The ‘German Wartime Suffering Debate’ Ten Years on

 

The final workshop for the AHRC major research project ‘From Victims to Perpetrators: Discourses of German Wartime Suffering’ will be taking place on 26th September 2008 at the German Department, University of Leeds. The intention is to bring together a number of key partners to discuss the present state of debate on the topic of ‘German wartime suffering’ some ten years after the publication of Sebald’s Luftkrieg und Literatur.

 

Papers will be given by:

Helmut Schmitz, University of Warwick

Recent book: (ed.) A Nation of Victims? Representations of German Wartime Suffering from 1945 to the Present (2007)

Oliver Lubrich, FU Berlin

Recent book: (ed.) Berichte aus der Abwurfzone. Ausländer erleben den Bombenkrieg in Deutschland 1939 bis 1945 (2007)

Bill Niven, Nottingham Trent University

Recent book: (ed.) Germans as Victims (2006)

 

Hannes Heer, Hamburg

Hitler war's. Die Befreiung der Deutschen von ihrer Vergangenheit (2005)


Jeffrey Olick, Charlottesville/Virginia

Recent book: The Politics of Regret: Collective Memory and Historical Responsibility in the Age of Atrocity (2007)


Atina Grossmann, CUNY

Recent book: Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied Germany (2007)

Moderators: Annette Seidel-Arpaci, Stuart Taberner

 

The workshop is open to interested academics and others. We may be able to subsidise travel and lunch for Ph.D and MA students. Please register your interest with Dr Annette Seidel-Arpaci (gllasa@leeds.ac.uk).

 

Project Publications

 

It is hoped that the workshop papers will be published as a special edition of a journal.

 

Four edited volumes are planned as the outcome of the project, on Literature, Film, Monuments and Memorials in a European Context, and ‘Views from outside’. In addition, numerous articles have appeared, as have several edited volumes, including Bill Niven (ed.), Germans as Victims. Remembering the Past in Contemporary Germany (2006), Helmut Schmitz (ed.), A Nation of Victims? Representations of German Wartime Suffering from 1945 to the Present (2007), and Stuart Taberner (ed.), Contemporary German Fiction: Writing in the Berlin Republic (2007).