Commemorating or Closing? A Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding Perpetrator Memory in Germany

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.