Suchergebnisse

This article argues that German–Israeli reconciliation after 1945 has not been as exemplary as is often suggested. Drawing on key aspects which emerge from a discussion of relevant concepts in the first part of the article – transitional justice and reconciliation – it will show that Germany's memory culture, as evidenced in the elite discourse, has indeed developed in a way that points to a successful reconciliation between the two countries. On the other hand, however, German regret emerged only reluctantly, was by and large confined to West Germany, and took a long time to establish itself formally, with emphasis on German suffering rather than suffering caused by Germans always playing an important role in German collective memory after 1945. It will also show that at grass-roots level, reconciliation between Germany and Israel is far from unproblematic. Apart from providing a critical assessment of the reconciliation between Germany and Israel after 1945, the article contributes to current academic literature on transitional justice, reconciliation and the role of memory which suggests that even though commemoration and micro-level reconciliation might be important, the geopolitical context in which reconciliation takes place and strategic security considerations also play a significant role.

This Special Issue consists of a small selection of the wide range of papers which were delivered at the seminars. It can thus only provide a snapshot. We have, however, tried to ensure that the choice of the papers included in this volume also reflects the fact that it was academics AND practitioners who contributed to the overall success of the series. Whereas the first five contributors (Schweiger, de la Porte, Funk, Allen and Aldred, Pogátsa) examine their various topics from an academic perspective, the last two papers (Galgóczi and Medhurst/Tortolano) provide assessments of the impact of the Single European Market on Central and Eastern European and wider EU member state economies and societies from a trade union perspective.

Angela Merkel came to power at a crucial time in regards to Germany's relationship with its past. Where would she position herself in light of Gerhard Schröder's approach that had offered a new way of accepting responsibility for the past and integrating it into the twenty-first century present by explicitly making it a key element of German national identity, but also in view of her East German biography? Would she continue and maybe even reinforce the institutionalization of Holocaust-centered memory and-given the forceful return of the topic of German victimhood-complement it with the institutionalization of the memory of German suffering, or would she emphasize the latter at the expense of the former? This paper attempts to answer these questions by examining Merkel's politics of the past during her first three years in office.

British-German relations have undergone a considerable transformation since 1945 with both countries having to adapt to significant changes in their own status, as well as a very different international environment. Germany's status as a morally and militarily defeated and occupied power in 1945 is in stark contrast to the confident role it is playing at the beginning of the new millennium when—sixty years after the end of World War II—the German chancellor for the first time took part in the VE-Day celebrations of the victors. This article analyzes recent dynamics of collective memory in both countries and examine if and to what extent their collective memories play a role in British-German relations.

German-American relations have become interesting again. U.S. President Donald Trump's lukewarm policy toward Europe has ensured that the relationship between Berlin and Washington is once again regarded as an important field of scholarship within global politics. And yet it was only a few years ago that German-American relations seemed to take second place to transatlantic relations in general, and the European Union (EU)–USA relationship in particular. The advent of Donald Trump as US President in January 2017 has made all the difference. Trump's difficult personal relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and his denigration of everything the Western world – including the USA itself – has stood for since 1949, have given a new significance to German-American relations in practice and theory. This volume offers an empirical and conceptual analysis of German-American relations in the 21st century and highlights the serious and perhaps unprecedented challenges the two countries face at present. The authors discuss a number of aspects of the current, much more fragile state of German-American relations from different perspectives.

The aim of this paper is to offer a critique of the proposal of "methodological cosmopolitanism" in theoretical terms and to substantiate this critique by providing an account of the dynamics of collective memory and identity in postunification Germany. In the first part, we look at the arguments about methodological cosmopolitanism and their derivative, the idea of cosmopolitan memory, illustrated by the case of Holocaust memory. In the second part we look at the case of Germany: firstly at its postwar experience of the attempted construction of "postnational" identity, and then at more recent trends, contemporaneous with the Berlin Republic, towards a "normalization" of national identity in Germany. The Holocaust plays a crucial, but different, role in each phase, we suggest. In the conclusion we return to more general themes, asking what the German case tells us about the cosmopolitanization thesis more generally.