From Theodor Heuss to Richard von Weizsäcker - the Federal Presidents and the Nazi past. The Federal President speaks "in the name of the Germans" by virtue of his office, especially when it comes to the Nazi past. For Theodor Heuss and his successors in the Bonn Republic, this has always also meant speaking about their own contemporaneity. Norbert Frei demonstrates in his brilliantly written, at times breathtaking book how personal pasts were silenced while simultaneously setting the tone for discussions about National Socialism and the Holocaust in a society that had to learn to critically confront its own history.

Richard von Weizsäcker was the last Federal President who experienced the years of the Second World War as an already adult contemporary. The worldwide acclaim for his speech on the 40th anniversary of the end of the war on May 8, 1985, can be understood in this context. This book, which begins with Theodor Heuss, concludes with Weizsäcker's speech, as he was the first head of state of the Federal Republic of Germany who had to find ways to speak "in the name of the Germans" about the crimes of the "Third Reich." Norbert Frei, author of the classic study on "past politics" and one of the most renowned contemporary historians, meticulously traces the winding paths that led to the statesmanlike art and respected practice of addressing this issue.

Guilt and shame, forgetting and remembering. From the author of the classic "past politics." On dealing with the Nazi past in the highest office of the state.