Memory and representation of World War II in contemporary British and German fiction : a comparative analysis

• Main Author: Barenberg, C. R.
• Published: Nottingham Trent University 2010
• Subjects: 823.009
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.629148

This thesis constitutes the first detailed attempt to compare British and German contemporary prose fiction in relation to the representation and transmission of collective memories of the Second World War. The primary aim of this comparison is to establish the existence of a transnational literary approach adopted by authors to address questions of how to remember the events that occurred during the Second World War in the absence of living memory. I will argue that prose fiction contributes to the interdisciplinary field of what could be loosely called 'memory studies' and that the similarities between British and German fictional responses to the Second World War indicate that there is a development towards a subgenre of memory fiction that transcends national boundaries. The work has identified the origins of platoon firing, its earliest form and its subsequent developments during the War of Spanish Succession, thereby correcting the long standing misidentification of the form that it first took and the idea that it remained largely unchanged from the 1680s to the 1740s. It has also identified when changes occurred and analysed the implications for the effectiveness of the firepower and, in some instances, been able to demonstrate in absolute terms, the effectiveness of that firepower. This work will enable military historians to achieve an understanding of how British infantry fought, how they achieved what they did, rather than simply what those achievements were. In using a practical military history approach it also proposes a new approach to military history that will enable an analysis of events to be given, rather than a simple narrative.