Germany’s past is marked not only by the atrocities of the Holocaust, but also by a history of collective attempts to come to terms with these crimes. The present paper focuses on the previously rarely explored consequences of perceived success in dealing with a perpetrator past for the moral ingroup-image and the demand for an end to the discussion of this chapter of history (i.e., demand for historical closure). In one correlational study (N = 982) and three experimental studies (N = 904), we found robust evidence for a positive association between perceived success in dealing with the Nazi past and perceived ingroup morality. The results on the assumed influence of success on claims for historical closure, mediated by morality, were only partly supportive and inconsistent, particularly when controlling for political orientation and collective narcissism. However, final single-paper meta-analyses revealed a significant association between perceived ingroup morality and demand for historical closure (K = 5), as well as a small but significant effect of success (vs. failure) on demand for historical closure (K = 4), even when accounting for political orientation. Implications for understanding ethical self-views in historical perpetrator groups and recurring debates about a ‘Schlussstrich’ on the German Nazi past are discussed.
Belonging to a historical perpetrator group whose behavior clearly violated prevailing ethical standards can seriously affect the group's moral self-image. To regain a favorable moral self-concept and reduce unpleasant feelings of collective guilt, members of historical perpetrator groups may employ defensive strategies, such as demanding that a final line should be drawn under the past (so-called demand for historical closure). However, little research has addressed the possibility of regaining a favorable moral group image based on the perception of having already faced and successfully overcome the dark past. The demand for historical closure might then stem from the perception that further confrontation with the perpetrator past is no longer necessary because the group has already successfully dealt with the past.
The present study, which was conducted in the context of Germany’s dealing with the Nazi past, aimed at examining whether perceived success in dealing with the perpetrator past may increase the group’s moral image and, consequently, claims for historical closure. We refer to this assumed effect as moral entitlement.
We tested our model of moral entitlement in one correlational and three experimental online studies. To experimentally increase the perception that Germany has successfully (vs. unsuccessfully) confronted its past, participants read a text that highlighted the achievements (vs. shortcomings) of Germany's dealing with the Nazi past. Subsequently, participants were asked to write down examples they thought could support success (vs. failure) in dealing with the past. Finally, participants' perceptions of Germany's morality and their agreement with drawing a line under the Nazi era were measured. Results consistently indicated that participants who were asked to give examples of successes in dealing with the past perceived Germans as more moral, compared to how participants who were asked to provide examples of failures perceived Germans. However, an effect of engaging with successes in dealing with the past on agreement with historical closure was not evident in all studies. Final summary analyses across all studies (i.e., meta-analyses), which accounted for the political ideology of participants, revealed a small association between perceived ingroup morality and demand for historical closure, as well as a small effect of success in dealing with the past on historical closure.
The present results suggest that acknowledgement of historical intergroup harm the ingroup committed does not inevitably lead to a negative ingroup perception, but, in conjunction with a focus on perceived success in overcoming the dark past, can be regarded as a positive attribute of the society, which ultimately enables a favorable moral group-concept. In addition, the results cautiously suggest that perceived success in dealing with the past can have a small influence on the demand for drawing a final line under the perpetrator past. Since this effect was evident in the combined analysis of all experimental studies (i.e., meta-analysis) but was not consistently supported across all individual studies, the present results should be considered as tentative support for the moral entitlement effect.
