Zur Konstitution von Generationen in familienbiographischen Prozessen

Abstract

The article analyses collective as well as family memory concerning the period of National-Socialism in families of victims, culprits and fellow travellers of the Third Reich. In all the cases the processes of dialogue and the tradition of memory among the generations were determined by the involved individual's position on the generation scale as well as the constellation of generations within the family. The author presents two models of typical generation constellations and their characteristic memory patterns of the NS-aera. In the first model (Growing- Up During the War), the grandparents' generation experienced World War I as juveniles or young grown-ups, their children normally were members of the Hitlerjugend and their grandchildren were usually born during the economic boom of the 1950ies. In the second generation model (Childhood During the War) the grandparents were still children during World War I, their children were born during or shortly after World War II and their grandchildren were already members of our modern consumers' society, experiencing the social and economic crisis of the 1970ies as adolescents. The article presents a case-study demonstrating how in family tradition and memory World War I is instrumentalised in order to exculpate the family from its involvement in the Nazi-system.