Representing the Good German in Literature and Culture After 1945

In the aftermath of the Second World War both the allied occupying powers and the nascent German authorities in the political and cultural spheres sought Germans whose record during the war and the Nazi period could serve as a counterpoint to the notion of Germans as evil. That search both actual and transposed into literary and cultural representation in the form of novels and films has never really stopped. In the past few years we have witnessed a burgeoning in the number of cultural representations of this other kind of Third Reich citizen - the good German - as opposed to the dominant tropes of the committed Nazi or genocidal maniac. Such representations have highlighted individuals' choices in favor of dissenting behavior moral truth or at the very least civil disobedience. Within the context of the rise of Nazism and the fall of ethics the lesson of the good German is not necessarily a moral story evoking Kant's imperative or Hegel's idealism but often involves highly ambivalent responses to an irrational fascist state. The good German's counterhegemonic practice cannot negate or contradict the barbaric reality of Hitler's Germany but reflects a value system based on humanity and an other ideal community.<BR><BR>This volume of new essays explores an array of representations of good Germans during the Third Reich in literature and culture - as well as some historical personages - and analyzes the logic of moral behavior and cultural and moral relativism as well as the forces of social conformity found in those representations. The book thus draws together discussions relating to the function and reception of cultural representations of good Germans in Germany and abroad.<BR><BR>