“The past is not forgotten”, the theme governing the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in Berlin, may be regarded as an encapsulation of the continuously ubiquitous German culture of remembrance. Germany’s attempt to deal with its history of National Socialist dictatorship has been considered a model of success for many other nations (
At first glance, this might seem surprising since recognizing the ingroups’ guilt has been discussed as a major roadblock to maintaining a favorable image of the ingroup (
Morality is one of the most important characteristics for a positive evaluation of the ingroup (
One of the most prominent historical perpetrator groups, and at the same time, one of the countries that attempted to rehabilitate themselves by officially acknowledging the committed crimes, is Germany. Yet, it took decades until the memory of the Holocaust as it is present in Germany today was built up. Despite the Allied forces’ measures of denazification and the Nuremberg trials against leading Nazi functionaries, post-war German society was marked by a focus on the suffering of primarily non-Jewish Germans (e.g., through the bombing of German cities) and a radical forgetting of the harms committed during the Nazi regime (
Since the 2000s, two approaches to German national identity that until then seemed mutually exclusive have become more compatible: On the one hand, acknowledgement of the crimes of the past and, on the other hand, positive identification with the German nation - precisely because German society is facing up to its past and accepting responsibility (
But what consequences can follow from perceiving the ingroup as particularly moral? We argue that a focus on Germany’s success in dealing with its perpetrator past may emphasize current moral advances, which, in turn, may enable the expression of attitudes that are considered inappropriate for perpetrator groups. This proposed adverse effect of perceived ingroup morality can be conceptually embedded in the theoretical frameworks of
Building on the theoretical idea of moral entitlement, we assume that perceiving the ingroup as particularly moral may bear crucial consequences for views on the adequate handling of the National Socialistic legacy. A recurring issue in this context, is the demand to draw a final line under the perpetrator history (historical closure or
So far, the demand for historical closure has been explored primarily as a component of secondary Antisemitism in the theoretical light of collective defensiveness against the aversive feeling of guilt (e.g.,
Indeed, despite the Holocaust, about 76% of a German, nationally representative sample considered Germany to be very moral compared to other nations (
Based on the aforementioned arguments, we propose that perceived success (vs. failure) in Germany’s dealing with the Nazi past can enhance perceived ingroup morality. Perceived morality, in turn, is expected to entitle the expression of desire for historical closure (
Being a role model of dealing with the national perpetrator past might provide perceived entitlement not only to close this chapter of history, but also to express negative intergroup attitudes. Throughout the studies reported below, we therefore repeatedly included measures of such outgroup negativity as examples of socially sanctioned attitudes that people may feel morally entitled to express. As these exploratory analyses provided no reliable evidence, we report all corresponding results in the
Study 1 was conducted as an initial investigation of the association between perceived ingroup morality derived from Germany’s achievement in dealing with the past and the desire for historical closure. Additionally, we tested for potential downstream consequences on attitudes toward refugees. Prior research conducted in Germany found that group-based moral shame due to Germans’ involvement in historical harmdoing was linked to prosocial attitudes toward Turks living in Germany ( We repeated this mediation analysis also in the other studies and found consistent support for a correlational association between perceived ingroup morality and negative attitudes toward refugees via historical closure. Yet, this correlational mediation model was not consistently supported for other types of outgroup negativity. Respective results are reported throughout the
We included relevant study measures into a larger item battery of a representative survey (see The survey also asked for political orientation in the form of party preference, which was answered by 657 participants. For our meta-analyses, we converted political party preference into numerical values using the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (see also Study 2).
Perceived ingroup morality due to successful dealing with the past was measured with three items (e.g., “Germany is a country that has learned from the mistakes of its past”; α
The mediation analysis using structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed a positive association between perceived ingroup morality and demand for historical closure, and a negative association between demand for historical closure and openness toward refugees, as well as a significant direct link between morality and openness toward refugees (
Participants who perceived Germans as highly moral due to Germany’s way of dealing with its Nazi past also agreed more with the demand for historical closure and expressed less openness toward refugees in Germany. Although such a correlational statistical mediation does not confirm our theoretical reasoning, it is compatible with it. The next studies built on these initial results and aimed to experimentally manipulate perceived success in dealing with the past.
Study 2 aimed at providing experimental support for the causal impact of success in dealing with the past on the demand for historical closure via enhanced ingroup morality. We hypothesized that experimentally emphasizing success (vs. failure) in dealing with the past would enhance perceived ingroup morality, and hence increase demands for historical closure, compared to reminders of failure. Furthermore, we tested whether this proposed mediation would remain stable, even when controlling for political orientation. Controlling for political orientation seems particularly relevant, since especially current right-wing voices emphasize that Germany has already dealt enough with its past (i.e., perceived success) and reject a further confrontation with past crimes (i.e., historical closure;
The study was conducted for the second author’s master thesis. As typical for these kind of data collections, the goal was to collect as many participants as possible within a fixed time frame (five weeks). The study was advertised as an online survey on attitudes toward German history via social media and a university mailing list. Out of 282 participants who completed the survey entirely, 19 participants were excluded since they were not German, they were Jewish, or they completed the experiment extremely quickly according to the MAD criterion with a threshold value of 2.5 (
To manipulate perceived success in dealing with the past, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In the
After finishing the priming task, participants in all three conditions completed four filler items on military deployment in crisis regions and subsequently two items on perceived ingroup morality (“Germany is very moral compared to other countries” and “Germany deals with its past in a very moral and responsible manner”, α = .83) Additional exploratory analyses indicated that the reported mediation effects were more pronounced for the second morality item than for the former one. Yet, for conceptual reasons and since both items were highly intercorrelated we carried out the mediation analyses with the mean value of both items, as pre-registered.
