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INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustratidné appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9238276 Of literature and legend: German writers and the bombing of Dresden Spencer, Andrew John, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1992 300 N. ZeebRd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 OF LITERATURE AND LEGEND: GERMAN WRITERS AND THE BOMBING OF DRESDEN DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Andrew John Spencer, B.A., M.A. **** The Ohio State University 1992 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Prof. Helen Fehervary Prof. Bernd Fischer Prof. Charles Hoffmann Adviser Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures To My Parents 11 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Charles Hoffmann for struggling with my tortuous prose and Bernd Fischer for his insightful commentary. Without Helen Fehervary and Sue Harshe this project would have been much more difficult. i n VITA May 14, 1961 ...................Born - London, England 1984 ............................ B.A., Warwick University, Coventry, England 1985 ........................... M.A., Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio . PUBLICATIONS "Bonfire of Profanities". Review. "Degenerate Art; The Fate of The Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany", Art Institute of Chicago, 6/22-9/8/91. Dialogue. Arts in the Midwest. 5/1991. "Germany 1918 - 1933: Republic by Name, Not by Nature. An Overview of the Era from which Jooss' The Green Table Emerged". Program Essay, Ohio State University Dance Company, March 1988. Translation. Maria Mies. "Women's Research or Feminist Research? The Debate Surrounding Feminist Science and Methodology". In: Bevond Methodology. Feminist Scholarship as Lived Research. Ed. Fonow, Mary Margaret and Judith A. Cook. Bloomington: Indiana U. Press, 1991. 60-84. Translation. Gertrud Koch. "Torments of the Flesh, Cold ness of the Spirit: Jewish Figures in the Films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder". New German Critigue. 38/1986, 28-38. Translation. Walter Suss. "Detente and the Peace Movement". New German Critigue. 37/1986, 73-104. FIELD OF STUDY Major Field: Germanic Languages and Literatures iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ....................................... Ü ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................................i ü VITA .............................................. iv INTRODUCTION ..................................... 1 CHAPTER PAGE I. THE EXAMPLE OF ALEXANDER KLUGE ........... 23 N o t e s ............................... 38 II. IMMEDIATE RESPONSES: 1945- 1949 ..... 40 The T e x t s ........................... 42 The Visual A r t s ..................... 69 Cycles of Works ..................... 70 Christian Iconography ............... 76 Self P o r t r a i t s ..................... 84 S u m m a r y ............................. 87 N o t e s ............................... 89 V III. DRESDEN: THE COLD WAR Y E A R S .....................101 The GDR and the Ideology of the Aufbau; Max Zimmering ............... 101 Anti-Eastern Literature in the West . 115 Dresden as Justification: Erhart Kastner and Bruno Werner . 126 N o t e s .................................. 151 IV. HISTORY WRITING IN THE GDR IN THE 1960'S AND 1 9 7 0 ' S ......................... 159 Eberhard Panitz and Dresden ........ 168 Heinz Czechowski: From Enthusiasm to Despair ............... ..... 175 Notes ......................... 206 V. ROLF HOCHHUTH'S SOLDATEN: NEKROLOG AUF GENF: TRAGÔDIE: FOCUSING ATTENTION ON THE PERPETRATORS ...................... 213 N o t e s .................................. 257 AFTERWORD............................................ 268 LIST OF REFERENCES ................................... 291 VI INTRODUCTION THE BOMBING OF DRESDEN: A GAP IN THE HISTORY BOOKS Writing about an historical event raises a number of issues which it is my intention to address in this study. In looking at the body of work which has been produced by German authors in response to the bombing of Dresden in February, 1945, it will be possible to see that individual works were colored markedly by the time during which they were composed - by the social and political situations and by the conception of the function of history writing prevalent at the time. In demonstrating this the reasons for the decidedly nebulous position of the destruction of Dresden in contemporary debates as to the National Socialist period of German history will be significantly illuminated. The controversial nature of the original event has not been lessened over the course of time. Indeed, since almost all attempts at coming to terms with that event have been guided by ideological considerations, it will be argued that the history of the raids has become so clouded that, in a very real sense, there is no. definable history, rather a history of receptions. In the Historikerstreit of the mid-1980's, it became possible for conservative historians to offer a significantly new 1 2 interpretation of the destruction of Dresden, not just because the existing interpretation was unsatisfactory, but because forty years after the fact, Dresden represented a glaring gap in the history books. This gap has resulted from the blinkered history writing in both East and West. THE WESTERN MODEL Western history writing on the Dresden bombing from the 1940's and '50's was overwhelmingly based on the denial that the bombings represented anything more than an inevitable consequence of Total War.l The context for the raids in historical texts extended back to the bombing of cities during the Spanish Civil War and reached forward to include the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Much documentation was provided as to what actually happened during the raids but there was no discussion, beyond the realm of World War Il-specific military tactics, as to why it happened.% Here, at the outset, it must be made clear that the half-hearted attempts by the Allies to justify the destruction must be seen for what they were: smokescreens designed to hide an act of senseless retaliation. Dresden, in particular, was a city of little strategic significance in February, 1945. It presented a defenceless target, packed to overflowing with refugees from the east, situated less than 70 miles from the advancing Soviet troops.3 The argument which was made to justify the atomic bombings of 3 Hiroshima and Nagasaki, namely that the bombings hastened the end of the war and prevented further Allied casualties, could not be made in this instance. The war against Nazi Germany had been effectively won by February. Allied bombers were free to fly over Germany at will, unhindered by ground to air defenses. The German army was involved in wholesale retreat. Some later historians, such as Humphrey Fisher writing in the English Guardian newspaper on the 45th anniversary of the destruction, and Earl S. Beck in the German Studies Review of October, 1982, have cited British Admiral Sir Gerald Dickens, "who believed that if the effort applied to the bombing of cities had been directed to air strikes against submarines and other military objectives, the course of the war would have been shortened."4 British newspapers from the time of the raids offered flimsy, speculative reasoning for the attack, as in the following report from the Evening Standard of February 14, 1945: The Germans may be using Dresden - almost as large as Manchester - as their base against Koniev's left flank. Telephone services and other means of communication are almost as essential to the German Army as the railways and roads which meet in Dresden. Such reporting is naturally to be expected at a time like this. The mood among the Allies was buoyant since the end of the war was clearly in sight. Those critics of the tactics of saturation bombing, such as Bishop Bell of Chichester, who feared that the Allies had sunk to Hitler's level, were in a distinct minority. That allegations of 4 terror bombing should cast a pall over the anti-Nazi front was unthinkable. The raids were thus presented as well- aimed blows at Nazi industry and morale, as is evinced by Desmond Hawkins' 1946 commentary to a published collection of dispatches broadcast on the BBC radio show War Report; The [German] Ardennes offensive had achieved little more than the gaining of time - time to develop the rocket attacks on London and to scrape up what manpower remained for a last-ditch stand. But mere time was by now a doubtful asset, for it also meant a winter of day-and-night bombing which shattered the cities of Germany and laid waste her industries. The annihilation of Dresden by air attack in mid-February carried its own terrible message.5 The writing of history from the victor's standpoint began already in February, 1945 and continued in the same tone until events in Dresden were eclipsed by the cessation of hostilities.