Abstract
Born in West Germany in the late 1960s, Mihr traces the shift in global perceptions of Germans’ relationship with historical guilt through her personal experiences. Raised in a spirit of responsibility for the past and repudiation of nationalism, as late as the 1980s young Germans who travelled abroad were often seen as representatives of a guilty national community. After 1989, in contrast, international perceptions shifted toward an extreme idealization of German atonement. Germans working abroad are now often expected to provide guidance on the issues of transitional justice and collective guilt—a role many of them are reluctant to play.
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Mihr, A. (2017). From Guilty Generation to Expert Generation? Personal Reflections on Second Post-war Generation West German Atonement. In: Gabowitsch, M. (eds) Replicating Atonement . Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65027-2_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65027-2_12
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