Germans as Victims: Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany

Since the 1960s and certainly the 1980s, Germans have been confronting the Nazi past and the legacy of German perpetration. However, over recent years, Germany has become increasingly preoccupied with German suffering during the war and the post-war period. Arguably, it is no longer the Holocaust that takes centre-stage in the contemporary German culture of memory but the trauma caused by Allied bombing of German cities, and by the expulsion of millions of Germans from eastern Europe at the end of the war.

This thought-provoking and lively collection of essays, by a team of leading scholars in the field, explores current memory trends in Germany. What has triggered this preoccupation with German suffering? How dangerous is it? Is it really new, or have the Germans always tended to empathise more with their own losses than with Nazi victims? Together these essays are an invaluable resource for students and teachers, and are essential reading for all with an interest in how Germans, in the new millennium, are facing up to their past.