[1][2] Margalit's academic research focused on various aspects of post-war Germany and its process of coming to terms with the Nazi past (Vergangenheitsbewältigung), including antisemitism and attitudes to ethnic minorities — Romani, Turks and Jews.
Margalit also worked on an oral history project about the Turks in Germany and their process of creating a collective German-Turkish identity.
These include, for example, the reluctance of both postwar Germanies to compensate them for their sufferings during the Nazi period, as well as the authorities' attempts to resume their control over the free movement of itinerants.
The political leaderships who shaped these cultures ceased to confront their citizens with the question of guilt; instead, they depicted the German people as victims.
Turkish immigrants started arriving in West Germany in 1960, after an agreement between Turkey and the Federal Republic on supplying Gastarbeiter ("guest workers") for the German labour market.