Dresp, T: Living with the Legacy of the Holocaust

Since the early 1980s, there has been a drastic increase in commemorative activities dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust and its victims. This book investigates the influence of the history of the Holocaust and the politics of memory on German democracy and national identity. By evaluating the historiography of the Holocaust, the history of the politics of memory since 1945 and three contemporary case studies during the 1990s ( The Goldhagen Controversy Revisited, The Walser-Bubis Debate, and The National Holocaust Memorial in Berlin ), the nature, functions, effects and political divisions of the politics of Holocaust memory are examined in relation to questions of national self-definition, identity and democracy. It is examined to what degree the political and social responsibility to the legacy of the Holocaust represents a constitutive element of the self-understanding of post-1945 German democracy. This cultural analysis should be useful to students of German history, politics and society or anyone else interested in the history of the Holocaust, historiography or the politics of memory.