Victims and Perpetrators: 1933-1945 : : (Re)Presenting the Past in Post-Unification Culture / / ed. by Laurel Cohen-Pfister, Dagmar Wienroeder-Skinner.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DGBA Backlist Complete English Language 2000-2014 PART1
• MitwirkendeR: ASSMANN, ALEIDA,; BECKER, DANIEL,; COHEN-PFISTER, LAUREL,; FOX, THOMAS C.,; GLAJAR, VALENTINA,; HAGE, VOLKER,; HALVERSON, RACHEL,; LUTOMSKI, PAWEL,; MARTIN, JAMES,; PRAGER, BRAD,; SATHE, NIKHIL,; SEGELCKE, ELKE,; SINKA, MARGIT,; VEES-GULANI, SUSANNE,; WELZER, HARALD,; WIENROEDER-SKINNER, DAGMAR,
• HerausgeberIn: Cohen-Pfister, Laurel,; Wienroeder-Skinner, Dagmar,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2012]; ©2006
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Series: Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies , 2
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (371 p.)

This volume examines the politics of history and memory in Germany today through a review and analysis of seminal developments in the current discourse on 1933 – 1945. An interdisplicinary work, this book examines questions of representing the past from the perspective of literary studies, social psychology, film studies, history, and cultural studies.Themes include transgenerational memory and remembrance, the air war and German literature, commemoration and silences, transnational reconciliation, and historical consciousness in the German present. The collected essays make clear that as the current discourse contributes toward an historically informed, differentiated understanding of individuals’ roles in the Third Reich and World War Two, victim and perpetrator identities cannot be defined as exclusive from one another. The discourse emphasizes personal over collective experience and answers questions of responsibility and guilt on the individual level.

Table of Contents

i-vi -- Acknowledgements -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- History and the Memory of Suffering: Rethinking 1933–1945 -- Transgenerational Memory -- Limits of Understanding: Generational Identities in Recent German Memory Literature -- “Ein Fressen für mein MG”: The Problem of German Suffering in Uwe Timm’s. Am Beispiel meines Bruders -- Mothers, Memories, and Mnemonics: Hanna Johansen’s Lena and Judith Kuckart’s Lenas Liebe -- Air War and German Literature -- To Write or Remain Silent? The Portrayal of the Air War in German Literature -- The Language of Trauma: Dieter Forte’s Memories of the Air War -- Writing Dresden Across the Generations -- Jewish Victimization: Silence and Remembrance -- Breaking the Taboo: Barbara Honigmann’s Narrative Quest for a German-Jewish (Family) History -- Α World Turned Upside Down: Role Reversals in the Victim-Perpetrator Complex in Christoph Ransmayr’s Morbus Kitahara -- The “Different” Holocaust Memorial in Berlin’s Bayerisches Viertel: Personal and Collective Remembrance Thematizing Perpetrator/Victim Relationships -- Transnational Reconciliation -- Victims and Perpetrators: Representations of the German-Czech Conflict in Texts by Peter Härtling, Pavel Kohout, and Jörg Bernig -- Acknowledging Each Other as Victims: An Unmet Challenge in the Process of Polish-German Reconciliation -- Attempts at (Re)Conciliation: Polish-German Relations in Literary Texts by Stefan Chwin, Pawel Huelle, and Olga Tokarczuk -- Historical Consciousness and the German Present -- The Collateral Damage of Enlightenment: How Grandchildren Understand the History of National Socialist Crimes and Their Grandfathers’ Past -- The Haunted Screen (Again): The Historical Unconscious of Contemporary German Thrillers -- Rape, War, and Outrage: Changing Perceptions on German Victimhood in the Period of Post-unification -- Coming to Terms with Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Walser’s Sonntagsrede, the Kosovo War, and the Transformation of German Historical Consciousness -- Notes on Contributors -- Index of Names