Why should, say, Doug Henwood feel guilty about stuff that happened in the US in 1850? The German case goes way beyond "Germans did some really evil stuff at one point in history and it must never happen again." It's a collective national myth based on being evil. Kind of sick and self-indulgent. (But then perhaps I have personal reasons to feel this way, what with being German and all.)
Hannah Arendt demolished the whole Mitschuldigkeit Cult back in the 1960s. I thought you were against notions of collective guilt anyway?
^^^^^^ CB: From the 1850 period, Germans have some world class heroics. The'48er revolutionaries, first fought for revolutionary transformation of Germany and then many had to emigrate to the U.S. were mainly abolitionists, very important in Lincoln winning, and put their fighting experience in the German revolution to good use in the U.S. revolution of 1865 to end slavery. Marx, Engels and their lesser known third, Joseph Weydemeyer ( Party Card # 4),were part of these political-military Deutchlanders.
As to Americans having collective responsibility for slavery and the genocidal usurpation of the U.S. national territory, any American who feels proud of the flag and the national anthem, had patriotic passions and main purposes in life has something like a religious connection to nationalist version of U.S. history. They claim their land, property , identity by tracing back through their ancestor Americans who "settled" this country through genocide and slavery.
Patriotism is a double-edged sword. All American patriots take credit for America's historical virtues. They must also take responsibility for America's historical crimes.
More materially, anybody who "owns" land traces their title ultimately back to somebody who stole it from the Indians. This is a "tautology" , by the way, but a very profound one.
So the American collective guilt is an "immanent contradiction" in American land and patriotism, flag and national anthem, George Washington and Andrew Jackson.
Parts of their history that Americans can be proud of are the history of "American" Indigenous Peoples, the history of the African American People, the history of women's struggles, labor struggles, etc.