Politics and Guilt sheds new light on our understanding of the pervasive psychological and cultural effects of Nazism by examining the power of guilt in modern Germany. Usually seen as a psychological and intensely personal phenomenon, the effect of guilt on the collective arena of politics has been downplayed or misunderstood by many political scientists. Taking issue with Hannah Arendt, Daniel Goldhagen, and Hermann Lübbe, Gesine Schwan argues that Germans must confront their Nazi past because the repression or lack of acknowledgment of guilt damages modern democracies. The Nazi perpetrators were not above the norms of good and evil, she asserts, but were conscious of their guilt and silent about it. The widespread psychological guilt in them and their descendents has adversely affected perceptions of political responsibility, marriage, and child rearing in modern Germany.

 

At a moment when past crimes are being exposed, reparation demands are increasingly common, and world leaders are apologizing and making amends for past mistakes and injustices, Schwan's analysis is timely and thoughtful, standing as the most sophisticated consideration of guilt in politics to date.

Gesine Schwan is a professor of political science at Freie Universität Berlin. Thomas Dunlap's translations include Ute Deichmann's Biologists under Hitler.

"Schwan focuses specifically on the responsibility of nations, especially democratic nations, to express guilt and assume some degree of responsibility for their acts. Schwan states her thesis clearly and compellingly . . . . The translation from the German reads as if the book had been written in English. . . . Highly recommended for anyone interested in the function of guilt and responsibility, especially in the context of democratic nations."—Choice