Collective Guilt and Generational Conflict in The Reader

Collective Guilt and Generational Conflict in The Reader: Bernhard Schlink's The Reader discusses the
generational conflict between the generation of Germans born after the war and their parents who lived through
it. How does Schlink describe this conflict? What is his perspective on it? And how does the relationship in
Schlink's novel between Hanna and Michael relate to it?
You might also think more broadly about the problem of collective guilt, about the responsibility of ordinary
Germans for the Holocaust, and how the Holocaust might effect what it means to be German.