Language:
German
Year of publication:
2000
Titel der Quelle:
Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte
Angaben zur Quelle:
74,2 (2000) 333-360
Keywords:
Walser, Martin,
;
Bubis, Ignatz,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
Abstract:
Relates Walser's controversial speech on receiving the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1998 to his autobiographical novel "Ein springender Brunnen" (1998), and discusses the subsequent debate. In the novel, as he explained in a series of prologues, Walser tried to present a childhood during the Nazi period as he experienced it, and not as he understood it in the light of later knowledge; that is, without the shadow of Auschwitz. He asserted that individual memory is untouchable by collective memory. However, his selection and combination of events expose a hidden intention of individual and general exculpation. In the speech, he demanded an end to ritualized commemoration of German guilt and its exploitation by certain groups. In response to Bubis's protests, Walser and his defenders hinted that Bubis, as an outsider and perhaps not master of the German language, had misunderstood the speech. Simultaneously, acts of antisemitic vandalism multiplied. The controversy showed that the question of the German republic's relationship to the Nazi past and the Holocaust would determine the nature of the new German identity.
Note:
In Hebrew:
,
"זיכרון ושכחה" (2005)
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
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