Already as a member of the famous Group 47, he had – inter alia – initiated a new concept to rejuvenate German literature, particularly with his book The Tin Drum. An important stimulus for Germany’s coming to terms with its past, or Vergangenheitsbewältigung, was once again triggered by Günter Grass, born in 1927 in Danzig, one of the country’s most popular and successful authors.
This revived way of storytelling began around the new millennium and focused especially on Germany’s civilian population. In movies and books, they depict themselves and their ancestors not only as villains, but also as people who endured air bombing, starvation, and expulsion. Once again, though very late, Germans today consider their own countrymen as victims. The preferred self-image was that of being first a victim of Hitler’s and then of enemies hands. Already in the immediate postwar period, Germans depicted themselves as victims of the war and its settlement. This can be seen as a recourse within a new framework. While the question of collective and individual German guilt has attracted increased scientific and popular attention since the late 1960s, more precisely after the Eichmann and Auschwitz trials, German intellectuals and the German media have in recent years turned their attention, again, towards German suffering during the war. Still, the way of how Germans are rethinking their history is in a state of flux. The Second World War and its historical categorization remains a disputed topic within the German society.
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