consciousness. How did it happen that a man known for his unbridled religion and
philosophy of individualism, turned his enslavement into a virtue by political power?
"The problem of misconduct" in German consciousness after the Second
World War. In the post-war society there was no solidarity regarding the main issue:
the attitude towards the Nazi past. Few Germans believe that they carry the so-called
moral responsibility for the resolution of the war, although the feeling of shame
survived the majority. And this majority of the society would prefer to abandon the
German identity and devalue the high achievements of their own culture. Therefore,
patriotic feelings among the Germans were not widely spread until the 2000's.
Important was the fact that not only a new post-war generation has been formed in the
country. Young people were free from consciousness of their own, personal guilt, and
this freedom allowed them to discuss complex issues, often in the form of confrontation
with the older generations.
After the Second World War, Germany has been actively working to overcome
the experience of National Socialism, which many experts consider to be one of the
most successful examples in the field of "memory policy". The basis of this experience
was the concept of misconduct. It is concerned that in order to attain some degree of
"normalization", the German society with apathy or negative emotions reacted to the
denationalization procedure, which, according to the plans of the victorious states, was
supposed to play a surrogate role. However, in many respects its lack of thought and
misconduct has led to the fact that many Germans had reason to believe that they had
been wronged with them. There was no awareness of the total criminal nature of
National Socialism. It was believed that everything that was happening was just the
trial of the winners over the losers. The Nuremberg Tribunal, as well as the
denationalization carried out by the occupation authorities, created the illusion of fixing
the results of the war: the criminals were punished, others were acquitted. According
to N. Frai, Professor of History of the University of Jena, "all other processes (with the
exception of the tribunal over the main accused in Nuremberg) came from the very
beginning on the reaction of hostility and protest. "The crimes of the Third Reich in
the public consciousness were compared with the losses inflicted on the German cities
by bombardment of the Allies, and the recognition of mass national-socialist
organizations was perceived as criminal as an enormous collective accusation of all
people [12,79].
In the autumn of 1945, according to a researcher H. Konih, among the German
population began to spread a counterattack of the collective innocence of the Germans
as "a people who was inebriated, tempted and then betrayed by National Socialism"
[3, 146]. Thus, the point of view of the "collective misconduct" of the entire German
people gave many an opportunity to completely deny their own fault. Perhaps that is
why, in post-war Germany, the desire to explain the catastrophe of Nazism by the
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