On Their Own Terms

by H Schmitz

Overview

Schmitz (German studies, U. of Warwick) examines the literature of the reunified Germany since 1990 and has found some reconfigurations in the ways writers narrate the German experience of National Socialism. He finds there have been shifts in the ways writers approach the subject; however, the overwhelming force of the victims and the questions ab

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781902459370
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/16/2004
Series:	New Germany in Context Series
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.73(d)

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments
	Introduction: The Return of the Past: The Legacy of National Socialism, Memory Culture and Post-Unification Literature	1
Section I	Historisation	25
1	'All my writing has been "post-war".'--Hanns-Josef Ortheil's Writing of Remembrance and the End of Vergangenheitsbewaltigung	27
2	'I could not resolve this.'--Bernhard Schlink's Der Vorleser	55
Section II	Perpetrators	85
3	'How could all this have happened?'--Ulla Berkewicz's Engel sind schwarz und weiss	89
4	'Just erase it. Erase it all.'--Marcel Beyer's Flughunde	125
Section III	Hitler Youth Memories	151
5	'Nothing I did can be undone.'--Ludwig Harig's Weh dem, der aus der Reihe tanzt	159
6	'How could one have known what value the events would have for memory?'--Martin Walser's Ein Springender Brunnen	181
Section IV	War Memories	217
7	'The collective is madness.'--Dieter Wellershoff's Der Ernstfall	223
8	'Fire and sulphur fall from the sky.'--Dieter Forte's Der Jung mit den blutigen Schuhen	241
9	'History is a clogged toilet.'--Gunter Grass's Im Krebsgang	263
Section V	Victim Perspective	287
10	'... only signs everywhere of the annihilation.'--W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz	291
	Concluding Remarks	323
	Bibliography	326
	Index	339