The MS Wilhelm Gustloff in German Memory Culture
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The M.S. Wilhelm Gustloff in German Memory Culture: A Case Study on Competing Discourses A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of German Studies of the College of Arts and Sciences by Michael Joseph Ennis B.A. Xavier University, May 2002 M.A. University of Kentucky, December 2005 Committee Chair: Richard E. Schade, Ph.D. Abstract The sinking of the German M.S. Wilhelm Gustloff in the Bay of Danzig on January 30, 1945 is by many accounts the deadliest maritime disaster in recorded history. Although the ship was a valid military target within the context of World War II, most of the passengers were German civilians fleeing the Soviet advance. For many years, the survivors and their advocates argued that a focus on National Socialism and the Holocaust had complicated and politicized any attempts at publicly remembering and mourning the Gustloff in Germany. Recently, however, the ship has received increased attention in German high and popular culture, leading many to claim that a taboo has been broken. The dissertation investigates the shifts in textual and audio-visual representation of the Gustloff from the time of its sinking to the present in an attempt to locate and understand this cultural phenomenon within the greater context of a society perpetually coming to terms with its dark past. i © Michael Joseph Ennis, 2014 All Rights Reserved ii In memory of the victims of the Wilhelm Gustloff, Christa Wolf (1929-2011) and Heinz Schön (1926-2013), and my father (1939-2013). iii Acknowledgements I would first like to thank my dissertation committee for their patience and invaluable input at every stage of my research: Professor Richard E. Schade, the final chair of my committee, Professor Emerita Sara Friedrichsmeyer, the original chair of my committee, and Professor Todd Herzog. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Bill Niven at Nottingham-Trent University, whom I consider to be an honorary member of my dissertation committee, not only because of the extent to which his work on related topics has informed much of my dissertation, but because the material he provided me and the discussions we had via email and in person took the dissertation in directions I had not previously conceived. Especially the conferences organized by Bill Niven in Nottingham in 2009 and 2011 on the Wilhelm Gustloff and Flucht und Vertreibung in German memory culture, respectively, greatly influenced my research. I would specifically like to thank all participants at the conference The Wilhelm Gustloff in History and Memory and the other contributors to the resulting collection of articles – Die Wilhelm Gustloff: Geschichte und Erinnerung eines Untergangs (2011) – as much of their work is cited over the next 200 pages. This dissertation was made possible by fellowships from the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center and the University Research Council at the University of Cincinnati, which enabled me to complete the majority of research during the 2009-2010 academic year. The Taft Research Center and the Department of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati provided additional support for the purchase of materials necessary for the completion of the dissertation, while several travel grants from the Graduate Student Government Association at the University iv of Cincinnati permitted me to present elements of the dissertation at various conferences in the US and Europe. I would also like to express my praise for the staff in charge of the Illiad inter-library loan network at Langsam Library at the University of Cincinnati, who, during my four years abroad, were able to locate and deliver electronic copies of dozens of primary and secondary sources that would have otherwise been inaccessible to me, often with incomplete bibliographical information. In addition, I would like to stress that all the professors in the German Studies programs at Xavier University, the University of Kentucky and the University of Cincinnati as well as my fellow students in each program had a direct impact on the formation of the ideas and perspectives expressed in this dissertation. I thank all of them for lively discussions in seminar rooms and late-night chats over beers. Finally, I would like to express my undying devotion to my wife, who shared in the experience of all the negative aspects of writing a dissertation – sacrifice, uncertainty, stress, occasional despair – but only experienced one of the very many positive aspects: the feeling of relief in completion. v Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………p. 1 The M.S. Wilhelm Gustloff: A Forgotten Tragedy?.....................................................................p. 1 The Gustloff and the “Germans as Victims” Debate…………………………………………...p. 4 Memory Culture as Memory Discourse…………………………………………..