Good German

Good Germans is an ironic term — usually placed between single quotes such as 'Good Germans' — referring to German citizens during and after World War II who claimed not to have supported the Nazi regime, but remained silent and did not resist in a meaningful way.^[1][2] The term is further used to describe those who claimed ignorance of the Holocaust and German war crimes.^[2]

Pól Ó Dochartaigh and Christiane Schönfeld edited a volume on different cultural representations of the 'Good German' and state in their introduction: "After the division of Germany in 1949, finding 'good Germans' whose record helped legitimize each of the new German states became a core aspect of building a new nation in Germany and of the propaganda battle in this respect between the two German states."^[3]

See also

• Myth of the clean Wehrmacht
• German collective guilt
• Italiani brava gente
• Résistancialisme
• Responsibility for the Holocaust
• The Good German – a 2006 Steven Soderbergh film
• Wehrkraftzersetzung