Shows that while the GDR is generally seen as - and mostly was - an oppressive and unfree country, from late 1989 until autumn 1990 it was the "freest country in the world": the dictatorship had disappeared while the welfare system remained. Stephen Brockmann's new book explores the year 1989/1990 in East Germany, arguing that while the GDR is generally seen as - and was for most of its forty years - an oppressive and unfree country, from autumn 1989 until the autumn of 1990 it was the "freest country in the world," since the dictatorship had disappeared while the welfare system remained. That such freedom existed in the last months of the GDR and was a result of the actions of East Germans themselves has been obscured, Brockmann shows, by the now-standard description of the collapse of the GDR and the reunification of Germany as a triumph of Western democracy and capitalism. Brockmann first addresses the culture of 1989/1990 by looking at various media from that final year, particularly film documentaries. He emphasizes punk culture and the growth of neo-Nazism and the Antifa movement - factors often ignored in accounts of the period. He then analyzes three later semiautobiographical novels about the period. He devotes chapters to dramatic films dealing with German reunification made relatively soon after the event and to more recent film and television depictions of the period, respectively. The final chapter looks at monuments and memorials of the 1989/1990 period, and a conclusion considers the implications of the book's findings for the present day.

The most comprehensive, readable history of German cinema now appears in an expanded, up-to-date new edition that is particularly useful for students and teachers of German film history. From early masterpieces such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Metropolis (1927) to the post-1945 films of Fassbinder, Herzog, and Wenders, German film constitutes a crucial part of the history of world cinema. It helped to shape Hollywood cinema and had a major impact on other cinemas as well. This tried and tested book, popular in college classrooms and among general-interest readers, is the most comprehensive and readable introduction to the history of German cinema, specifically designed to meet the needs of those who want a comprehensible, accessible introduction to the subject. There is no other book that covers the history of German cinema in the same depth and also explores the genesis and meaning of the most important masterpieces in German film history. It does so in chapters devoted to each of thirty-two individual films and in seven interchapters that provide context for historical periods from early German cinema to postunification. The book now appears in an improved, expanded, and up-to-date second edition that covers five additional films, expands the coverage of women's cinema, and brings the history of filmmaking in Germany up to the present moment. The book is specifically designed to appeal to cinema aficionados and for use in college classrooms, where it has been greeted with acclaim by students and teachers alike. Stephen Brockmann is Professor of German at Carnegie Mellon University.

This book is the first systematic attempt in English to examine the literary consequences of German reunification. In its emphasis on problems of national identity, it is one of the first books in any language to treat contemporary Germany as a cultural and national unity. In exploring the ways in which authors of the 1990s have sought to cope with history and national identity, the book addresses questions about the role of the nation and a national literature in the context of economic and political globalization.

Bertolt Brecht in Context examines Brecht's significance and contributions as a writer and the most influential playwright of the twentieth century. It explores the specific context from which he emerged in imperial Germany during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as Brecht's response to the turbulent German history of the twentieth century: World Wars One and Two, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi dictatorship, the experience of exile, and ultimately the division of Germany into two competing political blocs divided by the postwar Iron Curtain. Throughout this turbulence, and in spite of it, Brecht managed to remain extraordinarily productive, revolutionizing the theater of the twentieth century and developing a new approach to language and performance. Because of his unparalleled radicalism and influence, Brecht remains controversial to this day. This book - with a Foreword by Mark Ravenhill - lays out in clear and accessible language the shape of Brecht's contribution and the reasons for his ongoing influence.

