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Memory of the Third Reich in Hitler Youth Memoirs

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Memory of the Third Reich in Hitler Youth Memoirs Memory of the Third Reich in Hitler Youth Memoirs Tiia Sahrakorpi A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of University College London. Department of German University College London August 21, 2018 2 3 I, Tiia Sahrakorpi, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the work. Abstract This thesis examines how the Hitler Youth generation represented their pasts in mem- oirs written in West Germany, post-unification Germany, and North America. Its aim is two-fold: to scrutinise the under-examined source base of memoirs and to demonstrate how representations of childhood, adolescence and maturation are integral to recon- structing memory of the Nazi past. It introduces the term ‘collected memoryscape’ to encapsulate the more nebulous multi-dimensional collective memory. Historical and literary theories nuance the reading of autobiography and memoirs as ego-documents, forming a new methodological basis for historians to consider. The Hitler Youth generation is defined as those individuals born between 1925 and 1933 in Germany, who spent the majority of their formative years under Nazi educa- tional and cultural polices. The study compares published and unpublished memoirs, along with German and English-language memoirs, to examine constructions of per- sonal and historical events. Some traumas, such as rapes, have only just resurfaced publicly – despite their inclusion in private memoirs since the 1940s. While on a pub- lic level West Germans underwent Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past), these memoirs illustrate that, in the post-war period, private and generational memory reinterpretation continued in multitudinous ways. For example, even after the 1995 German Wehrmacht exhibitions, cohort members continued to express a fondness for the Waffen-SS or Wehrmacht in their writings. This thesis dialogically juxtaposes public and personal memory, also exploring how individuals experienced and repre- sented controversial memories of Nazism. Overall, the cohort members employed three main narration methods: they nor- malised their childhood experiences; they silenced uncomfortable aspects of their past; and they cast themselves as victims as a coping mechanism, in order to achieve closure. This thesis argues for a more nuanced reading of Nazi-related memoirs and makes the 6 Abstract case that public memory is not necessarily reflected on a personal level. Impact Statement This thesis will benefit academic and public debates on the success and failures of Ger- many’s attempts to come to terms with the Nazi past. It assesses how children, who are now in late adulthood, had to find ways to cope and master the past, arguing that more ought to be done in the future to ensure children and young people transition into non-wartime daily life. The results indicate that children need support from psycho- logical, educational and societal structures and professionals in order to learn and find vocabulary to talk about traumatic and negative memories. Therefore the thesis will benefit not only academics who are interested in modern German history, but also oth- ers working closely in conflict areas where children are being rehabilitated for postwar life. The impact of this research will hopefully become a monograph and journal ar- ticles. It also has the possibility of gaining wider interest through its interdisciplinary nature, and to create connections between children in war studies, German history, and current events in the Middle East and Africa with children in war. Acknowledgements Thank you to my supervisors Professor Mary Fulbrook and Professor Mark Hewitson, for their support throughout this project. Thank you to the German Historical Institute for its travel grant, without it I would not have been able to do this research. Thank you also to the staff at the Deutsches Tagebucharchiv, and at the Deutsches Gedächtnis- archiv at FernUniversität Hagen for help. Thank you to Dr. Stefanie Rauch, Dr. Gaelle Fisher, Cherish Watton, and Sarah Hertz for reading, editing, and providing suggestions to move the piece forward. Professor Susan Rabe and Professor David Koeller: your support beyond North Park University will always be cherished. This thesis would not have ever happened without you both, thank you for everything. Lastly, thank you to my partner Richard Gunning, BioWare for providing amazing video games, and my parents Ulla and Tero Sarhakorpi for always being there when I needed support. Contents List of Abbreviations 15 1 Introduction 17 Research Questions and Sources . 18 Historiography . 27 Collected Memoryscape . 33 Postwar Germanies and Publications by the Hitler Youth Generation . 