European Review, Vol. 11, No.

4, 551572 (2003) Academia Europaea, Printed in the United Kingdom

An inability to mourn? The German Federal Republic and the Nazi past
FRISO WIELENGA Zentrum fur Niederlande-Studien, Universitat Munster, Alter Steinweg 6/7, D-48143 Munster, Germany. E-mail: wielenga@uni-muenster.de

Commonly, the second half of the 1960s is considered to be the period in which Western Germany actually started dealing with its National-Socialist past. The youth of that time is said to have opened the discussion and to have broken taboos by asking the elder generation probing questions and by exposing the careers of former National-Socialists in the politics and society of post-war Germany (the FRG). I make clear that this picture is very one-sided and I also give an overview on the different ways Western Germany coped with this past between 1945 and the end of the 1980s. Of course, these ways differed strongly over the years, but the Third Reich has always remained present in German historical awareness and is branded into German identity for better or for worse.

In 1967, the psychiatrist couple Alexander and Margerete Mitscherlich published Die Unfahigkeit zu trauern, a book about the way in which the German Federal Republic has dealt with its Nazi past since 1945.1 In brief, their diagnosis was that the German population wiped the memories of the crimes committed in the previous years from its collective memory immediately after the 1945 capitulation. The death and discrediting of Hitler who, according to the Mitscherlichs, had been the embodiment of the ego ideal, threatened to plunge them into free fall. A confrontation with the past and the crimes that had come to light in all their grim detail would have led to severe emotional depression. To avoid this, they turned abruptly away from Hitler, the father gure. This rejection of the Fuhrer was accompanied by a feeling that they had been misguided and abused, which gave them the opportunity to see themselves as victims, to avoid the issue of guilt and responsibility, and to put all the blame on Hitler. In this way,
This article is based on my book Schaduwen van de Duitse geschiedenis. De om gang met het nazi- en DDR-verleden in de Bondsrepubliek Duitsland (Amsterdam, 1993), and the more recent German version Schatten deutscher Geschichte. Der Umgang mit dem Nationalsoziahsmus und der DDR-Vergangenheit in der Bundesrepublik (Vierow bei Greifswald, 1995).

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the ties with the past were rigorously severed and a deactualization of a Third Reich that only a short time before had been all too real and had been supported by the majority of the population took place. According to the Mitscherlichs, this denial of their motives and the suppression of their feelings of shame and guilt that accompanied it, required a huge emotional effort and has led to mental immobility. This immobility is not only evidenced by a conservative and apolitical climate, but also by a lack of compassion for the victims.2 Die Unfahigkeit zu trauern has been reprinted many times and its often-quoted title has almost become synonymous with the argument that the West Germans denied and repressed their Nazi past. It is easy to see why the Mitscherlichs theory is popular, since at rst sight it seems to offer a plausible explanation for some aspects of the way in which the West Germans have dealt with the Third Reich. It seems to provide an insight into the desire to bury the past and to offer an explanation for both the conservative political climate of the 1950s, and the adopted victim role after the sudden rejection of Hitler, the father gure. It also provides a seemingly sound argument for the great post-war industriousness, by placing it within the context of denial and repression. However, the theory in Die Unfahigkeit zu trauern has several drawbacks. Tilman Moser, for example, has criticized it from a psychoanalytical point of view. Briey, he argues that the Mitscherlichs mix up various theoretical levels, use the concept of grief where it cannot be applied, and do not provide any practical ideas that might lead to healing.3 Indeed, their outlook did not include healing, which partly explains the tenacity of their theory.4 Apart from these criticisms based on psychoanalytic theory, there is also a crucial historical objection to the approach adopted by the Mitscherlichs: it often clashes with the political and cultural reality since 1945. The reality of the way in which the Nazi past has been dealt with has obviously been painful, but at the same time more capricious and subtle than their general theory of repression and denial suggests. The Issue of Guilt Diese Schandtaten: Eure Schuld! was the caption on a poster distributed in the American-occupied zone in 1945. It showed photographs of Dachau concentration camp as found by the Americans when they liberated it. In the same spirit, the inhabitants of the towns and villages near the concentration camps were forced to attend guided tours of these camps and to face up to the crimes committed there. Such measures were inspired by an initial belief in a German collective guilt, particularly among the American occupying forces. In the light of 1945, such beliefs were reasonable from the Allied perspective, but, equally reasonably, they caused much resentment in Germany.

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The resentment to the Kollektivschuldthese was mainly formulated by those Germans who did not shy away from the post-war debate about guilt and responsibility. Eugen Kogon, a long-term prisoner in Buchenwald and the author of the rst book about the concentration camps to appear after the war, was one of them.5 In the left-wing Catholic monthly Frankfurter Hefte, which he published in cooperation with Walter Dirks from April 1946 onwards, he repeatedly pointed to the counterproductive effect of the collective guilt thesis. Die Shock Politik hat nicht die Krafte des deutschen Gewissens geweckt, he wrote in the rst issue, sondern die Krafte der Abwehr gegen die Beschuldigung, fur die nationalsozial istischen Schandtaten in Bausch und Bogen mitverantwortlich zu sein. Das Ergebnis ist ein Fiasko.6 In more recent literature about the guilt debate this argument has also been repeatedly used.7 However, the question arises of whether a more thoughtful Allied approach would have led to different results. In that case, would the bulk of the German population have been willing and able to participate in an intensive debate? Was this a realistic prospect in the light of the ruins of 1945, the millions of refugees and an insecure future?8 On the other hand, some Germans were certainly involved in a debate about guilt and the causes of National Socialism in the rst years after the war. The press covered the subject extensively; the philosopher Karl Jaspers published Die Schuldfrage in 1946, the Evangelical Church issued the Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis in October 1945, and politicians were drawing lessons from the past.9 Of course, historians were also asking questions about the causes of Die deutsche Katastrophe and Der Irrweg einer Nation.10 Journalists, politicians, some church leaders and scientists, and a fair percentage of the German intellectual elite did not shy away from the issue of guilt and were actively engaged in introspection. In her extensive study of the guilt debate in the German press between 1945 and 1949, Barbro Eberan has even identied eine intensive Auseinandersetzung mit der Schuldfrage, which did not take place in Formelner offenen Debatte als vielmehr monologisch, indirekt und haug auch verschlus selt,11 however. The latter was also true of the Evangelical Churchs admission of guilt in October 1945, which was not without opposition from within its own ranks. In it, the words wir klagen uns an did signify a critical approach to the role of the German people during the Third Reich, but the sufferings of other nations and peoples was only discussed in the abstract.12 In the rst manifestos by the newly established political parties allowed in the various occupied zones there were also references to the crimes of the Nazi regime, but these, too, were mostly abstract. The massacre of the Jews was always indirectly referred to in such phrases as Gift der tierischen Rassenlehre and Volkerverhetzung, which emphasized the need to reject the Rassenkult. The clearest statements were issued by the SPD through its chairman Kurt Schumacher, who had himself been in a concentration camp for nearly the entire period 193345. He not only talked

