GERMAN POWS FROM THE SECOND WORLD WAR returned to a postwar society in which specific political, social, and cultural frameworks and communicative settings determined how their past was remembered and commemorated. This book presents a multifaceted examination of the history of returnees within the framework of memory formation. By conceiving “memory” as an act of social communication, this study provides an empirical analysis of the activities of various individual and collective memory agents and their communicative strategies. This study has provided an in-depth exploration of the interrelations between various levels and layers of memory by analyzing a wide spectrum of memory formations: first, specific aspects of the “memory culture” in East and West Germany with its changes and developments over time; second, the transition from a divided to a reunited Germany and its impact on the emergence of gesamtdeutsche memory formations; third, the interdependencies and incongruities between local, regional, and nationwide memory discourses; and fourth, the intersections and contrasting manifestations of individual and collective, private and public forms of memory formation.

By focusing on “late” memories, which developed from the mid- 1950s onward—after returnees ceased to be “hot topics” in the media and in political affairs—in this study I have demonstrated to what extent the experiences of returnees have retained a certain significance in private and public realms throughout the postwar period until the present day. On the basis of these findings, it is clear that the often-quoted hypothesis of a Privatisierung der Kriegsfolgen (privatization of the reverberations of war), a West German phenomenon that allegedly began in the 1950s, needs revision. Returnees and their fates were not a constant topic of debate but a recurring issue. The memory agents involved in this discourse were diverse, comprising the returnees themselves, their families and friends, veterans’ associations, politicians, and political institutions, as well as the media.

The empirical analyses demonstrate that in the course of memory activities “private” and “public” spheres are often blurred. Individual returnees took advantage of the broad spectrum of opportunities available to them in order to engage in public discourse by publishing their memoirs, organizing local events and exhibits, writing letters to editors, or posting comments and autobiographical accounts on the Internet.