Historical consciousness has seldom been compared internationally. This article presents selected results from two pilot studies conducted in nine European countries with closed items in 1992 (8th-graders), and in eight European and Non-European countries with open stimuli in 1989/92 (high school and university students). Some methodological implications related to the problem of measuring highly culturally dependent phenomena are discussed. The findings are supplemented by some references to a representative comparison between students in East and West Germany in 1992, which rendered almost no differences in most constructs, but very heavy contrasts in the judgments of the two German states between 1949 and 1989.