Q5: Name three factors that contributed to the stability of
the post-1945 German states.
Fulbrook chapter 14 and EIEIO
p. 358, elites: political, military, economic, cultural, moral,
educational
p. 362, masses
p. 366, factors: commitment of elites, relative material success,
containment of dissent, changed int'l situation
Q4 and the skills of a historian
Knowing (learning, finding out) the facts
Analyzing and drawing conclusions from what is known (formulating
a theory)
Applying those conclusions and insights to new situations
In this case: relate the features of the manipulative character
to immigration policies
Dialectic of Enlightenment
Something can be its own opposite: myth is enlightenment;
enlightenment is myth
Taken to its extreme, the realization of any principle can
be counterproductive
May open a possibility for changing a seemingly immutable
situation
Building Democracy in the Shadow of the Holocaust
The rise to predominance of the Three Myths in the first postwar
decade (1945-1955)
Victimization, Ignorance, Resistance
Learning about the atrocious crimes, 1955-1965
1950s: Night and Fog, Anne Frank; 1960s: trials
Drawing conclusions about what is to be done
1970s: Brandt; local history movement
Realization of changes in political culture: the devolution
of the Three Myths
1970s: no longer possible to profess ignorance about the crimes
1980s: no longer ok for Germans (of "Aryan" stock)
to claim the status of victim
Bitburg, Kohl's national victims memorial project, Historians'
Debate
1990s: acceptance that Nazi-era Germans were perpetrators,
not resistors
Schindler's List; Goldhagen Debate, Klemperer Diaries; Crimes
of the Wehrmacht exhibition