Europe's Normativity and its identity as a post-barbarian order

This project wants to explore the relationship between the Holocaust and the European Union's identity concerning its normative dimension. It connects to the discussion whether the Holocaust should serve as a source of the European Union's identity in for m of a negative founding myth. To refer to the Holocaust as a source of identity raises two fundamental questions: 1) In which way can Europe's identity be deduced from such a negative historical event? 2) How can this identity found Europe's normativity? The project seeks to contribute to these questions in two ways: First, by reconstructing the conceptual core of Europe's post-barbarian identity. Second, by identifying the normative implications of this identity in current debates and politics. The no tion 'barbarian' refers to the European tradition to blame exceptional cruelty, in particular regarding National Socialism and its crimes against humanity. National Socialism and the Holocaust were widely understood as a 'fall-back into barbarism'. The pr oject proposes that the normative and constitutional conclusions from this fall-back should be understood as a post-barbarian order, which acts as a particular source of Europe?s normativity. To reconstruct this normativity, the project analyses early pro posals for European integration by European resistant movements against the Nazis and compares them with recent assessments of Europe's normativity. Finally, the project seeks to show how far politics of 'post-barbarism' have already been implemented in t he EU institutional and constitutional order. Overall, by introducing a new perspective in the debate about the meaning of the Holocaust for Europe's normative identity, the project aims to clarify the relationship between historical normative values of E urope's identity and its recent politics. It also develops a specific normative approach to the discussion about Europe's historical identity by introducing the notion of a 'post-barbarian' order?.