Abstract
In this chapter, the author looks closely at representations of Adolf Hitler. The main argument is that, in these accounts, there is a visible tension between Hitler the man and Hitler the myth. Fiction that addresses the subject of Adolf Hitler therefore enters an arena in which the way that we remember the Holocaust, especially its potency within our cultural consciousness, has impacted directly upon modes of representation. Considering the oscillations that occur because of these issues, this chapter concludes by taking a chronological approach to these narratives, linked to the so-called ‘Hitler Wave’; ultimately, it becomes clear that a kind of cultural catharsis has begun to occur, and that the myth of Hitler is finally beginning to be expelled.
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Notes
- 1.
During the late 1960s and going into the 1970s, investigations surrounding Hitler saw such resurgence of interest that the period has now become known as the ‘Hitler Wave’ by various scholars and critics. Summarising the change, Rosenfeld writes, ‘From 1945 to the early 1960s, most tales of this kind depicted the fugitive Führer as an unrepentant demon who, in one way or another, ends up being brought to justice for his crimes. After the early 1970s, however, alternate histories began to represent Hitler in surprisingly humanised terms as an unthreatening figure who succeeds in evading justice’ (2005: 200). This movement marks a clear shift in the cultural consciousness of society and its perception of the events surrounding the Second World War.
- 2.
The novel articulates Puccetti’s wider interest in the capabilities of the brain, discussed in papers such as ‘Two Brains, Two Minds? Wigan’s Theory of Mental Duality’ (Puccetti, 1989).
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Pettitt, J. (2017). Adolf Hitler in Fiction and Memory. In: Perpetrators in Holocaust Narratives. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52575-4_6
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