The state itself never effectively came to terms with the past either. The communist regime was against any American ally, including Israel, and thus East Germany did not pay reparations to Israel for the crimes of the Holocaust, a situation unconducive to vergangenheitsbewältigung. Indeed, this problem was exacerbated by "the patent refusal of East Germany to accept responsibility for what had happened in the Third Reich-- a refusal that went so far as to imply that not only were there now two Germanys, but there had been two German pasts" (Dornberg 1975: xii). Thus, while West Germany inherited the responsibility as well as capitalist and Nazi trappings of the past, East Germany was free of both. This view of the past is clearly spelled out on the memorials of the DDR era, and, in a way, recalls the desire of some in West Germany to view the Third Reich "from a 'proper historical distance,' as Rainer Zitelmann wrote" (Fisher 1995: 41). We will see how the views of the East and West play out on the memorials of Berlin.
Next: A Memorial in West Berlin
