German collective guilt

[2][3] Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung wrote an influential essay in 1945 about this concept as a psychological phenomenon, in which he asserted that the German people felt a collective guilt (Kollektivschuld) for the atrocities committed by their fellow countrymen, and so introduced the term into German intellectual discourse.

"[4] After the war, the Allied occupation forces in Allied-occupied Germany promoted shame and guilt with a publicity campaign, which included posters depicting Nazi concentration camps with slogans such as "These Atrocities: Your Fault!"

The philosopher and psychologist Karl Jaspers delivered lectures to students in 1946 which were published under the title The Question of German Guilt.

[6] In this published work, Jaspers describes how "an acknowledgment of national guilt was a necessary condition for the moral and political rebirth of Germany".

[citation needed] Thomas Mann also advocated for collective guilt: Those, whose world became grey a long time ago when they realized what mountains of hate towered over Germany; those, who a long time ago imagined during sleepless nights how terrible would be the revenge on Germany for the inhuman deeds of the Nazis, cannot help but view with wretchedness all that is being done to Germans by the Russians, Poles or Czechs as nothing other than a mechanical and inevitable reaction to the crimes that the people have committed as a nation, in which unfortunately individual justice, or the guilt or innocence of the individual, can play no part.