MEMORY AND NARRATIVE FICTION: GERMAN HISTORY REVISITED THROUGH LITERATURE AND CINEMA

Abstract

The present paper intends to briefly describe the confrontation process of the German nation with its own national-socialist past, a process that has unfolded in political, juridical and social fields during the last six decades. I will argue that the nazi dictatorship period, which is an undisputable landmark of Germany’s national narrative, has been widely represented in both literature and cinema, by subjects of the so-called first generation, as well as by the generations of individuals born after 1945, whose influence of their relatives’ past and/or interest for the historical memory of their country constitute the matrix of their works.