ABSTRACT
Peter Katzenstein is especially sensitive to the German connotations of Mitteleuropa and knows that the ghosts of Friedrich Naumann and Adolf Hitler associatively lurk behind the German term of Mitteleuropa for many central Europeans. The “weight of the memories of past German policies,” Katzenstein notes, are “less powerful in Poland than in the Czech Republic, and virtually absent in Hungary and the Slovak Republic.” The issue of historical memory is more problematic with the Czech Republic, because neither Czechs Germans had an opportunity to address openly the problems of their more recent common history and crimes. The German deutsche mark virtually has ceased to exist, along with the currencies of the ten other EU member states participating in the Euro, and all of these currencies will factually disappear with the introduction of new notes and coins in 2002. The claims of German expellees and the status of indigenous German minorities in Poland are sensitive issues, they have been managed judiciously.
