The long formation of victimhood: communist repression, memory, and recognition in Germany and the Czech Republic

This article investigates the construction of victimhood of victims of communist repression of the 1950s in Germany and Czechoslovakia. It traces this process from imprisonment, through pre-1989 articulations of victim status, to its reconfiguration in the two decades after 1989. Drawing on the concepts of victimhood, self-categorization and social polarization, the article argues that suffering is not an immutable outcome of historical events, but rather a socially constructed and constantly negotiated category, shaped by political opportunities, memory regimes and organizational actors. The analysis focuses on two key victim organizations: the Association of Victims of Stalinism in Germany and the Confederation of Political Prisoners in the Czech Republic. The findings indicate that, while German victims gradually transitioned from heroic anti-communist narratives to a more moderate discourse centred on legal recognition and compensation, Czech victims remained highly polarized, continuing to present themselves as heroic and morally superior. These differences are explained by different historical experiences, political contexts, competition with other victim groups and the degree to which memory politics were institutionalized. The article argues that collective victimhood functioned as a form of political capital, the mobilization of which led to different patterns of memory and political engagement in post-communist societies.