Phantoms Of War In Contemporary German Literature, Films And Discourse » (First Edition)

ANNE FUCHS is Professor of Modern German Literature and Culture at University College Dublin, Ireland. She is author of the acclaimed monograph Die Schmerzensspuren der Geschichte: Zur Poetik der Erinnerung in W. G. Sebalds Prosa (2004) and co-editor (with Mary Cosgrove and Georg Grote) of German Memory Contests (2006).

Phantoms of War in Contemporary German Literature, Films and Discourse offers an up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of fundamental shifts in German cultural memory. Focusing on the resurgence of family stories in fiction, autobiography and in film, this study challenges the institutional boundaries of Germany's memory culture that have guided and arguably limited German identity debates. Essays on contemporary German literature are complemented by explorations of heritage films and museum discourse. Together these essays put forward a compelling theory of family narratives and a critical evaluation of generational discourse.

Acknowledgements     x
Introduction: Family Narratives Between Vernacular and Official Memory     1
The meaning of being German     1
History as family narrative     4
Generation and genealogy     9
Germans as victims of war     11
A reader's guide to this book     16
Generational Conflict and Masculinity in Vaterliteratur by Christoph Meckel, Uwe Timm, Dagmar Leupold and Ulla Hahn     20
Vaterliteratur and the language of silence     20
Between rupture and continuity: Generational discourse     21
Of damaged fathers and ruined families: Christoph Meckel and Uwe Timm     24
Between sentimental empathy and historical analysis: Fathers as soldiers in Ulla Hahn and Dagmar Leupold     33
Conclusion     43
Family Narratives and Postmemory: Gunter Grass's Im Krebsgang, Tanja Duckers's Himmelskorper and Marcel Beyer's Spione     45
The new German family narrative     45
Postmemory and trauma theory     47
Gunter Grass's Im Krebsgang and Tanja Duckers's Himmelskorper: From historical self-reflexivity to postmemorial confidence     52
Undoing disenchantment: Necromancy in Marcel Beyer's Spione     62
Conclusion     74
Heimat and Territory in Thomas Medicus's In den Augenmeines Grossvaters and Stephan Wackwitz's Ein unsichtbares Land     77
The geography of memory     77
Landscape as screen memory: Medicus's In den Augen meines Grossvaters     80
Heimat discourse and colonialism in Stephan Wackwitz's Ein unsichtbares Land     91
Conclusion     106
Narrating Resistance to the Third Reich: Museum Discourse, Autobiography, Fiction and Film     109
The symbolism of resistance     109
Resistance narratives and the construction of a moral legacy in East and West Germany     110
The memorial site for German resistance: Gedenkstatte Deutscher Widerstand     116
The impairment of tradition in Wibke Bruhns's Meines Vaters Land and Christian Friedrich Delius's Mein Jahr als Morder     122
Resistance in France in German narratives: Sibylle Mulot's Nachbarn and Michael Wallner's April in Paris     136
Resistance as family romance: Jo Baier's Stauffenberg. Der 20. Juli 1944     143
Resistance in extremis: Marc Rothemund's Sophie Scholl. Die letzten Tage     147
Historical narrative or postmemorial drama? Margarethe von Trotta's Rosenstrasse     152
Conclusion     157
Hitler Youth Autobiographies: Gunter Grass's Beim Hauten der Zwiebel and Joachim Fest's Ich nicht     161
Autobiography and identity discourses      161
The Hitler Youth generation in post-war Germany     163
Grass's confession and the public debate     168
Constructing autobiographical truthfulness: Grass's Beim Hauten der Zwiebel     172
Fest, Grass and the politics of memory in unified Germany     182
Reclaiming Prussianism, catholicism and the bourgeois education: Joachim Fest's Ich Nicht     186
From autobiography to hagiography     190
Conclusion     197
Epilogue: Germany as a Threshold Culture     200
Notes     205
Works Cited     232
Index     248