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.^[3]

Pól Ó Dochartaigh and Christiane Schönfeld state in a non-ironic way: "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."^[4]

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

Citations

1. Frank Richoct, "The ‘Good Germans’ Among Us", New York Times, (October 14, 2007).
2. [], Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, p. 17
3. [], Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, p. 17
4. Ó Dochartaigh, Pól; Schönfeld, Christiane (2013). "Introduction: Finding the 'Good German'". Representing the Good German in Literature and Culture After 1945: Altruism and Moral Ambiguity. Camden House. ISBN 9781571134981.