the official "Guilt Cult" made sense in the first few decades of the new republic. You cannot just pretend Germans did not just ostracize and kill many of their own citizens and start a world war causing mass death and destruction.
For my generation, there was already very little feeling of guilt, but rather a sense of empathy. I met several people who survived the camps, and had family members who didn’t.
However, I have never met a Millennial or GenZ who feels any guilt or even has much knowledge about the Nazis. It has become an empty phrase, much like "white guilt" or "the patriarchy."
The "never again" catchphrase long ago became an empty phrase to hit your political enemies with.
As you mentioned, it is similar in other countries. I lived in Sweden for a while, and they are proud of their country and their heritage. Yet, they make all the same demographic mistakes we do, and more.
But the myth of the guild cult is also used on the right as well. Some outside force made us do all the mistakes, and if we can just get rid of it we will be fine and it will be 1985 again.
Your parallel between Germany's "guilt cult" and America's "white guilt" is interesting. Both seem to have pushed their societies toward leftist politics.
Notice how in the Christa Pike case Americans fell over backwards to condemn the white girl while painting her accomplices as "poor hard done by blacks" and a "poor hard done by Muslim and Satanist" who were rightly spared the death penalty that the white girl deserved. It makes a lot of sense when you consider that so-called "whites" in America have 3 times the black admixture that European whites have.
Can confirm this about Sweden; there's a Guilt Cult here too among many minds. "We have it so good, we must share our good fortune with the less fortunate or we are being bad people", essentially.
Which drives me mad with rage.
What we have, we the Swedes worked to have. We were given nothing.
Now, vile Volksfeind are giving it all away to undeserving scum-of-the-Earth, and we are supposed to tilt our heads and go "Coo, aren't we the goodest evar" and revel in our own goodness.
The Left wanted to smash the nation-state so that their idealised New Soviet Man can be created; the Right wanted to smash the nation-state so that they could turn people into interchangeable wage-slaves for capitalism.
And thus, multiculturalism and massmigration as an ethical [Good] was born.
“Never again” filled most of my life. As a young schoolgirl realizing I was halfGerman, I wanted to keep that secret, but no longer. As antisemitism is rising again in the USA along with Marxism, the Never Again creed has vanished from much of the populace. Yet without the rise of National Socialism, which I’ve understood to be the result of the incredible inflation after WWI, the Treaty of Versailles and the need for a “hero” leader. I did understand Merkel’s immigration policies to be atonement for the history, so unnecessary.
You know, I can't imagine anyone wanting to meld into Frenchness or Belgianness in the process of becoming a homogenized European.
And at the risk yet again of seeming suspiciously like a paid shill for Martyr Made, his ongoing series on The Germans' War, with its close examination of the atmosphere in Europe during and after WWI has very vividly and distressingly made me understand as much as anyone might who is only reading words what ordinary people endured and felt and were thrown into and motivated by. There were ongoing horrors everywhere, people fleeing from and migrating everywhere, and I guess there isn't much honest teaching of that anywhere. Though people revile Darryl Cooper enthusiastically, he quotes extensively from primary sources, the words of people who did actually live through and act within those times, and I think it would be fair to say nobody could remain normal under such conditions.
It would be a really good thing for the world if Germans as a people and Germany as a nation got their heads screwed on something approximating right (!!) because there is such a strong worthwhile culture foundational to German capacities. A Germany and an America that could help make one another more healthy again would be an incredible force in the world.
It’s probably an oversimplification of the subject, but a great start to helping to lift Germany out of the collective guilt, would be allowing citizens to proudly fly their flag again. And not just for World Cup matches. While we are at it, let’s get the UK to let folks fly their St. George flag too. Everybody else gets to fly their flags (Palestine, Turkey, Morocco, etc) within those countries just not their own. This demoralization has to end.
Hopefully, then there would be some introspection as to how inherently German characteristics (punctual trains, busses and exquisite mechanical engineering) are also being pounded out of the nation.
Mostly agree, I would just venture the hypothesis that this cult is a preoccupation of our chattering classes; most other people seem to have shaken it off or never even had it.
