The Cultural Memory Of German Victimhood In Post-1990 Popular German Literature And Television

THE CULTURAL MEMORY OF GERMAN VICTIMHOOD IN POST-1990 POPULARGERMAN LITERATURE AND TELEVISIONby ANJA PAULINE EBERTAugust 2010Advisor: Dr. Anne RotheMajor: Modern LanguagesDegree: Doctor of Philosophy My dissertation analyzes the representation of Germans as victims of the Third Reich andthe Second World War in post-1990 German memory. After unification, there no longer weretwo states that could each blame the other as the heir of National Socialism and this past had tobe renegotiated. The claim that many Germans had been victims became central as evidenced bythe vast number of popular literature, commercial cinema and television programs of this subject.I argue with Wulf Kansteiner (2006) that to understand collective memory, we should explore mass media representations. As the majority of highbrow artifacts do not reach the generalpublic, only interpretations of the past that become part of the mainstream media influence historical consciousness. My discussion therefore analyzes both popular literature and televisionas well as their official and vernacular reception. After contextualizing the dissertation in the increasingly expansive discourse of cultural memory, and briefly tracing the discursive history of West German cultural memory since 1945,the core of the dissertation explores the cultural memory of Germans as victims embodied in and