Germany has seen an uptick in prosecutions of Nazis for Holocaust-related crimes. But what sort of justice is to be found in convicting centenarians some seven decades after the fact?
Paweł Machcewicz: ‘History should be about the ordinary people, not only about heroes’
In the fourth talk of the Debates on Europe: Budapest & Beyond, historian Joachim von Puttkamer and the director of Gdańsk WWII museum Paweł Machcewicz discuss on history as an instrument to realise current ideological projects in Hungary, Poland and Germany.
Published on 11 May 2021 at 23:12
Across Europe, politicians are increasingly using history as an instrument to realise current ideological projects. In Hungary and Poland, national-illiberal governments keep a firm grip of the narrative and put limits to which histories can be told. In Germany, the function of history is different and the confrontation with the darkest moments of the past has become a way to take responsibility and determines both domestic and European politics.