Very thought-provoking. Thanks for your expert insight. So, the guilt cult is self-imposed, AND it is exploited by elected leaders. Immigrants to Germany can never assimilate into a "culture" because there really isn't one, in the sense of a positive historical mythos. I do not believe "nationalism" per se is negative. It depends on the nation's prevailing values. I do believe that for a nation to be successful through the generations, those values must be based on a positive view of man and of the culture he has created. Where the positive values for a New Germany will come from, I have no idea. Perhaps in that sense, the Germany we know is "done" and will be replaced by some other mythos.
Doesn't hurt to repeat insight..... "The real threats to our political system are posed by the hostile migrants we’ve welcomed into our country and by an array of foolish anti-industrial policies that will destroy our economy us if they’re not unwound very soon."
It's interesting to see Germany is not able to project 'lived' knowledge about the 'AH' era and all that entailed, yet another country far away is able to use the very same events to justify everything it's doing now.
Yet another rhyme in a riddle, wrapped in an enigma.
Thank you for this analysis, eugyppius. I would like to add that one reason, in my opinion, for the perpetuation of 'german guilt' into the now all-pervading foundational myth you describe, is the erasure from the general (or folk~) memory the existence of the German Resistance. Hands up anyone who can remember more names than just that of Stauffenberg! Books and contemporary memoirs are now unobtainable (I have a number of...). It is no wonder because in the DDR none of those names were permitted to be mentioned except the 'Rote Kapelle' because they were communists while in the BR a few names of those on the fringes were able to keep a few memories alive. Worst was, in the eyes of both states, the existence of what they sniffily labeled 'the officers' resistance'. You only need to know that it took a few years and hard work by the german politician Gerstenmayer to obtain widos' pensions for the wives of Stauffenberg and Tresckow - while the widows of Nazi generals received theirs without any trouble.
That tells you all: if the history and remembrance of the German Resistance - the so-called 'bürgerliche' as well as the 'communist' and the 'officers' resistance are swept under the carpet, not mentioned in living memories, then clearly, unlike in France where after the Fall of Paris 1944 every Frenchman and French woman had been in the Resistance, a Germans had been Nazis and thus have to bear that guilt even unto the fourth generation ...
But then, those who suppress or deny the teaching of History know precisely why they do it: a people without history has lost its roots and can more easily be eradicated.
Hey AI. The guilt e writes about here sounds a lot like the guilt laid on young white males in the US. Who really controls Germany? Give me another version?
1945–1949: Direct Rule: The Allied Control Council exercised de jure sovereignty, filling the vacuum left by the collapse of the German Reich.
1949–1955: Conditional Sovereignty: The Occupation Statute codified a "middle state" where the FRG was allowed to govern internally, but remained subordinate to the Allied High Commission.
1955–Present: Chancellor Act: The final phase moves control from the legal realm to the structural. By anchoring the FRG into NATO, the European project, and the intelligence-sharing networks of the Five Eyes/Western security apparatus, the Allies moved from "occupying" to "managing" the state.
Wallowing in guilt and atonement is never a very viable action. Germany has the Nazi period to deal with, but clearly most Germans are past it. It's unfortunately so useful in politics and the culture wars, so it's used as a bludgeon against anyone who disagrees with the righteous guilty ones.
But this "white guilt" virus has infected most of the Western world, even without the added drama of a Nazi past. Even here in America, which actually is, as our mythos tells us, "a nation of immigrants". Yet wherever there are people of European descent, we have this white guilt that's supposed to hammer us into...what? Whatever the Woke Left wants us to be, I guess.
It's a huge problem, and I don't envy Germans having to cope with the Nazi past, as well as this larger white guilt virus. But there are signs that it's ebbing, I think. Perhaps it's too stupid and destructive to continue much longer? I hope that's the case. But it has some way to go yet before it's finally over, which will come when everyone is so heartily sick of it that it gets a shrug and a laugh, and nobody cares about being called a Nazi anymore.
From my perspective as a Gen X German:
the official "Guilt Cult" made sense in the first few decades of the new republic. You cannot just pretend Germans did not just ostracize and kill many of their own citizens and start a world war causing mass death and destruction.
For my generation, there was already very little feeling of guilt, but rather a sense of empathy. I met several people who survived the camps, and had family members who didn’t.
However, I have never met a Millennial or GenZ who feels any guilt or even has much knowledge about the Nazis. It has become an empty phrase, much like "white guilt" or "the patriarchy."
The "never again" catchphrase long ago became an empty phrase to hit your political enemies with.
