It was a bright, midsummer's day when a small group of German Jews congregated in the Jewish cemetery in the Franconian city of Würzburg. The focus of the group's attention was a small wooden memorial plaque dedicated to eighteen Jewish soldiers killed fighting for Germany in the First World War (Figure 1). The memorial, which had been specially decorated with flowers for the group's visit, contained details of the war dead, an engraving of a German army steel helmet and the simple inscription: ‘To Our Comrades who Fell in the World War 1914–1918’. Once all the guests had arrived, the main speaker called on his audience to remember those soldiers killed at the front who had ‘sealed their love and loyalty to the fatherland with a hero's death on the battlefields’ of Europe.

What was most remarkable about this gathering was its timing. Although it had all the trappings of the imposing remembrance services that had been held across Germany in the wake of the First World War, this event actually took place in July 1960, a full forty-two years after the ending of the conflict and only fifteen years since the defeat of Nazi Germany. Indeed, many of those present in Würzburg had been forced to flee Germany during the 1930s or had themselves survived the Nazis' campaign of genocide. The ceremony was certainly not bereft of references to the ‘gas chambers of the concentration camps’ and the suffering of the National Socialists' Jewish victims.