In October 1998, the famous writer Martin Walser (born in 1927) was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Booksellers' Association. Giving his vote of thanks, Walser criticized the current practices of memorializing Nazism and pleaded for the priority of individual conscience. Because of his caustic words, which were rejected especially by Ignatz Bubis, the late chairman of German Jewry, a vehement controversy started. Nearly ten years after German unification, this opened a new phase in the debate about the so-called 'normality' of the 'Berlin Republic'. The author analyzes the contextual conditions, Walser's speech and the intellectual reactions on it in order to clarify what this 'normality' could mean. It is argued that 'normality' is not necessarily a way of coming to terms with the past ('Schlußstrich ziehen'), but that a 'reflective normality' as a mode of identity-building is compatible with a critical remembrance of the Nazi era.