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openly about the persecution of the Jews and the killing of millions, but on several occasions also advocated a Wiedergutmachung.13 When looking for a common denominator in the debate about the guilt issue in the rst years after the war, it is striking that the Nazi past was mainly discussed in a general and metaphorical sense and that the crimes themselves were usually mentioned only in passing and by means of veiled references. An exception to this was Karl Jasperss contribution. In Die Schuldfrage, which was based on lectures he gave in Heidelberg in the winter of 194546, he distinguished several forms of guilt and thus provided a concrete tool for dealing with the past at both an individual and a collective level. The premise of his lectures was that the German people had experienced the 12-year rule of National Socialism in various ways. To replace the collective guilt idea, Jaspers formulated a differentiated concept of guilt, which he broke up into criminal, political, moral and metaphysical guilt14. Criminal guilt was borne by those who had broken the law. Such individuals should be prosecuted by means of the legal system. Whereas this type of guilt concerned the individual, political guilt was different. It concerned the acts of the political leaders of the state. Since each citizen should be considered responsible for the way in which he or she is governed, this was a case of a common political responsibility. Moral guilt occurred when people could not reconcile their actions with their consciences. All Germans should look into their souls and ask themselves what concessions they had made to the regime. They should not excuse themselves on the grounds of following orders: crimes remained crimes. The nal category of guilt distinguished by Jaspers metaphysical guilt concerned the lack of absolute solidarity among individuals. According to Jaspers, any person who had witnessed injustice and crimes, and thus a breach of solidarity, was guilty in a metaphysical sense, even if this person had tried to prevent the injustice: wenn ich dabei war und wenn ich uberlebe, wo der andere getotet wird, so ist in mir eine Stimme, durch die ich weiss: dass ich noch lebe, ist meine Schuld.15 This guilt was therefore shared by all survivors, and only God could judge them. To Jaspers, this differentiated concept of guilt was more than a response to the Kollektivschuldthese or a philosophical exercise. His goal was social interaction concerning the recent past which should lead to cleansing; in turn, this cleansing was a prerequisite for true political freedom.16 The direct inuence of Jasperss book was limited. Jaspers himself was disappointed with the small number of copies sold and the usually negative reactions. The few letters he received expressing approval sometimes concluded with the remark that nobody the writer knew shared this positive opinion. In 1948, Jaspers accepted a professorship in Basel, the city where he had lived for some time during the Nazi period. The main reason why he left Heidelberg was his disappointment about what he felt to be the insufcient German willingness to confront the past.17 The above shows that during the rst years after the war, a small intellectual

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and political elite addressed the issue of guilt and responsibility from various points of view. Their inuence on the majority of the population was minute, however, and their initiative to start a public debate about the guilt issue was only taken up by a handful of people. This was not so much caused by the counterproductive effect of the Kollektivschuldthese, although this, indeed untenable, thesis did provide many Germans with a welcome excuse for putting aside the guilt issue. The causes for the dismissal of the issue by the vast majority of the population lay elsewhere: in the total defeat, the national paralysis that followed it, and the fear of punishment by the Allies. Added to these were the experiences of ight and exile for the millions of Germans from the East and the daily worries of organizing ones food. Under these circumstances, amidst total confusion, people preferred to look for arguments that absolved them from their association with the regime, and there was no place for a wide debate about the guilt issue. However, this was not a total repression or denial of the past, as the Mitscherlichs had suggested with their phrase Die Unfahigkeit zu trauern. This distinction between a section of the political and intellectual elite and the majority of the population should not lead to the conclusion that the masses simply went about their business. This was not possible because, in various ways their daily lives constantly forced them to confront the past. This did not so much involve the question of how dictatorship, war and genocide had come about, but how sich derartiges nie wiederhole, as the standard phrase soon became. Even the many opponents and victims of the regime were more inclined to draw lessons from the past than to deal with it in depth.18 This notion is conrmed by the fact that the vast majority of the population supported the Nuremberg tribunal where the political and military leaders of Nazi regime (the so-called Hauptkriegsverbrecher) were tried in 194546. When the trial started in December 1945, 70% of the population in the American zone believed the accused to be guilty, in March 1946 the gure was 75%. This number dropped to 52% in August of that year, but when the sentences were pronounced in October 1946, 55% agreed with them, 21% felt the Allied judges had been too mild, and only 9% felt the punishments were too severe.19 In addition (and the signicance of this aspect should not be underestimated), the tribunal also provided detailed information about the German war preparations and the nature and extent of the Nazi crimes. Surveys showed that 70 to 80% of the population in the American zone followed the extensive press coverage of the tribunal and accepted the information provided as true; yes, even as a lesson.20 The historian Peter Steinbach has therefore rightly observed that dieser Aufklarung [war]ein 21 bleibendes Verdienst des Prozesses. This argument can plausibly be countered and Steinbach himself acknowledges this in that many people used the trial against the main culprits to absolve themselves by posing as innocent followers.

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Nevertheless, the trial did contribute signicantly to the discrediting of the Nazi regime in the eyes of the German population. A total of 201 accused faced the Allied judges in the 194546 tribunal and the 12 subsequent Nuremberg Nachfolgeprozesse during which, among others, industrialists, diplomats and physicians were tried. Whereas the Nuremberg trials thus involved only a relatively small group, the denazication involved millions of adult Germans. This denazication did not take the form of criminal charges, but was meant to purge the administrative apparatus, the economy and society in general. However, the criteria for this purge had not been sufciently considered. This was hardly surprising, since nobody had any experience with such a vast problem. When was an individual to be regarded as contaminated, and for which posts? Should a distinction be made between active and responsible Nazis on the one hand and opportunistic fellow travellers on the other? The Americans, who took the lead in the denazication process in the Western zones, were not interested in sophisticated answers to these questions at rst. Their primary objective was the total eradication of Nazi inuences and the prevention of any armed resistance. No matter how just this cause was, its implementation made the denazication of 194546 such a massive and supercial operation that it already bore the seeds of failure in its early stages. The initially very intricate purge conducted mainly by the Americans, the massive scale of the purge even after the proclamation of the so-called Befreiungsgesetz in 1946, and the inequality of rights between the zones (and even within zones) had several grave consequences. The rst was the huge number of people who lost their jobs, which meant that in many places the government and the economy could hardly be kept going, let alone built up. The latter was even more galling after the American Foreign Secretary, James F. Byrnes announced a change in the general American policy towards Germany in September 1946. In a speech made in Stuttgart he stated that the punishment of Germany was no longer the central issue, and that Germany should be given opportunities for reconstruction. This policy change would inevitably mean a more lenient denazication. A second disadvantage of the massive denazication and the associated thesis of collective guilt was that it promoted the solidarity between minor and major Nazis. The result was that minor offenders and serious criminals joined forces to resist what they believed to be injustice and arbitrariness on the part of the Allies. Thus, the social basis for the denazication, which had never been very broad, soon became even smaller. It was also criticized by some of the victims of National Socialism. Eugen Kogon who, as we have seen, had already called the Allied policy counterproductive, again formulated strong objections in the Frankfurter Hefte. Naturally, he was in favour of neutralizing and punishing Nazis, but he also considered the future and concluded that the Allied policy did not further the

