Normalizing Memory in Reunified Germany

In his short essay reflecting on the achievements and shortcomings of reunified Germany’s then two-decade treatment of the Stasi Records Archive (Stasi-Unterlagen) or the former East German secret police files, James McAdams contends that even as dissatisfaction and disappointments abounded, these had more to do with the expectations regarding the process of transitional justice than with the actual results themselves. He proposes that the three main “constraints” challenging attempts at post-conflict justice delivery and truth recovery are “(i) the power of precedent; (ii) the illusion of resolution; and (iii) the possibility of a continuous return [of the ghosts of the past].”