A Look in the Mirror

Reflections on Perpetrator History

Abstract

This essay analyzes recent academic approaches to Nazi perpetrator history in Germany. The author reflects on postwar images of perpetrators and the juridical definition of perpetration, and discusses their use for the biographical historical research of NS perpetrators. Taking into account modern cultural concepts as gender and generation, Wildt suggests to read perpetrator history as general social history: the »normality« of mass murder during NS rule does not allow us to isolate the history or perpetrators as extraordinary, but must lead us to new perspectives on German society at large.