Schröder, Walser and the Dialectic of Normality

Abstract

The above quotations sum up two distinguishing features of the national discourse on the Nazi legacy in Germany since 1998. First, the historical narrative is perpetuated by ritual commemoration, memory initiatives, media presentation and debate. Second, whilst the National Socialist past does inevitably enter political discourse, it no longer dominates decisionmaking, which is subject to new challenges and, in the wake of incidences such as the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, new paradigms for evil. This chapter will consider the articulation of these two aspects in the Berlin Republic. It will then give an overview of the problems that may arise when they overlap, using the controversy surrounding Martin Walser’s 1998 Peace Prize acceptance speech as an example.

The debate on the Holocaust period of German history must never come to a complete end and the majority of Germans do not want it to (Gerhard Schröder, speech cited in Handelsblatt, 27 January 2000).

Surely the readiness of a new generation to deal with [the Nazi past], not to forget, also makes it possible to represent one’s own interests in a less restricted way? (Gerhard Schröder, interview in Zeit, 4 February 1999)