As you mentioned, it is similar in other countries. I lived in Sweden for a while, and they are proud of their country and their heritage. Yet, they make all the same demographic mistakes we do, and more.
But the myth of the guild cult is also used on the right as well. Some outside force made us do all the mistakes, and if we can just get rid of it we will be fine and it will be 1985 again.
Your parallel between Germany's "guilt cult" and America's "white guilt" is interesting. Both seem to have pushed their societies toward leftist politics.
The whole "rich world", all of the so-called western liberal democracies, seem to be caught in the same trap.
Or infected by the same self-destructive terminal illness or plague.
Socialism.
Notice how in the Christa Pike case Americans fell over backwards to condemn the white girl while painting her accomplices as "poor hard done by blacks" and a "poor hard done by Muslim and Satanist" who were rightly spared the death penalty that the white girl deserved. It makes a lot of sense when you consider that so-called "whites" in America have 3 times the black admixture that European whites have.
Can confirm this about Sweden; there's a Guilt Cult here too among many minds. "We have it so good, we must share our good fortune with the less fortunate or we are being bad people", essentially.
Which drives me mad with rage.
What we have, we the Swedes worked to have. We were given nothing.
Now, vile Volksfeind are giving it all away to undeserving scum-of-the-Earth, and we are supposed to tilt our heads and go "Coo, aren't we the goodest evar" and revel in our own goodness.
The Left wanted to smash the nation-state so that their idealised New Soviet Man can be created; the Right wanted to smash the nation-state so that they could turn people into interchangeable wage-slaves for capitalism.
And thus, multiculturalism and massmigration as an ethical [Good] was born.
“Never again” filled most of my life. As a young schoolgirl realizing I was halfGerman, I wanted to keep that secret, but no longer. As antisemitism is rising again in the USA along with Marxism, the Never Again creed has vanished from much of the populace. Yet without the rise of National Socialism, which I’ve understood to be the result of the incredible inflation after WWI, the Treaty of Versailles and the need for a “hero” leader. I did understand Merkel’s immigration policies to be atonement for the history, so unnecessary.
Many new arrivals follow the Muslim books and theory. No problem for them in assuming the history of the Reich. They just don’t see it as guilt.
And they are chomping at the bit to get it started up again!
Read about the violence of Mohammed - violence seems to be part of the Islamic DNA
Everything has to be reduced to some faux moral imperative or outrage because it ensures first order thinking.
Hence the state of affairs in the west.
You know, I can't imagine anyone wanting to meld into Frenchness or Belgianness in the process of becoming a homogenized European.
And at the risk yet again of seeming suspiciously like a paid shill for Martyr Made, his ongoing series on The Germans' War, with its close examination of the atmosphere in Europe during and after WWI has very vividly and distressingly made me understand as much as anyone might who is only reading words what ordinary people endured and felt and were thrown into and motivated by. There were ongoing horrors everywhere, people fleeing from and migrating everywhere, and I guess there isn't much honest teaching of that anywhere. Though people revile Darryl Cooper enthusiastically, he quotes extensively from primary sources, the words of people who did actually live through and act within those times, and I think it would be fair to say nobody could remain normal under such conditions.
It would be a really good thing for the world if Germans as a people and Germany as a nation got their heads screwed on something approximating right (!!) because there is such a strong worthwhile culture foundational to German capacities. A Germany and an America that could help make one another more healthy again would be an incredible force in the world.
In the UK, "yesterday", absolute refusal to acknowledge the reality of today.
In Australia, "We're not British".
In Canada, "We're not American".
In Germany, "never again", the national guilt complex.
When did negativism become the core driver of belief systems in the formerly rich world?
This a remarkable and insightful analysis of the bizarre condition of German politics. Thanks!
It’s probably an oversimplification of the subject, but a great start to helping to lift Germany out of the collective guilt, would be allowing citizens to proudly fly their flag again. And not just for World Cup matches. While we are at it, let’s get the UK to let folks fly their St. George flag too. Everybody else gets to fly their flags (Palestine, Turkey, Morocco, etc) within those countries just not their own. This demoralization has to end.
Hopefully, then there would be some introspection as to how inherently German characteristics (punctual trains, busses and exquisite mechanical engineering) are also being pounded out of the nation.
Mostly agree, I would just venture the hypothesis that this cult is a preoccupation of our chattering classes; most other people seem to have shaken it off or never even had it.
