Sartre held that collective guilt is overcome through future action, not remorse

Evidence

For the Germans, too, I think that remorse is pointless. I do not mean that they should simply wipe out past faults from their memory. No. But I feel sure that they won’t earn the forgiveness they could get from the world just by being obligingly repentant. They will earn it rather by total, sincere commitment to a future of freedom and work, by their firm desire to build this future, and by the presence among them of as many men of goodwill as possible. Perhaps the play can — not lead them to this future — but encourage them to aim in that direction. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 646

Categorization

• DEFINE: This is Sartre’s existentialist answer to collective guilt: authentic commitment to the future rather than performative repentance — a concrete instance of the freedom-and-responsibility ethic running through the movement.
• DEEPTHINKING: This is a genuinely paradigm-shifting position: that a whole nation’s guilt is resolved not by contrition but by building a future — radical, counterintuitive, and still sharply contested today.
• SEED: Could frame an essay on how nations actually process collective guilt — Sartre’s forward-looking ethic versus contemporary demands for apology and accountability.