> I don't see why a future collapse into tyranny of a country in Europe would have to involve a revival of the symbols of any particular defeated regime
It wouldn't have to. But having watched Hitler sell the idea that Germany was being unjustly punished for Jewish lies a generation earlier, they drew the conclusion that [West] Germany was quite likely to see would-be tyrants rallying around a Lost Cause narrative and that vulnerability to this was a bigger problem than a lack of diversity in holocaust historiography. Or more straightforwardly, they figured German democracy faced a more imminent threat from neo-Nazism than a slippery slope towards an Official State Version of History. A view which seems to have persisted even after reunification with the East which had considerable recent experience with the pervasive censorship involved in promoting its Official State Version of History.
That's an interesting fact that puts the issue into a light I hadn't considered. Fortunately, the literal "lost cause" language of the American Civil War has already run its course, caused its damage (up to and including a presidential assassination), and the country has survived. Would banning confederate symbols have prevented the assassination of Lincoln? Probably not, to be honest. I wonder if it would have prevented anything.
I don't see it preventing Lincoln's assassination, no. Jim Crow laws? Possibly not, and there were better ways of preventing them. But we wouldn't be seeing angry mobs fighting over statues today if they'd never been put up and we wouldn't have seen a mass membership second Klan if the first one hadn't been ruled constitutionally protected shortly after it had been forced to disband
The post Civil War US is an experiment in taking the precise opposite stance to postwar Germany: positively encouraging the losing side to romanticise their cause so long as their revisionist history downplays the slavery bit. Some northerner presidents even paid tribute to General Lee. I think it's difficult to argue reconciliation and race relations have been helped the resulting counter narrative that it was actually a pretty noble thing to defend their way of life against other states who only pretended to be concerned about negroes though.
It wouldn't have to. But having watched Hitler sell the idea that Germany was being unjustly punished for Jewish lies a generation earlier, they drew the conclusion that [West] Germany was quite likely to see would-be tyrants rallying around a Lost Cause narrative and that vulnerability to this was a bigger problem than a lack of diversity in holocaust historiography. Or more straightforwardly, they figured German democracy faced a more imminent threat from neo-Nazism than a slippery slope towards an Official State Version of History. A view which seems to have persisted even after reunification with the East which had considerable recent experience with the pervasive censorship involved in promoting its Official State Version of History.