of Death by Hanging”: https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wtopic.php?&t=150838 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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The focus on executions was reflected in the topic model, and similar data is present in the stylometric analysis too: the words “prison,” “execution,” “guillotine,” “executioner” are at the top of the preferred-words list. Here, biological and practical aspects are present (“blood,” “head,” “body,” “neck,” “carry,” “drain”). Although death is a “trigger of any commemorative praxis” (Horn 2001, 579), in the context of the lengthy discussion on executions users manage to distance themselves from death itself, focusing instead on the technicalities around it and on the culture of execution. While honing in on devices and embodiment surrounding executions suggests a relationship between these discussions and empirical practices of memory, the extensive research done and the historical focus here were decisive in the attribution of cluster 9 to conversational practices instead. Whether the interest is fueled by the dark character of the executioner or by the fact that bodily aspects of witnessing death are not part of the collective memory of World War II, the topic inspired a lot of interest in a small number of users. The influence of historical research on memory, the duality of these two means of engaging with the past, have been at the core of Memory Studies ever since the discipline first emerged. Most famously, Maurice Halbwachs constructed history as objective, fact-oriented, and singular, while collective memories were plural and had specific carriers; they were identity-bound (Halbwachs 2011, 144–45; J. Assmann 2005, 43–44). Similar to Halbwachs, but in a more dramatic manner, Nora (1997d, 12) considered the difference between memory and history to be of great importance as well: he romanticized memory as authentic and immediate, proclaiming the focus on collective memory in the 1980-s to be a symptom of “authentic” memory’s overall decline. In a summary of the debate, Astrid Erll (2017) criticizes the juxtaposition of the two entities. She argues that when history and memory are opposed, it is often unclear which aspects are being discussed: is it the “selectiveness of collective memory versus the totality of historical processes” (Ibid., 39)? Or the “methodologically irregular, identity-bound and ‘lived’ memory versus the scientistic, seemingly neutral, and objective historiography,” or maybe “the ‘authentic’ memory versus […] ideologically loaded images or models of history”? (Ibid., 39). Aleida Assmann (2003, 144) briefly addressed the different functions of history and memory herself, claiming that even within historical science there is a difference between research aimed at memorialization and studies concerned with the scientistic approach. Opening up the spectrum of debate here enables us to locate discussions in clusters 3 and 9 more precisely. They are highly specialized and selective: they remain only in the realm of military history. There is little interest in images

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of the past, or in the decontextualizing perspective of everyday culture. Users demonstrate a solid knowledge of the academic publications on each matter of interest. Their focus tends to be on scientistic debates rather than on memorialization. Still, the interaction on the forum and the agency that users enjoy in getting to choose their own questions about history enables conceptualizing the discussions as collective memory too. Multidirectional memory: Cluster 1 In contrast to the members of clusters 3 and 9, those of cluster 1 do not stand out for their thorough preparation and vast historical knowledge. Instead, they are mostly interested in discussing topics unrelated to World War II (see Figure 6.6.). As stated in the metadata analyses of Chapter 4, two traits are particularly notable when it comes to cluster 1: the unusual number of users from the US and the specific posting timeframe—these users were especially active in the early years of the forum’s existence (2002–2007). Several other characteristics demonstrate that cluster 1 members behave differently to the rest of AHF’s users. First, the thematic focus of cluster 1 was scattered, with many of the discussions occurring unconnected to World War II: this was true for both the 50 selected discussions (see Figure 6.6.) and for the maximal core. Second, this cluster dominated the highest number of threads overall, and the fraction of structurally equivalent nodes in the bimodal network was the lowest across all clusters too. Cluster 1 users were likely to start more threads not necessarily related to World War II, and hence ones accessible to a broader audience. However, they did not focus on a specific theme and interest groups were not formed. Some discussions in this cluster are united by the idea that military strength is quantifiable and interchangeable. Threads subsumed under “Measuring contribution” presented polemical discussions wherein one army is controversially “played out” against another. The two examples presented below are comments on a discussion entitled “Greatest Army of Entire War”48 : [1]

[2]

48

by sam17 » 13 Apr 2003, 05:49 I voted for the German Army, there’s no real contest I think, and U the best army of WW11 that’s laughable!!! by James Patrick » 14 Apr 2003, 00:56 The US Army

See comments 16 [1] and 17 [2] of “Greatest Army of Entire War”: https://forum.axi shistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=169923#p169923; https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=170363#p170363 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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Figure 6.6 Discussion categories of cluster 1 Great leaders, modern equipment (no horse and wagon bull****), fully mechanized/motorized, rapidly mobilized, rapidly demobilized, good relationships with sister services and allies (most of the time). The US Army fought a global, two-front war and won. It also conducted risky and complicted operations in both the Pacific and Europe (Normandy being the riskiest and most complicated of the war) with competency and regularity. The British and Canadiens are up there too.

The title of this thread is very characteristic of the type of quarrelsome discussion that cluster 1 users often engage in.49 The argumentation in both of the comments is notable as well: neither author is interested in exchange; the first claims that there is “no real contest” for the German Army, and that choosing other armies would be “laughable” (but does not provide any elaboration). The second commenter offers more detail, yet manages to address the alleged benefits of the US Army only in passing and does not acknowledge the combined Allied efforts (only that the relationship between the Allies and the US Army was “good”). Overall, the contributions of members of cluster 1 often had a significantly lower 49

Among many others, further examples of category titles include: “The best ‘specialforces’ of ww2,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=10507; “The MOST LAME WWII movie EVER!!!,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=7061; “Germany vs USA ONE ON ONE,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=19798 (last accessed January 21, 2021).

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level of preparation in comparison to those discussing matters in clusters 3 and 9. While there are several threads glorifying the US Army,50 the users also express interest in the Waffen-SS. This interest, however, is not historically contextualized, but manifests itself in an affiliation with the unit.51 Over a number of threads users discuss the reason for their interest, as they perceive it to be unusual.52 Interestingly, all threads that were previously connected to revisionism and softcore Holocaust denial (see Chapter 3, subchapter “Holocaust denial in discussions”) were dominated by members of this cluster. One of the threads in the selected discussions spans over 120 posts and addresses a historical question: namely the Soviet Union’s adherence to the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of prisoners of war.53 Despite evidence being provided, the argument escalates into a heated debate between several forum users regarding ratification processes, until the point of contention is finally resolved. It turns out that there were two conventions signed in Geneva in 1929: the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field and the Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. The Soviet Union adhered to the first but not the second; the document presented at the beginning of the thread proving its adherence to both conventions turned out to be fake. The reasons for such heated debate are not clarified; however, several other discussions suggest that this outcome might be relevant for revisionists: nonadherence to the Geneva Convention allows them to construct the Red Army’s crimes as equally cruel and despicable as those of the National Socialist regime. As Wolfgang Benz (2003, 84) notes in his study of the popular myths perpetuated by right-wing historical revisionists, the emphasis on Allied crimes in general and 50

See comment 1 in “US was the deciding nation in WW2”: https://forum.axishistory.com/ viewtopic.php?p=58250#p58250 (last accessed January 31, 2021). 51 See: “Attractive W-SS Division,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=3981; “Could Germany have won World War II,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t= 8957; “Slogans of the Third Reich,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=11258; “Why did many people hate the Waffen-SS,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? t=14506 (last accessed January 31, 2021). 52 See: “Is this you? Article on interest in the Nazis,” https://forum.axishistory.com/ viewtopic.php?t=9500; “I have a question,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? t=34697; “Your other life,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=37190; “Why Hitler and the Nazis still fascinate,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=50476 (last accessed January 31, 2021). 53 See “USSR and Geneva Convention”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t= 30523 (last accessed January 31, 2021).

