In the large literature on Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung or ‘coming to terms with the (Nazi) past’ in the two post-war Germanys, silence, avoidance and repression have received more attention than have memory and justice. This is an imbalance which reflects the actual state of affairs. Yet, given the extent of support for the Nazi regime up to its bitter end, the explanatory burden of accounting for silence and the paucity of memory is a light one: many people had a great deal to hide and thus to be silent about. Moreover, the historical experiences of other countries before and after the Nazi regime suggests that silence, avoidance, repression of the memory of past crimes is the norm rather than the exception.

Hence it is not difficult to understand why so few Nazis were convicted by German courts and why so many former Nazi officials managed to retain their former positions. What does require more reflection is why, in light of the extent of support for Nazism in German society up to 8 May 1945, there was any public memory at all in the post-war era of Nazi criminality and the Holocaust in the two post-Nazi German states. How and why did memory divide along the political fault lines in the way it did?