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This chapter considers the representation of the legacy of National Socialist eugenics and human experimentation in Kerstin Hensel’s novel Lärchenau (2008). Lärchenau chronicles a period of almost a century (1915–2007) in a small village in the Oder-Spree district of Brandenburg. The chapter draws on the work of Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich in order to argue that Hensel’s characters enact sado-masochistic behaviour patterns which echo the medical crimes of the Third Reich. Hensel’s novel – in part, a tribute to Ingeborg Bachmann’s Das Buch Franza/The Book of Franza (1978/1995) – centres on the geneticist Gunter Konarske who conducts a series of medical experiments on his wife Adele. Although Konarske is born in 1944, his practices bear comparison to the human experiments carried out by Carl Clauberg in Auschwitz. Clauberg’s victims were unaware that they were experimental subjects, and, in Hensel’s novel, so too is Adele. Reading Lärchenau against the background of Nazi medical crimes requires us to reconsider the novel as a confrontation with history, showing how the present is rooted in the past. This perspective counteracts the prevailing tendency in Hensel criticism to pigeonhole her as a satirical and fantastical author. \ud \ud Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit der Darstellung nationalsozialistischer Programme der Eugenik und Menschenversuche bzw. deren Nachwirkungen in Kerstin Hensels Roman Lärchenau (2008). Lärchenau erzählt die Geschichte eines gleichnamigen Dorfes im Oder-Spree-Seengebiet Brandenburgs im Zeitraum von 1915 bis 2007. Auf Basis der Theorien von Alexander und Margarete Mitscherlich wird hier argumentiert, dass Hensels Figuren sadomasochistische Verhaltensweisen wiederholen, die den Formen der medizinischen Gewalt im Dritten Reich ähnlich sind. Hensels Roman ist zum Teil als Hommage an Ingeborg Bachmanns Das Buch Franza (1978/1995) zu verstehen. Im Zentrum von Lärchenau steht der Genetiker Gunter Konarske, der eine Reihe von Menschenversuchen an der eigenen Frau Adele durchführt. Obwohl Konarske erst im Jahre 1944 geboren wurde, lässt sich seine Praxis mit den Menschenversuchen vergleichen, die Carl Clauberg in Auschwitz durchführte. Claubergs Opfer wussten nicht, dass sie Versuchspersonen waren, und das gleiche gilt für Adele in Lärchenau. Die Betrachtung Lärchenaus aus der Sicht der nationalsozialistischen Medizinverbrechen bedeutet, dass man den Roman als kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der Vergangenheit verstehen soll, die die Wurzeln der Gegenwart in der Vergangenheit entdeckt. Diese Betrachtungsweise wirkt der Forschungstendenz entgegen, Hensel als Satirikerin und Fantasy-Autorin einzuordnen.

No abstract available.

er … lies seine Kunste spielen und machte ein unglaubliches Geld [he … put all his arts to work, and made an incredible profit] —Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks Introduction: The Art of Doing Business MOST SCHOLARSHIP ON Buddenbrooks has tended to focus on the theme of decline and on what the Germans call Innerlichkeit : the interiority or inner life of the characters. Sometimes the characters’ inwardness is interpreted in terms of economic change: Anna Kinder and Michael Cowan argue that the nervousness of the Buddenbrooks increases in direct response to the economic uncertainty of capitalist modernity. Unfortunately, this tendency to focus on the characters’ “interiority,” even when it is connected to the wider economic framework, distracts attention from the actual business practices depicted in the novel. It also runs the risk of ignoring something the characters themselves take very seriously: external appearances ( Auserlichkeiten ). If Thomas Mann (1875–1955) learned one thing from Theodor Fontane, it is that only by paying close attention to so-called casual appearances is it possible to gain an understanding of society. Few scholars have seriously considered appearances and externalities in Buddenbrooks . Notable exceptions are Martin Swales, who observes the portrayal of a family that consciously works very hard to sustain its public role, and Elizabeth Boa, who considers the ways in which the Buddenbrooks seek to regulate sensual pleasure. Reading Buddenbrooks , we find that appearances, far from being casual, are careful constructs to which the family members themselves attach huge importance. Many valuable studies of Buddenbrooks that investigate the character and ethos of the family in terms of a sociohistorical perspective miss the point, noted in the introduction to this book, that classical authors consider ethos to be a performative construct. Referring to classical oratory helps us to comprehend the Buddenbrooks as actors in both senses of the word: as participants in economic (and political) processes, and as theatri cal performers. In this sense, the Burger (citizen) is also, simultaneously, a performing Kunstler (artist). There is a constant social performance that is required of the Buddenbrooks precisely because of their social position. Social convention means that they are always both citizens and artists, in the sense of the daily social performance they must enact.

