WARDING OFF HISTORY: IS THIS ONLY A PROBLEM FOR HISTORIANS AND MORALISTS?
Historical treatment of Nazism has moved from positivism to historicism in West Germany, the current historians' debate signaling this shift. This serves the interests of those wishing to build a self-confident German national identity, requiring both an emphasis on the positive aspects of Germ...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
1988
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| In: |
Holocaust and genocide studies
Year: 1988, Volume: 3, Issue: 2, Pages: 137-150 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Historical treatment of Nazism has moved from positivism to historicism in West Germany, the current historians' debate signaling this shift. This serves the interests of those wishing to build a self-confident German national identity, requiring both an emphasis on the positive aspects of German history and a stepping out from under the shadow of Nazism. Such a reinterpretation of the Nazi period argues that Germans have done much penance and have successfully confronted their past. However, many Germans have actually exercised assorted defense mechanisms to ward off the past rather than confront it. Therefore, a historian's contribution to relativizing past events in order to help build national identity is both unwarranted and dangerous. The Nazi period cannot be rendered as merely one of many chapters of German history. |
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| ISSN: | 1476-7937 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Holocaust and genocide studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/hgs/3.2.137 |