Legacies of Stalingrad: Remembering the Eastern Front in Germany since 1945

Christina Morina’s book examines the history of World War II on the Eastern Front and its impact on German politics and society throughout the postwar period. She argues that the memory of the Eastern Front was one of the most crucial and contested themes in each part of the divided Germany. Although the Holocaust over time gained the most prominent position in West German memory, official memory in East Germany centered on the war against the Soviet Union. Morina analyzes the ways in which these memories emerged in postwar German political culture during and after the Cold War and how views of these events played a role in contemporary political debates. Her analysis pays close attention to the biographies of the protagonists, both during and after the war, demonstrating that political memory was formed and informed as much by ideology and politics as by individual experience.