Entangled memories: Versions of the past in Germany and Japan, 1945-2001

In the history of memory, the national paradigm continues to reign supreme. This is particularly striking at a time when the historical profession is increasingly producing transnational work. The history of memory, however, continues to cling to the nation as a frame of reference. German and Japanese memory, accordingly, are first and foremost described as different ways of 'coming to terms with the past', or as the 'inability to mourn'. This internalist approach remains firmly within the boundaries of the nations tate and tends to explain memories of the wartime past as the expression of 'culture of mourning' or specific national mentalities. This article attempts to put the postwar history of memory in West Germany and Japan into a transnational perspective and to read the continuities and ruptures of memory discourse as the effects of a process of entangled histories.