Dachau concentration camp memorial is just one typical example of the many failures of coming to terms with the NS past during the era Adenauer'

Résumé du document

On 15 September 1949, the conservative Christian Democratic politician Konrad Adenauer was elected to serve as the first Chancellor of the new Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Hence, the Adenauer era started and lasted until 1963. The choice of a conservative Chancellor reinforced the choice of many West Germans to ignore the National Socialist (NS) past in the immediate period after the war. Is the Dachau concentration camp just one typical example of the failures of coming to terms with the NS past during the Adenauer era?

Extraits

[...] So, is Dachau concentration camp just one typical example of the failures of coming to terms with the NS past during the era Adenauer? To answer this question, it is first important to analyze how the FRG decided to come to terms with the Nazi past during the era Adenauer, for then studying how Dachau concentration camp memorial reflected the failures but also the positive initiatives made during the era Adenauer. The FRG tried to come to terms with the NS past because of the need to make amends for crimes committed in Germany's name. [...]

[...] The use and abuses of a Concentration camp, 1933-2001. Cambridge: CUP. Moeller, R.G. (2001). War Stories, the Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany. London, Berkeley: University of California Press Niven, B. (2002). Facing the Nazi past. United Germany and the legacy of the Third Reich. London, New York: Routledge. [...]

[...] However, once more, many Nazi victims were ignored such as the homosexuals, the gypsies, the Eastern Europeans Those repeated neglects showed that reality was far from the aim of making amends for Nazi crimes. The first failure of coming to terms with the Nazi past during the era Adenauer was the failure of denazification. Indeed, “within a few years, Western Allied policy moved from a hard- to a soft-line stance” (Marcuse p.88). In public life, former Nazis came back to their previous status. [...]

[...] Fulbrook, M. (1999). German National Identity after the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity. Kansteiner, W. (2006). In pursuit of German memory: history, television and politics after Auschwitz. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press Marcuse, H. (2001). Legacies of Dachau. [...]

[...] The Dachau concentration camp memorial was initiated by the survivors of the camp. Among them, the ‘Dachau Working Group' (AG Dachau) played a real important role. “Committees were formed to collect material on resistance in the camp, testimony about Nazi criminals, and documents about the administration and organization of the concentration camps” (Marcuse P.242). However, their duty of memory needed to take into account German views. As the site was controlled by German authorities, survivors had to respect German visions. [...]