Descriptive statistics are given in
Group | Historical Closure |
Perceived Ingroup Morality |
Political Orientation |
|||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Success | 2.39 | 0.94 | 5.17 | 1.20 | 3.67 | 1.54 |
Failure | 1.85 | 1.07 | 4.45 | 1.28 | 3.81 | 1.58 |
Control | 2.62 | 1.04 | 5.02 | 1.18 | 4.00 | 2.08 |
The mediation analysis in SEM revealed that morality was significantly affected by condition, which in turn significantly predicted demand for historical closure (
To control for political orientation, we calculated the mediation model with the 213 participants who stated that they would vote for one of the given parties and additionally included political orientation as a further exogenous predictor of morality and historical closure, which was allowed to correlate with condition. Even after controlling for political orientation, the aforementioned pattern of results remained robust (
*
Additionally, we tested for differences between the participants included in the calculations (experimental groups) and those who were excluded from analyses due to non-conforming examples in one of the two experimental conditions (dropout groups). Indeed, desire for historical closure was significantly higher in the failure dropout group (
Reminders of success in dealing with the past enhanced perceived ingroup morality, which in turn mediated the relation between success and demands for historical closure, even when controlling for political orientation. Thus, the results of Study 2 supported our proposed mediation model. However, several participants were dropped from the analyses as they failed to provide answers in line with the presented text. In the failure condition, demand for historical closure among these dropouts was significantly higher than among those remaining in the sample. Prior research indicated that desire for historical closure is particularly high among group members who want to shield their positive ingroup image from criticism (i.e., collective narcissists;
It is important to note that compared to the control group, reminders of failure decreased (rather than success increased) perceived morality and demands for historical closure. In other words, the perception that Germany is handling its past morally seemed to be the baseline perception from which the failure condition deviated. Accompanied by the finding that several participants who dropped out of the failure group stated in their open-ended responses that they do not know any examples which substantiate failure in dealing with the past or even gave examples of success, it also seems possible that these participants just fundamentally disagreed with the opinion of the failure article. Seen in this light, the difference in historical closure between the experimental failure group and the failure dropout group might be in line with the assumed moral entitlement effect. To further substantiate the proposed moral entitlement process and to narrow down its boundary conditions, the next study aimed at replicating the present findings while additionally controlling for collective narcissism and collective guilt.
Our pre-registered hypothesis was that reminders of success in dealing with the past would increase claims for historical closure compared to reminders of failure, mediated by perceived ingroup morality. Moreover, Study 3 sought to gain a better understanding of the dropouts. In general, a discussion of Germany’s handling of the Nazi past can be interpreted as an indication of Germans’ past or present misconduct. Particularly among collective narcissists, who hold an exaggeratedly positive image of the ingroup that they protect against any kind of criticism (
A confrontation with the Nazi crimes may evoke feelings of
Based on a power analysis conducted using the meta-analytic average of standardized mean differences in historical closure obtained in Studies S2 and 2 ( Diverse represents the third legally recognized option in Germany, besides male and female.
We used the same manipulation as in Study 2. However, this time participants were asked to complete questionnaires on collective narcissism and political orientation before they were randomly assigned to one of the three study conditions. Afterwards, participants in all three conditions completed questionnaires on ingroup morality, historical closure, and collective guilt. Collective narcissism was measured with the nine-item scale by An EFA revealed that the one negatively coded item from the collective narcissism scale loaded negatively (-.10) on the underlying factor, suggesting that participants may have overlooked its negative formulation. Hence, it was excluded from further calculations.
