HISTORY AND CURRENT PERCEPTIONS OF GERMANY
577
discussion that socialism is founded on the idea of human rights. Many of
these ideas became implanted. Yes, there were dissidents in the GDR
who were critical on a political level, but as citizens they were loyal.
There are contradictions. You have to realize that certain values are
inculcated in people.
Edith Kurzweil:
Thank you.
Mitchell Ash:
Two small points. Annie Cohen-Solal referred to the
nightmares the French are only now beginning to face. Their own his–
tory under the Nazi period raises a question that refers back to what
Margarete Mitscherlich was speaking about this morning.
It
seems im–
portant to me not to limit our framework to Germany when we think
about coming to terms with the past, with the images that are
suppressed in public discussion. I don't mean to say, "Well, the French
have their problems too, therefore those of the Germans are less serious,"
but that the seriousness of the issues becomes clear through the
comparison.
In
this context a comparative perspective is important,
because otherwise, especially when Germans look only at their own
suppressed past, there's the danger of engaging in a kind of unintended
reverse patriotism, of saying, "We were the best of the worst."
My other point refers to Karola Brede's comment about the func–
tions of the antifascist initiatives in the East German past. We must re–
member that the antifascist mentality in the GDR had a political func–
tion.
It
was not intended to suppress guilt about the Nazi past but
rather to mobilize guilt by ascribing it to East German citizens in order
to help legitimize the power of the SED regime. They were the real an–
tifascists rather than the people of Eastern Germany. The extent to
which East German citizens, after three generations, sincerely have inter–
nalized antifascist values as goals is an interesting question for research. As
to annexation, isn't it a problem when West German pedagogues and
scholars try to tell East German teachers how to teach the Nazi past and
tell East German citizens what they should think about the Nazi past ac–
cording to the pedagogical model of history they have learned to inter–
nalize in Western Germany, without first asking the East Germans? Or
without allowing the East Germans the space to work through these
questions on their own? Isn't this pedagogical approach to the past in–
venting normative frameworks for telling people how they
should
have
had their experiences, instead of asking them what their experiences
were, and proceeding from that?
