The Heroization of the July 20 Plot in Selected Publications by Marion Dönhoff : What Ruth Hoff mann Did Not Write in “Das deutsche Alibi”
The Heroization of the July 20 Plot in Selected Publications by Marion Dönhoff : What Ruth Hoff mann Did Not Write in “Das deutsche Alibi”

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this review article is to analyze two historical narratives – individual andcollective memory – that have shaped German memory culture around the constructof the uprising of conscience (Ger. Aufstand des Gewisssens) over the past fi vedecades. Situated within the fi eld of memory studies, the article focuses on three textsby Marion Dönhoff dedicated to the July 20 plot: In Memoriam 20. Juli 1944 (1945),The Names No One Mentions Anymore (1962), and In the Name of Honor (1994). Theanalysis of these texts highlights Dönhoff ’s individual perspective on the Germanresistance movement and its reinterpretation as an act of moral awakening, referred toas the uprising of conscience. Dönhoff ’s refl ections are embedded in a broader politicaldiscourse, which is juxtaposed with Ruth Hoff mann’s critical perspective in her bookDas deutsche Alibi (2024). Hoff mann deconstructs the myth of July 20, analyzing itsmechanisms and arguing that it serves as a tool for German society to absolve itselffrom guilt over its passivity toward Nazism. The article limits its discourse analysisto Hoff mann’s approach, as it represents the most recent and comprehensive studyof German collective memory in this context. Furthermore, it refl ects on the limits ofthe heroization of the German resistance movement, the mythologization of historicalmemory, and the international reception of German memory politics.

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