………….…p. 9 Research Methodology and Questions……………………………………………………...…p. 13 Chapter 1: The Gustloff-Chronist Heinz Schön…….p. 17 Chapter 2: “Sentimental Empathy” and “Implicit Equations:” The Wilhelm Gustloff in German History Writing……………………………………...…p. 35 2.1 Tangential References: General History, the Amber Room and Heimatbücher…….……p. 41 2.2 General Naval and Maritime History………………………………………………..……p. 45 2.3 The Historiography of the Third Reich and World War II……………………………..…p. 48 2.4 The Historiography of Flucht und Vertreibung……………………………………..…… p. 58 2.5 Flucht über die Ostsee/Operation Hannibal………………………………………………p. 81 2.6 The Historiography of the Wilhelm Gustloff……………………………………………....p. 89 Conclusion………………………………………………...…………………………………..p. 92 Chapter 3: Die mediale Vorlage: Re-Sinking the Gustloff in German Cinema and Television…………………………………………………………………p. 94 3.1 The Construction of a Schiff ohne Klassen in Nazi Cinema…………………………….…p.95 3.2 The Representation of the Gustloff Tragedy in German Television: General Trends….…p. 98 3.3 Nacht fiel über Gotenhafen at the Nexus of Gustloff Memory Culture……………,,…...p. 101 3.4 Flucht über die Ostsee and the Limitations of Authenticity………………………..……p. 110 3.5 From TV-Ereignis to Histotainment: The Gustloff in West German Television…….......p. 115 3.6 Günter Grass and the Media……………………………………..………………………p. 128 3.7 The ZDF TV-Ereignis: Die Gustloff……………………………………..………………p. 133 Conclusion……………………………………..……………………………………..…..… p. 140 Chapter 4: Competing to Write the “First Rough Draft of History:” The Gustloff in the German Print Media……………………………………..…p. 143 4.1 The Construction of a Schiff ohne Klassen in the National Socialist Print Media………p. 144 4.2 Nachrichten für die Truppe and Feldpost: An Allied Perspective………………………p. 146 vi 4.3 The Gustloff in the German Print Media after 1945…………………………………..…p. 148 4.4 Der Spiegel, Günter Grass and Die Deutsche Titanic……………………………………p. 152 4.5 Taboo in Die Zeit?.....………………………………..…………………………………..p. 154 4.6 The Gustloff as Leitmotif of German Victimization in Preußische Allgemeine Zeitung..p. 159 4.7 The Emergence of the “First Rough Draft” in the Early Postwar Years……..……..…...p. 167 4.8 The Gustloff in German Maritime Magazines……………………………………..….....p. 174 4.9 The Gustloff in Heftromane……………………………………..……………………….p. 177 4.10 The Gustloff in Landserhefte……………………………………..…………………….p. 179 4.11 Das III Reich: Between Landserheft and Regenbogenpresse……………………….….p. 184 4.12 The Gustloff in Textual Exhibitions and Brochures……………………………………p. 185 Conclusion……………………………………..……………………..…………………...…p. 187 Chapter 5: Toward a “Critical Empathy:” The Literary History of the Gustloff-Katastrophe……………………………………….……………...…p. 189 5.1 A Taboo on the Gustloff in West German Literature?.…………………………………..p. 192 5.2 References in West German Literature…………………..............………………………p. 198 5.3 References in East German Literature……………………………………………….…..p. 213 5.4 Gustloff Novels: Between “Sentimental Empathy” and “Critical Empathy”.....………...p. 229 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………...p. 250 Conclusion: Das hört nie auf……………………………………....……...…p. 253 Appendices……………………………………….……………………......…p. 261 Bibliography...……………………………………….…………...……......…p. 277 vii List of Figures Introduction Figure 1: The Social Construction of Memory..........................................................................p. 12 Chapter 2: “Sentimental Empathy” and “Implicit Equations:” The Wilhelm Gustloff in German History Writing Figure 2.1: References in German Language History Books by Year, 1945 - 2010.................p. 39 Figure 2.2: Total Editions by Decade........................................................................................p. 40 Figure 2.3: First Editions by Decade.........................................................................................p. 40 Figure 2.4: References in the Historiography of the Third Reich & WWII..............................p. 49 Figure 2.5: References in the Historiography of "Flucht und Vertreibung"..............................p. 68 Chapter 3: Die mediale Vorlage: Re-Sinking the Gustloff in German Cinema and Television Figure 3.1: The Gustloff on West German TV..........................................................................p. 99 Figure 3.2: TV Representations By Decade..............................................................................p. 99 Figure 3.3: All Airings by Focus and Scope...........................................................................p. 101 Chapter 4: Competing to Write the “First Rough Draft of History:” The Gustloff in the German Print