Gender, Sexuality, and Coming to Terms with the Nazi Past

Bibliographic Data

ID9643193
AuthorsElizabeth Heineman (University of Iowa, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume38
Issue1
Pages41-74
Publication date2005-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCentral European History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0008-9389 • E-ISSN: 1569-1616
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1163/1569161053623679
OpenAlexW2140280885
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited60

In the years leading to the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, popular books and films have sparked lively discussions about the ways Germans use gender and sexuality to interpret the Nazi past. July 2003 saw the re-release of Eine Frau in Berlin , the anonymous diary of a woman who experienced the mass rapes surrounding the Battle for Berlin. In October of that year, the film Das Wunder von Bern ( The Miracle of Bern ) told a sentimental tale of a late-returning POW's relationship with his son. Coming on the heels of renewed discussions of German suffering, the popular film and best-selling diary formed something of a “his-and-hers” opportunity to revisit debates about guilt and trauma, Nazi-era dominance and postwar degradation, now with gender front and center. If these debates raised concerns that Germans might believe their sufferings have redeemed their guilt, Thor Kunkel's novel Endstufe raised a different specter: a Nazi guilt that is not redeemed, that is paired not with suffering but rather with pleasure. Endstufe , released in March 2004, describes scientists at the SS Hygiene Institute who, in their cocaine-filled leisure hours, produce and enjoy pornographic films

Ancient history · Art · Art history · Battle · German · Human sexuality · KISS (TNC · Miracle · Nazism · Pleasure · Political science · Sociology · Taboo · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · European history and politics · Gender Studies · German History and Society · History · Law · Psychology

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