Fatherland, by Frederick Kempe - Term Paper Example

Remember that Germany has been declared guilty for the two wars of the 20th century. In addition, 11 million victims were persecuted and murdered during the holocaust including 6 million Jews, many children and women, gays, lesbians, gypsies and others who were labeled as outcasts by Nazis. During the start of the Nazi movement, most Jewish groups and establishments were boycotted and laws were implemented to discriminate against the Jews. Such laws included a prohibition against mixed marriages, a prohibition against Jews holding government positions, and a prohibition against their appearance in public places.

Jews were also required to wear yellow stars to identify them in public areas. They were soon moved to ghetto or confided spaces. Now that they are building a new German generation, what would be the effect on this to the Jews? How would a new German generation run the world if given the chance? East Germany is testing the country’s ability to integrate itself before it integrates the rest of Eastern Europe into the European Union. And Germany’s military is dispatching its troops abroad on a combat mission for the first time since World War II – to former Yugoslavia, a place of heart-stopping German atrocities.

It was a mission whose symbolism spoke both of the country’s growing influence and of its shrinking self-constraints. Demographic change had brought the country its largest ethnic minority ever, the Turks. But whether they would happily co-exist or would suffer the same fate with the Jews, that remains to be seen. One long-term side effect of the Third Reich is the breaking of natural relationship between a German and a Jew. The link between victim and perpetrator is unnatural. The ghosts of the past keep them at odds.

But there are those who are not affected by the past. The author recounts