In a recent publication, Jureit and Schneider made the strong claim of “imagined victims”. According to their analysis, the aim of healing through a comprehensive process of dealing with the past remains an illusion. In another recent contribution, the highly-respected German historian Christian Meier delivered an analysis of remembering and forgetting after war. Meier challenged the normative orientation, which, in his view, dominates the modern thinking about remembering and forgetting: In this view, successful dealing with the past is premised on keeping the memory of the past, in par-ticular of past injustice, alive. He tries to make a contentious argument: Since the ancient Greeks, the world’s cure to overcome the past was forgetting. Meir then poses some intriguing questions: Is there a new rule or even international norm identifiable that has been established since the close of World War II? Can we argue that forgetting could be a better strategy than remembrance? Against this backdrop, in our paper we intend to address the normative dimension of dealing with the past: as a theory reflection on victimization and the politics of victimhood. We want to scrutinize the claim about “imagined victims” by analyzing memory practices and the consequences distinctive victimization strategies of mass violence or war. In doing so, want to look at the ideational basis of victimization strategies and identify the norms governing the politics of victimhood. Such an approach takes an important cue from recent work on ‘victimhood nationalism’ (Jie-Hyun Lim) and expands on this concept also by looking at memory issues on subnational levels. The paper aims to make a serious contribution to a political the-ory of victimhood and victimization.
