Does Collective Memory Still Influence German Foreign Policy?

It has been a long time since any major politician has used a memory-based argument to make, let alone win, a political point in a major policy debate outside of explicit commemorations or anniversaries. Joschka Fischer was probably the last, vis a vis Kosovo and the 2004 EU eastern enlargement. Helmut Kohl has reiterated his older positions that everything must be done to save the euro, but such an argument experiences little resonance today. Gerhard Schroder and Angela Merkel have not prominently used memory or history-based justifications for most policy decisions. This is not to say that these politicians have forgotten or repressed such memory concerns. Certainly on a rhetorical level, recent German leaders are affected by such memories and will continue to support the culture of contrition and many of its tangible policy consequences. Returning to foreign policy specifically, if there is one clear trend over the last decade or so, it is the development of a foreign policy not explicitly dominated by the concerns of memory.