Kim, L: We Were Victims Too

Since the end of World War II, the memory of Hitler‘s crimes has followed Germans at every step. At the time of German unification in 1990, the Third Reich could be reduced to the most basic formula: Germans = perpetrators, Jews = victims. Only with the publication in 2002 of Günter Grass‘s novel "Crabwalk" was public attention focused on the fate of millions of Germans expelled from eastern Europe at the end of World War II. Within months, the appearance of another book, "The Fire: The Bombing of Germany," by Jörg Friedrich, questioned the morality and strategic sense of Allied bombing raids that killed more than half a million civilians and razed dozens of cities. This book traces the origins of the recent recognition of German civilian suffering during World War II and examines the debates that accompanied it. What had changed in Germany to make this discussion even possible? Will Germans now line up to take their place in the universal cult of victimhood?