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on the circumstances of war prisoners in particular aims to marginalize the crimes against humanity scrutinized during the Nuremberg trials. Both Benz (Ibid., 71) and his fellow historian Christian Gerlach (2005, 40) note that it was specifically Soviet prisoners of war who were killed in large numbers by the Wehrmacht, which makes the accusation put forward in this particular thread somewhat unwarranted. Other posts containing even more explicit revisionist notions are found to be present in this cluster too.54 Overall, many of the questions posed signify only an entry-level interest in World War II. In some cases, that basic interest is contextualized with more grounded and detailed information provided during the discussion. The unique category “Personal experiences” contains two threads wherein users share experiences of grief: in the first, one individual writes a long story about his brother having committed suicide55 ; a day later, the user admits to having been under the influence while typing. In the second, someone else recollects an accident that he and his friend had.56 In both cases, users react with empathy and supportive comments. The category is not large enough to represent a fraction of cluster 1 discussions; however, in others, exchanges of this kind were not to be found. Furthermore, these were the only instances of commemoration within the selected threads of cluster 1. These two threads are also significant because they represent the wide range of themes unrelated to World War II that cluster 1 users touch upon, including episodes in their lives, consumer habits (e.g. a thread

54

See: “Positive lasting contribution of the Third Reich,” https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wtopic.php?t=12494; “When will they make an SS movie,” https://forum.axishistory.com/ viewtopic.php?t=3413; “Humanitarian actions of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS,” https:// forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=39713; “What Has The Third Reich Ever Done For Us?????,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=17100; “Certain heroism of Wehrmacht & Waffen SS in WW2,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=17130; “The ‘myths’ about the Holocaust,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=37190 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 55 See “Forgive the rambling, off topic post”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?&t=64034 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 56 See “Almost lost my buddy”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t=102205 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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on McDonald’s: “I don’t mind some of their food, but a lot of my friends can’t stand them at all. Opinions?”57 ), as well as political discussions.58 The description of the platform’s history provided in Chapter 3 showed that the Military History Forum merged with AHF in 2007, leading to a number of changes: the discussion focus became broader and a more neutral selfpresentation strategy was implemented, including a change of forum name and of its fundamental design elements. This change and the short-term presence of cluster 1 users might be connected, as lower-complexity questions occur less frequently in clusters with a more consistent forum presence. The absence of a particular thematic focus leads to the assumption that this cluster does not have a specific type of mnemonic practice its members engage in. It seems that cluster 1 users are mostly united by the shared timeframe (2002–2007) during which they were active on AHF and by an interest in socializing within a World War II setting. If the focus on the US that is present in the metadata and in many of the discussions is considered, it is vital to look at the unique posting period of this particular cluster. The timeframe is significant as it captures the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent global “war on terror.” Studies show that the “good war” narrative of World War II was intentionally chosen and perpetuated by the George W. Bush administration as a discursive frame for that “war on terror” (Reese and Lewis 2009; Gilmore 2011; L. Bond 2014). Hence, in the climate of insecurity created by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, some perhaps felt compelled to engage in discussions about World War II, which were perpetuated by the George W. Bush administration. Other discussions demonstrate that this interest in World War II often goes hand-in-hand with conservative or ultra-conservative values. In the thread “Reactions to our hobby,” users discuss how their focus on World War II is received.

57

See comment 1 in “McDonald’s: Good or Bad?”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=152298#p152298. Further threads of that kind include, among numerous others, the following: “Eminem,” expressing appreciation for the musician, https://forum.axishistory. com/viewtopic.php?t=14183; “How many languages do you know?:),” https://forum.axishi story.com/viewtopic.php?t=18220; “What’s your favourite day of the week?,” https://forum. axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=17388 (last accessed January 31, 2021). 58 See: “Polish zone in Iraq!,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=23618; “Swedish foreign minister stabbed,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=31444; “THAT’s IT! If one more bloody person calls me a …,” about a user’s experience of antiMuslim sentiment in the US, https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=58244 (last accessed January 31, 2021).

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The discussion gives the impression that users have often received unfavorable feedback59 : by T.R.Searle » 04 Jul 2002, 00:37 you mean they thought you were a nazi freak or something but in reality they don’t really understand?? stuff like this happends to me but I just want clarification on what your trying to say :wink:

In similar questions, users refer to the current situation as the era of “political correctness,”60 which quickly plays out as a debate on race connecting the legacies of slavery and the Holocaust.61 It seems as if the fascination with World War II is driven by empathy with National Socialists in Germany: the argument that cluster 1 users make is that National socialists are today perceived as evil for their actions within a system now labeled “unjust,” despite being acceptable at the time.62 This shift in assessment is attributed to the ephemeral notion of “political correctness.” The logical fallacies of that statement aside, this identification is perhaps established because of one’s own beliefs being perceived as “unpopular.” The emphasis on the combat qualities of the SS regardless of their disreputable actions, and the deepening of that infatuation despite the implications of supporting the SS, could be interpreted as criticism of the current US administration’s policies and deeds. This provides reasons for us to connect the interest in World War II to a discourse on US ultraconservative values. The mutual influence of memory narratives was defined as “multidirectional memory” by Rothberg (2009). This concept is rooted in a metaphor of network theory: Rothberg uses the idea of multidirectional connections between two nodes in a network for a schematic illustration of the reciprocated reinforcement of memory narratives. This idea is based on a specific stance toward the relationship between memory narratives that does not line them up in competing positions but instead enables them to thrive off one another. Rothberg focuses on Holocaust commemoration in the US and its connections to the commemoration of victims of slavery. The focus on the Holocaust in American culture has been 59

See comment 2 in “Reactions to our hobby?”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=33400#p33400 (last accessed January 27, 2021). 60 See discussion on “Why German Militiaria if it’s ‘Politically incorrect’?”: https://forum. axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=136402#p136402 (last accessed January 27, 2021). 61 See comment 11 in “Why German Militiaria if it’s ‘Politically incorrect’?”: https://forum. axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=139782#p139782 (last accessed January 27, 2021). 62 See comment 5 in “Why German Militiaria if it’s ‘Politically incorrect’?”: https://forum. axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=137241#p137241 (last accessed January 27, 2021).

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explored extensively in other works—the religious scholar Edward T. Linenthal notes that the former takes up a specific place within the latter that he labels “the comfortable horrible” (2001, 267). The politician and political scientist Samantha Power (2002, XXI) underlined the “unusual commitment” to Holocaust commemoration within all US administrations between 1970 and the year 2000 meanwhile—with simultaneous inaction on all subsequent genocides of the twentieth century. The philosopher Susan Neiman (2020) suggests, in turn, that Americans should mirror how National Socialism is remembered in German culture when approaching their collective memory of slavery. The findings of cluster 1 indicate that a reverse connection exists on AHF: users perform quasi-historical interest in World War II, framing it as the socially acceptable “good war” narrative and facilitate the acceptance of ultraconservative ideological values. National memory: Cluster 4 If cluster 1 represents a multidirectional dynamic between different memory narratives, cluster 4 is centered rather on a single national framework. Its discussions mostly revolve around Finland’s Winter and Continuation Wars. This is reflected somewhat in the topic modeling output of Chapter 5, being replicated in the stylometric analysis63 and the discussion categories found in the 50 selected threads: Several large categories are dedicated to the Winter and Continuation Wars; at the same time, more than half of the threads are about Finland (including discussions on historical and modern warfare). Some 11 threads deal with other Scandinavian countries or the Soviet Union meanwhile. Within the topic modeling output, the occurrence of keywords connected to women (specifically, the “Lotta Svärd” organization) in a military context reflects the cultural memory discourse of the early years of the new millennium. The commemoration of Lotta Svärd members has gone through a number of stages: Immediately after World War II and up until the 1980-s, the organization was excluded from Finnish national memory, its members labeled fascist and promiscuous. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 however, their position in collective memory shifted, now being included in recollections. In their autobiographies of the 1990-s, meanwhile, members of Lotta Svärd would represent themselves as pure and morally immaculate (Paletschek and Schraut 2008, 18).

63

The preferred words reference Finland and Finnish geographical regions (“finnish,” “finland,” “finn,” “helsinki,” “karelian,” “isthmus”), the Winter War and the Soviet Union (“winter,” “continuation,” “mannerheim,” “defence,” “russian,” “union,” “soviet,” “ussr”).

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The shift in the Lotta Svärd commemoration framework did not take place in a vacuum. Tiina Kinnunen and Markku Jokisipilä (2012) provide an impressive account of the fluctuations in collective memory in Finland, focusing on the decade of the 1990-s—when a neopatriotic interpretation of World War II would emerge. This movement was ignited by the fall of the Soviet Union, providing a sense of Finland’s “final victory” (Ibid., 452). Kinnunen and Jokisipilä identify that neopatriotic movement’s essential traits, such as the romanticization of World War II, the Winter and Continuation Wars’ conceptualization as defensive victories, and the latter’s embodiment of Finnish national qualities (Ibid., 453). All these traits were represented in AHF discussions within cluster 4. These two historians contextualize the neopatriotic movement in a climate of emerging and escalating insecurity in the 1990-s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Finnish economy suffered, while decisions about joining the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization furthermore needed to be made. These international political dynamics led to the emergence of pronounced national memories that would be performed both off- and online. Neopatriots aside, AHF also attracted Finnish military historians too. Among the members of cluster 4 are those interested in objective military-history exchanges and those inclined to interpret World War II predominantly from the point of view of national glory respectively. On one end of the spectrum, therefore, are military-history-oriented discussions with low emotional valence and high levels of attention to detail, similar to the exchanges of cluster 3.64 At the other extreme, meanwhile, are discussions aimed at the glorification of the Winter and Continuation Wars.65 Within the latter type, any criticism is met defensively, while a rigid evaluative argumentative position is taken. In the following comment, a user responds to a question about events of the Winter War that were viewed critically in Finland66 : by Panssari Salama » 11 Dec 2011, 16:05

64

See: “Finnish abbreviation,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=101995; “Light brigade T,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t=192263 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 65 See: “WW2 Facts that Finland can be proud,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?t=101527; “Finland’s army today—worthy of its predecessors?,” https://forum.axishi story.com/viewtopic.php?t=88005 (last accessed January 27, 2021). 66 See comment 2 in “Critical voices against the Finnish conduct in WWII”: https://forum. axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=1654273#p1654273 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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So what you are implying is that we are already in wrong, before even posting to this thread. This sounds a bit like considering to have a discussion with one’s wife :milwink:

