[Confronting national disgrace. An ethno-psychoanalytic comparison of German and Italian culture]

On the basis of personal impressions and examples drawn from contemporary German and Italian literatures, the author describes differences regarding the manner in which the period of Nazism and Fascism is dealt with in the two countries. His thesis is that Italians have discussed the brutality of the war years more candidly and intensively than Germans. Against this background the author is especially interested in cultural processes that might counteract denial and undo forgetting.