The groups differed significantly in their demand for historical closure,
Group | Historical Closure |
Perceived Ingroup Morality |
Collective Guilt |
Collective Narcissism |
Political Orientation |
|||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Success | 2.87 | 1.51 | 4.76 | 1.36 | 2.42 | 1.65 | 2.39 | 1.17 | 0.01 | 0.77 |
Failure | 2.56 | 1.57 | 4.01 | 1.15 | 2.90 | 1.84 | 2.20 | 1.02 | 0.08 | 0.70 |
Control | 3.32 | 1.81 | 4.40 | 1.21 | 2.50 | 1.80 | 2.44 | 1.24 | -0.05 | 0.64 |
Despite the absence of significant differences between the two experimental groups in historical closure, mediation analyses were still conducted in order to obtain more detailed insights into the data. The indirect effect (5000 bootstrap-resamples) of perceived morality was significant, whether in a simple mediation,
Whether controlling for each of them separately or adding political orientation and collective narcissism simultaneously as additional exogenous predictors of perceived morality, collective guilt and historical closure into the SEM, the pattern of results was similar: political orientation and collective narcissism were significantly related to perceived morality and historical closure, yet neither perceived morality nor condition were significantly associated with historical closure (
**
An additional logistic regression indicated that with higher levels of collective narcissism, participants were less likely to report examples that matched the opinion in the priming article they had read. Comparisons between the two experimental and the two dropout groups indicated that collective narcissism was significantly higher in the group of participants who dropped out of the failure condition due to non-compliant responses (
Overall, the hypothesized mediation model was not supported, although a significant indirect effect of success on demand for historical closure through perceived ingroup morality was found, even when controlling for a potential indirect effect through collective guilt. Yet, while the effect of condition on morality remained stable after controlling for political orientation and collective narcissism, perceived morality was no longer significantly associated with historical closure and the indirect effect of morality disappeared. This suggests that perceived ingroup morality and the demand for historical closure are both confounded with political orientation or collective narcissism and their association thus might be spurious (
However, remarkable dropout rates due to non-compliant responses in the priming task eliminated a part of the variance in relevant study variables from the outset. The significant influence of collective narcissism on non-conforming responses suggests that the dropout was not random but systematic. Additional comparisons between the experimental and the dropout groups supported this assumption by revealing a systematic selection bias: Excluded participants in both experimental groups showed significantly higher levels of historical closure and differed in perceived morality, collective narcissism and collective guilt.
We can only speculate about the reasons for these differences. One possibility might be that participants who wanted historical closure from the outset refused to provide examples that matched the priming material they read because they generally did not want to engage with the issue of dealing with the past, either its successful aspects or its shortcomings. One finding that supports this possibility is that demands for historical closure were present in the open-ended responses of both dropout groups. Especially in the failure dropout group with particularly high levels of collective narcissism, the dropout might have been driven by narcissistic defensiveness against an engagement with ingroup-directed criticism (
It is possible that the dropouts were driven by narcissistic defensiveness or a strong opinion on Germany’s capability of dealing with the past that diverged from the opinion expressed in the priming article. In both cases, a manipulation could be beneficial that does not force participants to produce content that deviates from their opinion or criticizes the German ingroup, but rather confronts participants with the dissenting content in a less imposing way. We therefore selected from Study 2 and 3 the most frequently given examples for success and failure (15 examples each) in dealing with the past and presented them as input material for a ranking task. Our pre-registered hypothesis was again that reminders of success (vs. failure) would increase the demand for historical closure, mediated by perceived ingroup morality.
Based on the same power considerations as in Study 3, a sample of 412 German participants was recruited via the panel service Respondi. In accordance with the pre-registered exclusion criteria, 37 participants were excluded because they indicated belonging to the target groups, stated to have clicked at random or completed the experiment extremely fast according to the MAD criterion with a threshold value of 2.5 (
Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In the
The order of the priming task and measures was similar to that in Study 3, except for minor changes: Demographic variables were assessed at the beginning of the study, a three-item-scale for national identification with Germany was added for exploratory purposes (adapted from
Descriptive analyses are given in
Group | Historical Closure |
Perceived Ingroup Morality |
Collective Guilt |
Collective Narcissism |
Political Orientation |
|||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Success | 3.96 | 1.87 | 4.78 | 1.15 | 2.53 | 1.72 | 2.95 | 1.38 | -0.05 | 0.74 |
Failure | 4.04 | 1.75 | 4.47 | 1.11 | 2.69 | 1.75 | 3.14 | 1.53 | 0.10 | 0.75 |
Control | 4.12 | 1.85 | 4.69 | 1.09 | 2.83 | 1.88 | 3.11 | 1.57 | -0.03 | 0.71 |
Neither the indirect effect (5000 bootstrap-resamples) of collective guilt,
**
Overall, the weak mean differences between the experimental groups highlight that the ranking task was not able to meaningfully increase or decrease the perceived quality of dealing with the past. Although our goal of reducing the dropout rates was achieved, the less obtrusive manipulation seemed to be at the expense of the manipulation’s effectiveness. The reduction of the association between perceived morality and historical closure to non-significance when simultaneously controlling for political orientation and collective narcissism moreover suggests that these control variables might represent confounds between perceived morality and historical closure.
