The Admission

The process of the critical appropriation of the history of World War II did not come about in a linear manner. It is still not complete. The reception of the past runs in phases that wend their way between appropriation and suppression, reconfiguration of the master narrative or yet the return of the war myths.
The discussion of a nation's master narrative, its principal myths, of these gradually being called into question and forming into a new cultural memory – all this was and still is dependent on social developments. These developments could help or hinder the critical appropriation. The stabilization of the West European societies allowed this process to start earlier there, already in the 1960s. The point of departure was usually an initial consideration of the question of the genocide of European Jewry. In this context people and nations began to ask about the role they played at the time with regard to the Jews and then about the matter of collaboration. However, in the eastern half of the continent it seemed up to the late 1980s as if the official state ideology, the interpretation of the War as the "Great Patriotic War" and the joint struggle against Fascism, had remained impervious to criticism. There the critical reinterpretation of the master narrative usually revealed itself when the individual memory of suffering in war began to supplant the cult of the hero from the earlier years.
In many countries it was first of all the myth of common resistance that stood in the foreground and covered over the scale of collaboration. In some countries the second and third post-War generations launched into vehement discussions of the deficiencies of the master narrative. The dispute about collaboration and resistance, victimization and heroism, did not always lead to a new master narrative. In fact, some societies reverted back to their old myths afterwards.

USA
Soviet Union / Russia
Great Britain
Federal Republic of Germany
German Democratic Republic
Austria
France
Poland
The Netherlands
Belgium
Norway
Sweden
Switzerland
Israel