The Past and Politics – Focusing on “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” in Post-War Germany

The Past and Politics– Focusing on “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” in Post-War Germany
Takumi Itabashi

AThe Theme “Vergangenheitsbewältigung”

lthough both Germany and Japan were defeated in the Second World War, they
are currently thought of in contrasting ways by international society concerning
war compensation and historical awareness. Needless to say, Germany is thoughtof positively, while Japan is thought of negatively. Why the difference? Is there
anything we can learn from Germany?
The efforts of Germany to overcome the negative legacy of its history are collectively called“Vergangenheitsbewältigung (Overcoming the Past).” In this article, the term “negative legacy ofits history” is used to refer only to the war of aggression or the Holocaust under Nazi Germany.
In regard to such history, “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” encompasses not only war compensation
but also the perception of war responsibility, legal regulations on (Neo-)Nazism, histor yeducation, and various other aspects.
Although interest in Germanyʼs “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” is generally high in Japan, there
are extremely contrasting views regarding it. On the one hand, there are so-called “idealization”
type arguments: they praise Germany for having “repented for their past,” and set it as a modelthat Japan should imitate. In such arguments, the current state of Japan is criticized based on themodel of Germany, which is excessively idealized (and not necessarily based on reality).
On the other hand, there are many “dissenting” type arguments: namely, arguments that
Germany has “conducted itself slyly and cleverly,” pointing out and criticizing issues or flaws in
its “Vergangenheitsbewältigung.” Such arguments raise as a problem the hypocrisy of Germanyʼs“Vergangenheitsbewältigung.” A typical example of such arguments is that Germany foisted theblame on Hitler and the Nazis and exempted regular German people from responsibility. Theremay be some truth to such arguments. However, it is obvious that such arguments cannot justify
the current state of Japan.
Nonetheless, Germany has not noble-mindedly promoted “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” outof goodwill alone. Based on this point, those who are the dissenting type insist that it is nonsense
to “learn” from Germany. However, what should be noted here is that even the dissenting type
people are arguing on the same premise as those who make idealization type arguments. In otherwords, they are, in reality, on a level playing field with those who idealize Germany, in that theirassertion that “we do not need to imitate Germany since they are hypocrites” focuses on moral
integrity.
Contrarily, in this essay I would like to emphasize that “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” is not
only a moral issue, but also a political one. It seems that there have been very few viewpoints sofar that perceive “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” as a political issue, whether they praise or criticize
the example of Germany.
As I will describe later, Germanyʼs “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” reached its present state
after many twists and turns, as well as processes of trial and error, in the midst of internationaland domestic power politics. If Germany has a better reputation than Japan concerning its efforts
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to overcome its past after such a history of power politics, we need to squarely look at that fact.
The point I would like to place special emphasis on is the relationship between“ Vergangenheitsbewältigung ” and international politics. Post-war Germany has advanced“Vergangenheitsbewältigung” while taking its national interests into consideration, within a scopeof action prescribed by the international environment. It has determined the responsibilities thatit should assume and the scope of compensation, while being subject to external pressure andremaining conscious of its reputation in international society.
Some specific examples will be introduced below.

Compensation Agreement with the State of Israel/Jewish Community as theStarting Point

The starting point of “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” in post-war Germany is the Luxembourg
Compensation Agreement (“Wiedergutmachungsabkommen”), which was concluded between
the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), the State of Israel, and the representativeof the Jewish people living outside Israel (the Conference on Jewish Material Claims AgainstGermany) in 1952. This agreement laid the foundations for “reconciliation” between Israel andthe Federal Republic of Germany after the bitterness created as the result of Nazi persecutions ofJews during the Second World War.
It was necessary for West Germany, which was a divided nation that had just been established,to settle its past in order to return to the international community as the “only nation that
legitimately represents the Germans.” Under such circumstances, Konrad Adenauer, the firstchancellor of West Germany, reached the conclusion of the Luxembourg Agreement with thehelp of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and external pressure from Western nations, while
fighting against strong objections from ministers or members of the ruling party, as well as public
opinion that was reluctant to provide compensation. Adenauer and his aides understood that“whether the new Germany would be able to regain the confidence, reputation, and trust in theworld”1 depended on the negotiations on compensation with Israel.
What was of special importance for Adenauerʼs Israel policy was the existence of the UnitedStates. For example, John J. McCloy, the U.S. High Commissioner for occupied Germany, said
that the new Germany would “be watched very closely and very carefully by the entire world,”
and that the relationship of West Germany with the Jewish people would be “one of the real
touchstones and the test of Germanyʼs progress toward the light.”2 It can be said that Adenauer
succeeded in concluding the Agreement by sensitively responding to the intentions of the U.S.,
and using them as a trump card for countermeasures against opponents.
Adenauer recognized that the FRG as the legal successor to the German Reich had a duty toaccept responsibility for the crimes committed by the German government. Although Adenauer
felt deep shame about Nazi persecutions of Jews, he was not simply concerned with German
moral debt. A conclusive motive for the completion of the Compensation Agreement was theconcern that without such an action Germanyʼs integration into the West would be endangered.

