German National Identity After the Holocaust

Wiley, Aug 25, 1999 - History - 248 pages

For over half a century, Germans have lived in the shadow of Auschwitz. Who was responsible for the mass murder of millions of people in the Holocaust: just a small gang of evil men, Hitler and his henchmen; or certain groups within a particular system; or even the whole nation? Could the roots of malignancy be traced far back in German history? Or did the Holocaust have more to do with European modernity? Should Germans live with a legacy of guilt forever? And how, if at all, could an acceptable German national identity be defined?

These questions dogged public debates in both East and West Germany in the long period of division. Both states officially claimed to have "overcome the past" more effectively than the other; both sought to construct new, opposing identities as the "better Germany". But, in different ways, official claims ran at odds with the kaleidoscope of popular collective memories; dissonances, sensitivities and taboos were the order of the day on both sides of the Wall. And in the 1990s, with continued heated debates over past and present, it was clear that inner unity appeared to be no automatic consequence of formal unification.

Drawing on a wide range of material - from landscapes of memory and rituals of commemoration, through private diaries, oral history interviews and public opinion poll surveys, to the speeches of politicians and the writings of professional historians - Fulbrook provides a clear analysis of key controversies, events and patterns of historical and national consciousness in East and West Germany in equal depth.

Arguing against "essentialist" conceptions of the nation, Fulbrook presents a theory of the nation as a constructed community of shared legacy and common destiny, and shows how the conditions for the easy construction of any such identity have been notably lacking in Germany after the Holocaust.

This book will be of interest to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in history, politics, and German and European Studies, as well as established scholars and interested members of the public.

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References from web pages

Book - MARY FULBROOK - German National Identity after the Holocaust
The Polity book catalogue page for MARY FULBROOK, German National Identity after the Holocaust.
www.polity.co.uk/ book.asp?ref=9780745610450

JSTOR: German National Identity after the Holocaust
German National Identity after the Holocaust, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999. Pp. viii, 248. Paper ?14.90. Mary Fulbrook's useful new study explores the ...
links.jstor.org/ sici?sici=0149-7952(200010)23%3A3%3C631%3AGNIATH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0

Full list of modules (The University of Manchester)
Mary Fulbrook, German National Identity after the Holocaust (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999). Bill Niven, Facing the Nazi Past: United Germany and the Legacy ...
courses.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/ undergraduate/ module.html?code=GM3012

Zeithistorische Forschungen 1/2004: Mary Fulbrook, Approaches to ...
German National Identity after the Holocaust (Polity Press, 1999). Historical Theory (Routledge, 2002). Perfectly Ordinary Lives? ...
www.zeithistorische-forschungen.de/ portal/ alias__zeithistorische-forschungen/ lang__de/ tabID__40208147/ DesktopDefault...

Quarterly European History
Mary Fulbrook, German National Identity after the Holocaust,. Cambridge, Polity Press, 1999; ISBN 0�7456�1047�7 hb, 0�7456�. 1045�5 pb; viii + 248 pp.; ...
ehq.sagepub.com/ cgi/ reprint/ 30/ 4/ 595.pdf?ck=nck

David _Marshall.doc
German National Identity after the Holocaust presents an overview of various. forms of commemorations in both Germanys. Fulbrook discusses ...
users.ox.ac.uk/ ~oaces/ conference/ papers/ David_Marshall.pdf

coldwar
Fulbrook, Mary, German National Identity after the Holocaust (Oxford: Polity Press, 1999) Herf, Jeffrey, Divided Memory: the Nazi past in the two Germanys ...
www.nazihistory4students.org.uk/ coldwar.html

Catastrophe and Identity in Post-War German Literature A thesis ...
A thesis. presented to. the faculty of the Department of History. East Tennessee State University. In partial fulfillment ...
etd-submit.etsu.edu/ etd/ theses/ available/ etd-0813105-094447/ unrestricted/ HortonA082905f.pdf

�What came first � Americanism or anti-Americanism
The second definition of national identity, as more clearly defined by Mary Fulbrook in her book German National Identity after the Holocaust, explains the ...
www.kzoo.edu/ pfolio/ archive/ example/ weigandt/ FINAL-SIP.doc

Sind wir Deutschland?
Fulbrook, Mary: German National Identity after the Holocaust, Cambridge, 1999. 7. Weidenfeld, Werner (Hrsg.): Die Identit�t der Deutschen, M�nchen, 1983. ...
www.diplom.de/ db/ diplomarbeiten10697.pdf

About the author (1999)

Mary Fulbrook is Professor of German History, University College London.

Bibliographic information

QR code for German National Identity After the Holocaust

Title	German National Identity After the Holocaust
Author	Mary Fulbrook
Edition	illustrated, reprint
Publisher	Wiley, 1999
ISBN	0745610455, 9780745610450
Length	248 pages
Subjects	History › Modern › 20th Century History / Civilization History / Holocaust History / Modern / 20th Century

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