The Past In the Politics of Divided and Unified Germany

Abstract

The legacies and memories of the past always inform political decisionmaking in the present, but the tumultuous nature of Germany's twentieth-century history has focused considerable attention on the issue of "coming to terms" with the Nazi past (Vergangenheitsbewaltigung). This is a slippery term that encompasses specific attempts to bring Nazi perpetrators to account and seek justice for their victims, as well as a more general effort to face up to and remember the 12-year period of Nazi rule under Adolf Hitler (I933-1945). The highly emotional and morally charged debate about the adequacy of this process has often hindered, and even substituted for sober analysis of the past's role in Germany's postwar politics.