Abstract
From a strictly historical point of view, the story of German resistance to the Third Reich could be summed up quickly: organized opposition to Hitler was on the whole ineffective and had no discernible impact on the demise of the Third Reich. Neither left-wing nor right-wing resistance managed to change the course of history before the Allied forces finally defeated Germany in May 1945.
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Notes
For an excellent survey of the contemporary debate, see Gerd R. Ueberschär (ed.), Der 20. Juli. Das andere Deutschland in der Vergangenheitspolitik nach 1945 (Berlin: Elefanten Press, 1998). The title is a misnomer since the volume covers a wide range of resistance movements and activities beyond the 20 July 1944. See also Wolfgang Benz and Walter H. Pehle, Lexikon des deutschen Widerstandes (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 2nd ed. 2004).
Ian Kershaw, “Resistance without the People?”, in The Nazi Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives ofInterpretation (London, New York: Edward Arnold, 1985), pp. 150–79; here, p. 170.
See Ulrich von Hassell, Vom anderen Deutschland. Aus den nachgelassenen Tagebüchern 1938–1944 (Zurich: Atlantis, 1945);
Fabian von Schlabrendorff, Offiziere gegen Hitler, ed. Gero v. Schulze Gaevernitz (Zurich: Europa Verlag, 1946);
Hans Bernd Gisevius, Bis zum bitteren Ende. 2 vols (Zurich: Fretz & Wasmuth, 1946).
Anton Ackermann, “Legende und Wahrheit über den 20. Juli”, Einheit 7 (1947), 1172–82.
Kurt Finker, Stauffenberg und der 20. Juli 1944 (Berlin: Union-Verlag, 1967).
Wibke Bruhns, Meines Vaters Land. Geschichte einer deutschen Familie (Munich: Econ, 2004). All subsequent page references appear as MV followed by the page number in the main text.
Volker Ullrich, “Gruppenbild mit Nazis”, Die Zeit, 19 February 2004.
On repression as a mnemonic technique, see Anne Fuchs, “From Vergangenheitsbewältigung to Generational Memory Contests”, GLL 59 (2006), 176–79.
Nicolas Abraham, “Aufzeichnungen über das Phantom. Ergänzungen zu Freuds Metapsychologie”, Psyche 8 (1991), 691–98; here, 697.
Friedrich Christian Delius, Mein Jahr als Mörder. Roman (Berlin: Rowohlt, 2004). All subsequent references appear as MJ followed by the page number in the main text.
Sibylle Mulot, Nachbarn (Zurich: Diogenes, 1995), p. 34. All subsequent page references appear in the main text as N followed by the page number.
For a comprehensive analysis of the French resistance narrative, see Christopher Lloyd, Collaboration and Resistance in Occupied France. Representing Treason and Sacrifice (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003).
Zygmunt Bauman, Community. Seeking Safety in an Insecure World (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), p. 11.
Michael Wallner, April in Paris (Munich: Luchterhand, 2006). Henceforth cited as AP in main body of text followed by page reference.
On this point, see Juliet John, Dickens’s Villains. Melodrama, Character, Popular Culture (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001), p. 49.
Robert Heilman, Tragedy and Melodrama, Versions of Experience (Seattle, London: University of Washington Press, 1968), p. 243.
Michael R. Booth, English Melodrama (London: HerbertJenkins, 1965), p. 14.
Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess (New York: Columbia UP, 1984), p. 43.
Sabine Hake, German National Cinema (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 180.
Lutz Koepnick, “Reframing the Past: Heritage Cinema and Holocaust in the 1990s”, New German Critique 87 (2002), 47–82; here, 50.
For details on this failed attempt, see Joachim Fest, Staatsstreich. Der lange Weg zum 20. Juli (Berlin: Siedler, 1994), pp. 195–99.
For a detailed analysis of these Russian experiences, see Detlef Bald, Die Weiße Rose. Von der Front in den Widerstand (Berlin: Aufbau, 2003).
Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer. Sovereign Power and Bare Life, translated from the Italian by Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998).
Hannah Arendt, On Violence (San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt Brace & Copnay, 1970), p. 55.
Nathan Stoltzfus, Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstraße Protest in Nazi Germany (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1996).
Wolfgang Benz, “Kitsch as Kitsch can”, Die Süddeutsche Zeitung, 18 September 2003.
Nathan Stoltzfus, “Die Wahrheit jenseits der Akten”, Die Zeit, 10 October 2003.
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© 2008 Anne Fuchs
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Fuchs, A. (2008). Narrating Resistance to the Third Reich: Museum Discourse, Autobiography, Fiction and Film. In: Phantoms of War in Contemporary German Literature, Films and Discourse. New Perspectives in German Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230589728_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230589728_5
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