Vergangenheitsbewältigung
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Vergangenheitsbewältigung, "struggle to overcome the [negatives of the] past") is a German term describing processes that since the late 20th century have become key in the study of post-1945 German literature, society, and culture.
The German Duden lexicon defines Vergangenheitsbewältigung as "public debate within a country on a problematic period of its recent history—in Germany on National Socialism, in particular"—where "problematic" refers to traumatic events that raise sensitive questions of collective culpability. In Germany, and originally, the term refers to embarrassment about and often remorse for Germans' complicity in the war crimes of the Wehrmacht, Holocaust, and related events of the early and mid-20th century, including World War II. In this sense, the word can refer to the psychic process of denazification. With the absorption into the current Federal Republic of Germany of East Germany since 1989 and the fall of the Soviet Union, Vergangenheitsbewältigung can also refer to coming to terms with the excesses and human rights abuses associated with that former Communist state.
See also
- Functionalism versus intentionalism
- Bottom-up approach of the Holocaust
- Nazi foreign policy debate
- Historiography of Germany
- Historikerstreit
- Sonderweg
- Victim theory, a theory that Austria was a victim of Nazism following the Anschluss
- Transitional justice
- Transitional Justice Institute
- Truth-seeking
- "I Apologize" campaign, a grassroots' initiative in Turkey
