This article examines how the Belgian patriotic collective memory in Flanders during the 20th century was supplanted by a Flemish Nationalist counter memory. The article starts with a semiotic analysis of some concrete commemorative practices and discourses surrounding the brothers Van Raemdonck, two Flemish soldiers who died during the First World War and were venerated as Flemish heroes. Next, these cases are situated in some larger themes and tendencies dominating the intellectual construction of Flemish National collective memory during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Wie nog maar enkele jaren geleden de oorlog een beleving had genoemd, had vast en zeker op veel scepsis kunnen rekenen. Dat ligt echter vandaag de dag heel anders. Vrijwel dagelijks worden we via de media op de hoogte gebracht van de acties van ‘onze jongens’ in Irak en Afghanistan. De nationale trots spat van het televisiescherm wanneer het gaat om onze bijdrage in de War on Terror (2001)...

This chapter analyses the work of GDR historians on the air war and the Allied bombing campaign, particularly the work of Olaf Groehler, the leading GDR expert on the air war. The chapter situates Groehler's work within official GDR memory politics and explores Groehler's work as an attempt to distance himself from both the dominant SED narrative as well as West German apologetic tendencies. It argues, however, that Groehler ultimately remained within the parameters of a GDR 'victim discourse' by shifting German responsibility onto 'fascist imperialism', or AngloAmerican imperialism

Holocaust awareness has become a worldwide phenomenon, and an international free republic of Holocaust researchers has emerged. Among long-term trends in the field of Holocaust studies are the universalization of victimhood and the extension of the circle of perpetrators. Present trends include Holocaust history as local history, the integration of perpetrator and victim histories, and the explanation of perpetrator behavior in ideological terms.