Ingenuity for life —Siemens advertising slogan used in 2017 Introduction: Business and Bureaucracy THIS CHAPTER EXAMINES Friedrich Christian Delius's representation of corporate rhetoric and bureaucracy in his pioneering work of post-1968 documentary fiction. Whereas Hermann Kant writes from within the GDR establishment, Delius (b. 1943) was, until 1971, a doctoral student and an activist associated with the Auserparlamentarische Opposition (Extra-Parliamentary Opposition) in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). While Kant writes in a realist mode, Delius's early work belongs to the genre of Dokumentarliteratur (documentary literature) developed in the 1960s and 1970s by East and West German authors, including Rolf Hochhuth, Maxie Wander, Peter Weiss, Heinar Kipphardt, Gunter Wallraff, Irina Liebmann, and Erika Runge. Practitioners of the genre called for the politicization of literature and for writers to engage with the facts of the modern industrial world. Although Kant and Delius are writing from opposite sides of the Cold War divide and using different literary forms, to a certain extent they have a shared preoccupation: the inevitably bureaucratic nature of modern life. For some West German writers in the 1970s, the growth of the capitalist corporation was a major concern. This preoccupation was reflected in Wallraff's polemics against industry and big business; in Mathias Scheben's science-fiction novel Konzern 2003 (1977; Corporation 2003) most of Western Europe is ruled in 2003 by the giant Zannen Corporation. Seen from this perspective, there seemed to be a number of parallels between the bureaucracy of the Soviet states and what President Dwight D. Eisenhower called “the military-industrial complex” of the US in his farewell address of January 17, 1961. Unsere Siemens-Welt (Our Siemens World) seems to invite such parallels. For example, considering Siemens in the late nineteenth century, the narrator notes approvingly that “das Betriebsklima entsprach dem einer staatlichen Behorde, es herrschten alle Vorzuge eines ‘kalten militarischen Tons’” (the atmosphere of the firm was equivalent to that of a government agency; it had all the advantages of a “cold military tone”). Even the notorious Stasi has a counterpart in Delius's corporate world, in which there is a confidential personnel file on every employee. At one point the narrator regrets that the new employment law allows employees to apply to view their files, but he adds that the corporation will find ways to ensure that certain data remain confidential.

No abstract available.

Convivencia’ refers to the coexistence of Muslims, Christians and Jews during the period of Muslim rule in Spain (711–1492). Like the historian Isaak Markus Jost (1793–1860), Heine formed an idealized image of Muslim Spain in support of his own cultural ambitions. Heine’s identification with Marranos is well documented (Veit). This article considers the depiction of ‘convivencia’ in two texts by Heine, the drama Almansor and the poem ‘Jehuda ben Halevy’. In accordance with Heine’s sources, the chorus of Almansor presents Muslim Spain as a centre of cultural and religious tolerance for modern Europeans to emulate. Three decades later, Heine’s poem ‘Jehuda ben Halevy’ presents a more troubled picture, as two of the three Sephardi poets are murdered. Crucially, though, in Cordoba the murderer is punished. In this way, the poem asserts that the rule of law prevailed in Muslim Spain.

This book chapter analyses the representation of everyday life in Marieluise Fleißer’s novel Eine Zierde für den Verein (A Credit to the Club, 1931/1972), focusing on its special attention to language and performance. Fleißer’s prose is highly sensitive to the ideological nature of everyday life, and her characters move within a field of social conventions and prejudices. The discussion is divided into five sections, on five aspects of everyday life as represented in the novel. Sections 1-3 focus on sport, love, and sales. Section 4 is on language, which plays a major role in all these activities, since it is a means of persuasion, an instrument in the struggle for existence. Section 5 shows how this struggle can degenerate into bullying or violence at any time: this, too, is an integral part of everyday life as described in the novel.

In Felicitas Hoppes Roman 'Johanna' (2006) geht es nicht um die historische Johanna von Orléans (um 1412-1431) selbst, sondern um eine namenlose Ich-Erzählerin, die sich auf ihre mündliche Disputation im Fach Geschichte vorbereitet. Der Roman spielt nicht im 15., sondern im 21. Jahrhundert. Die Protagonisten sind die Ich- Erzählerin, die über Johanna von Orléans promoviert, ein Professor der Geschichtswissenschaft und sein Assistent, der von der Erzählerin auf den Spitznamen "Peitsche" getauft wird. Es geht also nicht um eine Märtyrerin, die von Geistlichen verhört und verurteilt wird, sondern um eine Doktorandin, die von einem Historiker mündlich geprüft wird. Anstelle des Todesurteils wird die Promovendin aus dem akademischen Betrieb ausgeschlossen. Es lassen sich also deutliche Parallelen zwischen den beiden Schicksalen erkennen. In beiden Fällen – ob innerhalb der Kirche oder der Universität – geht es um eine geistige Institution, die von Männern beherrscht wird und ihren eigenen 'Kanon' pflegt. Die Kirche bewahrt den Kanon der Heiligen; die Universität perpetuiert durch die Historiografie einen Kanon der wichtigsten Persönlichkeiten der Geschichte. In beiden Fällen werden die Argumente der Frau von den männlichen Juroren nicht akzeptiert beziehungsweise nicht ernst genommen. Diese Gemeinsamkeiten gilt es in diesem Beitrag vergleichend zu analysieren.

