Austrian novelist Eva Menasse has written the foreword to a new German edition of Esra Özyürek’s Subcontractors of Guilt.
As publishers Klett Cotta ready a series of events in the German-speaking world, we offer an English summary of Menasse’s remarks—courtesy of Cambridge MPhil student Valentin Herdeg.
Can Muslims become part of “the West”? If so, how?
Menasse begins with these questions because, for her, Özyürek’s study of Holocaust education and anti-Semitism prevention programs tailored for Muslims in Germany speaks to a broader conflict that positions Muslims, especially after 9/11, as the primary threat to the so-called “Western world”.
Between the lines of Özyürek’s “pathbreaking” book, Menasse makes out another, opposing, question that is being constantly raised: what about Muslims themselves—to what extent do they feel “outside” or “inside”? And, relatedly, what adjustments are they willing to perform to enter the social contract and become accepted, in this case, as “good Germans’? These are crucial questions for Menasse that can make one’s own country appear fundamentally different, depending on the answer. Esra Özyürek is not German—Menasse points this out early on—but she describes Özyürek’s ability as an “outsider” looking in with “great care and curiosity” as an “eye-opening” account of post-war German national identity.
The central argument of Subcontractors of Guilt is that Germany’s sincere engagement with its historical guilt has shifted: no longer centred on self-reflection, it is increasingly directed at Muslim immigrants, who are expected to learn the “right” lessons about the Holocaust from their German teachers. This is not a “dry sociological work”, Menasse stresses, but a gripping, experience-rich insight into contemporary Germany that scrutinizes the highly charged topic of migration and memory culture with facts and analysis.
For Menasse, the translation of Özyürek’s book into German comes at a crucial timing: in light of 7th October [2023] and the wars that followed, Germany’s cultural and academic sectors have been shaken by cancellations, disinvitations, and revoked awards, and are suffocating under a growing number of speech restrictions and prohibitions. Subcontractors of Guilt serves as a “magic key” in helping its readers understand these developments by contextualising—and challenging—the widespread claim that antisemitism today is primarily being “imported’ into Germany and its corresponding assumption that the German majority society has conclusively reckoned with its own history.
Further details
The German edition of Subcontractors of Guilt was released in March 2025 as Stellvertreter der Schuld: Erinnerungskultur und muslimische Zugehörigkeit in Deutschland by publishers Klett Cotta.
Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Hear Professor Özyürek in conversation at events in Bern (May 13), Berlin (July 16), and Vienna (27 September). Visit the Klett Cotta website (klett-cotta.de) for details of the upcoming events in Switzerland, Austria and Germany.
The foreword is available to read online as part of a sample. Visit book2look.de to preview the opening pages of Stellvertreter der Schuld.
Find out more about Özyürek’s work on Holocaust memory and Muslim belonging in post-war Germany—including English-language coverage.
Valentin Herdeg is studying International Relations at the University of Cambridge.
Professor Esra Özyürek is academic director of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme.