Closing stroke debate
Closing line debate (cf. the phrase " drawing a line ") refers to the discussion about ending what is usually a very controversial dispute over a long-term issue. The term is also used as a political catchphrase .
overview
The reason for a final line debate is usually the perceived lack of results and hopelessness of a further discussion on a topic. This is usually the case when the discussion participants in polarized groups do not come to an agreement after repeated intense debate.
The revisionism debate can be understood as a resumption of such a final line debate.
The final line debate can, however, only appear useful to one group and can be perceived by discussion partners as an evasive maneuver. This may give rise to two different connotations for the final line debate. On the one hand positive as a constructive attempt at a solution, on the other hand negative as a rhetorical evasive maneuver.
Examples
A few years after the end of the Second World War , the German population felt that denazification was unfair. It came in wide circles on the request, instead of a more far-reaching terms with the past to draw a "draw a line" under the Nazi past. Since then, the debate has been carried on with alternative formulations: For example, the CSU politician Franz-Josef Strauss spoke in 1969 of “ not wanting to hear any more about Auschwitz ”, or in 1986 he spoke out against “the eternal coming to terms with the past as a socio-political permanent penance”. In 1998, in his acceptance speech for the award of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, Martin Walser spoke of the "routine of accusation", "the instrumentalization of our shame for current purposes" "and said:" Auschwitz is not suitable for becoming a routine threat, an intimidation or moral club that can be used at any time or just a compulsory exercise ”.
Another example in which the term final line debate is used by civil rights activists is the dispute about coming to terms with the past in the history of the German Democratic Republic . Here, for example, the legal procedures to limit personal accusations against politicians are criticized as a "premature close-line debate".
In 1986, three years after the end of the military dictatorship , the so-called “ Closing Line Law ” was passed in Argentina .
use
The final line debate is often an attempt to come to terms with the past or, more precisely, the appeal for the task of further processing (discussion) of the past.
It is also commonly used as a political catchphrase, apart from debates, as an argument to portray an alleged or assumed discontinuity of states as a falsification or illusion .
literature
- Samuel Salzborn : Collective Innocence: The Defense of the Shoah in German Remembrance. Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin / Leipzig 2020, ISBN 978-3-95565-359-0
- Sabine Moller, Miriam Rürup , Christel Trouvé (eds.): Closed chapters? On the history of the concentration camps and the Nazi trials. Tübingen 2002, ISBN 3-89295-726-6 .
- Micha Brumlik , Hajo Funke , Lars Rensmann (eds.): Contested forgetting. Walser debate, Holocaust memorial and recent German historical politics. Berlin 2000, ISBN 978-3-86093-240-7 .
- Johannes Klotz, Gerd Wiegel (ed.): Spiritual arson. The new language of the Berlin republic. Berlin 2001, ISBN 978-3-74667-035-5 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klaus Ahlheim, Bardo Heger: The uncomfortable past. The Nazi past, the Holocaust and the difficulties of remembering. 2nd Edition. Wochenschau Verlag, Schwalbach 2003, ISBN 3-87920-469-1 .
- ^ Karl Cervik : Kindermord in der Ostmark , p. 108.
- ↑ Helma von Nerée: Remember - never forget (PDF).
- ↑ Falk Blask, Thomas Friedrich: Menschenbild und Volksgesicht , p. 174.