Was it the grandfather who was a Nazi? Or the great‑grandfather? Or the grandmother? These are difficult questions to answer. Many families kept silent, and their children — perhaps out of fear of learning the truth — never asked. They moved on, pushing aside everything lived during the Second World War. But now the digitized membership files of the Nazi Party are available to everyone. There’s no need to ask anyone anymore; a few clicks is all it takes.

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There are images that never fade from a country’s memory, from its political and popular consciousness. One of them is that of Joschka Fischer (Gerabronn, Germany, 78 years old) wearing sneakers and being sworn in as a minister in the state of Hesse in 1985. For the first time, the Greens, a grassroots movement born a few years earlier, entered a regional government. It was a turning point. Thirteen years later, Fischer would become vice-chancellor and foreign minister in the first federal government with the Greens, allied with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s Social Democratic Party.

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How could it have happened? That is the question. German historians, like Captain Ahab with the white whale, continue to obsessively pursue it. More than 80 years after the end of Nazism, they still haven’t found a definitive or complete answer.

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