The results throughout the presented studies showed a rather consistent effect of success in dealing with the past on perceived ingroup morality, but an inconsistency regarding the association between morality and claims for historical closure as well as the impact of success on demand for historical closure. To determine whether the correlation between morality and historical closure as well as the experimental effect of success (vs. failure) on historical closure were overall significant even when controlling for political orientation, we conducted a series of single study fixed-effects meta-analyses. The first analysis comprised the Fisher’s
The calculated fixed-effects models (
Throughout the studies reported above, we repeatedly included measures of outgroup negativity to explore whether perceived success in dealing with the past may entitle the expression of negative intergroup attitudes (results reported in the
The present studies are among the first to empirically demonstrate the possibility of creating a positive self-image for Germans by acknowledging their ancestors’ transgressions during the Nazi regime. In a series of correlational and experimental studies, we found robust empirical support for the idea that reminders of success in dealing with the past increase the perceived moral image of the German ingroup compared to indications of failure. Perceived morality, in turn, was meta-analytically associated with more claims for historical closure, even when controlling for political orientation (
One reason for the lack of the predicted mediation effect could be the existence of unmeasured suppressor variables with opposing indirect effects, which may have obscured the total effect (
Since the indirect effect via perceived morality in Study 3 and the associations between perceived morality and historical closure in Studies 3 and 4 disappeared when controlling for political orientation and collective narcissism, another likely explanation is that perceived morality and historical closure were both confounded with these control variables. Especially since only the independent variable but not the mediator was randomized, it seems plausible that potential confounds may have affected the association between the mediator and the dependent variable (
A central methodological constraint is the systematic exclusion of variance across the two essay priming experiments. The resulting biased sample could have led to biased inferences about the underlying psychological mechanisms and thus may have undermined external and internal validity. On the one hand, the applied method of essay priming bears the advantage of forcing the participants to engage deeply with the topic of dealing with the past by asking for concrete examples of success or failure from memory. On the other hand, the intended manipulation could not be accomplished with a considerable number of participants, who did not
This failure to consistently implement the intended manipulation could imply either that (a) the manipulation was still not effective enough to influence participants with a strong personal opinion on that topic, (b) certain individuals were not willing to get involved from the outset, so that the manipulation, regardless of whether it was fundamentally effective or not, could not elicit any changes in their perception of Germany’s capability of dealing with the perpetrator past, or (c) the opinion of certain people on that matter was stable and could not be influenced by a manipulation at all. Regarding the last option, it seems particularly relevant to elucidate to what extent attitudes towards history are susceptible to experimental manipulations. As
Despite these limitations, the current studies extend existing research in several ways. In contrast to the wealth of research on the consequences of traumatic perpetrator history itself on collective identity (e.g.,
In summary, we found tentative support for our proposed model of moral entitlement: Success in dealing with the past appears to noticeably enhance perceived ingroup morality and slightly increase the demand for historical closure, even when accounting for political orientation. Yet, given the inconsistencies across studies regarding the association of success and morality with historical closure, our results only allow for a cautious interpretation in favor of our model. Considering that the proposed moral entitlement effect is rooted in the generic concepts of moral licensing and psychological standing, which can be found across various contexts (
The MEMO project is supported by a research grant from the foundation 'Remembrance, Responsibility and Future' (EVZ Foundation).
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The authors are grateful to Jonas Knäble and Nina Winands for their support in rating the data.
For this article, a data set is freely available (
The Supplementary Materials contain the following items (for access see
Pre-registration protocols for Studies 1, 3, and 4
Research data
Analysis scripts
Supplemental Materials