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development of democracy in Germany. Man kann sie nur toten oder gewinnen, he wrote in July 1947 about the large number of people who had supported Hitler, and continued: toten kommt hierzulande nicht in Frage. Also muss man sie gewinnen. Man muss beweisen, dass Demokratie besser ist. According to Kogon, such evidence was not produced by the Allied denazication policy because it did not sufciently distinguish between minor and major Nazis. This approach, therefore, would not lead to a positive Befreiung of the German nation from National Socialism and militarism, and he was not far wrong in this respect. Kogon did not advocate mercy or forgiveness, but a distinction between those who had been criminals and those who had made a political error of judgement. In brief, Kogons argument was that this was the only way in which the integration of the millions of ex-Nazis into the emerging democracy would have any chance of success. In other words, only in this way could a lasting rejection of National Socialism occur. Kogons correct analysis could not save the denazication. Although by 1947 the Allies had recognized with increasing clarity that the policy was a dead end, they did not make the distinction advocated by Kogon. Instead, in 1948, they moved towards the cancellation of denazication. The growing EastWest conict and the imminent division of Germany, which became very evident in that year, were the motives for this rigorous change of policy. The Western allies were preparing to integrate the future West German state into the West as a full partner; an end to the unpopular denazication followed by rehabilitation tted in with this policy. In 1948, the denazication was ofcially discontinued. The end result was, as Lutz Niethammer concluded, that Sauberung und Rehabilitierung zu ein und demselben Vorgang verschmolzen [waren].23 Many of the persons discharged in 194546 returned to their former positions, which meant that there was a high degree of personal continuity between the German Federal Republic and the Third Reich in the bureaucracy, the diplomatic service, the economy, the legal system, and education.24 It would be erroneous to characterize the development that followed as the failure of denazication as a renazication. First, this continuity mainly involved low-level and middle level ofcials, while at higher levels seriously culpable ex-Nazis did not return to their former key positions (with some exceptions). And in some sectors, shufes had taken place in which the distinction between what were regarded as decent and indecent Nazis had indeed played an important role.25 Secondly, renazication is an incorrect term because the returning ex-Nazis did not engage in dubious political activities but quietly played their roles in the emerging democracy. In the rst years after the war, about half of the population still believed that National Socialism was a good idea that had been badly implemented.26 However, the Hitler regime had so discredited itself through its

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crimes that people were also anxious to dissociate themselves from it. Public displays of sympathy for the Third Reich would soon lead to the suspicion that one had been an indecent Nazi, and the vast majority wished to avoid such suspicions, on political and moral grounds, to promote their career opportunities, or for both reasons. Only a few incorrigibles wanted to revive the Nazi movement. The German population wanted peace, security and reconstruction of the country, not a resurgence of ideologies and politicization. Judged by its original objectives, the denazication failed, and one could almost say had to fail, because the Allies wanted to screen the entire population instead of limiting themselves to a purge of the relatively small top echelon. Although this seemed logical from the 1945 perspective in view of the massive support for National Socialism, it could not be realized because of the economic, administrative and psycho-social consequences. However, this argument is not strong enough to characterize the entire denazication as a asco. Like the Nuremberg processes, the denazication policy contributed to the ongoing discrediting of the Nazi regime. It regularly presented evidence of the criminal nature of the Nazi regime, which everybody could take note of through the press coverage and discuss in everyday conversation. Only the dissemination of such insights could form the basis for a constructive dealing with the past. From a moral point of view, it may seem disappointing that many people initially did not look beyond the distinction between decent and indecent Nazis, but it did mean a step forward on the road towards total rejection of National Socialism. This road becomes clearly visible when one studies the political organization of the democratic Federal Republic, where the central issue was to what extent the millions of decent Nazis would come to identify themselves with this Republic.27 Relative calm The 1950s are usually regarded as being the heyday of the denial and repression of the Nazi past. The debate about guilt, war crimes and denazication held from 1945 to 1948 had faded away; more than in any other period, before or after, all eyes were on the future, a future which was already taking shape in many areas of life. The bombed-out cities were being reconstructed, the high post-war unemployment was melting away and holidays abroad came within the reach of the reunited families. As the fruits of the Wirtschaftswunder became more plentiful, so the past seemed to fade away. Monuments to commemorate Nazi victims that had been erected shortly after the war were being neglected, torn down or replaced by apolitical monuments with inscriptions dedicated to all war victims. In school books, the passages about the crimes of the Third Reich were brief and formulated in general terms, with most of the blame attributed to Hitler so that the large number of other perpetrators need not be mentioned at all or only in

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passing. The Western states, under the leadership of the United States, promoted this development by pressing for German rearmament, pardoning convicted Nazi criminals and welcoming the Federal Republic as an almost equal partner in the Western coalition in 1955. However, although the past was fading away, it was also becoming more concrete. The impact of research conducted by the Institut fur die Erforschung der nationalsozialistischen Zeit, established in Munich in 194950 and shortly afterwards renamed Institut fur Zeitgeschichte, should not be underestimated. Obviously, the Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte published by this Institute did not enjoy a wide readership, but Munich did become a centre of high-quality research which laid a foundation for the future dissemination of knowledge about the Third Reich. The past was also the subject of literary works, almost without exception in the form of a condemnation of the Third Reich. A typical example was the high sales gures for Ernst von Salomons Fragebogen, which on the one hand ridiculed the denazication, but on the other hand voiced a geradezu wutende Distanzierung von nationalsozialistiseher Ideologie und NS-Bewegung, nicht zuletzt von Rassismus und Antisemitismus.28 The Diary of Anne Frank sold 700,000 copies between 1950 and 1958 and, according to the historian Herman Graml, its impact could be compared to that of the Holocaust television series of 1979.29 This conclusion seems too radical, but Graml is right when he points to the important role played by The Diary of Anne Frank in this period.30 In contrast, Erich Maria Remarque had great difculty in nding a publisher for his manuscript of Der Funke Leben, which dealt with Buchenwald concentration camp. The large Swiss publisher Scherz even broke a previously signed contract because they feared attacks on the author and publisher by the German population. When the book nally appeared in 1952 the response was negative and few copies were sold.31 The difference in the reception of the two books is typical of the way in which the Germans in the 1950s dealt with the Third Reich: many preferred a Nichtgenauwissenwollen of the German crimes to a Nichtwahrhabenwollen.32 In The Diary of Anne Frank, the murder of the author always hovers in the background, but this crime, the exemplar for the massacre of millions remains implicit. In contrast, Remarques Der Funke Leben is a very detailed account of the horrors of death and destruction in Buchenwald; moreover, it casts Germans as the principal criminals.33 Man muss beweisen, dass Demokratie besser ist, wrote Kogon in 1947 in his critique of the denazication, and this proof was furnished in the 1950s. The political stability, growing welfare and the return of Germany to the international political scene of the West German state gave its citizens something to hold onto after the collapse of 1945. At the same time, a relative calm descended on the Nazi past. The philosopher Hermann Lubbe characterized this period as a phase of a

