Landscapes of ‘Othering’ in Postwar and Contemporary G ermany: The Limits of the ‘Culture of Contrition’ and the Poverty of the Mainstream

In the 1930s the N ational S ocialist regime embarked on a chillingly ambitious and fanatical project to ‘remake’ German society and ‘race’ by deploying a peerless – in both kind and intensity – repertoire of ‘othering’ strategies and measures directed at the Jews, the S inti/Roma, and non‐conformist groups within the T hird R eich. At the heart of this campaign was the notion of a ‘zero‐sum’ confrontation between the nation/race and its perceived ‘enemies’: namely, that the existence of these ‘enemies’ within German society threatened the very foundations of the G erman ‘race’ and posed the gravest threat to its mere survival. To what extent can the experience of the 1930s aggressive, violent, and eventually murderous ‘zero‐sum’ mindset provide crucial insights into contemporary discourses of ‘othering’, linked with the E uropean radical‐populist right but increasingly ‘infecting’ the social and political mainstream? The contemporary ‘ethno‐pluralist’ framing of the discussion divulges the persistence of a similar ‘zero‐sum’ mentality that is nurtured by socio‐economic and cultural insecurity, on the one hand, and powerful long‐standing prejudices against particular groups, on the other. The article explores this ‘zero‐sum’ insecurity mindset in the anti‐immigration ‘mainstream’ discourses in the F ederal R epublic of G ermany, both before and after re‐unification. It demonstrates how – in contrast to the postwar ‘culture of contrition’ with regard to the memory of the Holocaust – this mindset continues to be a powerful political and psychological refuge for societal insecurities that has an enduring appeal to significant audiences well beyond the narrow political constituencies of the radical right.