The maximal core best demonstrates the range of knowledge of cluster 4 users: Out of 80 discussions, 25 were quiz threads on a range of subjects—from “Allied and Neutral Air Forces” to “WW2 in Pacific & Asia.” These discussions show the interest in factual information beyond the Winter and Continuation Wars existing among some of the cluster’s users. The other 55 threads were dedicated to the Winter and Continuation Wars, that with varying degrees of objectivity. Among the 50 discussions selected for thematical categorization, several were attributable to the category “Meaning making”: this includes threads containing reassessments of singular episodes from the Winter and Continuation Wars. One of those is a discussion on the Battle of Tali-Ihantala in 1944, where, after a detailed depiction of events on a day-by-day basis, a ballad written by Lasse Heikkilä, a soldier who fought in said battle, is referenced. The poster frames it with an added introduction, wherein he states that he came across the ballad during research and considers it to be “of some general interest and fit in here.”67 The ballad is a piece of commemorative poetry in which the protagonist is a fallen general named “Vihma,” who in the course of the text speaks to a soldier who deserted the battlefield and thus survived. In the ballad, the deaths at Tali-Ihantala are constructed as the necessary condition for the Finnish nation’s existence “in future”—thus building upon therapeutic functions of collective memory and bringing up the meaning of the Continuation War in the context of Finnish national memory. While reacting favorably to the poem, users focus on the claim of the ballad’s title: that the battle of Tali-Ihantala was the largest on Nordic soil.68 This claim is never seriously contested, yet the discussion becomes more and more heated, motivated by one user who keeps questioning Karelia’s affiliation to Finland. Overall, however, the thread demonstrates the impact of commemorative poetry (“Some very powerful poetry indeed”69 ) on national narratives and the way that

67

See comment 19 in “Battle of Tali-Ihantala”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=1666979#p1666979 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 68 See comments 20–45 in “Battle of Tali-Ihantala”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?&t=68299 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 69 See comment 24 in “Battle of Tali-Ihantala”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?p=1667020#p1667020 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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battles are considered grounding myths. The reference to Nordic history combined with the poem’s sharing demonstrate the role of the battle in both national and transnational narratives. In another discussion falling in the “Meaning making” category, users talk about Jorma Sarvanto, a Finnish Air Force pilot, and the number of his kills during an aerial battle with Soviet Forces on January 6, 1940—where Sarvanto shot down six planes in quick succession. The discussion, which was branched off from a different thread, aims to uncover the details of the episode based on Soviet and Finnish sources after a user claimed that only one other man had confirmed the heroic kills. In the third comment, one of the Finnish users posts a picture of a memorial in a small Finnish cemetery dedicated to the battle, with it commemorating Soviet pilots in Finnish. It is a rare example of a memorial object that inscribes the other side’s losses into the national memory narrative. Users continue to discuss sources on the battle, but attention soon keeps coming back to the memorial itself. The discussion then continues to shift seamlessly between details of the battle and the commemorative practices surrounding that memorial70 : by Surfer » 16 Dec 2015, 16:32 About three years my friends and I have been studying the details of this famous battle. It has been studied a lot of documents from the Russian and Finnish Archives, it was found some relatives of the dead airmen who provided photographs and letters from the personal archives. Two families came to the grave of pilots in Hirvela to honor their memory. Very soon it will be published a long article (in Russian), devoted to the results of our research.

After a pause in the thread, the Finnish user posts a picture of the memorial with several lit candles, noting that it was taken on Christmas Eve.71 The comment is posted on January 6, 2016, Orthodox Christmas Eve, which is also the anniversary of the battle. After a comment containing a link to a historical article about the battle from January 2016, the thread pauses and a new post appears only on

70

See comment 14 in “Jorma Sarvanto 6 DB-3 down in 4 minutes 060140”: https://forum. axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=1984267#p1984267 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 71 See comment 18 in “Jorma Sarvanto 6 DB-3 down in 4 minutes 060140”: https://forum. axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=1988686#p1988686 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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January 6, 2020—when the same Finnish user writes a purely commemorative post: “80 yrs ago today. Regards.”72 While there are many other neutral and mutually appreciative discussions on Russian and Finnish military action,73 the Winter and Continuation Wars are not perceived as a harmonious subject matter on AHF. Overall, it is a known fact that the meanings that Finland and the Russian Federation assign to these two wars within their respective national histories vary greatly. For example, the aforementioned Battle of Tali-Ihantala is not considered a battle at all in Soviet/Russian historiography (Šojgu and Serdjukov 2012, 270–72). The Soviet Union’s / Russian Federation’s national memories construct National Socialist Germany as the primary opponent in World War II. The Finnish front, where the Soviet side suffered innumerable losses, is often left out of the glorifying narrative of the Great Patriotic War. For Finland, on the other hand, the Winter and Continuation Wars are considered “initiation rituals” that finalized the development of the Finnish state into an independent nation (Meinander 2019, 379). The dissonance in national memories between neighboring countries creates conflict potential that is realized on AHF: discussions on Finnish and Soviet battles often end in dispute and are perceived as highly emotional (“It’s amazing, it seems that no other topic on these forums brings out such passion,”74 as one user notes). A peculiar set of threads dominated by cluster 4 are those referencing British forces. In one case, there is a strong thematic connection to the Winter and Continuation Wars: users ask about the operations of British soldiers in Finland in 1940, inspired by an obituary for Sir Carol Mather.75 The original poster discovered the latter in a newspaper, and did not seem to have a personal connection to the deceased. In this lengthy thread, different discussion trajectories are explored. In post #76, a user asks a question about Harold Gibson, who worked with the poster’s family members.76 In post #78, another user asks about Graeme Duncan

72

See comment 20 in “Jorma Sarvanto 6 DB-3 down in 4 minutes 060140”: https://forum. axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=2244187#p2244187 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 73 See “Combat in Finland”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=83995 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 74 See comment 37 in “Finland and Russia”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? p=193986#p193986 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 75 See “British Troops In Finland 1940”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t= 104475 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 76 See comment 76 in “British Troops In Finland 1940”: https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wtopic.php?p=1692651#p1692651 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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Power Sinclair-Lockhart because he was his wife’s uncle.77 This is not the first time that users try to uncover their extended family’s military histories. Contrary to a once widely acclaimed association that women tend to conserve and pass on family memory (Jansen 2000), in the case of military involvement it seems to be, in fact, a male job. While the initial post is motivated by a commemoration practice (the obituary), subsequent comments remain within the realm of successful lay historical research. Simultaneously, the post remains connective for practices of memory: its focus on detailed life stories that require research enables other members, ones who perform memory practices in the narrow sense, to come forward. These memory practices are not reacted to: neither the thankful comment by the distant relative of Sinclair-Lockhart nor the person interested in Gibson receive much attention from other discussion participants. Interestingly, the discussions connected to British forces also contain a number of notable national commemoration practices: British individuals who went to Finland for their military service vividly describe a collective emotional reaction to their visiting of a military airplane, which appears to have triggered powerful memories among this group of tourists. A frequent trope in the research literature on Finnish collective memory is the comparison to other European states: at the beginning of the war, parallels to Eastern Europe and the Baltic states are often found (Kivimäki 2012, 3; Meinander 2019, 373 ff.). After Finland joined forces with National Socialist Germany, its history is compared with minor Axis nations such as Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia (Kivimäki 2012, 6). This transnational perspective differs from the usual narrative of the European theatre focusing on the Allies. It also emphasizes that national memory is part of larger transnational contexts. In World War II and European collective memory, smaller states’ national memories are compared and connected because these states were bound to react to conflicts ignited by European superpowers. At the same time, since Finland’s position was unique in comparison to other Axis nations, it facilitated the emergence of a sense of Finnish exceptionalism (Kivimäki 2012, 4–9)—which partly plays out within the discussions presented above too. Within cluster 4, the multidirectional connection to other national memories manifests itself on the level of structurally equivalent thread groups dedicated to European countries. 77

See comment 78 in “British Troops In Finland 1940”: https://forum.axishistory.com/ viewtopic.php?p=1694548#p1694548. Other instances recollecting memories of service include: “My Father-in-Laws- medals,” https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=9& t=70219; “Obersturmfuhrer Janis Bielajs 15th Artillery,” https://forum.axishistory.com/vie wtopic.php?f=51&t=234879 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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Overall, the content analysis of these discussions confirms the expectations of the corpus and metadata evaluations. Cluster 4’s focus revolves around Finland, specifically the Winter and Continuation Wars—which are unanimously acknowledged as the defining events of Finnish collective memory both on AHF and in academic works. Discussions on wartime episodes in this cluster tend to thematize various figures of memory and (re)assess their position within national memory narratives. In cluster corpus 4, commemorative posts are most pronounced as compared to the other clusters examined so far; the representation of events is often emotionally charged. The report of a recurring commemoration of fallen Soviet pilots in a cemetery and subsequent verbal commemoration of the aerial battle are examples of explicit online commemoration practices performed in the transnational space of AHF. c. Conservational practices of memory: Between counterpublic memory and transnational access The third and final group of interest, conservational practices, is represented by clusters 2 and 8. The most frequently observed practice within these two clusters is the accumulation of biographical information on Axis personnel in the European theaters and Japan. Cluster 2 demonstrates more focused behavior, as it is concentrated only on German SS functionaries. Cluster 8 is more dispersed and contains different threads, from commemorative ones to equipment discussions about the Pacific Front and Turkish involvement in World War I. However, structurally equivalent threads reveal many biographical information and translation requests focused on the Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific theater. Across all types of analyses, cluster 2 possesses a distinct profile due to the high occurrence of German words in its cluster corpus. In all topic models, cluster 2 dominates topics with army ranks in German, German names, German insignia designations, and high-frequency German stop words. The categorization of 50 selected discussion threads indicates why this is the case: discussions in cluster 2 have a strong focus on a particular interactional scenario. Out of 50 exemplary threads, 21 were dedicated to biographical research vis-à-vis Third Reich army

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officials (see Figure 6.7.).78 The threads of the maximal core mirror the categories established in the discussion analysis.