40 Distinctions: Autobiography and Memoir . 47 Representing Childhood, Adolescence and Growing Up in War . 56 Outline of Thesis . 60 Conclusion . 62 2 Growing Up: Remembering Family Life 63 Constructing Identity Through Family Stories . 70 Remembering and Silencing Parents . 76 Age and Geographical Influence . 88 Conclusion . 99 3 Education and Joining the Hitler Youth 101 Childhood, Education, and the Hitler Youth . 104 Representing Nazi Elite School Education . 117 Age and Geographical Influence . 124 Conclusion . 131 4 Remembering War Experiences on the Home Front 133 Representing the Home Front . 137 12 Contents Memories of Aerial Bombardment . 144 Representations of the RAD . 149 Private Memory of the Kinderlandverschickung (KLV)............ 157 Conclusion . 165 5 Remembering and Normalising Wartime 169 (In)visible Fathers in Memory . 172 Trauma and Emotions in Memoirs . 180 Growing Up in War? . 192 Conclusion . 208 6 Representations of the End of the Third Reich 211 Representations of the Immediate Postwar Era . 215 Later Representations of War . 223 English-Language Memoirs: A Zero Hour? . 234 Looking Back . 241 Conclusion . 248 7 Facing the Next Generation: Private Memory of the Holocaust 251 German-Language Memoirs . 254 English-Language Memoirs . 261 Conclusion . 268 8 Conclusion 271 Bibliography 285 Archiv ‘Deutsches Gedächtnis’ in Fern-Universität Hagen . 285 Deutsches Tagebucharchiv . 286 Published Life Narratives . 288 Primary Sources . 297 Secondary Sources . 299 List of Figures 1.1 Published Memoir (Fiction and Non-Fiction) Collection By Year . 26 List of Abbreviations BDM Bund Deutscher Mädel DJ Deutsche Jungvolk DTA Deutsches Tagebucharchiv, Emmendingen FDJ Freie Deutsche Jugend, Free German Youth FRG Federal Republic of Germany GDR German Democratic Republic HJ Hitlerjugend, Hitler Youth JM Jungmädel JV Jungvolk KLV Kinderlandverschickung NS Nationalsozialismus NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei NSF NS-Frauenschaft POW Prisoner of War RAD Reichsarbeitsdienst RAF Royal Airforce 16 List of Abbreviations SA Sturmabteilung SED Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands SS Schutzstaffel USAAF United States Army Air Forces Chapter 1 Introduction Former Nazi elite school student Klaus Kleinau, born in 1927 and educated in a Na- tionalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt (NPEA, or commonly abbreviated to Napola1), pub- lished his life narrative in 1999 to correct his peers’ misconceptions about the Nazi pe- riod. As a member of the Hitler Youth generation, Kleinau’s life narrative shows how we employ narrative techniques to make sense of our past, at different life stages. He writes: It was only late in life that I realised, in regard to this education and recent experiences, that these false ideals are still stuck in the mindset of former classmates and teachers. I have tried to empathise (hineinzudenken) with my long gone experiences to reflect on them myself and thus, especially for young people, to make them transparent.2 What is striking here is how, in 1999, Kleinau reflects on his past in an attempt to understand his younger mind-set during the Nazi period. His memoir indicates that dissensions within the cultural memory of his cohort spurred him to record his own memories of the period.3 Further, it reflects his need to give testament to his life, as he reaches late adulthood. Stories like Kleinau’s, alongside unpublished and published works, are the basis of my study. Memoirs such as his underscore the importance of the Hitler Youth generation in terms of the cultural memory of Nazism—thereby calling attention to the discrepancies between members of the cohort, in accounts of the past. 1. Harald Schäfer, Napola: Die letzten vier Jahre der Nationalpolitischen Erziehungsanstalt Or- ganienstein bei Diez an der Lahn 1941-1945: Eine Erlebnis-Dokumentation (Frankfurt am Main: R.G. Fischer Verlag, 1997). 2. Klaus Kleinau, Im Gleichschritt, Marsch! Der Versuch einer Antwort, warum ich von Auschwitz nichts wusste, Lebenserinnerungen eines NS-Eliteschülers der Napola Ballenstedt (Hamburg: VSA- Verlag, 1999), 7. 3. Aleida Assmann, Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit: Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik (Munich: C.H.Beck, 2006), 35f. 18 Chapter 1. Introduction The Hitler Youth generation has been the focus of many oral history studies, but their written accounts have not been adequately scrutinised. Oral historians Alexander von Plato, Lutz Niethammer, Dorothee Wierling, Gabriele Rosenthal, and Heidi Rosen- baum have interviewed members of the Hitler Youth generation—studying their lives in the Third Reich, as well as their postwar lives in East and West Germany.4 Texts by Melita Maschmann (born 1918), writing in 1963, and Alfons Heck (born 1928),
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