Valdai Club

The Germans are obliged to realise that Hitler’s murder machine on the Eastern Front worked so well precisely because thousands and thousands of people, like little cogs, scrupulously and shamelessly carried out criminal orders, without subjecting them to the slightest doubt. The reason for this was that they considered their opponents “parasites”, “subhumans” and “Jewish Bolsheviks” who had lost all right to life in the racial war waged by the Wehrmacht and the SS, writes Valdai Club expert Matthias Uhl.

More than 30 years after the reunification of Germany, millions of people have practically no basic knowledge about the GDR chapter of German history. For this very reason, it should not be surprising why so many people in East Germany still feel that they’re misunderstood, and are considered only as victims of the dictatorship, writes Matthias Uhl, Research Fellow at Deutsches Historisches Institut, Moscow.

Historical memory and how it is understood play a major role in forming civic solidarity, creating links between generations and making citizens feel like they have a personal stake in the state affairs.