The concept of collective German guilt over Nazi crimes is not a new one. It’s been discussed and analyzed ever since the Second World war ended by many distinguished psychoanalysts. It’s been actively promoted by the Allies as a precaution against German nationalism. It seems to be still alive and well today, considering how German politicians can promote the extinction of the German people to those people and not be despised and ostracized into oblivion. The whole idea creeps me out about as much as seeing a person in a trench coat during hot summer while strolling in a park. Everything appears rather normal but your instincts keep telling you that something is very, very wrong.

Personally, I view it as a lingering trauma from emotional abuse. It is not unlike the American white guilt over slavery, only it is much worse. From what I see, and I might be wrong, most Americans (except some over-educated middle-class college kids, their professors and the media) understand that they did not inherit the sins of their forefathers. Moreover, they seem to be aware that only a relatively small percent of whites owned slaves and, finally, that it was whites who fought a bloody civil war to end the institution. For the Germans, however, it is different. The National Socialist party rose to power by democratic means, after all. Therefore, all the Germans needed to be humiliated, apparently. And so they were taught to hate themselves. The fact that whole masses can be so easily programmed is pretty sobering.

What really disturbs me is the lack of understanding that this could have happened to any people, as was proven by the Stanford Prison experiment (prof. Philip Zimbardo, 1971) as well as the Milgram experiment (1961, Yale University). Contrary to the popular image, the Germans of the time were normal people. Even the Wermacht soldiers. I grew up knowing this, as my grandparents could only tell positive stories about the one-time occupants of their own country. Yes, there were atrocities. The Jewish population was decimated. Intellectuals were persecuted. And yet you did not have to be a collaborator to receive gentle treatment. But no, what am I writing, everything the Germans did had to be bad. Giving away your ration of chocolate to the local children? Horrible! Did they not know what sugar does to people’s teeth?

Another thing I often ask myself is why is it that the spirit of the usual conversation around this topic is so quick to condemn the war crimes perpetrated by the Germans but not those committed against them. The Germans paid for the Nazi crimes with sorrow and more sorrow. There are still people who remember the blood-curdling stories about what took place in East Prussia after the Soviets arrived. There are Wolfskinder alive today that could tell you stories of such tragedy about their childhoods and the fate of their families... And yet I’m supposed to think that all Germans of the time were villains? Who do you take me for, Ilya Ehrenburg?

I refuse to judge people collectively. Yet it is apparent that some people will apply this principle to themselves. I’ve often fallen into this kind of thinking myself. Except that it is not thinking. It is a feeling. It has no ground in rationality but rather, the way I see it, in simple human tendency to closely identify ourselves as part of some group. So much so that the boundary between an individual and a collective becomes blurry. I could be wrong, of course but, either way, the West needs to understand that this is a problem. Ironically, it was the German pride (among multiple other things) that destabilized Europe and led to WWII but now it might be the German shame that does it this time. Hopefully this can be avoided but the Germans would need to finally find some equilibrium.

The Unfairness of German Guilt