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WiSe 20/21: Strategic Bombing in World War II: Literary Reflections

Gregor Wolfgang Hens

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Subject: In the final years of World War II, the Allies conducted a systematic bombing campaign of German cities, during which more than half a million civilians are thought to have died. The moral issues surrounding the campaign were, perhaps surprisingly, discussed more thoroughly and openly in Great Britain, which had been bombed by Germany during the Blitz, than in Germany itself. In his 1997 Zurich lectures the British-German scholar W. G. Sebald, author of the highly acclaimed novel Austerlitz, surveyed the German-language literature that deals with this aspect of the war and claimed that the literary response to this catastrophe was both quantitatively and qualitatively inadequate. He argued that the issue had been repressed, and that this repression was the foundation of the post-war "economic miracle". Program: We will review some of the literature that responds to the air war, discuss Sebald's argument and consider the reasons both for the perceived lack of literary reflection among an entire generation of German writers, and for the heated public debate that Sebald's lectures engendered on publication. We will also look beyond Sebald's immediate concerns and discuss an American writer's view of the 1945 bombing of Dresden, as well as literary and filmic depictions of the bombing campaigns against Guernica, Rotterdam, Coventry and other cities. Required Text: Sebald, W.G. On the Natural History of Destruction. Penguin 2004. Various other translations and editions are available, as well as the German original: Luftkrieg und Literatur. Frankfurt: Fischer 1999. Is this course for you? The course has no prerequisites and is open to international students from all academic fields. However, participants should bring to the course a basic curiosity about German and European history and an interest in discussing and analyzing literary texts. Requirements and assessment: 5 ECTS points will be awarded if the following minimum requirements are met: regular attendance (at least 80% of all sessions); active participation; careful reading of assigned texts (an average of 15 pages per week); one presentation; a passed final exam. close