Writing about the Reich: autobiography and history, a case study

© 2011 Dr. Prudence Jane MannThis thesis brings autobiography and memoir, two generally underutilised sources, to the forefront of historical enquiry using a case study of Third Reich autobiographical writing from the English publishing sphere. The popularity of autobiographical writing outside academe cannot be denied as memoirs and autobiographies dominate bestseller lists worldwide. However, historians have labelled autobiographical writing as both misleading and a ‘revenge on history’ and seldom use it centrally in a study. Key difficulties of autobiographical writing include subjectivity, unreliability, narrativity, invention and emulation but, according to historian Kenneth Barkin, can be overcome. Using a specially created interdisciplinary methodology combining particular mechanisms extracted from autobiographical studies (literary narrative and historical narrative) with a chronological historical framework this thesis aimed to navigate the inherent difficulties of this source and seek a deeper historical engagement with autobiographical material. The interdisciplinary methodology was applied to a particular case study of Third Reich autobiographical works from the English publishing sphere. For ethical, methodological and analytical reasons, this analysis was further restricted to autobiographical writing by those once labelled bystanders but herein entitled ‘the entangled’: in particular, generalist military men, women and children. The period of writing covered began in 1948 with the first recorded Third Reich memoir and extended through three clear writing periods up to 1994, the year immediately preceding the memoir boom. This case study of Third Reich autobiographical aimed to look at the distinct groups of writers and ask of each: how do they write about the Reich? From the nearly one hundred memoirs collected it was clear that the need to consider and reconsider one’s life during the Third Reich remained strong within the cohort of the ‘entangled’. The writers variously framed their experience, indicating intricacies in personal memory and gender and age of the writers played a significant role in the formation of their autobiographical writing. However, one consistent trend was clear; the need to present the suffering self, albeit through varying mechanisms. Overall the study of these ‘collected memories’ worked to nuance existing Third Reich history and memory