Few issues have possessed the centrality or sparked as much controversyin the postwar history of the Federal Republic of Germany(FRG) as the struggle to come to terms with the nation’s Nazi past.This struggle, commonly known by the disputed term Vergangenheitsbewältigung,has cast a long shadow upon nearly all dimensions ofGerman political, social, economic, and cultural life and has preventedthe nation from attaining a normalized state of existence inthe postwar period. Recent scholarly analyses of German memoryhave helped to broaden our understanding of how “successful” theGermans have been in mastering their Nazi past and have shed lighton the impact of the Nazi legacy on postwar German politics andculture. Even so, important gaps remain in our understanding ofhow the memory of the Third Reich has shaped the postwar life ofthe Federal Republic.