Development of Legal Systems and Education
Based on the protocol agreed upon between West Germany and the Jewish organization at
this time, the system for compensation of people who were persecuted under the Nazi regime
for political, religious, or ideological reasons was legally established in the 1950ʼs (the law of1

Herbert Blankenhorn, Verständnis und Verständigung. Blätter eines politischen Tagebuchs 1949 bis
1979 (Frankfurt a.M. / Berlin / Wien: Propyläen, 1980), p. 138. Blankenhorn was head of the Political
Department of the Foreign Office at that time.

2Quoted in Michael Brenner, Nach dem Holocaust. Juden in Deutschland 1945 –1950 (München: Beck,1995), p. 114.

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The Past and Politics – Focusing on “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” in Post-War Germany

particular importance was the Federal Indemnification Law, established in 1953/1956). Including
bilateral agreements or other agreements stipulating individual hardship mitigation measures orcompensation for individuals, the total amount of compensation paid by post-war Germany to thevictims of Nazi injustice exceeds 7 trillion yen.
In addition, Germanyʼs “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” is not confined solely to compensation,
as was described previously.
First of all, trials were held in West Germany to prosecute Nazi crimes based on domestic
penal codes, separate from the Nuremberg trials held during the period of occupation. In orderto make it possible to punish killings conducted during the Nazi period as murders, the statute oflimitations for murders was abolished in 1979, after long debates about the statute of limitations,which started in 1960. In addition, activities of far right and neo-Nazi groups were monitored by
the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) as
being unconstitutional, and any speech and behavior that praises Hitler or Nazism, as well as
Holocaust denial, is banned as the crime of “Volksverhetzung (incitement to hatred)” in Section
130 of the German Criminal Code. Moreover, after 1970, a reconsideration of history education
was promoted, and strengthening of modern and contemporary history education, as well asinternational dialog with countries including Poland (1972 -) and Israel (1985 -) aiming at theimprovement of textbook content, was started.

Symbolic Words and Actions of Political Leaders

What should be particularly noted in Germanyʼs “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” are the initiativesof the political leaders of each era, and their symbolic words and actions that remain in peopleʼsmemory.
The most famous among such symbolic words and actions is probably those of Willy Brandt,
the first Chancellor after the Second World War who came from the Social Democratic Party(SPD). On December 7, 1970, when he visited Warsaw to sign a treaty on the normalization ofmutual relations between West Germany and Poland, he visited the Warsaw Ghetto site, knelt
down at the monument of Jewish victims, bowing his head down. Whatever Brandtʼs motive was,the image of the Chancellor of West Germany kneeling down in Warsaw spread around the globe,
creating an impression of a “Germany that regrets its past.”3
In addition, let me mention the speech by President Richard von Weizsäcker during theCeremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the End of War on May 8, 1985. It is oneof the finest speeches given, and the part of his speech: “anyone who closes his eyes to thepast is blind to the present” is still often quoted to this day. Here, however, I would like draw
your attention to the context of this speech, which tends to be forgotten today. On May 5,
three days before this speech was given, U.S. President Ronald Reagan visited West Germany,and offered flowers at the militar y cemeter y in Bitburg with Chancellor Helmut Kohl. This
became the cause of great controversy, even before his visit. This was because the soldiers of
the Waffen-SS were buried in this cemeter y in addition to the soldiers of the German Army.
Under such circumstances, the Weizsäcker speech was delivered while the critical eye of theinternational society was cast upon the conservative government of West Germany. As a result,
this commotion in May of 1985 has come to be remembered rather as a symbolic example of
4“Vergangenheitsbewältigung.”
3For details cf. Christoph Schneider, Der Warschauer Kniefall. Ritual, Ereignis und Erzählung (Konstanz:
UVK Verlag, 2006); Michael Wolffsohn, Thomas Brechenmacher, Denkmalsturz? Brandts Kniefall(München: Olzog, 2005).

4Cf. Jacob S. Eder, Holocaust Angst: The Federal Republic of Germany and American Holocaust Memory
since the 1970s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 62–75.

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The International Cold War Environment

The above-described “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” of West Germany was largely backed by
the international environment of the Cold War with regard to the following three points. First,for West Germany, it was necessar y to reconcile with Western nations in the Western Bloc,including France, which it invaded in the past. Secondly, half of the countries that had sufferedmuch damage by the Nazis, including Poland, were behind the Iron Curtain. Lastly, there was arival that could not be ignored, East Germany. West Germany was fighting with East Germany
concerning which country legitimately represented the German people; they both emphasized abreak from the Nazis and competed with each other in terms of moral superiority.

