Die Fünfziger Jahre - eine Herausforderung an Staat und Kirche
In the early years of the 1950s, significant limitations were encountered in Germany in the attempts to develop new concepts of compassion, which could become the core of a new political ethic or a historically-conditioned consciousness, as can be seen in the various memoirs of the time, or in the p...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | German |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
1990
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| In: |
Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte
Year: 1990, Volume: 3, Issue: 2, Pages: 413-439 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | In the early years of the 1950s, significant limitations were encountered in Germany in the attempts to develop new concepts of compassion, which could become the core of a new political ethic or a historically-conditioned consciousness, as can be seen in the various memoirs of the time, or in the political discussions seeking to find a new perspective on contemporary history. This inability to feel compassion was the precondition for the widely-used term „inability to mourn“ and had significant consequences for the political debates about how to come to terms with the far-reaching consequences of the Nazi years in Germany, in Europe and in the world. This could be seen above all in the controversies about the reparations due to the Jews as result of Nazi atrocities. The early years of the 1950s showed that discussions about such issues as guilt, responsibility and shame were initiated only by individuals and only intermittently. As a result, public consciousness and evaluations of these past events and omissions was deficient. No reason exists for a positive appraisal of the debates about coming to terms with the past, even though the numerous successes since the later years of the decade by the various organs of the justice system in bringing Nazi criminals to trial should not be discounted. In the longer perspective, many of these political omissions were to have fateful consequences. Delays in securing the tangible evidence, gross distortions in the verdict reached, and the widespread failure to „purge“ the legal profession, were notable factors. So too, in the universities, there was an evident intellectual refusal to reconsider the past, even though in the 1950s new disciplines were established designed to foster a democratic consciousness, such as contemporary history, political science, political education and sociology. Despite this, the fact remains that the debate over the past, and the pursuit of Nazi criminals, continued for decades after the war to be the endeavour of a few individuals who sought to oppose the tendencies to collective repression and collective self-betrayal. |
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| ISSN: | 2196-808X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte
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