Patriotism, National Identity and Youth Policy in Modern Germany

The article is devoted to the problem of the formation of national identity in modern Germany - a country with a difficult past to comprehend and a multicultural present. The authors proceed from the fact that in the process of formation of national identity, history plays a special role: Awareness of the commonality of the past, the presence of historical events that are significant for the majority of the country’s inhabitants, are a kind of foundation for the formation of a worldview. The article outlines the main stages of discussions about patriotism and identity in Germany, defines the peculiarities of youth policy, characterizes the trends of coverage of the military past on the pages of modern German textbooks. © 2021, Rossiiskaya Akademiya Nauk, Institut Istorii (Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of General Hist. All rights reserved.