ABSTRACT
This chapter explores techniques with which pupils recount the Holocaust incidentally to their stories of the German nation. A microstudy of young people’s narratives of national history in Germany, carried out in 2012 in three schools, showed that the Holocaust features prominently in their conceptions of the nation even though they were not explicitly asked to write about this event. The resulting ignorance expressed via references to Hitler does not amount merely to a form of ‘non-knowledge’ according to which knowledge is absent, nor does it refer only to factually incorrect knowledge or knowledge which deviates from knowledge legitimated by a socially recognised scientific community. Striking similarities between meanings ascribed to Hitler in different countries and their consistency over time testify to the international tenacity of Hitlercentrism. Hitleration entails presenting Hitler as a figure not only of political charisma and historiographical charisma, but as a figure of speech structuring patterns of historical remembrance and its written articulation.
