National identity and political legitimacy always involve a delicate balance between remembering and forgetting. All nations have elements in their past that they would prefer to pass over – the catalog of failures, injustices, and horrors committed in the name of nations, if fully acknowledged, could create significant problems for a country trying to move on and take action in the present. Yet denial and forgetting carry costs as well. Nowhere has this precarious balance been more potent, or important, than in the Federal Republic of Germany, where the devastation and atrocities of two world wars have weighed heavily in virtually every moment and aspect of political life".The Sins of the Fathers" confronts that difficulty head-on, exploring the variety of ways that Germany's leaders since 1949 have attempted to meet this challenge, with a particular focus on how those approaches have changed over time. Jeffrey K. Olick asserts that other nations are looking to Germany as an example of how a society can confront a dark past – casting Germany as our model of difficult collective memory.
About the Author
Jeffrey K. Olick is professor of sociology and history at the University of Virginia. He is the author of "The Politics of Regret: On Collective Memory and Historical Responsibility" and "In the House of the Hangman: The Agonies of German Defeat, 1943-49", the latter published by the University of Chicago Press.
Reviews
"'The Sins of the Fathers' is a tour de force of interdisciplinary scholarship, blending historical erudition and sociological keenness. Highly innovative, it adds important understandings to German official memory, particularly the stability of its exculpatory forms, tenses, and tropes across the last half of the twentieth century. Olick is a master translator of what he calls 'the language of the past'. Provocative and informative, this is an overwhelmingly erudite and penetrating analysis that advances the field of collective memory" – Barry Schwartz, University of Georgia
"'Sins of the Fathers' is the definitive book on official Nazi era memories in (West) Germany. I have little doubt that it will become a landmark in the discipline, indeed a must read for everyone concerned with memory and politics. This book will undoubtedly cement Olick's reputation as the preeminent memory scholar in the field of sociology. More, by linking memory, meaning, and history, and by finding new ways of thinking about the amalgamation of past, present, and future, of symbolic orders and everyday exigencies, Olick's book also makes a significant contribution to cultural sociology that will be widely discussed. A brilliant study" – Andreas Glaeser, University of Chicago
"For a generation, memory of German crimes during the Second World War has functioned as Europe's ethical constitution, and nowhere is this status more evident than in Germany. In 'The Sins of the Fathers', sociologist Olick produces the most empirically extensive and methodologically sophisticated discussion yet written about this society's tortured wrestling with the question of inherited, collective guilt. It is sure to become a classic" – Dirk Moses, University of Sydney
