Germany 1945: Views of War and Violence

by Dagmar Barnouw

Overview

Photographers from the U.S. Army's Signal Corps were with the troops that drove back Hitler's troops and occupied Germany at the end of WWII. Soon photos of death camps and starving POWs shocked the home front, providing ample evidence of Nazi brutality. Yet did the faces of the defeated Germans show remorse? The victors saw only arrogance, servility, and the resentment of a population thoroughly brainwashed by the Nazis. In fact, argues Dagmar Barnouw, the photographs from this period tell a more complex story and hold many clues for a better understanding of the recent German past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253220431
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	08/28/2008
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	216 - 3 Months

About the Author

Dagmar Barnouw was Professor of German and Comparative Literature, University of Southern California, until her sudden death in May 2008. Her books include Weimar Intellectuals and the Threat of Modernity (IUP, 1988) and Naipaul's Strangers (IUP, 2003), among other books of cultural criticism.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Introduction: Views of War and Violence
1. Views of the Past: Memory and Historical Evidence
2. To Make Them See: Photography, Identification, and Identity
3. The Quality of Citory and the "German Question": The Signal Corps Photography Album and Life Photo-Essays
4. What They Saw: Germany 1945 and Allied Photographers
5. Words and Images: German Questions
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

"[Barnouw's] work shows that perspective plays a key role both in photography and in trying to master Germany's past. [F]ascinating."—Library Journal

"Germany 1945 is best seen as a contribution to [the] debate . . . about the uniqueness or otherwise of Nazi crimes, and the related questions of collective responsibility for those crimes, and the need to go on remembering them."—Times Literary Supplement

"Resist the impulse to 'historicize' the Holocaust . . . and you run the danger of sacralizing it. Barnouw's effort to grapple with these dilemmas is provocative, brilliant, and unsettling."—Washington Times

"Germany 1945 contributes a vigorous voice to the expanding chorus of scholars who have called for increased examination of the immediate postwar years."—H-NET Reviews Humanities & Social Sciences, July, 2009

"[Barnouw's] thoughtful analysis of a large assortment of photographs . . . allows Barnouw to look at how and not just what people saw, and to bring that perspective into conversation with the historical debates about the war's end in Germany."—Journal of Contemporary History

From the Publisher

Germany 1945 contributes a vigorous voice to the expanding chorus of scholars who have called for increased examination of the immediate postwar years.

H-NET Reviews Humanities & Social Sciences

Resist the impulse to 'historicize' the Holocaust . . . and you run the danger of sacralizing it. Barnouw's effort to grapple with these dilemmas is provocative, brilliant, and unsettling.

Washington Times

[Barnouw's] thoughtful analysis of a large assortment of photographs . . . allows Barnouw to look at how and not just what people saw, and to bring that perspective into conversation with the historical debates about the war's end in Germany.

Journal of Contemporary History

Germany 1945 is best seen as a contribution to [the] debate . . . about the uniqueness or otherwise of Nazi crimes, and the related questions of collective responsibility for those crimes, and the need to go on remembering them.

Times Literary Supplement