Postsocialist, Postmigrant, and Postcolonial Dynamics in Germany’s Changing Memoryscape

Introduction

Abstract

This essay introduces the 89th issue of Berliner Blätter entitled Germany’s Changing Memoryscape. Postsocialist, Postmigrant, and Postcolonial Dynamics. The introduction, as well as the issue as a whole, is dedicated to how German remembrance is being transformed by various posts, first and foremost those invoked in the title. It argues that while postmigrant, postsocialist, and postcolonial memories have still to make considerable inroads into changing the existing Holocaust-centered memory regime in Germany, they have already changed the country’s broader memoryscape and are continuing to do so. The issue’s focus is on ways in which this transformation is experienced in practice, and the following introductory remarks present the editors’ key arguments, contextualizing them within German memory as it developed after World War II (WWII) and substantiating them with the volume’s contributions.