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gewisse Stille that had a necessary psycho-social and political function in the development of the democratic Federal Republic. According to Lubbe in 1983, the majority of the population had supported Hitler and identied with the Third Reich: Gegen Ideologie und Politik des Nationalsozialismus musste der neue deutsche Staat eingerichtet werden. Gegen die Mehrheit des Volkes konnte er schwerlich eingerichtet werden.34 Lubbe did not mean that National Socialism would still be able to mobilize millions of people in a post-war Germany. He rightly assumed that this was a thing of the past. What he did mean was that the integration of the millions of ex-Nazis in the democratic Federal Republic could only be realized through a certain degree of public restraint about the Nazi past and by a kommunikatives Beschweigen of both perpetrators and victims. Lubbes thesis was not without its critics. It was alleged that he legitimized what Ralph Giordano called Die zweite Schuld, i.e. the repression and denial of the Nazi past.35 Left-wing critics accused Lubbe of providing West German society with arguments for not only looking back on their assimilation of the Nazi past with great satisfaction but also for ending the debate about this issue and developing a normal historical consciousness. Although these criticisms were sometimes formulated in overly sharp terms, they were not entirely unjustied. One relevant objection to Lubbes thesis is that it allows any criticism of the relative calm of the 1950s to be ignored, because he sees this calm as essential for the development of the Federal Republic. In his interpretation, the actual dealing with the Nazi past, including the debatable aspects, becomes the only conceivable way of dealing with it. What he does not take into account is that in many areas of life different attitudes and different decisions could certainly have been possible. Examples are the almost complete termination of the trials against Nazi criminals in the 1950s, the early release of convicts, the indifference of society towards the victims, the (long) term of ofce (195360) as Minister of Theodor Oberlander, who had been braun, even tiefbraun.36 A nal example that by no means exhausts the list is Hans Globke, who held the post of State Secretary to the Federal Chancellery, and who had written legal commentaries on the Nurembcrg Rassengesetze. However, this objection does not discredit the central issue of Lubbes Integration thesis. In order to become a stable democratic state, the Federal Republic had to rely on the same population that had previously lived in the Third Reich. Quarantining millions of ex-Nazis would have resulted in a breeding ground for resentment, bitterness and Nazi nostalgia. In other words, Von dieser Demokratie konnte man schwerlich erwarten, sie werde die Vergangenheit ihrer Burger als eine standige und heftige Anklage gegen ihre Burger thematisieren.37 Although this may have been less than satisfactory from a moral point of view, and painful to many victims of the Nazi regime in Germany and abroad, there is no question that the integration of former Nazis in the new democratic state was necessary.

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The trials against Nazi criminals had virtually ceased in the relative calm of the 1950s. In the years between 1945 and 1950, some 5000 sentences were imposed in German courts i.e. apart from the Nuremberg trials. By 1955, this number had dwindled to around 20 each year. Early release rather than prosecution tted in with the social climate. The year 1958 witnessed a reversal, however, when during the trial of an Einsatzkommando who had killed at least 4000 Jews in Lithuania, a category of crimes came to light that until then had hardly been prosecuted. The question of how many other crimes were still to be uncovered arose. In the same year, the Ministers of Justice of the Federal States took the initiative to establish the so-called Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aulklarung nationalsozialistischer Gewaltverbrechen in Ludwigsburg to investigate this question. Until 1958, prosecution had essentially been left to chance, and the legal system had only operated against individuals if there had been specic allegations against them. Now this procedure was reversed, as it were, and in certain places a systematic search was initiated for information about certain types of crimes. Because it conducted independent historical and legal research, the zentrale Stelle could do things that the ordinary legal system could not do. It was also very important that for the rst time there was one central ofce where all the information was gathered together. On the basis of the protocols of the Nuremberg trials, scientic literature and other sources, attempts were made to outline Verbrechenskomplexe and the degree of involvement of all individuals who were connected with them. Once a Verbrechenskomplex had been detailed, attempts were made to track down the suspects. If this succeeded, the lawyers from Ludwigsburg, who were not allowed to prosecute the cases themselves, handed the evidence to a public prosecutor with the proper jurisdiction. If the residence of a suspect could not be identied, the material was handed to the Bundesgerichtshof. Many of the latter cases could not be prosecuted38. The establishment of the zentrale Stelle after the relative calm of the 1950s thus marked the onset of a third phase in the prosecution policy, which soon resulted in a rise in the number of convictions. In the period 196165 there were twice as many as in the years 195161.39 In particular, the Auschwitz trial of 196465 drew much attention. It may rightly be said that it is entirely due to the work of the zentrale Stelle that such trials are still being conducted up to the present day. Even the highly critical Ralph Giordano, who summed up the outcome of denazication and criminal prosecution as der grosse Frienden mit den Tatern, referred to the immensen quantitativen Leistung made by the dedicated zentrale Stelle.40 From its inception in 1958, to 1984, it initiated more than 12 000 criminal cases or inquests. In 1991, over 10 000 persons were still the subject of criminal investigations and (in some cases) of trials thanks to the zentrale Sidle.41 The about-turn in 1958 not only led to a more active prosecution policy, it was also part of a gradual change in the political and social climate concerning the

