| Revision as of 17:22, 31 January 2015 editChrisGualtieri (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers457,369 edits Reverted 1 good faith edit by HansFranzEugen using STiki← Previous edit | Revision as of 21:16, 7 May 2015 edit undoAnteeru (talk | contribs)91 editsNo edit summaryNext edit → | ||
| Line 2: | Line 2: | ||
| '''German collective guilt''' is the purported ] of ] and the ] for starting ] and the ]. | '''German collective guilt''' is the purported ] of ] and the ] for starting ] and the ]. | ||
| Swiss psychoanalyst ] wrote an influential essay in 1945 about this concept as a psychological phenomenon, in which he asserted that the German people felt a collective guilt (''Kollektivschuld'') for the atrocities committed by their fellow countrymen, and so introduced the term into German intellectual discourse. Jung said collective guilt was "for psychologists a fact, and it will be one of the most important tasks of therapy to bring the Germans to recognize this guilt."<ref>{{citation |title=Guilt and Defense |author=Jeffrey K. Olick, Andrew J. Perrin |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-674-03603-1 |pages=24–25}}</ref> | |||
| After the war, the British and US occupation forces promoted shame and guilt with a ], which included posters depicting concentration camps with slogans such as "These Atrocities: Your Fault!" (''Diese Schandtaten: Eure Schuld!'').<ref>{{citation |title=The Guilt of Nations? |author=Jeffrey K. Olick |doi=10.1111/j.1747-7093.2003.tb00443.x |journal=Ethics & International Affairs |volume=17 |number=2 |pages=109–117 |date=September 2003}}</ref> | After the war, the British and US occupation forces promoted shame and guilt with a ], which included posters depicting concentration camps with slogans such as "These Atrocities: Your Fault!" (''Diese Schandtaten: Eure Schuld!'').<ref>{{citation |title=The Guilt of Nations? |author=Jeffrey K. Olick |doi=10.1111/j.1747-7093.2003.tb00443.x |journal=Ethics & International Affairs |volume=17 |number=2 |pages=109–117 |date=September 2003}}</ref> | ||
Revision as of 21:16, 7 May 2015
German collective guilt is the purported collective guilt of Germany and the German people for starting World War II and the Holocaust.
Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung wrote an influential essay in 1945 about this concept as a psychological phenomenon, in which he asserted that the German people felt a collective guilt (Kollektivschuld) for the atrocities committed by their fellow countrymen, and so introduced the term into German intellectual discourse. Jung said collective guilt was "for psychologists a fact, and it will be one of the most important tasks of therapy to bring the Germans to recognize this guilt."
After the war, the British and US occupation forces promoted shame and guilt with a publicity campaign, which included posters depicting concentration camps with slogans such as "These Atrocities: Your Fault!" (Diese Schandtaten: Eure Schuld!).
The theologian Martin Niemöller and other churchmen accepted shared guilt in the Stuttgarter Schuldbekenntnis (Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt) of 1945. The philosopher and psychologist Karl Jaspers delivered lectures to students in 1946 which were published under the title The Question of German Guilt.
See also
- Collective responsibility, a different concept from collective guilt.
- Denazification
- Hitler's Willing Executioners
- White guilt
References
- Jeffrey K. Olick, Andrew J. Perrin (2010), Guilt and Defense, Harvard University Press, pp. 24–25, ISBN 978-0-674-03603-1
- Jeffrey K. Olick (September 2003), "The Guilt of Nations?", Ethics & International Affairs, 17 (2): 109–117, doi:10.1111/j.1747-7093.2003.tb00443.x
- Tracy Isaacs, Richard Vernon (2011), Accountability for Collective Wrongdoing, Cambridge University Press, pp. 196–199, ISBN 978-0-521-17611-8