UCSB Hist 133C Prof. Marcuse
GERMAN HISTORY SINCE 1945 Nov. 19, 1998

Lecture 16: Historical Legacies and Political Culture

1. Administrative / Announcements / Preliminary
   • Professor's harangue
   • Journal assignment change: not next Tuesday. Rather: ONLY 2 Entries, due Tue, 1 Dec.
2. The Three Myths revisited

• Ignorance - Alltagsgeschichte (History of everyday life)
  Heinemann, July 1969: "Our own history still needs be clarified in the best interest of the future."
  competitions 1974-79: 1848 revolution, "housing," "leisure time," "the working world"
  TV miniseries "Holocaust," 1979
  1980-81: "Everyday Life under National Socialism before 1939;" 82-82: during the war
  prizewinners
  "forgotten persecutees"
  • Victimization: boomerang effect -- "Heimat" (1984) & Helmut Kohl;
    Bitburg 1985, the "Historians' Controversy," Philipp Jenninger, 9 Nov. 1988
  • Resistance: 1968 and beyond
    • Discussion of "The Nasty Girl"
    • The 1990s: Two memorials for Berlin; Schindler's List; Wehrmacht exhibition, Goldhagen

1. East Germany and the Nazi past: Mythic Resistance
   • early memorialization
   • national commemorations
   • changes in the 1980s
2. Austria and the Nazi past: Mythic Victimization
   • annexation, Waldheim
3. 3 Phases of Unification
   • political groundwork for (unconditional) annexation (19 March 1990 and 8 May elections)
   • economic groundwork for unification (currency union 1 July 1990)
   • formal and legal establishment of economic domination by imposing W. German law;
     treaty/contract between 2 German states (2 Oct. 1990); consummated in all-German election