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The rapid shift of German elite groups' political loyalties away from Nazism and toward support of the fledgling democracy of the Federal Republic, in spite of the continuity of personnel and professional structures, has surprised many scholars of postwar Germany. The key, Hayse argues, lies in the peculiar and paradoxical legacy of these groups' evasive selective memory, by which they cast themselves as victims of the Third Reich rather than its erstwhile supporters. The avoidance of responsibility for the crimes and excesses of the Third Reich created a need to demonstrate democratic behavior in the post-war public sphere. Ultimately, this self-imposed pressure, while based on a falsified, selective group memory of the recent past, was more important in the long term than the Allies' stringent social change policies.
Michael R. Hayse is Associate Professor of History at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. He specializes in 20th century German history, Russian and East European history, and Holocaust/genocide studies.
List of Charts and Tables
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Complicity and Disenchantment by 1945
Chapter 2. Compositional Change and Continuity, 1945-1955
Chapter 3. Legal Restructuring and Professional Reorganization
Chapter 4. Denazification and its Effects, 1945-1955
Chapter 5. Recasting Personal and Occupational World Views
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index