ABSTRACT
For almost 60 years, from the end of World War Two, the German public had forgotten about its colonial empire. Whereas other European powers experienced the traumatic violence of decolonization, Germans believed that they had nothing to do with the colonial exploitation of large parts of Africa, Asia or South America. They were innocent-so many believed-of the devastations brought about by European colonialism and could therefore engage with the new post-colonial world without the dark shadow of a colonial past. Some observers have termed this a “colonial amnesia.”
