Right-wing historical revisionism in Germany
About the book chapter:
Extreme right-wingers instrumentalize, relativize and distort history. Historical revisionism is part of the ideological core of extreme right-wing thinking. The pivotal point is the assessment of National Socialism. Anyone who postulates historically traditional national greatness must at least play down the Nazi crimes. In recent years, new varieties of right-wing historical revisionism have been popularized – not least as a result of the protests against coronavirus protection measures, the rise of the AfD and fueled by Putin propaganda: Trivialization of Nazi crimes through ahistorical equations and reinterpretations of terms, conspiracy legends, Reichsbürger ideologies, Shoah-related anti-Semitism, according to which Jews are allegedly complicit in the hatred of Jews, and identitarian images of history. From an interdisciplinary perspective, the authors of this volume address the various manifestations of right-wing historical revisionism in Germany. The most important historical revisionist argumentation patterns, their functions and their protagonists are presented.
