Overview

Investigates why the question of women's complicity in National Socialism has struggled to capture the collective imagination, examining how a variety of female authors have conceptualized the role of women in the Third Reich In recent years, historians have revealed the many ways in which German women supported National Socialism-as teachers, frontline auxiliaries, and nurses, as well as in political organizations. In mainstream culture, however, thewomen of the period are still predominantly depicted as the victims of a violent twentieth century whose atrocities were committed by men. They are frequently imagined as post hoc redeemers of the nation, as the ""rubble women"" whospiritually and literally rebuilt Germany. This book investigates why the question of women's complicity in the Third Reich has struggled to capture the historical imagination in the same way. It explores how female authorsfrom across the political and generational spectrum (Ingeborg Bachmann, Christa Wolf, Elisabeth Plessen, Gisela Elsner, Tanja Dückers, Jenny Erpenbeck) conceptualize the role of women in the Third Reich. As well as offering innovative re-readings of celebrated works, this book provides instructive interpretations of lesser-known texts that nonetheless enrich our understanding of German memory culture. Katherine Stone is Assistant Professor in German Studies at the University of Warwick.

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9781571139948

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Reviews

Stone's . . . arguments effortlessly weave together a vast amount of scholarship and theory on gender, memory, and literature. Her writing is clear, efficient, and elegant. In short, this outstanding book is a Corrective for the tendency to reduce the history of Nazi Germany to the binaries of male/oppressor-female/victim. It is a must-read for scholars of post-1933 Germany and for feminist scholars, regardless of their area of focus. -- Alexandra Merley Hill * MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW * Across the works of six female authors, the author shows how literature acts as an important site of cultural memory for the reproduction, contestation, and disruption of hegemonic models of gender and female subjectivity. In particular, Stone convincingly demonstrates how such consideration of gender complicates and enriches understanding of the development of German memory of the Nazi past. . . . Recommended. * CHOICE * While mostly indebted to historians, Katherine Stone's analysis draws from a wide range of disciplines -- sociology, psychology, women and gender studies, literary criticism, and others -- as her analytical instruments. Her book expands the existing research on women's culpability during the Third Reich into the realm of German literature. -- Marce Rotter * Monatshefte *

Stone's . . . arguments effortlessly weave together a vast amount of scholarship and theory on gender, memory, and literature. Her writing is clear, efficient, and elegant. In short, this outstanding book is a Corrective for the tendency to reduce the history of Nazi Germany to the binaries of male/oppressor-female/victim. It is a must-read for scholars of post-1933 Germany and for feminist scholars, regardless of their area of focus. MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW [Alexandra Merley Hill] Across the works of six female authors, the author shows how literature acts as an important site of cultural memory for the reproduction, contestation, and disruption of hegemonic models of gender and female subjectivity. In particular, Stone convincingly demonstrates how such consideration of gender complicates and enriches understanding of the development of German memory of the Nazi past. . . . Recommended. CHOICE

Across the works of six female authors, the author shows how literature acts as an important site of cultural memory for the reproduction, contestation, and disruption of hegemonic models of gender and female subjectivity. In particular, Stone convincingly demonstrates how such consideration of gender complicates and enriches understanding of the development of German memory of the Nazi past. . . . Recommended. CHOICE

Author Information

KATHERINE STONE is an Associate Professor in German Studies at the University of Warwick.

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