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The Resource The burden of the past : Martin Walser on modern German identity : texts, contexts, commentary, Thomas A. Kovach and Martin Walser

The burden of the past : Martin Walser on modern German identity : texts, contexts, commentary, Thomas A. Kovach and Martin Walser

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The item The burden of the past : Martin Walser on modern German identity : texts, contexts, commentary, Thomas A. Kovach and Martin Walser represents a specific, individual, material embodiment of a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Liverpool.
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Creator

Kovach, Thomas A., 1949-

Contributor

Walser, Martin, 1927-

Summary: "The German novelist Martin Walser's 1998 speech upon acceptance of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade remains a milestone in Germans' recent efforts to come to terms with the Nazi past. The day after the speech, Ignatz Bubis, the leader of Germany's Jewish community, attacked Walser publicly for inciting dangerous right-wing sentiments with passages such as the notorious statement that "Auschwitz is not suited to be a moral bludgeon," thus igniting the protracted public battle of opinions known as the "Walser-Bubis Debate." The speech continues to play a major role in Germany's struggle to acknowledge responsibility for Nazi crimes yet escape from what is felt by some to be a suffocating burden of remembrance. But in spite of its notoriety, little attention has been paid to the actual text of the speech, as opposed to the public outcry and debate that followed in its wake." "The Burden of the Past fills several needs. First it presents the text of the Peace-Prize speech, as well as those of several of Walser's other essays and speeches on the Holocaust and its impact on modern German identity, in English translation. Second, it examines these works as texts; especially in the case of the Peace-Prize speech, this involves a discussion of its literary complexities and an attempt to distinguish what may be considered a valid critique of some aspects of Germany's culture of remembrance from what might justifiably be seen as problematic. Third, it places this examination of the text in the contexts of Walser's and other postwar German writers' and intellectuals' attempts to deal with the Nazi past, of German-Jewish relations in the postwar era, and of the once hidden and now - due in part to Walser's speech - increasingly open discourse about Germans as victims during and following the Nazi era."--BOOK JACKET

Language: eng

Work

Publication

Rochester, N.Y., Camden House, 2008

Extent: viii, 141 p.

Contents

Our Auschwitz (1965).
p. 5
No end to Auschwitz (1979).
p. 23
Handshake with ghosts (1979).
p. 35
Speaking of Germany (a report) (1988).
p. 55
Experiences while composing a Sunday speech : the Peace Prize speech (1998).
p. 81
On talking to yourself : a flagrant attempt (2000).
p. 107
Conclusion.
p. 129
Suggestions for further reading.
p. 135
Index.
p. 139

Isbn: 9781571133687

Instance

Label: The burden of the past : Martin Walser on modern German identity : texts, contexts, commentary

Title: The burden of the past

Title remainder: Martin Walser on modern German identity : texts, contexts, commentary

Statement of responsibility: Thomas A. Kovach and Martin Walser

Creator

Kovach, Thomas A., 1949-

Contributor

Walser, Martin, 1927-

Subject

Language: eng

Summary: "The German novelist Martin Walser's 1998 speech upon acceptance of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade remains a milestone in Germans' recent efforts to come to terms with the Nazi past. The day after the speech, Ignatz Bubis, the leader of Germany's Jewish community, attacked Walser publicly for inciting dangerous right-wing sentiments with passages such as the notorious statement that "Auschwitz is not suited to be a moral bludgeon," thus igniting the protracted public battle of opinions known as the "Walser-Bubis Debate." The speech continues to play a major role in Germany's struggle to acknowledge responsibility for Nazi crimes yet escape from what is felt by some to be a suffocating burden of remembrance. But in spite of its notoriety, little attention has been paid to the actual text of the speech, as opposed to the public outcry and debate that followed in its wake." "The Burden of the Past fills several needs. First it presents the text of the Peace-Prize speech, as well as those of several of Walser's other essays and speeches on the Holocaust and its impact on modern German identity, in English translation. Second, it examines these works as texts; especially in the case of the Peace-Prize speech, this involves a discussion of its literary complexities and an attempt to distinguish what may be considered a valid critique of some aspects of Germany's culture of remembrance from what might justifiably be seen as problematic. Third, it places this examination of the text in the contexts of Walser's and other postwar German writers' and intellectuals' attempts to deal with the Nazi past, of German-Jewish relations in the postwar era, and of the once hidden and now - due in part to Walser's speech - increasingly open discourse about Germans as victims during and following the Nazi era."--BOOK JACKET

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