Figure 6.7 Discussion categories of cluster 2

Another ten discussions contain identification requests for award-holders based on a photograph. Therefore, in almost two-thirds of the threads, the original posters are interested in knowing more about National Socialist personnel, led by either the person’s name or their picture. These biographical information requests are usually answered efficiently, suggesting that collecting biographies is a widespread practice among some AHF users. Here is a typical exchange79 : [1]

by Endzeit Jan » 12 Jun 2009, 12:19 Hi Has anyone any bio info or photos of SS-Ustuf. Fritz Natterer, many thanks in advance,

78 Ludwig Kübler: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t=35603; Fritz Natterer: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t=153984; Karl Böttcher: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t=128749; Camillo Loehnert and Fritz Hausamen: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?& t=132158; Helmuth Möckel: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?& t=63719; Kurt Angel: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t=53221; Gerhard Todenhöfer: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t=101029; Günter Wanhöfer: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t=83351; Hilmar Frank von Hausen-Aubier: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?&t=131975 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 79 See comments 1 and 2 in “Fritz Natterer/ Führer s.SS-Pz.Abt. 503”: https://forum.axishi story.com/viewtopic.php?&t=153984 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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Jan by freddiefro » 12 Jun 2009, 15:35 Natterer, Fritz Born: 10.07.1914 SS-Nr.: 72.938 SS-Hauptsturmführer d.R.: 01.09.1944 Chef 3./schw. Pz.Abt. 103: 09.1944 Kdr. s. Pz.Abt. 503: 04.1945 – Fred

The subsequent comments here were written within four hours. The second poster provides the date of birth, the SS number of the person in question, as well as dates of appointment to new positions. While the attention to biographical detail suggests a focus on the individual, the latter’s life story is strongly formalized and reduced to career achievements: only appointment dates and insignia matter. Those who ask for biographical information rarely provide the reasons for their interest. In one case, the original poster mentions that he is researching for a book.80 In another, the context behind the search for information is mentioned in a post on Gottlieb Renz: here, the original poster tells a story about his father, a World War II veteran, who found Renz’s uniform during his military service in Germany.81 Now the user, who is in the process of becoming a history teacher, is researching the uniform owner’s biography. These descriptions of unique incidents do not provide sufficient grounds for extrapolation on all the biographical information requests. Fritz Schütze (1983) emphasized the importance of a formalized life history in the process of assessment of told life stories, such as in interviews or autobiographies. Following Schütze, Elifcan Karacan (2019) highlights the importance of combining life histories with objective data for the sociohistorical analysis of biographies in the context of collective memory. Perhaps the requests for biographical data arise when historical contextualization within a biography or another information source vis-à-vis historical events is needed. The overwhelming majority of biographical information requests focus on men. Only two cases of such requests where women were targeted were found: 80

See comment 1 in “SS-Stubaf. d.R. Gottlieb Renz”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewto pic.php?p=85515#p85515 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 81 See comment 1 in “Auschwitz SS Personnel”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?t=100055 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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in one thread, information on the actress Renate Müller is sought.82 With users agreeing that there is no reliable information available on her, no trusted source can be provided. In another thread, a user asks about Vera Salvequart: an inmate recruited as a prison functionary in Ravensbrück concentration camp, she was later found guilty of war crimes and put to death in 1947.83 In the forum question about her, Salvequart’s willingness to help other inmates is emphasized; the user concerned thus doubts that her death sentence was justified. Other users echo this sentiment, providing sources for further inquiry in the book by the historian Claudia Taake (1998) on imprisoned women in the SS and from the National Archives in London.84 Taake provided a detailed account of this and several other postwar trials. However, contrary to the implication in the thread, while recognizing the complicated position that Salvequart was in as a prison functionary Taake did not find her sentence unfair (Ibid., 121–22). The top degree centralities in the cluster network belong to threads that organize the various biographical information requests by the rank or insignia of the individuals in question. For example, the top centrality node in the network signifies the thread “Knight’s Cross Holders Identification,”85 which consists of over 19,000 comments and assembles all requests about Knight’s Cross holders together in one place. The first few posts introduce an index that aims to systematize the pictures and names later shared. Overall, cluster 2 represents a transnational practice of data collection: users come together and attempt to recreate the careers of SS functionaries, drawing on various sources and supporting each other throughout. This collective support is precisely what grassroots initiatives are praised for: enabling broad access to different sources, finding answers to particular requests, and creating more possibilities for information gain. In the surveying of a “born digital” movement, the memory scholar Yvonne Lieberman outlines the “potential that social media platforms offer” (2020, 7) providing the ideal spaces for

82 See “Renate Müller”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=100046 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 83 See “Vera Salvequart”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=101078 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 84 See: “The National Archives,” http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C44 07705, http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4407706, http://discovery.nation alarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4407707, http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C44 07708 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 85 See “Knight’s Cross Holders Identification”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. php?&t=29879 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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the creation of counternarratives and networked counterpublics. Lieberman further states that social-networking sites can “function as an alternative archive” (Ibid., 12) in some cases. It seems that the goal of amassing biographical information on Axis personnel is to create an alternative archive of these historical figures—the impressive thread on Knight’s Cross Holders is a working information-classification system indeed. Most of the threads dominated by cluster 2 are situated in the subforums “Phil Nix SS and Polizei Section” or “Axis Biographical Research.” The latter emerged out of a different resource, the webpage Axis Biographical Research: as mentioned in Chapter 3, user Michael Miller created this resource without providing sufficient context about the underlying goals of his extensive biography collection. What can be noted, however, is that the lack of political and historical contextualization leads to crimes and atrocities being omitted in these biographical recollections.86 Overall, the focus on National Socialist officials is problematic: To what ends is information on perpetrators’ biographies useful, and why do they need to be preserved and (in most cases) decontextualized? Lieberman’s study mentioned above focuses on the Black Lives Matter movement and its goal to create alternative archives, which has a legitimate claim for greater representation of Black people in US archives because of their underrepresentation during the time of slavery (Connolly and Fuentes 2016, 105; Liebermann 2020, 12). Similar civic initiatives have seen community archives started for underrepresented groups elsewhere too (Caswell 2014). But there is no need for alternative archives in the case of SS officials or Knight’s Cross Holders, as information on these structures and groups of award-holders has been widely researched and published ever since the 1960s (see, for example, Buchheim et al. 2005, which was first published in 1965; the various works by the Institut für Zeitgeschichte; Höffkes 1986; for scholarship on recipients of the Knight’s Cross and other military decorations, see Scherzer 1992, 2007). Why, furthermore, is this information reiterated on AHF? On the one hand, issues of accessibility, information organization, and a language barrier play a role, as the users themselves sometimes note (“Great post, Mike—the kind of information that can’t be found anywhere else on the internet!”87 ). However, the 86

Even when individuals are categorized as concentration-camp personnel, the information presented about them is reduced to basic data points: birth, death, and career stations. See “KL Buchenwald personnel”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=3825 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 87 See comment 9 in “Names of high ranking SS officers who died btw 33 and 45”: https:// forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=51855#p51855 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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lack of accessibility regarding biographical information on SS functionaries does not explain why that information is even of interest in the first place. The study on intergenerational transmission of historical knowledge conducted in the late 1990-s by Harald Welzer, Sabine Moller, and Karoline Tschugnall (2014, 9) might provide an additional interpretation of value here. The authors observe a difference between the factual knowledge that schoolchildren receive and the emotional perceptions of the National Socialist period transmitted within the family home. They emphasize that these two understandings of the period are rarely interconnected, and that a fascination with the National Socialist past emerges specifically within the latter emotional dimension of historical remembering: Metaphorically speaking, in addition to a knowledge-based “lexicon” of the National Socialist past, there exists another, more emotionally powerful system of reference for interpreting that past: one that includes concrete people—parents, grandparents, relatives—as well as letters, photographs, and personal documents from family history. (Welzer, Moller, and Tschuggnall 2014, 10, author’s own translation)