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Nazi past. The relative calm had come to an end. In the 1960s, the Federal Republic would be confronted with the past in a more serious way. Late in 1959, a new shock followed the Einsatzkommando trial in Ulm when, on Christmas Eve, swastikas were chalked on the walls of the rebuilt synagogue in Cologne, and anti-Semitic slogans appeared in other places in the Federal Republic. Chancellor Adenauer tried to play down this unmistakable anti-Semitism by characterizing the perpetrators as scum who should be given a good hiding, but the German and foreign press were not so easily convinced that these had been isolated incidents.42 Up to the end of January 1960, a total of 470 incidents (antiSemitic grafti on buildings, circulation of anti-Semitic pamphlets, etc) were registered. There is evidence that many of these incidents were staged by the East German secret police (the Stasi). Although it would be an exaggeration to attribute all anti-Semitic incidents to the Stasi, it is a fact that the GDR actively helped to discredit the Federal Republic in the eyes of the international community.43 The students were also starting to get restless. Early in 1960, Adenauer addressed 3000 students in Cologne. Some of them noisily demanded the resignation of the above-mentioned Theodor Oberlander, who had continued to voice his pre-war sympathies for the Henlein movement (a Sudeten German National-Socialist organization), even when he was Bundesvertriebenenminister in the 1950s. Of more signicance for the developing transformation of the political and social climate was the kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann from Argentina in 1960 and the subsequent trial in Jerusalem (196162) of this former head of the so-called Judenreferat of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA). The impact of the extensive press coverage can be regarded as a continuation of the effects of the Nuremberg trials in the rst post-war years. The issue was not only the dissemination of information about the bureaucratically organized killing of the European Jews; it also became apparent that many people knew much more about this than they had admitted since 1945.44 In the 1960s, the Third Reich appeared to be not so far away in time as had often seemed to be the case in the false light of the 1950s. To sum up, the image of the 1950s as a period of denial and repression of the Nazi past needs to be qualied. On closer examination, the main feature of this period is the simultaneous existence of several, partly conicting tendencies. A wholesale moral catharsis certainly did not occur, but the past was always present in many areas of life as an anti-identity of the young democracy and formed the basis of a political catharsis.45 Indeed, coping with the Third Reich often seems to have been a half-hearted affair and was seldom characterized by great moral sensitivity. Although the anti-Fascism of the 1950s sometimes appeared helpless, invisible and not without inner conicts, the German population did continue honestly to turn away from National Socialism.46

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Historical consciousness and identity Within the historical consciousness of the student protesters of the 1960s, 1968 appears as a cut-off point in the history of post-war Germany. It was possible to believe that it was the protesting students who eliminated many aspects of the old Federal Republic of the 1950s; a Federal Republic which, according to the same historical consciousness, had completely supplanted the Nazi past. The previous sections have already shown that this is a one-sided and simplied image of the 1950s. As far as coping with the Third Reich is concerned, the cut-off point lies around ten years earlier than the protest generation in their reminiscences have constantly and with a degree of moral recklessness asserted. In literature, too, a new era had begun by the end of the 1950s: the Third Reich was no longer a theme, it had become the theme.47 In 1959, Gunter Grass published Die Blechtrommel. In 1963, Rolf Hochhuths Der Stellvertreter appeared, in which he severely criticized the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church towards the Third Reich. Two years later, to name just three examples, Peter Weiss staged the Auschwitz trial in his play Die Ermittlung. In 1961, the so-called Fischer controversy broke out among historians after Fritz Fischer identied Germany as the guilty party in the outbreak of the Great War in his Griff nach der Weltmacht. He thereby not only broke a taboo, but also raised the issue of the continuity of imperialism in German foreign policy. Other, mostly young, historians participated as experts in the trials against Nazi criminals and published detailed accounts of their studies.48 In other words, the protest movement did not signify the beginning of a trend, but caught up with a development that had already started in the late 1950s. A positive aspect of this development was that young people were no longer satised with the scanty information about the Third Reich that had been imparted to them at school. Their penetrating questions to the older generation broke taboos and criticized the political and social careers of ex-Nazis, and thus contributed to the special character of the generation gap in Germany in the 1960s. Young people, who had no need to confront the issue of personal guilt and responsibility, rebelled against the timidity of a major part of the older generation and acted as catalysts. It should be emphasized that this impulse was not only on the part of the demonstrating students. Many of their generation did not feel at home on the barricades but they, too, developed a political consciousness and an interest in the past. In this lies the importance of the second half of the 1960s; now that the debate was no longer restricted to those who had lived through the Third Reich, new questions arose that many had so far not wanted or dared to ask. One problem was that part of the protest generation lost sight of the continuity between past and present during the heated phase of the protest (196768). On the barricades against the so-called Notstandsgesetze new laws governing the

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powers of the state in times of crisis they set themselves up as the generation that had learnt from the failings of their parents. With little sense of historical proportion, they joined the resistance against this new enabling act (1933) and regarded themselves as a watchful vanguard against advancing anti-democratic and Fascist tendencies. Thus the Nazi past also became an instrument in the battle against the establishment. The resistance to the state was underpinned by neo-Marxist theories of Fascism, which seemed to offer a comprehensive explanation of National Socialism, Western imperialism and the repressive character of the bourgeois democracy. Past, present and future became very clear once this theory had been embraced, but the disadvantage was that it had very little to do with the past and nothing at all to do with the reality of West Germany in the 1960s. In addition, the neo-Marxist Fascism debate in the late 1960s and 1970s, initiated by the student movement, was characterized by a remarkable paradox. On the one hand, the participants put themselves on a higher moral plane by vociferously denouncing their parents attitudes before and after 1945, and on the other hand their theories of Fascism were so abstract that the reality of the Third Reich could be safely kept at arms length. Pointing an accusing nger at monopolist capital did not provide an explanation for the massive support for Hitler, the killing of the Jews and the large number of Nazi criminals. Was not this abstract reasoning based on theories of Fascism although from a radically different starting-point equivalent to the indirect and metaphorical approach to the Nazi past of the 1940s and 1950s? Whatever the case may be, the neo-Marxist Fascism debate eventually petered out within the connes of the intolerant (splinter) organizations of the extreme left, and went completely bankrupt in the terrorist acts of the Rote Armee Fraktion. If the positive and negative aspects are put in the balance, the contribution of the 1960s generation clearly swings to the positive. This generation, unhindered by its own biography, gave a boost to the already increasing moral sensitivity about the Nazi past. What is more important, the need for more openness about the past rested on a much broader social and political basis. The general shift in the way in which people were dealing with the past that had occurred since the 1950s can be witnessed in two characteristic events in 1969. In March of that year Gustav Heinemaun (SPD), who had been a member of the Bekennende Kirche during the Third Reich, was elected Federal President. In the same year, Willy Brandt, a former emigrant, was elected Chancellor. Although many West Germans had regarded Brandt as suspect because of his emigrant past until well into the 1960s, by 1970 many people regarded him and Heinemann for exactly these reasons as representatives of a new and better Germany, a Germany they could identify with. It goes without saying that Heinemann and Brandt did not owe their prominent positions to their past but to their plans for present and future reforms. However, the fact that they had climbed to these positions and that their

