Coping with the Nazi Past: West German Debates on Nazism and Generational Conflict, 1955-1975

Published in Association with the German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C.

Based on careful, intensive research in primary sources, many of these essays break new ground in our understanding of a crucial and tumultuous period. The contributors, drawn from both sides of the Atlantic, offer an in-depth analysis of how the collective memory of Nazism and the Holocaust influenced, and was influenced by, politics and culture in West Germany in the 1960s. The contributions address a wide variety of issues, including prosecution for war crimes, restitution, immigration policy, health policy, reform of the police, German relations with Israel and the United States, nuclear non-proliferation, and, of course, student politics and the New Left protest movement.

Philipp Gassert teaches Modern History at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and is DAAD Visiting Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Alan E. Steinweis is the Rosenberg Professor of Modern European History and Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.