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defensively towards it: it threatens their self-esteem. The ambivalent feel–
ings they harbor towards the self-deception practiced by their parents is a
further source of guilt feelings and self-devaluation. The frequent conse–
quence of this is an insidious and tormenting form of self-hatred which
many young (and not so young) people can free themselves from only by
projecting it onto others - foreigners, Jews, asylum-seekers, and so on.
Of course, we all attempt to suppress our feelings of guilt and shame,
of fear and self-disgust; criminals and their victims cannot go on living
without the partial suppression of such feelings . It is understandable that
subsequent generations should claim that they are not responsible for the
misdeeds perpetrated by their forebears . But emphasizing their own inno–
cence will not protect them from the narcissistic anxiety of being
worthless because they are German. No one can relieve them - or us -
of our historical guilt. This is a good thing. All we achieve by negating
our memories is evasion of the opportunity to learn from the past, cir–
cling blindly around ourselves and our fantasies of grandeur, exposed to
feelings of inferiority and unable to appreciate the real suffering around
us. Both as individuals and as a nation the only way to achieve some–
thing akin to maturity, humanity, and tolerance - towards oneself as
well as others - is to face up to the active challenge that the acceptance
of guilt, mourning, and remembrance represents.
Unless we do so, there can be no liberation from the insidious self–
hatred. And if that self-hatred remains unconfronted, it will be suppressed
and projected onto others in its tum. These mechanisms are still opera–
tive and represent the psychological foundations for the attempts of ju–
veniles in both parts of Germany to revive Hitler and all he stands for,
transforming their self-hatred into xenophobia and enlisting the support
of many fellow-Germans for their depredations.
In many ways, talking of a suppression of the Nazi period and its
heritage had become a euphemism, although the crimes committed in
those years are indeed frequently denied or - even worse - accepted.
Today, nostalgia for the dreadful ideals upheld by the Nazis and the bar–
barity and racism that went with them finds overt expression, in bars, on
the radio and television. Day after day, Nazi skinheads and their right–
wing supporters in the East and West of Germany do their best to act
out their murderous hatred of asylum-seekers and foreigners. Instances of
arson and brutal physical assault have not abated, however Iowa profile
the media may give them. True, other countries in Europe also have
their share of hostility to foreigners. But only in Germany has this hostil–
ity resulted in actual loss oflife.
The official and unofficial efforts undertaken in the FRG over a
number of decades to face up to National Socialism and to the Holo-
