Abstract: Ten authors from five countries present a variety of fresh analyses of the strategies Germans have adopted in coping with the Nazi past. Through historical, sociological, educational, and cultural approaches the unresolved tensions existing in German society – between the will to be accepted as an integral part of western civilization and to put the Nazi chapter in general and the Holocaust in particular behind, on the one hand, and an awareness of responsibility combined with recurring, sometimes sudden, manifestations of long-term results and implications of the past, on the other – are analyzed. Through its multifaceted approach, this book contributes to a better understanding of present-day German society and of Germany’s delicate relationships with both the United States and Israel.
Contents: Dan Michman: Introduction – Jeffrey Herf: The Holocaust and the Competition of Memories in Germany, 1945-1999 – Gilad Margalit: Divided Memory? Expressions of a United German Memory – Y. Michal Bodemann: The Uncanny Clatter: The Holocaust in Germany before Its Mass Commemoration – Inge Marszolek: Memory and Amnesia: A Comment on the Lectures by Gilad Margalit and Michal Bodemann – Chris Lorenz: Border-crossings: Some Reflections on the Role of German Historians in Recent Public Debates on Nazi History – Dan Diner: The Irreconcilability of an Event: Integrating the Holocaust into the Narrative of the Century – Michael Brenner: The Changing Role of the Holocaust in the German-Jewish Public Voice – Shlomo Shafir: Constantly Disturbing the German Conscience: The Impact of American Jewry – Yehuda Ben-Avner: Ambivalent Cooperation: The German-Israeli Joint Committee on Schoolbooks – Yfaat Weiss: The Vague Echoes of German Discourse in Israel.