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popularity was also based on their past did signify a fundamental change in the politico-cultural climate in West Germany. In the light of the above it is not surprising that it was mainly young people who welcomed this shift. The homage Brandt paid to Nazi victims in the former Warsaw ghetto also expressed their desire for a greater moral sensibility as regards the Nazi past, a sensibility they felt was lacking in many other members of the older generation. In the 1970s and 1980s, this shift in the politico-social assimilation of the Nazi past inuenced many areas of life. The longer time span since 1945 and the publication of new historical sources led to new questions and a broadening of historical research. There was a growing insight that the internal structure of the Nazi regime had not been as rigid and streamlined as had previously been assumed. It now appeared that behind the scenes of this seemingly well-oiled regime, erce power struggles had been taking place, and above all, much improvisation. The left-wing resistance against Hitler also came to light, as did more aspects of daily life under the Nazis. This created a more differentiated perspective on state and society in the Third Reich.49 History lessons at school also changed. Many young teachers made up for what usually had been neglected in the 1950s and 1960s. Pupils were now informed at length about National Socialism. The massacre of the Jews, the many other Nazi crimes, persecution and resistance; the new curricula paid a great deal of attention to the victims of the Third Reich. Paralleling the growing interest in local history among historians, educational projects were set up concerning local circumstances during the Third Reich. In 1982, there was even a so-called Schulerwettbewerb around this theme, with Federal President Carl Carstens (CDU) acting as patron. Pupils in secondary schools throughout the Federal Republic wrote essays about daily life in Nazi Germany as it had been in their village, town or city. This project, which culminated in prizes for the best essays and their subsequent publication, was certainly not without its critics, but it did emphasize the central position now occupied by the Nazi past in history classes. A strong moralizing approach to the Third Reich was a typical trait of most of the generation of teachers of the 1970s and 1980s. In this they differed not only from the older generation but also from part of the younger generation. The strong emphasis on the victims of National Socialism in the historical consciousness of many 68ers and the awareness of the German guilt they displayed were not self-evident to the generation that followed them. Many young people did not feel at ease with the ideas of a generation for whom the debate about the Nazi past had been an aspect of the generation gap of the 1960s. The children of these 68ers saw the Nazi past as the history of their grandparents or great-grandparents, not of their parents. It was not only young people whose perspective shifted in the 1980s. In a comment on his visit to Saudi Arabia in 1981 and the proposed arms sales to that

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country, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt stated that German politics in the 1980s and 1990s should no longer be so overshadowed by the past.50 His successor, Helmut Kohl, explicitly continued this policy of demonstrative normality in foreign policy.51 When visiting Israel in 1984, he spoke about die Gnade der spaten Geburt that would apply to him (he was born in 1930), his contemporaries and later generations. Admittedly, the phrase used by Kohl is correct, since it only points to the fact that his generation (and later ones) were spared the burden of criminal guilt (see Jaspers) simply because of their date of birth and not because they had deserved it.52 However, in Israel, Kohl created the impression that he mit allen Mitteln des Wortes und der Korpersprache .uber eine Hintertur den Ausgang aus der historischen Verantwortung in die tagespolitische Normalitat 53 suchte, in the words of Michael Wolffsohns critical comment. A comparable desire for normality formed the basis of Kohls intention to lay wreaths at the monument at the Bitburg military cemetery together with President Reagan in 1985. A typical characteristic of the 1980s was a strong polarization concerning the way in which the Nazi past should be assimilated. One of the manifestations of this polarization was the so-called Historikerstreit. Although this controversy raged mainly between historians (to which it owes its name), it was not a debate in any scholarly sense of the word: there were no new sources to discuss, it did not lead to new insights into National Socialism and it did not point the way to future research. In retrospect, in 1989 the British historian Richard Evans rightly concluded that the discussion has very little to offer anyone with a serious, scholarly interest in the German past.54 It is therefore not surprising that the controversy was not fought out in scholarly journals but in the media. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published the contributions from the conservative faction and Die Zeit the articles with a left-wing, liberal signature. The actual political, ideological and moral issues of the controversy were hidden behind the question of the historical uniqueness of the massacre of the Jews. What signicance did the Nazi past have for the identity of the Federal Republic 40 years after 1945 and what signicance should be attributed to it? To what extent should the Federal Republic come out of Hitlers shadow 40 years after 1945 and to what extent was this possible? Various conservative historians tried to answer these questions in the afrmative. Ernst Nolte used the excuse that there was a causal link between Stalins Gulag and the genocide of the Jews. Andreas Hillgruber strongly identied himself with the Wehrmacht at the Eastern front during the last stages of the war, and Michael Sturmer wrote pessimistically about the impact of National Socialism on a positive German self-image. In sharp words in 1986, Jurgen Habermas established a connection between these three perspectives. If such revisionism were to become widely accepted, he feared the post-war democratic identity of Germany might be in jeopardy. With this polemic stand he caused the outbreak of the Historikerstreit. This is not the place to discuss this

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polemic in detail. However, in retrospect it can be seen that this kind of dubious revisionism was much less popular than many liberals had feared. A typical example of the way in which West Germans were coping with the Nazi past in the second half of the 1980s was the political and social response to the speech held in the Bundestag by its president Philipp Jenninger on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Reichskristallnacht in November 1988. Peinliche Entgleisung, Jenningers boser Fehltritt, Beschamend: the immedi 56 ate press coverage was almost entirely negative. Jenninger, it was alleged, had shown an understanding of the anti-Semitism of the Nazis and Hitlers popularity. It was also said that he had not sufciently acknowledged the unbearable sufferings of the victims and had been lacking in Betroffenheit. A photograph of Ida Ehre was published all over the world as proof of his inconsiderateness. This Jewish actress had recited a poem by Paul Celan prior to Jenningers speech and had hidden her face in her hands during the rest of the ceremony. The explanation seemed obvious: Ida Ehre was astounded by the faux pas of the Bundestag president. However, she later explained that her own recitation had moved her so much that she had not heard Jenningers words at all. In reality, Jenninger had looked for historically sound explanations for Hitlers huge following and for anti-Semitism without trying to condone, defend or gloss over these issues. He cannot be accused of smoothing over the brown past either, or of trying to create a historical consciousness that was free of these stains: Unsere Vergangenheit wird nicht ruhen, sie wird auch nicht vergehen. The aim of his speech had been to increase insight into that past and to indicate its signicance for the present. Even before the vast majority of the German and foreign press had nailed Jenninger to the wall, all hell had broken loose in the Bundestag. Jutta Oesterle-Schwerin, a Green MP, had interrupted Jenninger early in his speech and had left the auditorium in protest. It was not common knowledge at the time that even before the ceremony had begun she had already stated it was unertraglich that she had to celebrate in the company of MPs who were against a liberalization of Wiedergutmachungsregelungen and other such measures. Her walking out of the Plenarsaal was therefore totally unconnected with the content of Jenningers commemorative speech, but it did create an avalanche: nearly 50 MPs left the auditorium during the speech, thus effectively creating a scandal. The following day Jenninger resigned, under the pressure of public opinion and almost the entire Bundestag. These political and social reactions were typical of the climate that had been created in West Germany, partly by the Historikerstreit. It seemed that the Federal Republic had been split into two, at rst sight irreconcilable, factions; on the one side were the conservative relativists and on the other a united front of true guardians of the burdensome historical legacy. In front of the cameras and in the