The division into different reference systems would help to contextualize cluster 2 users’ need for a counterpublic, accessible archive of SS officials’ biographies— since the information is not part of collective memory, they are looking for alternate ways to obtain it, and the forum enables them to tap into the transnational resources offered by AHF members represent. However, in the citation above, the emotional connection to the National Socialist period is established through its associations with family memory. It remains unclear whether similar divisions could emerge without that entanglement. Cluster 8 depicts an affinity for biographical research too (see Figure 6.8.). However, its research objects are not SS soldiers but members of the Japanese Army. Cluster 8’s focus on the Pacific Front is visible in the corpus analysis: both the preferred words and the topic model reveal a strong focus on the Pacific Front through the adjectives (“japanese,” “chinese,” “pacific”), names, and references to the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and Navy (IJN) present. Discussions indicate a strong focus on biographical research. While this is similar to cluster 2, the style of the biographical information requests is more diverse here: in some cases, users are only interested in military careers; in most,

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Figure 6.8 Discussion categories of cluster 8

however, the questions are more elaborate and focused on the person’s life in greater detail88 : by Peter H » 14 Jun 2006, 14:54 April 1937: Mitsubishi Type 97 (Ki125) J-BAAI ‘Kamikaze’ is flown by Masaaki Iinuma, with Kenji Tsukagoshi as his navigator, from Tashikawa to Croydon to capture the Japan to England record. The flight takes 51 hours 17 minutes 23 seconds and covers a distance of 15,356 kilometres (9,542 miles). […] Masaaki(1912-1941) was later killed flying over Malaya, December 1941. Does anyone know what happened to Kenji Tsukagoshi? […]

In this thread, the request is not aimed at the formalized appointment dates as in cluster 2 but addresses a specific instance instead: why Kenji Tsukagoshi, as the navigator of Masaaki Iinuma, would have gone missing. These threads constitute 88 See comment 1 in “The commanding officers of 2nd Field Replacement Unit”: https:// forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=1217767#p1217767 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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a smaller fraction among the biographical information requests—yet in cluster 2 threads of this kind were absent altogether. Most information requests were exchanges between users either located in Japan or Japanese speakers, as well as other individuals requiring help in deciphering archival documents in Japanese. The Japanese users thus acted as knowledge brokers in providing information to those not speaking the language. Several large groups of structurally equivalent threads constitute exchanges between brokers and other users. For example, the user fontessa takes part in over 800 threads, providing translation services frequently. The exploration of structurally equivalent threads and brokers reveals a second smaller thematic field found in cluster 8: There is a subgroup of users who are interested in Turkey’s involvement in World War I. The user Tosun Saral acts as a broker in this field, providing information from Turkish books or archives in Ankara. The maximal core does not capture the affiliation to Turkey, containing instead introductory threads to the Japanese military during World War II (such as “Essential books about Japan”)89 or a glossary of Japanese military terms.90 The link between these thematic fields is established through another user, Peter H, who possesses an extensive collection of photographs of both world wars and posts them online, thus providing access to his collection. His activity level exceeds everybody else’s in the cluster: he has the highest degree centrality in the network, and is one of the most frequent posters anywhere on AHF. Instances of commemoration occur several times within the 50 selected threads. On three out of four occasions, the commemoration threads are initiated by Tosun Saral: in one case, he posts his own biography, documenting his military career extensively and the involvement of his family in the military history of the twentieth century. Users are very appreciative. In two other cases, he writes posts praising the late Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In the fourth thread, a user from Malaysia commemorates the Battle of Kota Bharu (where this individual is based). The attention paid to Pacific campaigns is visible in several other threads too. In one where Peter H posts photographs from Manila after the month-long Battle of Manila in 1945, another user remarks: by jacobtowne » 12 Sep 2008, 13:11 89

See “What Books do you Think are Essential About WWII Japan?”: https://forum.axishi story.com/viewtopic.php?t=77187 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 90 See “Glossary of Japanese Military Terms”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? t=77370 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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I read somewhere that Manila was the second most heavily damaged Allied city of the war, after Warsaw. Correct statement or not, the campaign in the Philippines has not been given the attention it deserves, and I’m glad to see this topic brought to our attention.

Later in that same thread, users seek parallels to the bombing of Manila in the European war theater, linking it first to Dresden and later to Stalingrad (“Now Manila and Stalingrad, that might be a better comparison…”91 ). One user tells the story of himself as a child with his family during the battle (“I was nine years old when the US forces liberated Manila. My family and I sweated it out in the city during the entire time it was under the Japanese control. […] I’ve seen combat and death. I’ve experienced starvation and living in constant fear”92 ). The recollection does not appear connective for further discussions, and is not ultimately elaborated upon. In comparison to all the other clusters, the actions of clusters 2 and 8 seem to fit best to AHF’s main slogan: “Information not shared is lost.” Both clusters aim to provide broader access to historical information and use the archives accessible to them to disseminate evidence over the Internet. Both clusters focus on the archiving of the Axis Powers, thus creating related counterpublic resources and facilitating research for those interested in that topic. The information about each person is very modest, containing only data on their birth, death, and career. In both cases, the act of conservation works to counter processes of forgetting. In the article “Seven Types of Forgetting,” Connerton mentions the “forgetting as annulment” that can happen from “a surfeit of information” (2008, 64). He describes a situation in which information is abundant, stored in archives, and therefore not accessed: “[T]hough it is in principle always retrievable, we can afford to forget it” (Ibid., 65). Moreover, the idea that everything is retrievable is often undermined by the limited accessibility of state archives: governments consider archives able to contest the legitimation of power, and thus restrict admission (Weitin and Wolf 2012, 9). As such, the information travels from the archive to the online forum, becoming a digital artifact. Similarly, photographic collections are transformed as users add watermarks, crop images, and put them in new surrounding contexts. Such processes of sharing have a strong influence on collective memory: Erll and Rigney (2009, 3) demonstrate that only when media of memory enter the public arena through remediation, they can become 91

See comment 27 in “Manila in ruins 1945”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? p=1447140#p1447140 (last accessed February 28, 2021). 92 See comment 29 in “Manila in ruins 1945”: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php? p=1485484#p1485484 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

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part of collective memory. The archival component is especially interesting in the context of an online resource: usually, new media are considered inadequate as archival instruments. Users of both clusters are engaging in remediation processes of archival data, yet they have slightly different target audiences: while members of cluster 2 are facilitating access to books that are probably difficult to purchase but still readable, the brokers among users of cluster 8 provide access to archives and information that otherwise would not be reachable for the predominantly Western, English-speaking forum community. Hence, while cluster 2 members engage in remediation only, those of cluster 8 work against another type of forgetting in providing access to translations and local archives: the “structural amnesia” (Connerton 2008, 64) of the Western collective memory of World War II.

6.3

Conclusion

In this chapter several levels of analysis have been consolidated. The network partition into clusters (Chapter 4) that was followed by a topic model (Chapter 5) was enriched by insights from contrastive stylometric analysis and close reading of threads. A bimodal network model was used to navigate each cluster’s discussions, whereby specific attention was paid to the maximal core, groups of structurally equivalent threads within the cluster, and the nodes with the highest degree centrality. Using these instruments, I was able to divide the clusters into three groups: empirical practices of memory; conversational practices of memory; and, conservational practices of memory (Figure 6.9.). This division into types of mnemonic practices helps capture the most distinctive discussion categories of each cluster. In the respective descriptions of the latter, I explained why that trait was chosen as the determining one. Subsequently, these categories were interpreted from the point of view of collective memory. Empirical practices of memory: Recap Clusters 0, 7, 6, and 5 represent empirical practices of memory. The users of these clusters engage in exchanges about memorial objects and sites of memory. Clusters 0 and 7 comprise collectors of different kinds. In cluster 0, memorial objects are exchanged in situations where owners and collectors both consider the memorial objects valuable. In cluster 7, there are asymmetrical value assignments, whereby collectors consider the objects to have worth but their owners do not. The difference between these value systems is rooted in the different roles that World War II has in respective regions: cluster 7 members mention on several

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Sites of Memory

Memorial Objects

Empirical Practices of Memory

Conversational Practices of Memory

Cluster 0: Artifact Collection— Symmetric Value Assignment Cluster 7: Artifact Collection— Asymmetric Value Assignment

Cluster 5: Berghof (Obersalzberg) as a Place of Commemoration Multidirectional Memory

Memory and History Cluster 3: Detailed Military Strategy Discussions

Cluster 6: Bunkers as Memorial Spaces

Cluster 9: Executions in the Third Reich

National Memory

Cluster 1: Polemical Cluster 4: Winter Discussions and and Continuation non-WWII talk Wars

Image Experience Embodiment

Secondary Sources Books

Rising emotional valence?

