What did your Opa do during the war?

Germany’s liberal newspapers have turned Nazi-era family secrets into a subscription product — exploiting guilt, suspicion and the darker side of the country’s culture of remembrance.

Dar Reader,

“Was your granddad in the SS?” asks the headline on the homepage of Der Spiegel. “What did your family do under Hitler?”

Want to find out whether Opa had a dirty secret that he never admitted to? Pay for a subscription and you can now find out!

But you don’t have to pay for Der Spiegel if that’s not your thing. The Süddeutsche Zeitung is also offering you the truth that your family never dared to admit. “War jemand in Ihrer Familie NSDAP-Mitglied?” the Munich-based newspaper asks.

Or you can go to Die Zeit, which asks more sheepishly: “Was he in the SS?” Well, who is “he”? Obviously, it’s not your neighbour’s dog.

All three of Germany’s major liberal news outlets are currently making money by preying on Germans’ darkest fear — that their parents and grandparents may secretly have been Nazis and covered it up the whole time. After a US-based archive digitised all eight million Nazi Party membership cards, Germany’s establishment media entered a race to be the first to monetise t…