Latent but Not Less Significant
The Holocaust as an Argumentative Resource in German National Identity Discourse
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3633653 |
|---|---|
| Authors | E Piwoni (0000-0002-4567-3175, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 1-26 |
| Publication date | 2013-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | German Politics & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1045-0300 • E-ISSN: 1558-5441 |
| Publisher | Berghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3167/gps.2013.310301 |
| OpenAlex | W2335310178 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
There seems to be a wide consensus in the academic community that the Holocaust is gradually losing significance in the German public. This development is clearly reflected in public elite discourse on national identity, where "Holocaust-centered memory" has ceased to be hegemonic. In the literature, several interpretations and reasons have been presented to explain this development. This paper contributes to the debate by arguing that the declining presence of Holocaust-centered arguments in intellectual elite discourse on national identity is due to a new consensual idea of German nationhood. Based on an event-oriented discourse analysis of more than 800 articles in opinion-leading newspapers, journals and magazines covering a period of more than twenty years, I argue that in national identity discourse, the Holocaust has never been-as is usually assumed-a blockade to displays of national identity in general, but only to a specific interpretation of the German nation as a Volk and as an exclusionist culture nation. By contrast, the idea of nationhood that dominates in the German public sphere today, the civic nation model, has never invoked Holocaust-centered counter-arguments-not even in the Historikerstreit in the 1980s. Thus, over the past three decades, the way national identity discourse has operated might have changed less than had often been assumed. The central argument of this paper is that the Holocaust has become a "latent"-but not a less consequential-argumentative resource
Aesthetics · Argumentative · Elite · German · Hegemony · National identity · Political science · Politics · Public opinion · Public sphere · Sociology · The Holocaust · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · European history and politics · Gender Studies · German History and Society · History · Law · Philosophy
“Terms such as ‘true German’ […] belong in the history books”
The duty to remember “it”
To remember or not to remember? The Germans, National Socialism, and the Holocaust – a typology
Discourse, hegemony, and the public sphere
On nation, homeland, and democracy
Claiming the nation for the people
The evolution of the civic–ethnic distinction as a partial success story
Mass-mediated discourse on emotion, and the feeling rules it conveys
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,73 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2025 (11) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |