Representations of Flight and Expulsion in East German Prose Works, Volume 150It is by now almost a cliché that the flight and expulsion of Germans from east-central Europe at the end of the Second World War was a taboo topic in the German Democratic Republic. According to this claim, the Socialist Unity Party (SED) suppressed reference to flight and expulsion so as not to upset its socialist neighbors. This book shows that such a view does not hold up to serious scrutiny. While the topic may not have been addressed in the realm of politics or official commemoration, it was picked up again and again in literature, particularly fiction. Representations of flight and expulsion were by no means restricted, as some have asserted, to Christa Wolf's novel Kindheitsmuster: Niven's study documents around one hundred novels and short stories published in the GDR that address flight or expulsion. He argues that in the 1950s and early 1960s GDR fiction included many refugee figures. The predominant emphasis was on their integration under socialism rather than their experience of flight and loss of home; nevertheless, flight and to a lesser degree expulsion were depicted, as was their impact on individuals. They continued to be portrayed in the late GDR and in post-unification east Germany. Flight and expulsion were subject to a developing literary discourse in the GDR, a discourse that this book explores. BILL NIVEN is Professor in Contemporary German History at Nottingham Trent University. |
Contents
Evidence and Interpretation Flight and Expulsion | 18 |
GDR Reconstruction Literature of the 1950s | 49 |
From Novels Set in the Nazi Period to Novels of Revisiting | 84 |
The Skeptical Muse Reassessing Integration | 125 |
Flight and Expulsion in East German Prose | 165 |
Common terms and phrases
Adomeit Armin Müller Aufbau Aufbauliteratur Bad Warmbrunn Bastian’s Berlin bombing Bradatsch Breslau Carlotta chapter characters Christa Wolf Christoph Hein cultural Czech depiction describes Die Königskinder discourse Dresden East Prussia eastern German expellees experience flee flight and expulsion Flucht Flüchtlingskinder focus former homeland GDR authors GDR literature GDR novels GDR prose writing GDR’s Gerda Gerlach German guilt Halle Saale Harry Thürk Heiduczek Heimat Höntsch-Harendt Horst integration Jablonski Jadup Jirgl Joachim Jungfernhaut Jutta Kaliningrad Karalautschi Königsberg Kossert living loss of homeland Magda Marianne memory Mitteldeutscher Verlag Moral der Banditen mother Müller narrative narrator narrator’s Nazi Nazism Neumann past people’s Poland Poles Polish political portrayal portrayed postwar published rape Rauchfuß reconstruction Red Army refugees resettlement revisiting Schäfer’s Schlesisches Himmelreich Schulz-Semrau Silesia Silesian Germans socialism socialist Soviet Steinberg story Sudeten Germans Sudetenland taboo Thürk tion Tod am Meer trek Unvollendeten Vertreibung village Werner West German Wolf’s Kindheitsmuster