Conservational Practices of Memory

Counterpublic Memory

Transnational Access

Cluster 2: Archives of SS-functionaries

Cluster 8: Pacific Theater and Records of the Sino-Japanese War

s o u r c e s

Primary Sources Documents

Figure 6.9 Summary of practices of memory present on AHF

occasions that many of them are situated in the Balkan Peninsula, where the collective memory of World War II embraces notions of collaboration, violence, and subsequent totalitarian governments instead of a more widespread “good war” narrative. Reference to a specific region or location rarely comes up in cluster 0. Clusters 5 and 6 are engaging with sites of memory, whereby cluster 5 members focus on places of commemoration connected to National Socialist officials. Hitler’s former residence, Berghof (Obersalzberg), is the central commemoration site here. Users report on their visits there, showcasing their reactions to the memorial landscape that they recognize in the German town. The focus on Hitler’s personality, childhood, and the places he inhabited appear decontextualizing despite providing more information. Members of cluster 6 stand out because they predominantly engage in discussions about bunkers of the Atlantic Wall. In that cluster’s discussions, bunkers are viewed as alien, interchangeable spaces. Users review bunker typologies and functions, and exchange reports on their visits. The meaning users of cluster 6 assign to the latter is not verbally expressed. Most often, discussions of empirical practices of memory revolve around visual material, including photographs, drawings, and maps. These depict collectible items, bunkers, or notable interiors. A second important source of knowledge is personal experience: firing a historical gun, seeing an artifact up close, or visiting a place are events all shared with other users. Members of this group use the forum resources to find out more about the objects or sites of

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memory that interest them, and simultaneously they encounter a community that appreciates their journeys and militaria. The interest in objects or sites of memory transcends national frameworks, and in the cases of clusters 6 and 7 possesses a regional component to it. Commemorative practices are addressed differently across clusters within the group of empirical practices. In those clusters centered on memorial objects, the latter’s provenance is sometimes briefly mentioned and, in several cases, the object turns out to be a family relic. In clusters dedicated to sites of memory, no similarities were discovered. Within cluster 6, where bunkers are explored as memorial spaces, no instances of commemoration were found. However among the 50 selected discussions of cluster 5, several threads contain references to the life stories of users’ family members during the war: members’ receptivity to the past catalyzed discussions of family memories. Stylometric analysis demonstrated many usernames among the preferred words in all clusters of this group, suggesting that their members constitute online communities of users who address each other frequently. Cluster 0 also contains many community-building threads, while lists of avoided words contain ones connected to military-speak. De Nardi’s (2014) suggestion that the focus on objects leads to a more inclusive historical narrative might be valid, even though decontextualization and the suppression of certain critical aspects of World War II history are very prominent within this group of clusters. Sturken demonstrated similar findings in her research on historical tourism, showing that individuals who travel to traumatic historical places and consume objects connected to them do so to process their emotional reaction to these events (Sturken 2007, 12–13); however, this behavior does not necessarily imply historical or political contextualization of the events. Conversational practices of memory: Recap Clusters 3, 9, 1, and 4 were subsumed as conversational practices of memory. The users grouped together according to these practices discuss historical facts and figures of memory. Clusters 3 and 9 demonstrate the greatest factual knowledge and the most thorough engagement with historical sources on World War II. While cluster 3 reveals extensive historical knowledge on all issues connected to the Western theater of World War II, including the Holocaust, cluster 9 focuses on execution procedures and devices. For the latter cluster, there is one main constitutive thread. The type of historiography that discussions aspire to is scientistic rather than commemorative. Coincidentally, instances of commemoration of specific events are absent in these clusters.

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Users of cluster 1 are less interested in multifaceted research, and their attention seems scattered across various topics unrelated to World War II—including modern US politics. They perform commemorative practices vis-à-vis other AHF members or share personal experiences of grief. In the interpretation of cluster 1 discussions, the metadata had a large role to play because most posts of the cluster were written in the aftermath of 9/11. I suggest that some members of this cluster were motivated to express an interest in World War II because of the chosen rhetoric of the George W. Bush administration, who used analogies to that particular conflict when announcing their own “war on terror.” Cluster 4 demonstrates a focus on the Winter and Continuation Wars. Finnish users engage in discussions on figures of memory and appear to be divided between scientistic and commemorative historians. In many cases, the latter exhibit a tendency toward indulging the neopatriotic turn in Finnish collective memory. Commemorative practices are often present, and reference Finland’s national memory. Compared to the previous group of users who obtained information from AHF about particular objects or places, the exchange itself is the main reason users participate in conversational practices of memory. The principal sources for their World War II knowledge are secondary ones, such as related literature or cinematic productions. Users engage in detailed discussions on sources too. These conversational practices of memory demonstrate that the focus on military-strategy discussions is not distributed equally across all clusters. According to the contrastive stylometric analysis, only clusters 3 and 4 contain instances of military-speak among their preferred words. Moreover, with the exception of clusters 3, 1 and 8, all others avoid using terms pertaining to military strategy. Therefore, despite the initial assumption based on the topic modeling results, it can be concluded that military-speak is by no means ubiquitous across AHF. It should, however, be noted that those who do use military-speak engage in the most long-winded discussions on the forum. Conservational practices of memory: Recap Finally, clusters 2 and 8 represent conservational practices of memory. In cluster 2, users are focused on biographical information research regarding German military personnel, presenting it in a formalized manner. Thereby, they create an accessible counterpublic archive of the German armed forces. Although this information has already long been published, members of cluster 2 use AHF to access the sources of other cluster members. Members of cluster 8 also engage in the exchange of biographical information, but their focus is, among other things, on soldiers of the Japanese Army. The key actors of cluster 8 fulfill the role

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of knowledge-brokers by accessing archives in other languages than English and translating information for other interested users. One of the main sources underpinning these conservational practices of memory is the primary documents that are discussed and deciphered within the various discussions. A further one is the photographs shared by several users possessing extensive collections thereof. The photos are scanned and uploaded to AHF, thereby being remediated and transformed into digital artifacts. In their classical volume, Bolter and Grusin (1999, 70–71) established that remediation oscillates on a scale between perceptions of immediacy and hypermediacy. The former designates a situation in which the spectator perceives a medium to be nonexistent, and has the impression that an authentic experience is taking place. With hypermediacy, meanwhile, the spectator understands that what is before them is a medium and knows that the experience of it is an authentic one. It is improbable that AHF users who visit the photo threads perceive the black-and-white wartime photographs as immediate or immersive and feel transported to the depicted time and place. However if one considers that, in this case, the authentic experience is not the wartime situation, but the social situation in which commemorative practices are performed by contemplating wartime photos, AHF could itself be located closer to the pole of immediacy.

7

Conclusions

Coming together to commemorate impactful historical events is a common identity-building practice. Doing so on social networking sites transforms these rituals by making them available to wider audiences and by altering their situatedness in time and place. Because online communities are often considered to be platform-bound, it is rarely reflected upon how a single website can accomodate several different groups and become a platform for a variety of mnemonic practices. The current work focused on the Axis History Forum, a transnational online forum and community of more than 70,000 registered users and over two million posts about the history of the Axis Powers and World War II. Findings demonstrated three major types of mnemonic practices to be present on AHF: empirical, conversational, and conservational. More granular definitions of such practices could be developed within this framework. a. Summary First, I highlighted the problems that Memory Studies scholars have previously experienced with classical collective memory theories during their attempts to apply these to online memory artifacts. I mainly focused on Jan Assmann’s (2005) dichotomy of cultural and communicative memory and John Bodnar’s (1994) vernacular and official memory. I argued that the difficulty encountered in applying these theories might arise from the new levels of the public sphere that emerge online. In studies dedicated to digital memory specifically, Andrew Hoskins (2018) observed the birth of the “multitude”—a clustered social formation that occupies a level between the individual and the collective. Similar findings are reported in Internet Studies: mechanisms of social homophily in online networks lead to the emergence of closely knit communities based on similar practices, beliefs, or discussions of comparable emotional valence.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature 2023 A. Glawion, Remembering World War II, Digitale Literaturwissenschaft, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66708-8_7