Dieser Artikel konzentriert sich auf die Darstellung der Wohn- und Arbeitsgemeinschaften in Ost- und Westberlin in Özdamars Seltsame Sterne starren zur Erde, ergänzt mit einer Besprechung der Istanbuler Wohngemeinschaft in dem Prosa-Fragment ‘Ein unzeitgemäßer Üsküdarer’. Die Wohngemeinschaft wird als paradigmatischer Ort der antiautoritären Reformbewegungen der siebziger Jahre betrachtet, als Versuch, die linksalternativen Ideen der Studentenbewegung in die Praxis umzusetzen. Programmatische Formulierungen dieser antiautoritären Lebensversuche befinden sich sowohl beim Dissidenten Rudolf Bahro als auch beim Dichter Ece Ayhan Çağlar. Untersucht werden diese Lebensversuche in Westberlin, in Ostberlin (an der Volksbühne und bei Gabriele Gysi) und in der Türkei bei Ece Ayhan. In Seltsame Sterne und ‘Ein unzeitgemäßer Üsküdarer’ werden Andersartigkeit, Vielfältigkeit und Nebeneinanderwohnen zum poetologischen Programm gestaltet. In diesen Texten hängen Thema und literarische Form miteinander zusammen: Der Topos der Wohngemeinschaft entspricht der Mehrstimmigkeit der Form. Durch die Erzähltechnik der Montage bietet Özdamar eine inklusive Ästhetik des Nebeneinanders.

This article takes Walter Benjamin's interpretation of the Dreigroschenroman as a point of departure and conclusion. It develops Benjamin's idea that the novel shows how language is used to exert political and economic influence. This article reads the Dreigroschenroman as an insightful example of ‘Sprachkritik’. The business people in the novel use the rhetorical technique of paraphrase, thus drawing on Cicero's advice that the orator should exploit the ignorance of the audience. Whereas neoliberal free market rhetoric (following F. A. Hayek) tends to minimise the problem of monopoly formation, Brecht's novel explores the coercive character of the market and its reliance on the deception that a transaction is mutually beneficial. Macheath emerges as an expert salesman who uses populist marketing techniques in order to extract the maximum profit from his audience. The focus on material interests can be seen as antidote to business rhetoric. As with Marx and Engels, the fundamental question here is that of property. In this way, the novel exemplifies the Brechtian use of crude thinking (‘plumpes Denken’) in order to evade ideological manipulation.

This article considers the representation of transnational political movements around 1968 in Özdamar’s autobiographical novel Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn (1998). The transnational perspective enables Özdamar to articulate cultural transfers between Turkey, West Germany, Greece, Spain and Italy in the context of Cold War political activism. The article will show how the novel reappraises the political movements of the late sixties and early seventies as transnational phenomena which in West Germany included the participation of ‘Gastarbeiter’, thus serving as a corrective to Eurocentric histories of 1968. This is followed by a consideration of the cultural practices of the political activists. The characters continually reference a canon of revolutionary authors including Brecht, Lorca, Rosa Luxemburg and Nâzım Hikmet in order to foster a sense of transnational identity. The article comments on the relevance of Hikmet’s concept of secular resurrection for Özdamar’s novel. Finally the article considers how words are depicted as physical presences and bodies are subjected to physical transformation. These techniques are central to Özdamar’s utopian presentation of transnational political activism as an erotic experience.

Morgan’s Collected Translations (1996) is one of his most substantial achievements. This chapter looks at the trajectory of his translations from, and use of, poets of European modernism, in various forms, in a range of political contexts and languages, and in the continuing dialogue, or open conversation, of Morgan’s poetic practice. Amongst the dozens of poets Morgan has translated, five stand out – Eugenio Montale, Sándor Weöres, Vladimir Mayakovsky, August von Platen and Attila József – because Morgan has dedicated a separate volume to each one. This chapter shows that by engaging with modern European poetry, and with these five poets in particular, Morgan was able to develop his voice in a number of important ways.