Die Schuldfrage: Von der politischen Haftung Deutschlands

A treatise by the greatest thinker of the 20th century, the German philosopher, psychologist and psychiatrist Karl Jaspers, written by him after the defeat of German fascism, in the days of the Nuremberg trials of Nazi criminals. At the time, the defeated Germany lay in ruins, and society was in turmoil and deep depression. The German people were faced with the task of reassembling themselves, of developing a new national identity - "to melt down, to rebirth, to cast off all that was pernicious. Jaspers raises the painful question of whether all Germans are responsible for the crimes of the Nazi regime, and for the first time distinguishes four kinds of guilt: legal, political, moral and metaphysical. The treatise is published in Solomon Apt's classic translation.