Overcoming Nazi past in Germany at the present stage. Goldhagen phenomenon

The article deals with one of the landmarks in the process of overcoming Nazi past in Germany - a debate about Amercian researcher Daniel Goldhagen's book "Hitler's Willing Executioners". This book attracted a huge attention of the German society in the second half of the 1990-s. The article aims to explain a great interest towards the book among Germans and to understand the meaning of the "Goldhagen phenomenon" for the historic consciousness of Germans. The author analyzes D. Goldhagen's scientific approach, the main issues of his book and critical opinions about it of German historians, philosophers and public figures. Using comparative method, the author explores Goldhagen's ideas in connection with Jaspers, Arendt, Habermas concerning the "question of guilt". The author comes to the conclusion that after the unification of Germany, in the 1990-s, the attitude of Germans towards the Nazism and its crimes significantly changed. From the second half of the 1980s to the second half of the 1990s a new paradigm of the perception of Nazism in Germany emerged. Journalists, public figures and representatives of the civil society played a significant role in establishing this new approach. Their opinions defined the character and the outcome of the public discussions about the past, which took place not only in university halls and in historical scientific magazines, but in mass media.