| Abstract | This article explores ideas of public memory, commemoration and ritual in the commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall at Brandenburg Gate. The article proposes a novel theory of commemoration as interpassive ritual. It brings together accounts of ideology, psychoanalysis and memory. Commemoration is discussed as a moment of intensified public memory in which ideology and the unconscious are deeply embedded. Chief theoretical sources here are Edward S. Casey, Robert Pfaller and Slavoj Žižek. The article explores the role of ideology in commemoration and the potential of subjects to escape subjection through interpassive rituals. In the article’s second half, the historical events of 1989 are recalled in order to understand why a German subject would seek to enjoy a commemoration of the Berlin Wall’s fall.
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