Phobia
Every now and then, Germany's past throws the country into deep public debate. Whilst this site is mostly concerned with the present day, front-page news in the media will cause us to address a particularly deep phobia: the Third Reich. So where do we start, the 20's, 30's or maybe the 40's? Let's try the present day and take a look how the topic creates intense discussion and splits this country again and again.
Those that represent the German Angst have a field day over such events as movie releases, demands for exdradition or prosecution of old men or polarising comments of prominent figures in the public eye. Indespicable, scandalous, disrespectful, challenge some well-aimed attacks. At last, long overdue normalisation, old hat and so on, voice other perhaps more modern members of society.
Naturally, looking back over 60 years and facing reality is not necessarily easy as a German. But should anyone under the age of, say, 75, bear any responsibility for the wrongdoing? Or be expected to think that they hold responsibility, as many parents have tought their offspring? Obviously, talking Hitler also means addressing the Holocaust, always a source of ongoing debate. Differentiating between soldiers on the battlefield and makers of mass genocide becomes a necessity and consideration of a whole folk is the result. Many say the responsibility of the generations claiming to define today's Germans, is to permit continuation of the course of modernisation, openness, acceptance of foreigners and change in society begun long ago.
Discussion today is still very often not what German society and Germans themselves may find serious, well-trodden, humorous or light-hearted. It is about what other nations might think of them if, for instance, this historical disaster became an everyday, heaven forbid, humerous topic.
Some claim though, that this shift would help remove the stigma from the extreme right. The search for national pride is ongoing.