{{short description|Term for being passive in the face of atrocity}} __NOTOC__ '''''Good Germans''''' is an ironic term — usually placed between single quotes such as 'Good Germans' — referring to German citizens during and after World War II who claimed not to have supported the Nazi regime, but remained silent and did not resist in a meaningful way.<ref>{{cite news |last=Rich |first=Frank |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14rich2.html |title=The 'Good Germans' Among Us |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 14, 2007 |access-date=}}</ref><ref name=Goldhagen17>{{cite book |last=Goldhagen |first=Daniel Jonah |title=Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust |year=1996 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |location=New York |isbn=978-0-679-44695-8 |page=17}}</ref> The term is further used to describe those who claimed ignorance of the Holocaust and German war crimes.<ref name=Goldhagen17 />
Pól Ó Dochartaigh and Christiane Schönfeld edited a volume on different cultural representations of the 'Good German' and state in their introduction: "After the division of Germany in 1949, finding 'good Germans' whose record helped legitimize each of the new German states became a core aspect of building a new nation in Germany and of the propaganda battle in this respect between the two German states."<ref>{{cite book |title=Representing the Good German in Literature and Culture After 1945: Altruism and Moral Ambiguity |first1=Pól |last1=Ó Dochartaigh |first2=Christiane |last2=Schönfeld |publisher=Camden House |year=2013 |isbn=9781571134981 |chapter=Introduction: Finding the 'Good German'}}</ref>
==See also== * Myth of the clean Wehrmacht * German collective guilt * Italiani brava gente * ''Résistancialisme'' * Responsibility for the Holocaust * ''The Good German'' – a 2006 Steven Soderbergh film * Wehrkraftzersetzung * Rommel myth
==Citations== {{reflist}}
Category:German people of World War II Category:Culture of Germany Category:The Holocaust Category:Irony Category:Historical negationism in Germany
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