Tidying the Dead: Bodies and War Commemoration in Britain and Germany, 1914-2020
An Inaugural Lecture by Professor Tim Grady
The centenary of the First World War also marked a centenary of commemorations. There have now been over 100 years of observed silences, towering war memorials and neatly tended military cemeteries. Aside from the addition of new groups of dead, these practices have evolved very little since their invention in the wake of the First World War. Yet, as this lecture contends, the bodies of the war dead have slowly become disconnected from this wider memory culture. Nowhere is this truer than with the enemy war dead who have been exhumed, moved and then largely ignored, casting a dark shadow over British-German relations as a result.
Lecture will take place at Parkgate Road Campus, Anna Sutton 017, book by emailing events@chester.ac.uk