Epilogue: Germany as a Threshold Culture

Abstract

The issues involved in the Grass/Fest controversy surfaced once more in the autumn of 2006, when the conservative right launched another attack on the left over the guardianship of the past. This time, Jürgen Busche, a former journalist of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, targeted the philosopher Jürgen Habermas in the November issue of the political magazine Cicero in an article entitled “Hat Habermas die Wahrheit verschluckt?” (Did Habermas swallow the Truth?).¹ Busche’s piece recycled an anecdote about the philosopher’s alleged past as a member of the Hitler Youth that had circulated in philosophical circles for some time and that, as we will see below, was also a feature of Fest’s autobiography. According to this story, the historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler found a formal reprimand from the young Habermas for not attending the obligatory Hitler Youth training sessions amongst his possessions years after the war. When Wehler handed this form to Habermas decades later, the latter was so shocked that he instantly swallowed it.