Coming to terms with the Nazi past'?: The West German compensation policy in the long 1950s

This article questions the dichotomous discourse about West Germany's "coming to terms with the past" in the 1950s. By focusing on West German indemnification payments to both persecutees of Nazism and ethnic German expellees, a third composite position is suggested. Some reparations to remedy expulsion-related material damages as well as Nazi wrongs are discussed. How historians use the compensation issue to bolster their positions in the dispute on West Germany's dealings with its Nazi past in the immediate postwar years are also shown as well as offering an alternative approach to the debate.