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this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2024
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chapotraphouse
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The absolutely most charitable view is basically that, yes, but they've done so while never, ever truly addressing the underlying and material issues (basically every German institution has been riddled with unpunished Nazis allowed to hold onto their beliefs). But even if one takes that view, it's a strategy that has been pretty disastrous and counter-productive. This excellent article about how supposed Holocaust guilt as a national identity has become a twisted, toxic, and essentially racist tool of exclusion and whiteness is worth a read.
Personally I'm more cynical. I don't see most of Germany's supposed guilt and public awareness raising about the horrors of the Holocaust as much more than an 80 year PR campaign designed to reintegrate themselves with the white powers that were on the other side of the war and avoid being a pariah state. I think that the majority of Germans simply wanted to turn away from the horrors that they shared at least some small blame for and as a result turned a blind eye to the fact that German business, public institutions, and government was still riddled with unpunished, unrepentant fascists. And that those very fascists, with the defacto support of useful liberals as always, worked hard to disguise or rebrand white supremecy for the rest of the 20th century.
The Germans that did the Holocaust didn’t regret anything other than losing the war. The “culture of atonement” is a modern day invention. It’s revisionist history.
Hard agree.
A minor point of clarification: the former FRG allowed Nazis into every institution and basically let former Nazis be full participants in society. The former GDR was much, much more thorough in dealing with Nazis and did not let them anywhere near institutional power and influence.
Oh completely. One of the many reasons the wrong Germany won. I meant the FRG and German state since the wall came down.