Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of discrimination, physical/emotional abuse, and death.

Nora Krug’s memoir is deeply embedded in the cultural context of postwar Germany, where grappling with the legacy of the Third Reich and the Holocaust remains an ongoing national and personal struggle. The concept of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (Germany’s reckoning with its Nazi past) has shaped generations of Germans who have grown up in the shadow of war crimes they did not commit but cannot ignore. In the decades following World War II, many Germans, especially the older generation, were silent or evasive about the Nazi past, whether out of guilt, shame, fear, or a desire to move on. This silence frustrated and angered the younger generation of Germans (those who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s), who wanted honest reckoning and accountability for the atrocities committed during the Third Reich.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, a complex and ongoing national process of coming to terms with the past occurred in Germany. Much of this process was initiated and undertaken by the US military and other Allied forces, who occupied Germany until 1955. The effort aimed to confront the atrocities committed during the Nazi regime and to prevent future recurrence through legal, social, and educational measures. Germans received long questionnaires asking about their involvement in the array of parties and groups associated with the Nazi ideology, and based on the results, each was labeled either an exonerated person, a follower, a lesser offender, an activist/militarist, or a major offender. Offenders were punished or executed, while followers were fined and surveilled. Exonerated persons were the only ones deemed “innocent,” while followers were considered complacent assistants in the regime. The system had flaws, as it relied on self-proclaimed innocence or on people to be honest enough to admit their associations with the party. As a result, many of those who were former Nazis were never discovered or punished. Denazification remains controversial today, and many see the extreme attempts to instill guilt and punish all those involved as futile and abusive.

The denazification programs that the Allies led immediately after the war removed former Nazis from positions of influence. The Nuremberg Trials (1945-1946), which prosecuted major Nazi leaders for crimes against humanity, represented a landmark in international law. Later, the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials (1963-1965), led by Germans, prosecuted lower-ranking offenders. In addition, Germany passed strict laws banning Holocaust denial and the display of Nazi symbols, making the ban official by adding Section 130 to the German Criminal Code to emphasize how harmful these actions and symbols can be. Germany has paid more than $80 billion in reparations to Holocaust survivors, in property restitution, and to Israel.

Holocaust education is mandatory in German schools, and visits to concentration camps like Dachau and Auschwitz are often integrated into the curriculum. While this process of education can instill undue guilt in young people, it ensures that future generations will consider the ramifications of hatred. Memorials throughout the country are reminders of those who were persecuted, such as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, and Stolpersteine (“stumbling stones”), or brass plaques in sidewalks to honor victims. German art, literature, and media often reflect sentiments of guilt, memory, and identity confusion, as evident in works like Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader and Nora Krug’s Belonging. As Krug points out in her memoir, right-wing extremism is on the rise again in Germany, and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is gaining popularity.