Post War Germany (1945-1995)

By jkestanton

  • Stunde Null (1945-1946)

  • Period: to

    early efforts to address past

    • Karl Jasper's Die Schuldfrage
    • Fredrich Meinecke's Die Deutsche Katastrophe -Newspaper Der Ruf in 1947
    • Gruppe 47: discusses th role of literature after the war

  • Denazification ended

  • Founding of FRG

    Establishing Founding Myths
    -Repression of National Socialist past
  • Period: to

    New Political Identities and Past as Demonization (fault of Hitler)

    -Hitler and select group blamed for atrocities
    - FRG adopts different identities (economic "Wirtschaftwunder), Eurpean, pro-Atlantic)

  • German Rearmament

  • Period: to

    Legal and politicl confrontation with Nazi past

    -Eichmann trial (1961)
    -Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt (1963)

  • Peter Weiss's documentary Die Ermittlung

    Based on Auschwitz trials

  • Rolf Hochhuth's Der Stellvertreter

    -Criticizes the role of the Catholic Church during the war.
  • Period: to

    Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung (mastering the past)

    1967 publication of Die Unfaehigkeit zu trauern (the inability t mounr)

  • 68ers question their parents and founding myths

  • Period: to

    Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung and Ostpolitik

    -Brandt kneeling before memorial
    -Schmidt visiting Auschwitz
  • Period: to

    Kohl and attempts at Normalization

  • Richard von Weizacker speech

    Refers to 8 May 1945 as day of liberation

  • Bitburg Cemetery Controversy

  • Historikerstreit

    Habermas vs. Nolte

  • Phillip Jenninger Speech

  • Fears of Reunification