
Appropriated Memory
The Creation of a German Post-Memorial Literature
Reinhard Zachau(Author)
Peter Lang Verlag
Published on 8. September 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
254 pages
978-1-80374-703-3 (ISBN)
Description
This book offers a survey of post-World War II German-language post-memorial writing. An analysis of the books by Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, and Wolfgang Koeppen exposes the difficult path of German writing about the Holocaust. Koeppen's unauthorized appropriation of Jakob Littner's survivor memoir serves as the frame for this study, exposing the differences between perpetrator and victim perspectives. The various attempts by the current generation of authors to bridge this divide reflect the renewed interest and changed attitudes towards the Holocaust that emerged in Germany after Reunification. Included in this volume are W. G. Sebald's imaginary dialogue between a victim and a perpetrator, Ursula Krechel's exploration of Jewish life in Shanghai from a Jewish perspective, Iris Hanika's presentation of the distraught mindset of a member of Germany's second perpetrator generation, and Kevin Vennemann's narrative about a Jewish child in the midst of a Polish massacre.
More details
Series
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
New edition
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
385 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80374-703-3 (9781803747033)
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
10/2025
1st Edition
Peter Lang Verlag
€62.49
Available for download

E-Book
10/2025
1st Edition
Peter Lang Verlag
€62.49
Available for download
Person
Reinhard Zachau is Professor Emeritus at the University of the South. He has published a number of books, on Stefan Heym, Hans Fallada, Heinrich Böll, Berlin's Modernism, and on German film. Appropriated Memory originated in the extensive media coverage that the author's discovery of Jakob Littner's Holocaust survivor memoir in 2000 received.
Content
Acknowledgments - Introduction Germans Writing about the Holocaust - Chapter 1 Perpetrator Writing before 1990 - Chapter 2 Appropriating a Victim Identity - Chapter 3 Jewish Memories - Chapter 4 Perpetrator Memoirs - Conclusion - Bibliography - Index