| Description |
This dissertation examines the motif of the abandoned child as a symptom of postwar German memory culture in German literature and film from the late 1980s to the second decade of the 21st century. As part of German postwar memory culture, the abandoned child motif emerged in the early postwar years and established itself in German memory discourse as Kriegskind (war baby), while representing certain war-related experiences of victimization. This study focuses on the change the motif reflects against the backdrop of Germany's unification, the surge toward normalization, and globalization. The abandoned child motif in German cultural texts at the end of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st century is a threshold figure which is symptomatic of the past as well as the present, of the victim and the perpetrator, and of suffering as well as guilt. It therefore serves as a sensitive indicator of how these aspects of German memory culture are negotiated against the backdrop of contemporary national and global events. The works in Chapter 2 are anchored in the experience of postwar childhood abandonment and parental conflicts. The abandoned child motif in these texts from the dawn of, and during the post-Wende years reflects attempts at breaking away from the generational conflict and the West German postwar perspective. The texts discussed in Chapter 3 fulfill the detachment from the second generation's parental conflict by creating a narrative construct that reflects a generational shift. The abandoned child in these texts still emphasizes the familial connection to World War II and the Holocaust, but reveals an increase in generational perspectives as well as Jewish victim perspectives. The texts in Chapter 4 continue the trend towards the multiplication of perspectives. Rather than the familial involvement in the past, the abandoned child motif in the texts of Chapter 4 pertains to more general questions, addressing Germany's role in facing the global challenges of the beginning of the 21st century, all the while still considering the country's past. |
