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Germans are often accused of failing to take responsibility for Nazi crimes, but what precisely should ordinary people do differently? Indeed, scholars have yet to outline viable alternatives for how any of us should respond to terror and genocide. And because of the way they compartmentalize everyday life, our discipline-bound analyses often disguise more than they illuminate. Written by a historian, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian, The Happy Burden of History takes an integrative approach to the problem of responsible selfhood. Exploring the lives and letters of ordinary and intellectual Germans who faced the ethical challenges of the Third Reich, it focuses on five typical tools for cultivating the modern self: myths, lies, non-conformity, irony, and modeling. The authors carefully dissect the ways in which ordinary and intellectual Germans excused their violent claims to mastery with a sense of 'sovereign impunity.' They then recuperate the same strategies of selfhood for our contemporary world, but in ways that are self-critical and humble. The book shows how viewing this problem from within everyday life can empower and encourage us to bear the burden of historical responsibility - and be happy doing so.

National socialism --- Genocide --- Impunity --- Collective memory --- Self --- Responsibility --- Social change --- Accountability --- Moral responsibility --- Obligation --- Ethics --- Supererogation --- Personal identity --- Consciousness --- Individuality --- Mind and body --- Personality --- Thought and thinking --- Will --- Privileges and immunities --- Punishment --- Cleansing, Ethnic --- Ethnic cleansing --- Ethnic purification --- Ethnocide --- Purification, Ethnic --- Crime --- Historiography. --- History --- Social aspects --- Germany --- Alemania --- Ashkenaz --- BRD --- Bu̇gd Naĭramdakh German Uls --- Bundesrepublik Deutschland --- Deutsches Reich --- Deutschland --- Doitsu --- Doitsu Renpō Kyōwakoku --- Federal Republic of Germany --- Federalʹna Respublika Nimechchyny --- FRN --- German Uls --- Germania --- Germanii︠a︡ --- Germanyah --- Gjermani --- Grossdeutsches Reich --- Jirmānīya --- KhBNGU --- Kholboony Bu̇gd Naĭramdakh German Uls --- Nimechchyna --- Repoblika Federalin'i Alemana --- República de Alemania --- República Federal de Alemania --- Republika Federal Alemmana --- Vācijā --- Veĭmarskai︠a︡ Respublika --- Weimar Republic --- Weimarer Republik --- ХБНГУ --- Германия --- جرمانيا --- ドイツ --- ドイツ連邦共和国 --- ドイツ レンポウ キョウワコク --- Germany (East) --- Germany (Territory under Allied occupation, 1945-1955) --- Germany (Territory under Allied occupation, 1945-1955 : British Zone) --- Germany (Territory under Allied occupation, 1945-1955 : French Zone) --- Germany (Territory under Allied occupation, 1945-1955 : Russian Zone) --- Germany (Territory under Allied occupation, 1945-1955 : U.S. Zone) --- Germany (West) --- Holy Roman Empire --- Moral conditions --- Nazisme --- Génocide --- Mémoire collective --- Moi (Psychologie) --- Responsabilité --- Changement social --- Historiographie --- Histoire --- Aspect social --- Allemagne --- Biography. --- Moral conditions. --- Biographies --- Conditions morales --- Deguo --- 德国 --- Gėrman --- Герман Улс --- Coming to Terms with the Past. --- National Socialism. --- Responsibility.