Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Finding the “Good German”
- 1 Re-Presenting the Good German: Philosophical Reflections
- 2 “Görings glorreichste Günstlinge”: The Portrayal of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Gustaf Gründgens as Good Germans in the West German Media since 1945
- 3 From Hitler's Champion to German of the Century: On the Representation and Reinvention of Max Schmeling
- 4 Wilhelm Krützfeld and Other “Good” Constables in Police Station 16 in Hackescher Markt, Berlin
- 5 The “Good German” between Silence and Artistic Deconstruction of an Inhumane World: Johannes Bobrowski's “Mäusefest” and “Der Tänzer Malige”
- 6 Saints and Sinners: The Good German and Her Others in Heinrich Böll's Gruppenbild mit Dame
- 7 Being Human: Good Germans in Postwar German Film
- 8 “The Banality of Good”? Good Nazis in Contemporary German Film
- 9 Memories of Good and Evil in Sophie Scholl — Die letzten Tage
- 10 Deconstructing the “Good German” in French Best Sellers Published in the Aftermath of the Second World War
- 11 Macbeth, Not Henry V: Shakespearean Allegory in the Construction of Vercors's “Good German”
- 12 A Good Irish German: In Praise of Hugo Hamilton's Mother
- 13 Shades of Gray: The Beginnings of the Postwar Moral Compromise in Joseph Kanon's The Good German
- Works Cited
- Filmography
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
10 - Deconstructing the “Good German” in French Best Sellers Published in the Aftermath of the Second World War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Finding the “Good German”
- 1 Re-Presenting the Good German: Philosophical Reflections
- 2 “Görings glorreichste Günstlinge”: The Portrayal of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Gustaf Gründgens as Good Germans in the West German Media since 1945
- 3 From Hitler's Champion to German of the Century: On the Representation and Reinvention of Max Schmeling
- 4 Wilhelm Krützfeld and Other “Good” Constables in Police Station 16 in Hackescher Markt, Berlin
- 5 The “Good German” between Silence and Artistic Deconstruction of an Inhumane World: Johannes Bobrowski's “Mäusefest” and “Der Tänzer Malige”
- 6 Saints and Sinners: The Good German and Her Others in Heinrich Böll's Gruppenbild mit Dame
- 7 Being Human: Good Germans in Postwar German Film
- 8 “The Banality of Good”? Good Nazis in Contemporary German Film
- 9 Memories of Good and Evil in Sophie Scholl — Die letzten Tage
- 10 Deconstructing the “Good German” in French Best Sellers Published in the Aftermath of the Second World War
- 11 Macbeth, Not Henry V: Shakespearean Allegory in the Construction of Vercors's “Good German”
- 12 A Good Irish German: In Praise of Hugo Hamilton's Mother
- 13 Shades of Gray: The Beginnings of the Postwar Moral Compromise in Joseph Kanon's The Good German
- Works Cited
- Filmography
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
In the aftermath of the Second World War, it was through fiction that many French writers decided to reflect on the conflict. Unsurprisingly, the relationship between “occupiers” and “occupied” was often depicted quite simplistically: German soldiers were either robots or barbarians. Yet, many texts — including the best sellers Education européenne by Romain Gary (Prix des Critiques winner 1945); Mon Village à l'heure allemande by Jean-Louis Bory (Goncourt winner 1945); and Les Forêts de la nuit by Jean-Louis Curtis (Goncourt winner 1947), on which this article will focus — contain a “good German” character. I have suggested elsewhere that the inclusion of a “good German” character follows both a literary tradition and the humanist values (freedom and equality for all, mainly) put forward by the French Resistance, to which these writers claim to subscribe: even though it was difficult for many French intellectuals to distinguish the Germans from the Nazis, no better example than a “good German” character could have been found to reaffirm their refusal to pre-judge anyone. A major problem remains, though: since these novels are widely Manichean, how does the memorable “good German” character not undermine the generally very negative representations of Germans? In other words, the question I would like to examine in this study is how textual and narrative strategies construct but at the same time frame the goodness of the “good German” in order not to blur the clear-cut axiology of these novels.
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- Representing the "Good German" in Literature and Culture after 1945Altruism and Moral Ambiguity, pp. 170 - 183Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013