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The Guilt of Nations?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Jeffrey K. Olick
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Abstract

“What responsibility do ordinary people bear for atrocities committed in their names? According to modern democratic sensibilities, responsibility is an individual affair. The idea, as in Exodus (20:5), that the sins of the fathers could be delivered unto the third and fourth generations goes against the grain. It seems to be part of the collectivistic thinking that characterizes modernity off its rails, a pre-modern remain that produces outbursts of racism, nationalism, and genocide. That is not to say that we are not interested in accountability for political crimes. International human rights entrepreneurs have pressed for holding dictators accountable and have supported efforts to obtain reparations and other forms of redress. But we are very careful to avoid charges of “collective guilt,” which often sound more like the problem than the solution. We don't want to start a culture war or clash of civilizations!

…In contrast to the Mitscherlichs, Sebald is thus very much a man of his times, free of the older orthodoxies of the West German memory wars. For decades, the politics of memory in West Germany was divided between those who feared “too much” memory and those, like Jung and the Mitscherlichs, who believed Germans needed to work through their (collective) guilt if they were to overcome the symptoms of repression. Sebald does indeed pose a strong ethical and political-cultural imperative to remember, but his lecture was controversial because the lost memory it laments is that of German suffering, which heretofore has been the rallying cry of the extreme right. In this regard, Sebald is only one example of a surprising recent interest in the memory of German suffering from the left…. How legitimate is this new interest in German suffering, previously associated with nationalist revanchism and discreditable positions? The answer depends on the purpose…”

Type
Review Essays
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , September 2003 , pp. 109 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2003

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References

1 Quoted in Taylor, TelfordThe Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir (New YorkKnopf, 1992), p.168Google Scholar.

2 Jung, Carl G After the Catastrophein Essays on Contemporary Events: The Psychology of Nazism trans. R.F.C. Hull (PrincetonPrinceton University Press 1989). P.72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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6 Kaestner, Erich Splitter und Balkenin Splitter und Balken: Publizistik (MunichCarl Hanser Verlag, 1998), p.520Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., p.521Google Scholar.

8 Alexander, Mitscherlich, MargareteThe Inability to Mourn: Principles of Collective Behaviortrans. Beverley R. PlaczekNew YorkGrove Press 1975196723–2428Google Scholar.

9 Sebald, W GOn the Natural History of Destruction trans. Anthea Bell (New YorkRandom House, 2003Google Scholar), p. viii.

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24 Ibid., p. 34. How “tacit” the imposition was, however, is not entirely clear. Alexander Mitscherlich himself is a good example. In 1947, when Mitscherlich published a study of Nazi doctors, he was condemned by colleagues—not themselves tainted with Nazi pasts—as one who was sullying his own nest (Nestbeschmutzer)Google Scholar.

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30 Ibid., p.306Google Scholar.

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