Publisher's Synopsis
Why did the Protestant culture of remembrance discover the clergyman Karl Friedrich Stellbrink, who was executed by the National Socialists, for itself only in the 1980s? Why are church leaders like the Bavarian regional bishop Hans Meiser, who have long been venerated as opponents of National Socialism, recently regarded as no longer worth remembering? And why has Elisabeth Schmitz's 1935 text, which described the "situation of German non-Aryans" with great clairvoyance and called on the Protestant Church to consistently stand up for the Jews, only recently enjoyed national and international attention in research and remembrance culture? The authors of this anthology address many other questions. The contributions show that the Protestant history of remembrance also has an active and functional relationship to its present and says far more about the power of current economic cycles in culture and politics than about the historical truth of what is remembered. Christian actors and groups actively pursued moral and political goals and formed their own identities through the memory of Christian resistance. It shows what committed promoters of remembrance can achieve when their goals are carried by cultural and political trends. Not least at the interface between personal commitment and zeitgeist it is decided why certain personalities, texts or places receive a place in the memory of Christian resistance, while others are forgotten or have to vacate their place in the culture of remembrance.
