Commemorating or Closing? A Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding Perpetrator Memory in Germany Article Swipe
Jakob Bläsi
,
Marius Frenken
,
Fahima Farkhari
,
Fiona Kazarovytska
·
YOU?
·
· 2025
· Open Access
·
· DOI: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/7g6dh_v1
YOU?
·
· 2025
· Open Access
·
· DOI: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/7g6dh_v1
Germany is often praised internationally for the way it addresses its perpetrator past. However, the question of how to deal with the era of National Socialism today is highly debated within the country. Using qualitative content analysis, we analyzed open-ended responses from N = 626 German citizens (ages 14-65) on how Germany should engage with the Nazi past. Applying latent class analysis to the content-coded responses, we identified three response classes: those advocating for continued remembrance, those rejecting remembrance and showing ingroup-defensive tendencies, and those supporting remembrance while still engaging in defensive responses, such as relativizing German crimes or attributing them to coercion. We discuss how particularly the finding of the third, ambivalent class extends existing literature on identity protection and collective remembrance by reflecting a commitment to confronting the ingroup’s atrocities, a practice highly endorsed in the country, without fully acknowledging responsibility. Situated beyond the binary of either endorsing remembrance or disengaging from ingroup wrongdoing, this class highlights the complexity of remembrance desires within a society navigating the legacy of mass atrocities.
Related Topics
Concepts
German
Nazism
Sociology
Ambivalence
Identity (music)
Situated
Class (philosophy)
Collective memory
Solidarity
Punitive damages
Narrative
Social psychology
Qualitative research
Psychology
Nazi Germany
The Holocaust
Ingroups and outgroups
Epistemology
Middle class
Criminology
Aesthetics
Law
Working class
Gender studies
Qualitative analysis
Collective identity
Political science
Social identity theory
Metadata
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- Landing Page
- https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/7g6dh_v1
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All OpenAlex metadata
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https://openalex.org/W7106617647Canonical identifier for this work in OpenAlex
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https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/7g6dh_v1Digital Object Identifier
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Commemorating or Closing? A Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding Perpetrator Memory in GermanyWork title
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articleOpenAlex work type
- Publication year
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2025Year of publication
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2025-11-25Full publication date if available
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Jakob Bläsi, Marius Frenken, Fahima Farkhari, Fiona KazarovytskaList of authors in order
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https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/7g6dh_v1Publisher landing page
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YesWhether a free full text is available
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goldOpen access status per OpenAlex
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https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/7g6dh_v1Direct OA link when available
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