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A further foundational framework was the so-called transnational turn in Memory Studies (De Cesari and Rigney 2014a) that has been observed over the past two decades and counting. This theoretical development focuses on the dynamic component of collective memory and its movement across and beyond national borders. Due to the actions of different carriers of transnational memory, such as individuals, transnational media, and supranational organizations (A. Assmann and Conrad 2010), national memories are contested and transformed. Social-networking sites play a critical role in this process as carriers of transnationality, constituting bottom-up, transnational memory platforms. I argued that taking a mixed-methods approach would grant insight into the formation of the multitudes found on social networking sites, opening up new possibilities for the analysis of memory reception. The main focus was placed on organically emerging user interactions, which in the context of AHF were interpreted as mnemonic practices. Contrary to existing research on online forums that primarily considers them collections of texts, the current work examined AHF as an artifact, a system of user relations, a text corpus, and as a collection of discussion threads. The forum as artifact was explored in Chapter 3. This perspective included addressing AHF’s position within a plethora of other bottom-up grassroots projects and the history of the forum’s creation, alongside taking a glance at its visual elements, community rules, and structure too. AHF is embedded in a network of websites dedicated to World War II, ones similar in their schematic information organization—evoking associations with database structures. Based on Nancy Katherine Hayles’s (2012) claim of the inclusiveness of databases, I interpreted such projects as the desire for a transnational perspective on World War II. Bottom-up platform creators accumulated data connected to different national histories; then, in the discussions on AHF, they attempted to incorporate that information into transnational interpretations of World War II episodes. Throughout its existence AHF has absorbed several other platforms due to its team of administrators and an engaging userbase. The analysis of the stylistic elements of AHF demonstrated that in using a number of visual elements from the Third Reich, the forum provided an initial impression of being open to Nazi sympathizers; nevertheless, strict rules have been enacted by the site’s administrators to neutralize Neo-Nazism and Holocaust denial. This governance strategy serves to attract a greater number of individuals and ensure ongoing discussions. The forum structure revealed a strong focus on the Axis Powers and showed that each thematic subforum sees a different number of engaged users and posts: informal discussions in the subforum “The Lounge” turned out to be the most

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prolific, followed by discussions on Axis personnel, on war crimes, and on equipment. Users provide metadata sparsely, yet it could be concluded that many of them were located in the United States and other English-speaking countries, while a large proportion thereof were based in Europe too. The “Introduce Yourself” thread showed that users were engaging with the events of World War II with the help of a variety of sources, using their own experiences, reading academic literature, by traveling, and in combining family histories with national memories. Chapter 4 demonstrated the meticulous web scraping process and showed the network of user relations of AHF, in which a connection between two users had been drawn if they had both commented on the same threads. Then, the modularity clustering algorithm was applied to the network, dividing it into 14 clusters. Four of these clusters were too small to be comparable, as they consisted of single interactions only. Subsequent analyses would focus on the other ten clusters, which incorporated broader user groups. The chapter closed with an overview of the posting timeframe and the aggregated locations of each cluster’s users. Chapter 5 described which forum contributions by users were included in the corpora of each cluster and presented the application of topic modeling to those corpora. The analysis of the topic modeling diagnostics led to a number of insights regarding the model in general. For example, the examination of low-exclusivity words demonstrated that one of the most connective communicative practices is engaging in discussions on measurable elements of battle that I labeled “military-speak”. The most evenly distributed topics referenced online discussions, visual materials, and research practices. This provided grounds to suggest a broad spectrum of discussion complexity levels existing across AHF. After an overview of topic categories, the topic modeling output was visualized in the form of a term-overlap network. The document-frequency matrix of the topic model was used to assign topics to clusters, uncovering the fact that most cluster corpora were also thematically coherent. In Chapter 6 the forum discussions were brought under close scrutiny. For that, a specific set of methods was proposed. First, 50 threads were selected from each cluster, read, and then categorized. Second, a bimodal network model of the cluster was created. This enabled navigation of the discussions in a cluster, and the determination of those connected to most other users (via the maximal core feature) as well as groups of nodes with similar positions in the network (via the structural equivalence property). A contrastive stylometric analysis, which determines preferred and avoided words in collections of texts, provided insight into

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the themes that a given cluster was (un)likely to engage in. Based on the output of these analyses, the clusters were grouped into the earlier-mentioned three categories: empirical practices of memory; conversational practices of memory; and, conservational practices of memory (Figure 7.1.).

Sites of Memory

Memorial Objects

Empirical Practices of Memory

Conversational Practices of Memory

Cluster 0: Artifact Collection— Symmetric Value Assignment Cluster 7: Artifact Collection— Asymmetric Value Assignment

Cluster 5: Berghof (Obersalzberg) as a Place of Commemoration Multidirectional Memory

Memory and History Cluster 3: Detailed Military Strategy Discussions

Cluster 6: Bunkers as Memorial Spaces

Cluster 9: Executions in the Third Reich

National Memory

Cluster 1: Polemical Cluster 4: Winter Discussions and and Continuation non-WWII talk Wars

Image Experience Embodiment

Secondary Sources Books

Rising emotional valence?

Conservational Practices of Memory

Counterpublic Memory

Transnational Access

Cluster 2: Archives of SS-functionaries

Cluster 8: Pacific Theater and Records of the Sino-Japanese War

s o u r c e s

Primary Sources Documents

Figure 7.1 Practices of memory on AHF

Empirical practices of memory (clusters 0, 7, 5, 6) focused on memorial objects and sites of memory. In clusters 0 and 7, users were engaging in artifact collection. Users of cluster 0 were collecting white arms and badges, being in a condition that led both the collector and the initial owner of these objects to consider them valuable (symmetrical value assignment). Members of this cluster used AHF for price assessment and authenticity identification. Users of cluster 7 were interested in all kinds of artifacts too, but were contrariwise in situations of asymmetrical value assignment: they reported that owners did not consider the objects valuable despite the interest in them from the collector’s side at least. These members used AHF to showcase their collections and consult other collectors in similar situations about strategies for obtaining more such objects. The reason for the different value assignments lies in the varying meanings that result from respective national memory narratives: some of cluster 7’s collectors were located in Croatia and Slovenia, where the collective memory of World War II did not translate into the memorial objects having perceived monetary value. In both cases, users were interested in the memorial objects without having participated

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in World War II and thus were obtaining prosthetic memories of events they did not themselves experience. Only when mentioning an object’s provenance did cluster members offer the occasional connection to their own family history, but without elaboration. Both clusters exhibited interest in practices connected to embodied memories as well: firing historical guns, collecting and wearing erstwhile uniforms, shaving with supposedly authentic products of yesteryear. The concept of embodiment was also crucial for clusters 6 and 5, which referenced sites of memory. Hereby, members of cluster 6 focused on visits to bunkers of the Atlantic Wall, engaging in discussions on bunker typologies and functions. Users were often part of local historical initiatives and approached bunkers as interchangeable memorial spaces without considering each’s particular history. Members of cluster 5, on the other hand, had a specific focus: they were primarily interested in Adolf Hitler’s residence in Berghof (Obersalzberg), exchanging personal impressions of the site. A general focus on interiors and places inhabited by Hitler, as well as his biography, was detected within this cluster. In both cases, there was no political contextualization of the sites of memory; users discussed the technicalities of the buildings, the functions of the architectural objects, and the materials that they were made of. Members of cluster 5 expressed the meanings they ascribed to these places, whereas those of cluster 6 did not verbalize what the intentions behind their bunker visits were. Additionally, members of cluster 5 engaged in several discussions connected to the commemoration of family members, while those of cluster 6 were not found to participate in commemoration at all. Overall, the members of this latter cluster engaged with World War II based on personal embodied experiences instead. Conversational practices of memory were discovered in clusters 3, 9, 1, and 4. Here, users discussed figures of memory and historical facts. The clusters are listed according to the likelihood of emotionally charged conversations playing out: cluster 3 saw mostly neutral, fact-oriented discussions on military history and war crimes with references to academic literature. Cluster 9 contained several expressions of pity and dismay due to its primary focus on execution practices and devices. Meanwhile, cluster 1 consisted of polemical discussions and many informal interactions unrelated to World War II per se: for example, its users were eager to engage in rankings of armies and dictators. At the same time, the commemoration practices found in this cluster were aimed at losses outside of the World War II context: users mentioned personal sources of grief and the passing of forum members. Its high percentage of US users, short timeframe, and the fact that people naturally assumed that other discussion participants are located in the US led to the assumption that these interactions present instances of a multidirectional

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connection between the memory of World War II and ultraconservative reactions to the “war on terror” facilitated by the discursive parallels set in motion by the George W. Bush administration early in the new millennium. Finally, cluster 4 had a strong focus on national memory of the Winter and Continuation Wars, whereby several discussions could be attributed to the neopatriotic turn in Finnish collective memory that emerged in the 1990-s. Commemoration in this cluster was performed in relation to battles and national heroes. Often, emotional responses were found to occur—the different interpretations of the two wars in Finland and the Soviet Union / the Russian Federation influenced the theme’s conflict potential. Users engaging in conversational practices were obtaining information from secondary sources of varying historical accuracy: books or movies about World War II. Lastly, conservational practices were represented by clusters 2 and 8. In both cases, users were granting access to the sources at their disposal following specific information requests. Cluster 2 users were almost exclusively focusing on the exchange of formal biographical data on SS officials. Discussions in cluster 8 were more varied meanwhile, but many demonstrated interactions with knowledge-brokers who had access to archived information in languages inaccessible to those placing the request. Most often the latter concerned the Pacific Front and Japanese archives, therefore expanding the transnational system of sources accessible to interested groups of AHF users. The main subject of discussion in cluster 8 was thus archival documents. b. Interpretation This book aimed to tackle three research questions. The first concerned the position of AHF within numerous resources dedicated to the Axis Powers and World War II. The exploration of the forum as artifact demonstrated that compared to other bottom-up projects, AHF has worked out a successful strategy for ensuring ongoing discussions take place: visual signals ambiguously reference the Third Reich, but are combined with a formally declared position against Neo-Nazism and Holocaust denial in the community guidelines. A team of moderators is designated to ban users whenever they disregard said guidelines. The examination of AHF threads showed that on a number of occasions the notion of “serious researchers” was expressed by the team of administrators, underlining that academic discourse is favored on the forum. The second research question was about the groups that users form through their interactions, while the third addressed what the overarching themes represented in the discussions occurring within these groups are. For these research

