‘Collective Guilt’ - who is guilty?

In the now 6 month long brutal war in Gaza, itself the latest manifestation of an over 75 year conflict, the idea of ‘collective punishment’ has been hotly debated. In order to justify collective punishment one must believe in the concept of ‘collective guilt.’ Being German, (German/British dual national) I became acquainted with that particular idea from a young age. Having a German mother, beloved German grandparents and spending every childhood holiday with in Germany, my German identity has always been a fundamental part of who I am. Even though I couldn’t feel more English/British, and England will always be my home, I am also proud to be German. But even though it’s over 80 years since the Second World War, national pride isn’t something that comes naturally or easily to many Germans. ‘Kolletivschuld‘, (‘collective guilt’), is the reason why.

   Of course my grandparents’ generation, and even that of my mother born a decade after the war ended, felt Kolletivschuld much more intensely than younger Germans. Indeed there was an intense, concerted effort by the Allies after the war to instil a sense of collective responsibility and guilt into all German people. Part of this was a publicity campaign featuring posters of concentration camps alongside slogans saying ‘Diese Schandtaten: Eure Schuld,’ ‘These outrages, your fault.’ For my mother’s generation schools were the main vehicles for encouraging a sense of Kolletivschuld into the young, extending its tentacles from their parents into their own souls. At a young age she was shown graphic images of concentration camps and other atrocities from the Holocaust and the Nazi regime generally. Few would argue that strict re-education, what was called ‘de-Nazification’, for those Germans who lived through the war, and education for those who came after it, was essential. But drawing the line between ruthless pursuit of accountability/justice and blaming the innocent due to accident of birth is a more hotly contestable debate.

   For me there has always been clarity on the subject of collective guilt and collective punishment because of my German grandparents. Sadly now no longer with us, they remain two of the best humans I have ever met. Of course every granddaughter who has loving grandparents might say the same! But Heinrich and Hildegard Schauer - known to me as Opa and Oma - were objectively the kindest, most selfless, most generous and opened hearted souls one could encounter on this earth. They spent the terrible period of ‘The Third Reich’ trying to survive the Nazi regime whilst trying to help as many others as they could. In my Grandad’s case he failed his army officer’s exam three times because he didn’t want to be forced to take decisions or give orders that lead to killing, (often innocent) people. My Grandmother and her family were impoverished as a result of a forced move from the Sudetenland to southern Germany. (They anticipated the Czechoslovakian Government’s official expulsion of Germans). She lived in the small town rural community of Pegnitz, cramped into a few rooms with her refugee relatives. The adults often went hungry just to keep children’s bellies half full. Oma told me of a Jewish girl she sat next to in school and sometimes visited at home to play with. Her family owned a factory and never let the young Hilde return home without a basket bulging with goodies like cheese, eggs, butter and bread. Sadly the Jewish family had to flee the vile persecution of Jews just before the war, but Oma never found out what happened to any of them. She also never knew what was happening in what they called the ‘lager’ (camps) that Jews, gypsies and assorted dissidents were sent to, until she saw the horrific images/footage provided by the Allies after the war. Her sister in law’s father, my great great Uncle, was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp for being a trade union supporting socialist. However when he returned after some months he never spoke a single word of what he had seen. Today we would call it PTSD or trauma. There were indeed many Germans, whether sheltered in communities like Oma or fighting on foreign shores like Opa, who had no idea of the industrial scale genocide being committed in their nation. How does ‘guilt’ apply to them?

   Of course we Brits are also being called to bear the burden of collective guilt when it comes to our own history. The legacy of colonialism hangs heavy for some, especially on what one might call the progressive or woke left of politics. It seems a near monthly occurrence that we debate paying ‘reparations’ to the descendants of the trans Atlantic slave trade and removing certain historic monuments or paintings from public display. The Church of England has consistently hit headlines due to its desire to pay 100 million pounds to atone for its historic links to slavery. The Church also aims to set aside 1 billion for a fund called ‘Healing, Repair and Justice’, inspired by what it sees as its need to address historic guilt. Archbishop Welby has insisted that the Church of England must ‘take action to address our shameful past.’ The word ‘our’ is very significant here. Of course we can talk about ‘our past’ in a general sense, E.g. our country’s past, our family’s past etc. But to what extent is ‘our past’ synonymous with ‘our guilt’ when we weren’t personally involved in the crime or sin? And to what extent are those who can talk about ‘victimhood in our past’ also victims themselves?

  My grandparents showed me another really important more intimate side to ‘collective guilt.’ They brought up my uncle and mother in the same loving way and gave them the same support and opportunities. While my mother became and remains honest, compassionate and selfless to her core, my uncle somehow turned from a caring little boy into a narcissistic criminal. A few decades ago now he committed awful, damaging fraud as a lawyer, including stealing money from charities and ended up in prison for nearly 4 years, serving half his sentence. He then nearly bleed my grandparents financially dry by emotionally blackmailing them into paying his debts. First my grandfather and then more recently my grandmother went to their deaths worrying that they were somehow partly to blame for the person he became, that they almost shared his guilt. Of course our parents are most often the major influence on our lives. A good upbringing tries to form a child into a decent adult. Likewise an abusive or deprived upbringing can lead to abusive or violent behaviour. However there are limits to the shaping process. Someone can have the best, most nurturing possible start in life and yet their heart and mind become moulded by other malign influences. Someone can come from the most abusive, violent background and become the gentlest of adults. Even those who directly impact our lives don’t always share the guilt we bear for our bad choices and actions.

   Yet even though I always passionately reassured my grandparents that my uncle’s actions were nothing to do with them, a part of me will always feel uncomfortable about disclosing his crimes for fear of ‘guilt by association/familial ties.’ I saw the pain such perceived ‘guilt’ can cause just recently when the parents of the man who went on a deadly stabbing rampage through Sydney’s Bondi Junction apologised for their mentally ill son’s awful crimes. I’m sure there have been times in nearly everyone’s life when we have apologised on someone else’s behalf just because we are associated with them. A comparatively trivial example would be apologising for a drunken friend’s loud, anti social behaviour in a bar as we drag them out! Of course to a certain extent this is a form of politeness and humility that acts as a harmonising social glue in and between communities. But we must beware that this positive self deprecation doesn’t morph into justifying punishing the innocent for the crimes of others, whether that be us wrongly punishing ourselves or the collective punishment of a nation.

   Katrin Himmler is the great niece of perhaps the most notorious Nazi after Hitler himself, Heinrich Himmler. She was once asked by Time magazine if she had considered not having children to let the family ‘die out’, as other descendants of prominent Nazi leaders had done. She replied,

Other children of perpetrators in Germany have decided to do that. But for me, that's a continuity of how the Nazis thought — that everything is defined by bloodlines. Genes aren't everything. You can always make your own decisions. For me it was important to get educated, to pass on what I learned.

Katrin was not as lucky as me in that her German family who lived through the Nazi regime were all enthusiastic participants in its horror. After in depth research she even discovered that those whom she had always considered pretty apathetic to Nazism had been undeniably complicit. However her rejection of collective and associative guilt has always been an inspiration to me. The idea that we can and indeed must hold people, whether whole nations or ourselves,  guilty because of birthplace or genes is, as Katrin Himmler said, to think as the Nazis thought. It is essential for the health and the souls individuals and societies to pursue justice and in doing so firmly reject collective guilt and punishment.