The Question of German Guilt

(3) Moral guilt: I, who cannot act otherwise than as an individual, am morally responsible for all my deeds, including the execution of political and military orders. It is never simply true that “orders are orders.” Rather—as crimes even though ordered (although, depending on the degree of danger, blackmail and terrorism, there may be mitigating circumstances)—so every deed remains subject to moral judgment. Jurisdiction rests with my conscience, and in communication with my friends and intimates who are lovingly concerned about my soul.

(4) Metaphysical guilt: There exists a solidarity among men as human beings that makes each co-responsible for every wrong and every injustice in the world, especially for crimes committed in his presence or with his knowledge. If I fail to do whatever I can to prevent them, I too am guilty. If I was present at the murder of others without risking my life to prevent it, I feel guilty in a way not adequately conceivable either legally, politically or morally. That I live after such a thing has happened weighs upon me as indelible guilt. As human beings, unless good fortune spares us such situations, we come to a point where we must choose: either to risk our lives unconditionally, without chance of success and therefore to no purpose—or to prefer staying alive, because success is impossible. That somewhere among men the unconditioned prevails—the capacity to live only together or not at all, if crimes are committed against the one or the other, or if physical living requirements have to be shared—therein consists the substance of their being. But that this does not extend to the solidarity of all men, nor to that of fellow-citizens or even of smaller groups, but remains confined to the closest human ties—therein lies this guilt of us all. Jurisdiction rests with God alone.

This differentiation of four concepts of guilt clarifies the meaning of the charges. Political guilt, for example, does mean the liability of all citizens for the consequences of deeds done by their state, but not the criminal and the moral guilt of every single citizen for crimes committed in the name of the state. The judge may decide about crimes and the victor about political liability, but moral guilt can truthfully be discussed only in a loving struggle between men who maintain solidarity among themselves. As for metaphysical guilt, this may perhaps be a subject of revelation in concrete situations or in the work of poets and philosophers, but hardly one for personal communication. Most deeply aware of it are those who have once achieved the unconditioned, and by that very fact have experienced their failure to manifest this unconditioned toward all men. There remains shame for something that is always present, that may be discussed in general terms, if at all, but can never be concretely revealed.

This differentiation of concepts of guilt is to preserve us from the superficiality of talk about guilt that flattens everything out on a single plane, there to assess it with all the crudeness and lack of discrimination of a bad judge. But in the end these distinct concepts are to lead us back to the one source, which cannot be flatly referred to as our guilt.

All these distinctions become erroneous, however, if we fail to keep in mind the close connection between the things distinguished. Every concept of guilt demonstrates (or manifests) realities, the consequences of which appear in the spheres of the other concepts of guilt.

If human beings were able to free themselves from metaphysical guilt, they would be angels, and all the other three concepts of guilt would become immaterial.

Moral failings cause the conditions out of which both crime and political guilt arise. The commission of countless little acts of negligence, of convenient adaptation, of cheap vindication, and the imperceptible promotion of wrong; the participation in the creation of a public atmosphere that spreads confusion and thus makes evil possible—all that has consequences that partly condition the political guilt involved in the situation and the events.