ABSTRACT
This chapter disputes prevalent assumptions regarding the nature and evolution of the different discourses of memory concerning the Second World War and the Holocaust in France and in East and West Germany. West German discourses of memory between the early 1960s and the late 1970s changed from a self-portrayal as victims of the Second World War to a focus on Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The East German and Jewish juridical observer Friedrich Karl Kaul published a document that highlights the Federal government's unwillingness to prosecute war criminals and the presence of former Nazis in prominent posts in West Germany such as Hans Globke, state secretary at the Federal Chancellery. The period under discussion was marked by the persistence of a 'return' to prominence of Jewish memories and experiences of the Second World War and the Holocaust in West Germany and France in particular.
