"Collective silence" as a key strategy of the west German memory culture in the 1950s

The article examines the phenomenon of «collective silence» that defined West German memory culture (Erinnerungskultur) in the 1950s. The article briefly reviews history and development stages of the German memory culture after the Second World War, highlights the key features of the first - post-war - stage of the 1950s and examines the concepts of «collective silence» and «forgetting» and the role of forgetting in overcoming post-traumatic memory (memory of the Second World War). The article discusses the concept of memory models proposed by Aleida Assmann, German professor of English and Literary Studies, whose work focuses on cultural anthropology and memory studies. The concept interprets society’s reactions to historical traumas and regards silence as one of forgetting techniques. In this article the West German «collective silence» of the 1950s is studied from the point of view of A. Assmann’s theory of forgetting and its main forms. It is examined which types of forgetting can be considered prevailing in West Germany in the first post-war decade, and whether it can be argued that «collective silence» at the first stage of the development of German memory culture was predominantly negative.