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presence of journalists, many politicians stated categorically that they wished to be rated among the latter group. The same could be said about political commentators in relation to their readership. Admittedly, Jenningers speech left much to be desired in a rhetorical sense, and people who had not listened carefully could have interpreted it incorrectly. But why did so few take the trouble to study the text afterwards? Why were so few prepared to defend the Bundestag president on the basis of the content of the speech and to reconsider their initial, far more instinctive response? Jenningers speech was no Entgleisung, and certainly no Symptom of the conservative fad for glossing over National Socialism, as the Frankfurter Rundschau put it in a comment.57 Rather, it was the response that had got on the wrong track, a symptom of a polarized, hypersensitive and often impotent debate about a past that had not been buried properly. Germany seemed to be torn between good and evil by the Historikerstreit and the excitement surrounding Jenningers speech. On the surface it seemed a straightforward clash of attempts to repress and explain away the Nazi past, and a guilt-ridden recollection of that past as part of the German identity. The reality of the 1980s was more varied and differentiated, however. After the relative calm of the 1950s, the breaching of that calm since 1958, and the moralizing impulse of 1968, West Germany was now looking for a new bearing. Naturally, shrill tones could still be heard from time to time and the right came up with dubious historical perspectives. What cannot be denied either is that the urge for normality sometimes appeared strained. Nevertheless, although the debate in this period with its many round-gure anniversaries 50 years after the Machtsubernahme in 1983; 40 years after the end of the war two years later; 50 years after the Reichskristallnacht in 1988, to name just three appeared controversial, it was less alarming than it had often seemed in the heat of battle. Of course, more than 40 years after 1945, people were trying to distance themselves further from the past, and some were undoubtedly trying to nd an emergency exit out of history. But the intensity and orientation of the debate showed that this emergency exit did not exist and that the Nazi past had long since been branded into the German identity, for better or for worse.58

References and Notes

1. A. and M. Mitscherlich (1967) Die Unfahigkeit zu trauern. Grundlagen kollektiven Verhaltens (Munchen). I have used the 14th edition (1982). 2. Ibid., pp. 1343. 3. T. Moser (1992) Vorsicht Beruhrung. UberSexualisierung, Spaltung, NS-Erbe und StasiAngst (Frankfurt a.M), pp. 203ff 4. The Mitscherlichs themselves have not essentially modied their

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5. 6. 7.

8.

9. 10.

11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

19.

20.

diagnosis since 1967 either; cf. the preface to the paperback edition of Unfahigkeit and M. Mitscherlich and B. Burmeister (1993) Wir haben ein Beruhrungstabu. Zwei deutsche Seelen einander fremd geworden (Munchen). E. Kogon (1946) Der SS-Staat. Das System der deutschen Konzentrationslager (Munchen); reprinted many times. E. Kogon (1946) Gericht und Gewissen, in: FrankfurterHefte, 1, No. l, p. 28. cf. A. Grosser (1993) Verbrechen und Erinnerung. Der Genozid im Gedachtnis der Volker (Munchen), p. 104; B. Eberan (1985) Luther? Friedrich der Grosse? Wagner? Nietsche? ?. Wer war an Hitler schuld? Die Debatte um die Schuldfrage 19451949 (Munchen), pp. 42, 204. In this context, J. Foschepoth rightly points to the fact that many people in Germany assumed the role of victim; see J. Foschepoth (1986) Zur deutschen Reaktion auf Niederlage und Besatzung, in: L. Herbst (ed.), Westdeutschland 19451955. Unterwerfung, Kontrolle, Integration (Munchen), pp. 151166. K. Jaspers (1946) Die Schuldfrage. Zur politischen Haftung Deutschlands (Munchen: 1946). I have used the 1987 edition. F. Meinecke (1946) Die deutsche Katastrophe. Berachtungen und Erinnerungen (Wiesbaden); A. Abusch (1946) Der Irrweg einer Nation (Berlin). Eberan, Debatte, pp. 2045. cf. W. Bergmann (1992) Die Reaktion auf den Holocaust in Westdeutschland von 1945 bis 1989, in: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 43(6), p. 333. For the attitudes of both the Protestant and the Roman Catholic churches, cf. also Grosscr, Verbrechen, pp. 127ff cf Bergmann, Reaktion, p. 341. Jaspers, Schuldfrage, p. 17ff; for a clarication of these concepts of guilt, see pp. 3150. Ibid., p. 48 Ibid., pp. 80ff K. Jaspers (1967) Warum ich Deutschland verlassen habe, in: Suddeutsche Zeitung, 19 August; cf. also Jasperss memoirs, K. Jaspers (1967) Schicksal und Wille (Munchen). Grossers remark that Die Schuldfrage caused ein grosses Echo when it appeared in 1946 should therefore be considered incorrect; Grosser, Verbrechen, p. 105. cf. U. Herbert and O. Groehler (1992) Zweierlei Bewaltigung. Vier Beitrage uber den Umgang mit der NS- Vergangenheit in den beiden deutschen Staaten (Hamburg), p. 69. cf. Bergmann, Reaktion, p. 328; 12 of the 24 accused were sentenced to death, three to life imprisonment, six to jail sentences of up to 20 years, and three were acquitted; for the trial itself cf. A. Birke (1989) Nation ohne Haus. Deutschland 19451961 (Berlin), pp. 73ff. cf. P. Steinbach (1983) Nationalsozialistische Gewaltverbrechen in der deutschen Offentlichkeit nach 1945. Einige Bemerkungen, Fragen und Akzente, in: J. Weber and P. Steinbach (eds) Vergangenheits

