Cruel Memory. How Germany Overcomes Its Nazi Past

After the defeat in World War II, Germany faced the necessity of overcoming the legacy of the totalitarian dictatorship of the Third Reich. In order to exist as a democratic state, the country had to rethink aspects of its history, understand how the crimes of the Nazis became possible, and how to prevent the tragedy from happening again.

From the Nuremberg Trials and post-war attempts to determine the causes of the "German catastrophe" to the formation of a memorial culture, from the "phase of silence" to the "phase of active memory culture," which includes museums, memorials, and school textbooks, Russian scholar Alexander Boroznyak tells the complex story of overcoming the past that four generations of Germans have been going through.

The author finds answers to difficult, yet still relevant questions: why was mass support for a criminal state possible? What does May 8 mean for German citizens? What lessons have millions of German families drawn from the recent past?

The publication is addressed to scholars, teachers, postgraduates, and students engaged in the study of World War II history, as well as a wide audience interested in issues of contemporary German history and the history of Russian-German relations.