Germans as Victims

BILL NIVEN is Professor of Contemporary German History at The Nottingham Trent University, UK. He is author of Facing the Nazi Past (Routledge 2002) and co-author with Jürgen Thomaneck of Dividing and Uniting Germany (Routledge 2000).

• Notes on the ContributorsMapsIntroduction; B.NivenThe Politics of the Past in the 1950s: Rhetorics of Victimization in East and West Germany; R.G.MoellerVictims in Uniform: West German Combat Movies from the 1950s; R.G.MoellerTaboo or Tradition? The 'Germans as Victims' Theme in West Germany until the Early 1990s; R.WittlingerThe Continually Suffering Nation? Cinematic Representations of German Victimhood; P.CookeThe Birth of the Collective from the Spirit of Empathy: From the 'Historians' Dispute' to German Suffering; H.SchmitzThe GDR and Memory of the Bombing of Dresden; B.NivenVictims of the Berlin Wall; P.AhonenThe Victims of Totalitarianism and the Centrality of Nazi Genocide: Continuity and Change in GermanCommemorative Politics; A.H.BeattieRepresentations of German Wartime Suffering in Recent Fiction; S.TabernerAir War Legacies: From Dresden to Baghdad; A.HuyssenFrom the Margins to the Centre? The Discourse on Expellees and Victimhood in Germany; K.von Oppen & S.WolffOn Taboos, Traumas and Other Myths: Why the Debate About German Victims of the Second World War is not a Historians' Controversy; S.BergerChronology of VictimhoodSelect BibliographyIndex.

'This first-class edited collection offers excellent insights into the latest phase of Germany's public wrestling with the Nazi past.' - Geoff Eley, University of Michigan, USA 'An excellent volume. The essays are readable and informative, and they cover the full range of a fascinating and complex subject.' - Joachim Whaley, University of Cambridge, UK 'Fresh, engaging, and up-to-date.' - Andrew Bonnell, University of Queensland, Australia 'This rich and fascinating collection gives a fresh and eminently readable overview of the memory politics which has made the years since unification so remarkable in Germany...A must for all those interested in this area.' - Karen Leeder, Modern Language Review 'The study aims to appeal both to a specialist and student audience, and to the general reader. Indeed, the readable and thought-provoking essays, along with supporting materials such as a map of the movements of German fugitives and expellees 1945-1950 and a chronology of events 1939-1950, achieve this aim easily and impressively. - Karina von Lindeiner-Strasky, Limbus 'This collection can truly serve as a model of integrative and mutually supportive and enlightening editing. It provides an excellent overview - and plenty of references for further reading - of the current debates in Germany's coming to terms with its past.' - Hans J. Rindisbacher, The European Legacy