West Germans and the Nazi Legacy

West Germans and the Nazi Legacy constitutes a new history of the complex memory cultures that persisted within West Germany. Utilizing the war crimes trials, this book focuses on responses to the prospect of continuing investigations, the reception afforded to those found to have been implicated in the crimes of the regime, and the sheer resonance that courtroom proceedings could generate within a local community. It draws upon case studies dealing with different modes of criminal behaviour, from the deliberately sadistic actions of individual concentration camp guards, to the level of knowledge held by police officers overseeing the ‘resettlement’ of Polish Jews. It also compares responses afforded to trials conducted in different regions of the Federal Republic –areas with contrasting political, social and religious constituencies which often had their own peculiarly close relationship with the former Nazi regime to contend with.