Traces et travail de la mémoire en France et en Allemagne
In: Revue des sciences sociales, Band 30, Heft 1, S. 90-93
ISSN: 2107-0385
Traces of and work on memory in France and Germany.
While the recent past continues to haunt Germany and sometimes re-emerges in a conflicting form in France, it is because a large proportion of the population in these countries refuse to build up a relationship based on strict lucidity and responsibility with regard to history. This makes us aware that the totalitarian machine could not function without absolute obedience to orders, whatever they might be, without the zeal and inhumanity of underlings, and without the acceptance of multiple forms of violence.
For the French and Germans alike, the problem of responsibility, and not guilt, is posed on a collective level and cannot be bypassed. No-one can be released from the burden of their commitments. How can a memory of this period be formed in Germany, France and beyond ? How has the past been assumed in these two countries differentially speaking ? Our argument takes on a broader scope by analysing the problem as it was defined by Pierre Nora in «lieux de mémoire» (sites holding memories), and for Germany, by Etienne François and Hagen Schulze, who adopted the same perspective.