Product Description

What has Germany made of its Nazi past? This book explores the legacy of the Nazi regime, exposing the workings of past beliefs and political interests and how differently the two Germanys have recalled the crimes of Nazism, from the anti-Nazi emigration of the 1930s through the establishment of a day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism in 1996. The author asks why would German politicians raise the spectre of the Holocaust at all, in view of the considerable depth of support its instigators and their agenda had found in Nazi Germany. Why did the public memory of Nazi anti-Jewish persecution and the Holocaust emerge, if selectively, in West Germany, yet was repressed and marginalized in "anti-fascist" East Germany? The book aims to answer this question and more, revealing the relationship between how the crimes of Nazism were publicly recalled and how East and West Germany separately evolved a Communist dictatorship and a liberal democracy. The author uses private and public papers and statements of key German figures to explore the subject and to place it within its historical context and the ideologies and experiences of pre-1945 German and European history to the Cold War.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #291033 in Books
• Published on: 1999-03-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Review
As Jeffrey Herf persuasively argues in "Divided Memory", postwar German confrontations with the country's Nazi past have not always been so persistent and widespread, and they certainly have never been as established in official German political discourse as they are today...Herf elucidates the complex dynamics that have shaped the political discourse of national memory to the present. Although his study centers on the first two decades after the war while drawing on prewar history, his probing analysis helps to explain how the stakes of memory have remained so high. As he writes in a brief methodological preface, 'History is the realm of choice and contingency.' The ingeniousness of his account lies in his faithful adherence to this principle. -- Noah Isenberg "The Nation"

Customer Reviews

Interesting Read
Jeffrey Herf provides us with a world class scholarly work on the way in which the FRG and GDR came to terms with their Nazi past. Interesting and thought-provoking, the book is divided (like Germany from 1945-1990) into East and West, with each section runing chronologically. Unlike many academic history books, it is very easy and enjoyable to read. I have found it to be a very useful text detailing an area which many general books on German history pay only lip service to.