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Emerging essentially as a reaction to Napoleonic domination, and what was perceived as its desertion of the French Revolution’s objectives, German nationalism from the beginning presented itself as a polysemic doctrine. Liberalism—the call for popular sovereignty and constitutional reform—stood next to ethno-cultural visions that dreamt of a return to a medieval, strong, and united Germany (Hughes, 1988, p. 22). From its early days, the definition of the German self was insecure and struggled between ethnic and civic notions. Under the German Kaiserreich (1871), culturalist and civic notions of the German nation were still present; yet, ethnic overtones increasingly found their way into the image of the German nation. While “appeasing” liberal voices with a constitution, Prussia employed a nationalist discourse to unite the newly created German nation against threatening forces, from both inside and outside the nation. France, Russia, Britain, Jews, Masons, Catholics, Socialists, and intellectuals became the target of German nationalism (Schoenbaum & Pond, 1996, p. 24). By the end of the century, ethnic nationalism, as a reaction against democracy, liberalism, and socialism was a powerful force of the Right; and with the propagation of a “racially pure”, ethnic community (Volksgemeinschaft) by national socialism, the ethnic definition of the German nation was brought to a disastrous high. Since 1945, Germany yet again has been in search of its identity, and the struggle of ethnic and civic understandings of the nation remains at the heart of the discursive construct. Yet, added to this dilemma (of how to understand the very concept of the nation) is the memory of the past.