Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- From Nature to Modernism: The Concept and Discourse of Culture in Its Development from the Nineteenth into the Twentieth Century
- The German “Geist und Macht” Dichotomy: Just a Game of Red Indians?
- “In the Exile of Internment” or “Von Versuchen, aus einer Not eine Tugend zu machen”: German-Speaking Women Interned by the British during the Second World War
- “Deutschland lebt an der Nahtstelle, an der Bruchstelle”: Literature and Politics in Germany 1933–1950
- “Das habe ich getan, sagt mein Gedächtnis. Das kann ich nicht getan haben, sagt mein Stolz! …” History and Morality in Hochhuth's Effis Nacht
- Stefan Heym and GDR Cultural Politics
- Reviving the Dead: Montage and Temporal Dislocation in Karls Enkel's Liedertheater
- Living Without Utopia: Four Women Writers' Responses to the Demise of the GDR
- A Worm's Eye View and a Bird's Eye View: Culture and Politics in Berlin since 1989
- Remembering for the Future, Engaging with the Present: National Memory Management and the Dialectic of Normality in the “Berlin Republic”
- “Wie kannst du mich lieben?”: “Normalizing” the Relationship between Germans and Jews in the 1990s Films Aimée und Jaguar and Meschugge
- Models of the Intellectual in Contemporary France and Germany: Silence and Communication
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
“Das habe ich getan, sagt mein Gedächtnis. Das kann ich nicht getan haben, sagt mein Stolz! …” History and Morality in Hochhuth's Effis Nacht
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- From Nature to Modernism: The Concept and Discourse of Culture in Its Development from the Nineteenth into the Twentieth Century
- The German “Geist und Macht” Dichotomy: Just a Game of Red Indians?
- “In the Exile of Internment” or “Von Versuchen, aus einer Not eine Tugend zu machen”: German-Speaking Women Interned by the British during the Second World War
- “Deutschland lebt an der Nahtstelle, an der Bruchstelle”: Literature and Politics in Germany 1933–1950
- “Das habe ich getan, sagt mein Gedächtnis. Das kann ich nicht getan haben, sagt mein Stolz! …” History and Morality in Hochhuth's Effis Nacht
- Stefan Heym and GDR Cultural Politics
- Reviving the Dead: Montage and Temporal Dislocation in Karls Enkel's Liedertheater
- Living Without Utopia: Four Women Writers' Responses to the Demise of the GDR
- A Worm's Eye View and a Bird's Eye View: Culture and Politics in Berlin since 1989
- Remembering for the Future, Engaging with the Present: National Memory Management and the Dialectic of Normality in the “Berlin Republic”
- “Wie kannst du mich lieben?”: “Normalizing” the Relationship between Germans and Jews in the 1990s Films Aimée und Jaguar and Meschugge
- Models of the Intellectual in Contemporary France and Germany: Silence and Communication
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
Literature and the Nazi Past
HOCHHUTH'S DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE belongs to the tradition of plays and novels concerned with Germany's “unbewältigter Vergangenheit,” with its attempt to come to terms with the Nazi past, in the sense of understanding and accepting it. Coming to terms with this past has been a tortuously slow and painful process. It has often been stated that there was little evidence of a process of guilt recognition and a desire for atonement in the immediate aftermath of the war.
The first generation of postwar writers, those associated with Gruppe 47, seem to have done little to promote the cause of Holocaust recognition and of expiating German guilt. Many historians would cite the Currency Reform of 1948 and the ensuing economic miracle, together with the onset of the Cold War, for this state of affairs. Such conclusions frequently overlook the traumatic effect that the revelations of Nazi crimes, committed in the name of Germany, would have had on its warweary, demoralized society. With the collapse of the National Socialist regime and the cessation of hostilities, the priority of the educated middle classes (Bildungsbürger) was to restore Germany's cultural traditions and to reintegrate her into the community of civilized nations. The “Stunde Null” represents this desire for normality, for an end to the past, for a tabula rasa. Influenced by French existentialism, but lacking its political engagement, the postwar writers attempted a search for Wandlung, for some inner renewal.
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- Information
- Politics and Culture in Twentieth-Century Germany , pp. 107 - 124Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2003