Nazi Legacies? New Research on the Question of Continuities in Postwar Germany

Abstract:The contribution by Andreas Wirsching deals with the recent significant expansion of historical research into the continuities of personnel and mentalities between the Nazi regime and the early Federal Republic of Germany. Concentrating on the ministerial bureaucracy, and specifically on the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Wirsching notes a pattern of considerable continuities, the careful evaluation of which has been made possible by the availability of new archival sources. Summarizing the current state of research, the article focuses on how the burdens of the Nazi past were addressed in the German bureaucracy and how they related to the longerterm continuities of anti-pluralism, socio-moral conservatism, and authoritarian étatism. At the same time, Wirsching emphasizes the manifold learning processes that took hold during the postwar period, which allowed former officials of the Nazi regime to adapt to the conditions of the new democracy or even to help shape it.