Generational Conflict and Masculinity in Väterliteratur by Christoph Meckel, Uwe Timm, Dagmar Leupold and Ulla Hahn

Abstract

Väterliteratur (fathers’ literature) could be considered a late by-product of the student movement of 1968 in that some of its former members embarked on a literary exploration of post-war German family life in the late 1970s.¹ Concerned with the authoritarian father figures that, according to these authors, dominated the family dynamics of the post-war period, Väterliteratur attempts to show how the National Socialist past of the war generation infiltrated post-war family life. Wavering between a whimsical style, on the one hand, and outright aggression towards the domineering father figure, on the other, these narratives have been dismissed by some critics for their apparent lack of critical distance and the shrillness of their tone.