GERM-562 Germany under the Bombs, 1939-1945

GERM-562 Germany under the Bombs, 1939-1945

Faculty:

Chickering, Roger

Pfeiffer, Peter

The bombing raids on German cities during the Second World War have become a topic of much public discussion. The two most publicized events were W.G. Sebald’s assertion in his provocative essay Literatur und Luftkrieg of 1999 that Germans had repressed the memory of their own suffering after defeat in 1945. From a different perspective, Jörg Friedrichs in his volume Brand. Deutschland im Bombenkrieg 1940 – 1945 presents a similar case from the perspective of a non-academic historian. To some extent, both publications laid claim to an interpretive context for the bombings of Hamburg, Dresden, Nürnberg and other German cities that had long been the dominion of right wing extremists such as the historian David Irving. As a steady flow of publications in both English and German demonstrates, the debates stirred by Sebald’s and Friedrich’s publications were not short-lived media events but seem to have struck a cord with longer lasting reverberations.

The course will explore some aspects of these discussions by combining a literary and histrical perspective on representations of the bombing raids on Germany during the Second World War, drawing on the disciplinary expertise of the two instructors.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: None

Other academic years
There is information about this course number in other academic years:

• 2007-2008

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