Introduction

While the previous chapter was concerned more with exploring representations of flight and expulsion per se, the following chapter examines the contextualization of this experience in GDR prose works of the 1950s and early 1960s. The focus here will be on socialist “reconstruction literature” (Aufbauliteratur), particularly on “reconstruction novels” (Aufbauromane), although I will also discuss some short stories. The chapter begins with some reflections on the genre of “Aufbauliteratur,” a form of literature that undoubtedly, as one lexicon has it, “put itself in the service of creating a new order of society,” and that within this context often allocated a significant role to refugees or “resettlers” (Umsiedler). I go on to explore the representation of this role in some detail. one could argue that the literary stress in “Aufbauliteratur” on the integration of refugees effectively erodes the relevance of the process of loss of homeland as an experience. Conversely, one could contend that acknowledging the need for integration implies, at the very least, an acknowledgement of existential disorientation. While integration is the key to much GDR “Aufbauliteratur,” the pace at which it is achieved, the extent to which it is celebrated, and the severity of the difficulties that need to be overcome vary from work to work. Such variations, as the chapter will show, affect depictions of the lot of refugees, too. in some prose works their past casts a longer shadow than in others.