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questions, I developed a combination of methods that helped to outline different ways of engaging with World War II on AHF. The work illuminated the understudied phenomenon of online practices of transnational memory by bringing together computational and hermeneutic methods of research. Because only a fraction of discussions could be read, it was especially important that the methods aid the discussion selection process—thus serving to choose the most important threads. The computational methods used in this study—network analysis, topic modeling, contrastive stylometric analysis—complemented each other by identifying mutual blindspots and enabling the adjustment of discussion selection for close reading accordingly. The example of cluster 3 demonstrates that: the 50 randomly selected discussions of the cluster did not incorporate any threads on war crimes. However, the comparison to the topic modeling output revealed that this sizable thematic subcategory had been overlooked. Thereupon, several large groups of structurally equivalent discussions on war crimes were brought to light and subsequently taken into consideration. Further, when military-speak appeared to be extraordinarily widespread according to the topic modeling output, stylometric analysis showed that it was primarily concentrated in discussions of clusters 3 (the largest cluster), 1, and 8; most of the other clusters avoided words connected to discussions on military strategy meanwhile. Therefore it can be concluded that the data-driven, evidence-based approach to the study of mnemonic practices on AHF is vital for the examination of naturally emergent user interactions. Mixedmethods approaches can thus be fruitfully implemented in the navigation of large datasets in Memory Studies and beyond. Second, the findings demonstrated that said discipline would benefit immensely from the adoption of new approaches to practices of digital memory. Overall, the discoveries were in line with mnemonic practices that had previously been identified elsewhere: The group of empirical practices of memory echoed Marita Sturken’s (2007) research about “tourists of history,” people who use personal experiences of places and artifacts to engage with national trauma. The dynamics playing out between history and memory are well-researched by now; as demonstrated in the beginning, Ernst Renan (2011) considered the differentiation between the two vital for the establishment of the nation-state already. Michael Rothberg (2009) discovered multidirectional connections between different memory narratives, variations of which were found within the discussions of cluster 1. Interactions within the framework of national memories, such as the discussions of cluster 4 about the Winter and Continuation Wars, have been studied extensively in Memory Studies. Finally, the archive’s importance as a central

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institution of memory, and the limits of archival access, have also been widely explored. However, all these interactions have not yet been given due consideration in the context of digital memory. So far, studies of the latter have extensively looked at the ways in which individuals use social media to present and curate online identities (Schwartz and Halegoua 2015; van Dijck 2017; Migowski and Fernandes Araújo 2019) or to render accounts of single institutionalized initiatives (Katriel 2011). Online interactions about the past have, at best, been regarded as a separate category of mnemonic practices (Knudsen and Stage 2013; van de Bildt 2017). The findings of this work demonstrate that a variety of mnemonic practices can be performed online however. This includes unexpected ones too: for example, AHF members use the forum to disseminate and archive photographs, thus following the remediatory functions of “circulation” and “storage” laid out vis-à-vis media of memory by Astrid Erll (2005). Especially the latter of the two practices is surprising here, because the different hosting platforms did ultimately not last very long and many pictures are now inaccessible. As expected, it was found that in the online domain traditional mnemonic practices enjoy wider audiences: more archives and sources can be addressed, more people consulted about the appropriate price of a given artifact. The research demonstrated that certain transnational bonds and brokers emerged in some regions (Turkey in World War I; Japan in World War II) but not in others (for example, connections to Russian users were scarce); nationally focused groups were rare (cluster 4—Finland, cluster 1—US). The merits of digital mnemonic practices include the additional communitybuilding effect that comes with them. For example bunker enthusiasts do not explore related sites on their own, but form a transregional community of “bunkerpeople”—and become a subgroup within the online community of AHF users. Users in the Balkan Peninsula connect with one another and plan trips to collect artifacts, and therefore help preserve the latter. Transnational memories emerge, hence, “on the interplay between the familial and the national, the local and the global, the regional and the transregional that occurs when memories circulate and interact ‘multidirectionally’” (Erll and Rigney 2018, 272). The findings are therefore also connective to the appeal of De Cesari and Rigney (2014a, 8) to focus on acts of remembrance that generate new communities (both off- and online). At the same time, despite new communities being forged, World War II is discussed in a rather traditional way: male-oriented, focused on the military, using language that dates back to strategic descriptions of war in the 19th century. AHF reflects practices of memory that exist offline too. Hence, the data reveals three different modes of engaging with the past that emerge in transnational

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spaces—through sharing embodied experiences, through verbal interaction, and through research. Different media formats correspond to these three respective modes of engagement: embodied experiences require places and objects of memory; verbal interactions are connected to secondary sources and interpretations of events; research practices are linked to institutional access and, consequently, language barriers. The results showed that the only clusters with increasing contributions were those referencing sites of memory, supporting Pierre Nora’s (1997d) claim that in periods of transition like the end of a saeculum lieux de memoire become evermore important. Hereby, sites of memory include both related places that are perceived in their historical context and interchangeable memorial spaces. It was also discovered that the second mode of engagement, verbal interaction, bears the most conflict potential, especially if national memory narratives have a role to play in the conversation. National memory narratives can in this context be described as rigid evaluative argumentative positions within a verbal interaction. Regarding the other two modes of engagement, national memory manifested itself differently: in the case of embodied experiences, for example, individuals who only wanted to exchange artifacts of a particular national army did not stand out among other collectors. Meanwhile, research practices worked best if there were individuals available to assume the role of knowledge-brokers. The latter can be understood in different ways: some shared the information from a source in their personal possession, others contacted archives and retrieved information on request. c. Limitations and outlook These findings could, for example, be extrapolated for the prospective planning of transnational memory initiatives both online and offline. Ideally, comparison to other platforms using the same methodological apparatus should be conducted to check whether these results can be generalized. Several other ideas come to mind to advance the understanding of transnational practices of memory in the digital age. In the current work I focused on the detection of mnemonic practices. Over the course of the discussion readings, I came across recurring practices in many clusters, including explicit instances of the commemoration of people and/or events. While they were incorporated into the cluster descriptions, I believe that more extensive examination of commemoration practices and their contexts would yield stimulating results. For this, a keyword-in-context search could be adopted. Further, Ferron and Massa’s (2014) observation that more frequent postings can be observed on the anniversaries of traumatic events is also something that has not been sufficiently explored.

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Theorists of the transnational turn are united by their plea for focus on the dynamics of cultural memory. Within the study here, the posting timeframe of each cluster was partly considered, indicating a shift from non-specialized discussions (cluster 1) over historical ones (cluster 3) to discussions on sites of memory (clusters 5 and 6). However, the changes in the thematic foci of discussions in each cluster over time were not observed—despite the AHF data covering a generous time span. In general, the analysis of trends and the domination of specific themes within different time periods would be extremely enriching. It would also help target the dynamics of memory production better. Further, I believe, the study of connections to other websites might be fruitful: here, the presence of other resources was merely touched upon, despite a multiplatform online presence being the overriding reality of our media engagement. AHF’s development is closely connected to other platforms like: “Axis Biographical research,” which inspired the closely-knit cluster 2 discussions on the biographies of SS functionaries; the Military History Forum that nudged the first discussions into an overall more professionalised direction; and, the “Swedish” forum of Marcus Wendel containing parallel, mirrored discussions in that particular language. AHF also has a multiplatform presence, even though its Facebook page is not particularly active. To explore this multiplatform presence, the implementation of browsing experiments alongwith a think-aloud protocol seems fitting. Moreover, several of the cluster analyses could be improved if the motivations of users were given due consideration. Especially in the cases of bunker visits and biographical research, additional in-depth interviews might provide insight into the meanings assigned to these practices. Finally, several key technical decisions could have been addressed differently and their further exploration might be fruitful. For example, the sample size of the discussions per cluster could have been enlarged to more than 50, which would enable the more detailed categorization of interactions within a given cluster. Second, the discussions within this work were categorized only by the author herself, whereas content analysis requires the work of multiple annotators to ensure that the intersubjective layer of understanding is included in the research too. Third, the analysis of the bimodal networks in Chapter 6 focused on structural equivalence, which is ultimately a restrictive measure. Alternative ones, such as positional similarity or block modeling, could be applied to locate broader

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ranges of similar threads within a network. Fourth, the clustering in Chapter 4 was performed via modularity clustering alone. Different clustering algorithms might have led to other results, and the variation across cluster partitions would be very interesting to analyze.

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