Paul Schwartz
RECENT PUBLIC TRENDS IN
WEST GERMANY
Since last spring West German intellectuals have been
debating the meaning of the Nazi period and its use as historical ex–
ample within contemporary Germany. Conservative historians are
now questioning the singularity of Hitler's crimes and comparing
them to those of Stalin. This trend has been decried as an attempt to
justify the Nazis or at least to qualify their misdeeds. While the flow
of articles shows no signs of abating, the terms of the discussion in
the broader public have already changed. There is a growing will–
ingness to see the Nazi epoch as a chapter in history which has pass–
ed, to publicly declare an end to the need for any feelings of guilt.
There is a feeling that a turning point in German history has been
reached. This change is the background of the debate among the in–
tellectuals.
Helmut Kohl, the Chancellor of West Germany, whose coali–
tion has emerged victorious from the recent national elections, em–
bodies the tendency of part of the German public to claim aloofness
from the Nazi period. This inclination is not merely welcomed but
promoted by the two German conservative parties, the Christian
Democratic Union, which Kohl heads, and the Christian Social
Union. Richard von Weizsacker, the President of West Germany, in
a speech on May 8, 1985 marking the fortieth anniversary of the
capitulation of the German army, took another approach to the past.
He cited a Jewish saying that called remembrance the secret of
redemption . For his efforts, von Weizsacker has come under attack
by members of the two Union parties, who accuse him of impeding
normality. As for the population as a whole, a poll published in April
1986 found that sixty-six percent of the population agreed with the
statement, "Today, forty years after the end of the war, we should no
longer talk so much about the Nazi past, but rather at last put an
end to the discussion." Kohl's own formulation , "the mercy of the
later birth," sums up the feeling of those who belong to the postwar
generation and claim to feel little connection to and no guilt for the
crimes of the Nazis .
One might think that a profession of distance from the Nazi
period would be accompanied by a certain amount of objectivity
