Stigma and Sacrifice in the Federal Republic of Germany

Moses, A. Dirk

doi:10.2979/his.2007.19.2.139

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…On the other hand, the life-worlds of contemporary young German adults are far away from National Socialism, and studies frequently report their lack of interest in the subject, or a refusal to deal with it (Meseth 2012). Many research participants did not feel personally connected with the German past, but they are, as has also been found by other researchers (Assmann 2006;Moses 2007;Proske 2012), intimately familiar with the discourse of German guilt.…”

mentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Guilt is a persuasive motive, which even implicitly ‘finds resonance in listeners, […] because it calls up familiar information’ (Carrithers : 40). Also Moses (: 143f.) mentions that being reminded of the Holocaust is being reminded of guilt for many Germans.…”

Section: Concerns In Cologne: the Holocaust Can And The Holocaust Shouldmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Olick and Levy (: 922) pointed out that the Holocaust constrains German political culture as an almost mythical taboo. Moses looked at post‐war Germans’ relation to the Holocaust as a burden, a ‘sense of pollution’ (: 147), frequently described in biblical and religious language (:149). Carrithers (: 37) analysed post‐war rhetoric hinting at dark forces with agencies in the ‘shadows’ of the German Nazi past.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘It's a realTotschlag-Argument’: the attribution of agency to the Holocaust among contemporary young German adults in a discourse of remembering and forgetting

Krieg¹

2015

Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale

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The Holocaust, a significant moral principle for contemporary Germany, is embedded in a politically and emotionally charged discourse of remembering and forgetting. German politicians and young German adults often perceive the Holocaust as a threat associated with guilt, and call it Totschlag‐Argument, killer‐phrase, or Keule, bludgeon. This paper analyses how the Holocaust is endowed with agency, and how demands to control its powers are aligned with this. Some young German adults used this narrative practice to position themselves in the German memory discourse, while others criticised it. This paper argues that agency attribution contributes to the mechanisms of forgetting by reducing the complexities of social and historical entanglements.

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mentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Concerns In Cologne: the Holocaust Can And The Holocaust Shouldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘It's a realTotschlag-Argument’: the attribution of agency to the Holocaust among contemporary young German adults in a discourse of remembering and forgetting

Krieg¹

2015

Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale

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“…For many West Germans of the first and second postwar generations, therefore, their own Germanness constituted a challenge. Dealing with perpetrator trauma became equivalent to being exposed to a stigma of “inherited” or “original sin” (Moses 2007). West Germany sought international recognition, but Germans also desired national innocence and the end of stigma.…”

Section: Recollecting Memory Through Generations Of Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, sacrifice has become central to the German subjectivity of the fourth generation. As Dirk Moses argued, murdered Jews of Europe are cast as sacrificial victims (2007). Remembering the Holocaust redeems those Germans prepared to identify with the victims rather than the perpetrators.…”

Section: Recollecting Memory Through Generations Of Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generations of Memory: Elements of a Conceptual Framework

Wydra

2018

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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This paper links memory to generations of meaning and argues that generational belonging mediates access to memory. Generations of meaning create memories because they connect experiences, beyond the lifetime of individuals, with the wider cultural existence of social communities. Such connections can be understood as a hermeneutic and relational process. Meaning is not a factor of causation, but is cumulative, as meanings are recollected across generational thresholds of experience. This paper conceptualizes such thresholds of experience through three lines of enquiry. First, generativity produces new carriers of culture and memory, which sustain perceptions of historical beginnings. Second, generational change is a condition of liminality and in-betweenness, which people work to transcend by mediating fractures and thus connecting past problem spaces to frameworks of anticipation. Third, narrative commitments emerge as memories are recollected across different temporalities, incommensurability, and forgetting. Memory is not the product of one determining generation, but relational, cumulative, and stretched out in time.

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Stigma Management in International Relations: Transgressive Identities, Norms, and Order in International Society

Adler‐Nissen

2014

Int Org

335

131

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This article develops a theoretical approach to stigma in international relations and resituates conventional approaches to the study of norms and international order. Correcting the general understanding that common values and norms are the building blocks of social order, this article claims that international society is in part constructed through the stigmatization of “transgressive” and norm-violating states and their ways of coping with stigma. Drawing on Erving Goffman, this article shows that states are not passive objects of socialization, but active agents. Stigmatized states cope strategically with their stigma and may, in some cases, challenge and even transform a dominant moral discourse. A typology of stigma management strategies is presented: stigma recognition (illustrated by Germany); stigma rejection (illustrated by Austria); and finally counter-stigmatization (illustrated by Cuba). Because of the lack of agreement on what constitutes normal state behavior, attempts to impose stigma may even have the opposite effect—the stigmatizers become the transgressive. A focus on stigma opens up new avenues for research on norms, identities, and international order.

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Stigma and Sacrifice in the Federal Republic of Germany

Cited by 11 publications

References 69 publications

‘It's a realTotschlag-Argument’: the attribution of agency to the Holocaust among contemporary young German adults in a discourse of remembering and forgetting

‘It's a realTotschlag-Argument’: the attribution of agency to the Holocaust among contemporary young German adults in a discourse of remembering and forgetting

Generations of Memory: Elements of a Conceptual Framework

Stigma Management in International Relations: Transgressive Identities, Norms, and Order in International Society

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