''On the Fortunes and Misfortunes of Art in Post-War Germany'' () is a 1990 book-length essay by the German writer and filmmaker Hans-Jürgen Syberberg. An English translation was published in 2017.

Summary

Syberberg criticises the German post-war culture, and argues that Germans need to revive the cultural expressions found in the works of artists such as

Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

, Friedrich Hölderlin and Heinrich von Kleist, an aesthetic tradition which to a large extent has been expulsed from public life since 1945. He argues that the current cultural establishment is dominated by leftists and Jews, who use World War II and the Holocaust in order to ostracise important parts of the German cultural heritage.

Reception

The book gave rise to an infected debate in German newspapers, known as the "Syberberg debate", which lasted throughout the summer and autumn of 1990. The liberal press was highly critical of the book and Syberberg's opinions.

Hellmuth Karasek Hellmuth Karasek (4 January 1934 – 29 September 2015) was a German journalist, literary critic, novelist, and the author of many books on literature and film. He was one of Germany's best-known feuilletonists. Biography Karasek was born in t ...

of ''

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'' reviewed the book under the heading "Neo-Nazism" and condemned both Syberberg as a person and his oeuvre in its entirety. In '' Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'', Werner Fuld described the essay as a "frontal attack against democracy and art". Although critical of the views presented in the book,

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

and other critics who in the past had praised Syberberg continued to defend his films as great and important works of art.

References

External links

Presentation
at the English-language publisher's website {{Hans-Jürgen Syberberg 1990 non-fiction books Books about Germany German essays German non-fiction books German-language books