ABSTRACT
The public culture of violence in Germany, which follows a pattern of invocation and dissociation, has found anchorage in a variety of social settings. It is reproduced, albeit in sanitized form, by academic responses to my research on violence. Often delivered in scathing polemics and personalized attacks, scholarly criticism tends to dismiss the validity of such research. For instance, at a conference in 1994, a well-known German historian angrily responded:
I live there and I don’t recognize the Germany you describe. That’s not the Germany I know. I suggest you go back and check your sources. Nobody would say such things. I’ve never heard anybody say anything like that. It’s taboo. You cannot say these things in public without an inevitable scandal. Political parties would never endorse such statements. Who are these people you cite? They are irrelevant, insignificant people. They are not representative. I am sure that this person you quote does exist, but she would have never said anything like that. So my suggestion to you is: go back and check your sources!