Examines the literature produced from the very beginnings of what became the GDR through the 1950s, redressing a tendency of literary scholarship to focus on the later GDR. Twenty-five years after the demise of the German Democratic Republic, there is perhaps more scholarship being produced on all aspects of that country than ever. This is true also in the field of literary studies, but especially inEnglish-language literary scholarship there has been a strong imbalance toward a focus on the last three decades of GDR literature. The literature of the earlier GDR has mostly been dismissed or ignored by scholars, as the discontinuities between the early and late GDR have been emphasized over the considerable continuities. This book seeks to redress that state of affairs, examining the literature produced from the very beginnings of what became the GDRthrough the 1950s. In doing so it applies to GDR literature the insight gained by scholars over the past few decades that the immediate postwar period was more complex, more meaningful, and more rewarding of study than it was longdeemed to be. Far from all being mere propaganda or rote socialist realism, the literature of the early GDR has much to tell us about the budding socialist state, even as it goes far in explaining the developments in the later GDR.

Examines the intense intellectual debates in immediate postwar Germany, often conducted in literature or literary discourse. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, German intellectuals and writers were forced to confront perhaps the most difficult complex of problems ever faced by modern intellectuals in the western world: the complete defeat and devastation of their country, the crimes of the Hitler dictatorship, the onset of the Cold War, and ultimately the political division of the nation. To a large extent these debates took place in literature and literary discourse, and they continue to have pressing relevance for Germany today, when the country is rediscovering and exploring this previously neglected period in literature and film. Yet the period has been neglected in scholarship, andis little understood; for the first time in English, this book offers a systematic overview of the hotly contested intellectual debates of this period: the problem of German guilt, the question of the return of literary and political emigres such as Thomas Mann, the relevance of the cultural tradition of German humanism for the postwar period, the threat of nihilism, the politicization of literature, and the status of German young people who had been indoctrinated by the Nazis. Stephen Brockmann challenges the received wisdom that the immediate postwar period in Germany was intellectually barren, characterized primarily by silence on the major issues of the day; he reveals, in addition to attempts to obfuscate those issues, a German intellectual--and literary--world characterized by an often high level of dialogue and debate. Stephen Brockmann is Professor of German at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the recipient of the 2007 DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in German and European Studies/Humanities.

This book is a systematic attempt to examine the literary consequences of German reunification. Placing the concept of the Kulturnation at the centre of its analysis, the book explores the ways in which literature both responds to and helps to constitute notions of German national identity. Previous studies of German literature have tended to avoid the problem of nationhood: this is one of the few books in any language to treat contemporary Germany as a cultural and national unity. The book discusses German literature from the early 1980s through the late 1990s, with a primary focus on the way in which authors of the 1990s have sought to cope with and respond to reunification and emerging questions about history, politics and identity. Larger questions are addressed about the role of both the nation and a national literature in the context of economic and political globalization.

Traces the development of ideas of Nuremberg as cultural and spiritual capital, thus offering a coherent view of German cultural and intellectual history. Nuremberg: The Imaginary Capital is a broad study of German cultural history since 1500, with particular emphasis on the period since 1800. It explores the ways in which Germans have imagined Nuremberg as a cultural and spiritual capital, focusing feelings of national identity and belonging on the city -- or on their image of it. Chapters focus on the city of Durer and Sachs at the threshold of the modern era, the glory of which became the basis forall the other imaginary Nurembergs; the Romantic rediscovery of the city in the late 18th century and the institutionalization of Nuremberg discourse through the Germanic National Museum in the mid 19th; Wagner's Meistersingervon Nurnberg, the most famous artistic invocation of the Nuremberg myth; the Nazi use and misuse of the Nuremberg myth, along with Leni Riefenstahl's film Triumph des Willens, not only the best-known Nuremberg film butalso the most significant documentary of Hitler's Third Reich; and finally the postwar development in which "Nuremberg" became the symbol of a new kind of international law and justice. Stephen Brockmann analyzes how the city came to be seen, in Germany and elsewhere, as representative of the national whole. He goes beyond the analysis of particular historical periods by showing how successive epochs and their images of Nuremberg built on those precedingthem, thus viewing German cultural and intellectual history as an intelligible unity centered around fascination and veneration for a particular city. Stephen Brockmann is Professor of German at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the recipient of the 2007 DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in German and European Studies/Humanities.