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Friso Wielenga bewaltigung durch Strafverfahren? NS-Prozesse in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Munchen), p. 17. P. Steinbach (1981) Nationalsozialistische Gewaltverbrechen. Die Diskussion in der deutschen Ofjfentlichkeit (Berlin), p. 26. E. Kogon (1947) Das Recht auf den politischen Irrtum, in: Frankfurter Hefte, 2(7), pp. 6545 L. Niethammer (1982) Die Mitlauferfabrik Die Entnazizierung am Beispiel Bayerns (Berlin), as quoted in: K.-D. Henke (1991) Die Trennung vom Nationalsozialismus. Selbstzerstorung, politische Sauberung, Entnazizierung Strafverfolgung, in: K.-D. Henke and H. Woller (eds), Politische Sauberung in Europa. Die Abrechnung mit Faschismus und Kollaboration nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Munchen), p. 40; for the denazication see also: C. Vollnhals (1991) Entnazizierung. Politische Sauberung undRehabilitierung in den vier Besatzungszonen 19451949 (Munchen). cf. J. Kocka (1979) 1945: Neubeginn oder Restauration? in: C. Stern and H.A. Winkler (eds.), Wendepunkte deutscher Geschichte 18481945 (Frankfurt a.M.), pp. 153154. cf. Henke, Trennung, pp. 58ff. cf. Bergmann, Reaktion, p. 328. For its development cf. F. Wielenga (1994) Stille revolutie en schijnbare normaliteit. De westerse zones en de Bondsrepubliek 19451990, in: J.C. Hess and F. Wielenga (eds.), Duitsland en de democratie 18711990, 2nd edn (Amsterdam), pp. 176218. H. Graml (1990) Die verdrangte Auseinandersetzung mit dem Nationalsozialismus, in: M. Broszat (ed.), Zasuren nach 1945. Essays zur Periodisierung der deutschen Nachkriegsgeschichte (Munchen), p. 176. Ibid. cf. M. Kittel (1993) Die Legende von der zweiten Schuld Vergangenheitsbewaltigung in der AraAdenauer (Berlin/Frankfurt a.M.), pp. 276ff. Th. F. Schneider and T. Westphalen (1992) Reue ist undeutsch. Erich Maria Remarques Der Funke Leben und das Konzentrationslager Buchenwald Katalog zur Ausstellung (Bramsche); for the quotes see p. 21 and p. 153. The terms are borrowed from Norbert Frei, who used them to describe the way in which historians dealt with the Shoah in the 1950s; cf Herbert and Groehler, Bewaltigung, p. 71. When evaluating the difference in the reception of these two books, literary factors should of course also be taken into consideration. H. Lubbe (1983) Der Nationalsozialismus im deutschen Nachkriegsbewusstsein, in: Historische Zeitschrift, Band 236, p. 586 R. Giordano (1987) Die zweite Schuld oder von der Last Deutscher zu sein (Hamburg). As admitted by Adenauer himself (quoted in: H.-P. Schwarz (1991) Adenauer. Der Staatsmann 19521967 (Stuttgart), p. 530). P. Graf Kielmansegg (1989) Lange Schatten. Vom Umgang der

21. 22. 23.

24.

25. 26. 27.

28.

29. 30.

31.

32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

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38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58.

Deutschen mit der nationalsozialistischen Vergangenheit (Berlin), p. 19. cf. Chr. Hoffmann (1992) Stunden Null? Vergangenheitsbewaltigung in Deutschland 19451989 (Bonn), pp. 121ff. cf. Bergmann, Reaktion, p. 236. Giordano, Schuld, pp. 11 and 127. cf. Henke, Trennung, pp. 8283 (note 175). cf. Schwarz, Staatsmann, pp. 528529. cf. U. Brochhagen (1994) Nach Nurnberg. Vergangenheitsbewaltzgung und Westintegration in derAraAdenauer (Hamburg), pp. 276ff for an account of this aspect in the 1960s cf: M. Lemke (1995) Instrumental isierter Antifaschismus und SED-Kampagnepolitik im deutschen Sonderkonikt 19601968, in: J. Danyel (ed.), Die geteilte Vergangenheit. Zum Umgang mit Nationalsozialismus und Widerstandin beiden deutschen Staaten (Berlin), pp. 6186. cf. Steinbach, Gewaltverbrechen, pp. 5153. cf. Kielmansegg, Schatten, p. 70; cf Also K. Sontheimer (1991) Die Ara Adenauer. Grundlegung der Bundesrepublik (Munchen), pp. 175188. cf. Graml, Auseinandersetzung, pp. 172; 180181. M. Wolffsohn (1992) Keine Angst vor Deutschland! (Frankfurt aM/Berlin), p. 115. cf. Herbert and Groehler, Bewaltigung, pp. 7374. cf. I. Kershaw (1993) The Nazi Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, 3rd edn (London). cf. Chr. Meier (1990) VierzigJahre nach Auschwitz. Deutsche Geschichtserinnerung heute (Munchen), p. 58. cf. M. Wolffsohn (1989) Ewige Schuld? 40 Jahre deutsch-judisch-israelische Beziehungen (Munchen), p. 44. The term Gnade der spaten Geburt was coined by Gunter Gaus, a publicist who was the permanent representative of the Federal Republic in the GDR from 1974 to 1981; cf G. Gaus (1986) Die Welt der Westdeutschen. Kritische Betrachtungen (Koln), pp. 72ff. Wolffsohn, Schuld, p. 44. R. J. Evans (1989) In Hitlers Shadow. West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape from the Nazi Past (New York), p. 118. For such an account see (1987) Historikerstreit. Die Dokumentation der Kontroverse um die Einzigartigkeit dcr nationalsozialistischen Judenvernichtung (Munchen); H.-U Wehler (1988) Entsorgung der deutschen Vergangenheit. Ein polemischer Essay zum Historikerstreit (Munchen); Ch. S. Maier (1988) The Unmasterable Past. History, Holocaust, and German National Identity (Cambridge, Mass/London); Evans, Shadow. cf. in extenso A. Laschet and H. Malangre (eds) (1989) Philipp Jenninger. Rede und Reaktion (Aachen/Koblenz). Frankfurter Rundschau, 12 November 1988; quoted in: Laschet and Malangre, Rede, p. 53. cf. Meier, Jahre, p. 60.

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About the Author Friso Wielenga was Associate Professor of Contemporary History and Dutch-German relations at Groningen University, then 19971999 Associate Professor of German contemporary History at Utrecht University. In 1999, he became Director of the Centre of Dutch Studies at Munster University. His books include Schatten deutscher Geschichte Der Umgang mit dem Nationalsozialismus und der DDR-Vergangenheit in der Bundesrepublik (Vierow/Greifswald, 1995) and Vom Feind zum Partner Die Niederlande und Deutschland seit 1945 (Munster, 2000)