1961: Germans Begin to Confront their Recent Past

The article shows that by the early 1960s some Germans were making serious attempts to come to terms with their problematic past, including the attempted destruction of European Jews. The context of the 1950s, during which avoidance and forgetting dominated, is noted. Two decisive but very different books, published by Richard Errell and Hannah Vogt in 1961, are analyzed to illustrate the thoroughness with which they exposed the recent past. The attempt by the books' authors to make Germans take responsibility for the misdeeds of the Third Reich is set out. The issue of the degree to which the works were disseminated and publicized is posed but not resolved. Both the reviewed books underscored the need to reassess the past and to keep the memory of the Nazi regime's victims alive. The article acknowledges these seminal studies which, together with other contemporaneous attempts, threw down a gauntlet and challenged the established nationally-centered history accounts that had dominated public awareness until then. The article demonstrates that well before the cultural shift of 1968 an acknowledgement of Nazi horrors was underway.