Very thought-provoking. Thanks for your expert insight. So, the guilt cult is self-imposed, AND it is exploited by elected leaders. Immigrants to Germany can never assimilate into a "culture" because there really isn't one, in the sense of a positive historical mythos. I do not believe "nationalism" per se is negative. It depends on the nation's prevailing values. I do believe that for a nation to be successful through the generations, those values must be based on a positive view of man and of the culture he has created. Where the positive values for a New Germany will come from, I have no idea. Perhaps in that sense, the Germany we know is "done" and will be replaced by some other mythos.
Typo? The word "us" in the last sentence: "...that will destroy our economy us if they’re not unwound very soon."
thanks, somehow an extraneous 'us' got in there.
Doesn't hurt to repeat insight..... "The real threats to our political system are posed by the hostile migrants we’ve welcomed into our country and by an array of foolish anti-industrial policies that will destroy our economy us if they’re not unwound very soon."
Dear Eugyppius, thank you.
It's interesting to see Germany is not able to project 'lived' knowledge about the 'AH' era and all that entailed, yet another country far away is able to use the very same events to justify everything it's doing now.
Yet another rhyme in a riddle, wrapped in an enigma.
Thank you for this analysis, eugyppius. I would like to add that one reason, in my opinion, for the perpetuation of 'german guilt' into the now all-pervading foundational myth you describe, is the erasure from the general (or folk~) memory the existence of the German Resistance. Hands up anyone who can remember more names than just that of Stauffenberg! Books and contemporary memoirs are now unobtainable (I have a number of...). It is no wonder because in the DDR none of those names were permitted to be mentioned except the 'Rote Kapelle' because they were communists while in the BR a few names of those on the fringes were able to keep a few memories alive. Worst was, in the eyes of both states, the existence of what they sniffily labeled 'the officers' resistance'. You only need to know that it took a few years and hard work by the german politician Gerstenmayer to obtain widos' pensions for the wives of Stauffenberg and Tresckow - while the widows of Nazi generals received theirs without any trouble.
That tells you all: if the history and remembrance of the German Resistance - the so-called 'bürgerliche' as well as the 'communist' and the 'officers' resistance are swept under the carpet, not mentioned in living memories, then clearly, unlike in France where after the Fall of Paris 1944 every Frenchman and French woman had been in the Resistance, a Germans had been Nazis and thus have to bear that guilt even unto the fourth generation ...
But then, those who suppress or deny the teaching of History know precisely why they do it: a people without history has lost its roots and can more easily be eradicated.
The US has its own Guilt Cult, it’s called the Progressive Left
Hey AI. The guilt e writes about here sounds a lot like the guilt laid on young white males in the US. Who really controls Germany? Give me another version?
1945–1949: Direct Rule: The Allied Control Council exercised de jure sovereignty, filling the vacuum left by the collapse of the German Reich.
1949–1955: Conditional Sovereignty: The Occupation Statute codified a "middle state" where the FRG was allowed to govern internally, but remained subordinate to the Allied High Commission.
1955–Present: Chancellor Act: The final phase moves control from the legal realm to the structural. By anchoring the FRG into NATO, the European project, and the intelligence-sharing networks of the Five Eyes/Western security apparatus, the Allies moved from "occupying" to "managing" the state.
Wallowing in guilt and atonement is never a very viable action. Germany has the Nazi period to deal with, but clearly most Germans are past it. It's unfortunately so useful in politics and the culture wars, so it's used as a bludgeon against anyone who disagrees with the righteous guilty ones.
But this "white guilt" virus has infected most of the Western world, even without the added drama of a Nazi past. Even here in America, which actually is, as our mythos tells us, "a nation of immigrants". Yet wherever there are people of European descent, we have this white guilt that's supposed to hammer us into...what? Whatever the Woke Left wants us to be, I guess.
It's a huge problem, and I don't envy Germans having to cope with the Nazi past, as well as this larger white guilt virus. But there are signs that it's ebbing, I think. Perhaps it's too stupid and destructive to continue much longer? I hope that's the case. But it has some way to go yet before it's finally over, which will come when everyone is so heartily sick of it that it gets a shrug and a laugh, and nobody cares about being called a Nazi anymore.
White guilt here in the US is largely a result of our history of slavery.
Still, there's white guilt in a lot of western democracies with no history of slavery.