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Neophilologus (2009) 93:311324
DOI 10.1007/s11061-007-9092-6
Norbert Puszkar
Published online: 22 December 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007
Abstract Am gr
unen Strand der Spree, published in 1955, never made it into the canon of post-war German literature. The article reassesses Scholzs novel, which deals more directly with the Holocaust than Blls and Grass works against the background of Schlants book The Language of Silence. The novels most important episode, the diary of a German soldier, documents the development of German anti-Jewish measures in Eastern Europe from slave labor and starvation to mass killings. The diary transports its horrifying testimony with narrative and stylistic devices that attempt in vain to relativize the guilt of the writer (who considers himself a coward and a bystander) and try to lessen the impact of the witnessed events. Scholz shows how Holocaust testimony appears in German social discourse but is met with silence; he uses the diary as the starting point of a trajectory of emotional petri-faction and psychological denial.
Keywords German literature Novel World War II Holocaust
Wache der 13. Kompanie, 461. Zwei Mann auf Posten, vier Mann schlafen. Wachhabender Unterofzier Wilms. Auf Wache nichts Neues!Danke. Alles in Ordnung, Wilms?Jawohl, Herr Hauptmann! (63)1
Thus ends the diary of Corporal Wilms, which constitutes the rst part of Scholzs novel in episodic form. Scholz evokes the title of Remarques World War I novel Im Westen nichts Neues in this dialogue. Here too it is evident that ofcial
1 References to Scholz (1955), Am gr
unen Strand der Spree. So gut wie ein Roman are made within the text by page numbers in parentheses.
N. Puszkar (&)
Department of Languages and Literature, Austin Peay State University, P.O. Box 4487, Clarksville, TN 37044, USAe-mail: [email protected]
Hans Scholzs Am gr
unen Strand der Spree. Witnessing and Representing the Holocaust
123
312 N. Puszkar
reports do not reect reality: Wilms has just ed from the site of a mass killing of 1,800 Jews. The exchange between Wilms and his captain is an example of the language of silence.2 Wilms tried to come to terms with his experience in several ways, but all failed since none of them included action against the murders that he witnessed.
Although older than Bll, Scholz did not publish his World...