End of the Cold War and a Globalizing World
Lastly, I would like to mention the situation after the Cold War. Before that, however, I am goingto briefly explain the difference between “reparation” and “compensation (Wiedergutmachung),”as a premise for my argument. As is often pointed out, the compensation paid by post-war (West)
Germany was not reparation between countries for war damages, but was based on a conceptof compensation peculiar to post-war Germany, which is “compensation for injustice under theNazis.” War compensation by West Germany, a divided nation that had not concluded peace
treaties with its former enemies, started to enter into a framework of being obligated to provide
compensation for Nazi injustice under the Adenauer regime, while postponing war reparation
until the future conclusion of peace treaties (in this respect, it has a different starting point fromthat of the case of Japan, which accepted its obligation for reparation in the San Francisco PeaceTreaty).
According to this framework, the victims of persecution on the eastern side of the Iron
Curtain could not receive compensation during the Cold War. During that period, the recipientsof compensation by West Germany were mainly only the victims in 12 countries on the westernside and Israel.
This situation had dramatically changed by the end of the Cold War and the unification of Eastand West Germany. Due to these changes, it became necessary to incorporate the victims of Nazi
injustice residing in the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, particularly forcedlaborers, into the subject of compensation.
To address this situation, a foundation called “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future”
was established. It was jointly established in 2000 by the German Government and businesses(approximately 6,500 German companies), in order to help the victims of forced labor during war,
which had not been considered as a Nazi injustice, and compensation payments were made. The
number of recipients was approximately 1,660,000, mainly in the former Soviet bloc countries,
and the total amount of compensation payments was approximately 4.5 billion euros (the paymentof monetary compensation was completed in 2007).
External pressure and the response to it were also important here. From the mid 1990ʼs,
the victims who moved to the U.S. after the war filed a succession of class action lawsuits
against German companies in U.S. courts. Major German companies that were conducting
global business had to face the reality that they were involved in criminal acts under the Nazi
regime through the lawsuits, and had no choice but to respond to them due to the pressure ofinternational public opinion, including boycotts.

Lessons Learned from Germany
In present Germany, prosecution of Nazis and monetary compensation have been completed,
while the generation that directly experienced Nazism and war is dwindling. Under suchcircumstances, emphasis is shifting from “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” to “Erinnerungskultur(Culture of Remembrance).” For example, in recent years, memorials or monuments, such as17
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the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe located at the south end of the Brandenburg Gate
in Berlin or the Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism in Munich that justopened in May 2015 (the construction cost of approximately 4.0 billion yen was shared among
the federation, states, and cities), have been built successively in Germany. The characteristic ofmemorials based on Erinnerungskultur is that they are places for presenting the past they wish topass on to the next generation by means of explanatory panels or images, rather than displaying
the items from the era, like traditional museums. In other words, Germany has entered into anera in which they strive to make the generation that has not experience war “remember” the past.
So far, I have discussed Germany. However, Germanyʼ s “ Vergangenheitsbewältigung ”
cannot serve as a model for Japan as it is. For example, the international environments in which
Germany and Japan exist are different, and the difference in the natures of the crimes committed
by the two countries cannot be ignored. Simply arguing that “Japan should become like Germany”
is unreasonable in many ways, and can be even harmful at times.
In addition, there used to be intense confrontation within Germany concerning their past,
and what impacted their “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” the most was pressure from internationalsociety. I would also like to emphasize that Germany has not necessarily been successful either.
Rather, the image of a Germany that is always facing its past has become established throughrepeated trial and error.
What we can learn from Germany now after acknowledging such aspects is, I believe, howpolitics or the public sphere should function, and how they are composed.
Governments and politicians are required to have the ability to discern the underlying logicof international politics and determine the position that they or their country should take, as wellas the ability to communicate such information inside and outside of their country. Needless tosay, it is out of question for them to engage in falsehoods. Even if their words or actions are basedon their beliefs, such words or actions are not politics if they are not conscious of the political
functions or consequences of such words or actions.
If “public” means to be open to everyone, then “international publicness” exists already inthat sense. Discourses that cater only to oneʼs own people (or a part of oneʼs own people) would
only worsen the situation in such a world. In the modern international society, strict monitoring
and checks are in place regarding the “forgetting of the past.” For statespersons, the ability
to make their behavior conform to such values in the modern world is required. Figuratively
speaking, politicians are required to have “acting skills.” It can be said that the German statesmenmentioned in this paper are those who had perfectly acted out their roles to the end.
In addition, the media should also function as an active leader of publicness, and above all, thecitizens (or the “Japanese people”) should realize that they have kept choosing politicians who sofar have engaged in falsehoods and that they have consumed sensationalistic media.

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