Abstract

In Germany students sometimes complain that they have to learn too much about National Socialist Germany 1933-1945. They are born after the war and are not responsible for what happened and therefore they have no special responsibility to concern themselves with this darkest part of German history, or so it is complained. In this article I argue that responsibility as accountability should be distinguished from responsibility as care-taking. Although later-born generations certainly are not accountable for what happened before they were born, they can have a special responsibility to care about those events, for instance to remember them for what they were. I claim that in the case of the Third Reich there are two different grounds for ascribing this kind of responsibility: German citizenship and identifying strongly with Germany as a nation.