‘Hitler’s Shadow’ Still Over Germany?
Jonathan Kirsch, in his review of “In Hitler’s Shadow: West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape From the Nazi Past,” indicates that Germans should forever feel guilty for the sins of their forefathers (View, Nov. 8).
There is, for most of us, no denying the German atrocities of the Second World War, but times do change: Germany is now a stable democracy, and most of her citizens took no part in aforementioned atrocities. Why should they feel guilty today, and why does Kirsch view so “ominously” the reunification of Germany, especially in view of recent happy events there?
Give the Germans credit: Devastated and poverty-stricken after World War II, they picked themselves up and established a thriving market economy and a model democracy, which they have maintained for more than 40 years. As a supposedly objective reviewer, Kirsch should restrain his subjective and blatant anti-German feelings.
DAVID PEARSE
Marina del Rey
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