''Trümmerliteratur'' ("rubble literature"), also called ''Kahlschlagliteratur'' ("clear-cutting literature"), is a literary movement that began shortly
after World War II in Germany and lasted until about 1950.
It is primarily concerned with the fate of former soldiers and
POWs who could return to Germany, who must stand both before the rubble of their homeland and their possessions as well as before the rubble of their ideals and deal with it.
American
short stories
A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...
served as a model for the authors of this epoch. The stylistic means employed were simple, direct language, which
laconically described but did not evaluate the destroyed world, and a restriction, usual for short stories, of the space, narrated time, and characters.
On account of its simplification, writing of this epoch is also referred to as ''Kahlschlagliteratur'' ("clear-cutting literature"), and the aim of its authors was to use shortened sentences and straightforward language as a response to the
misuse of German by the Nazis. They tried to show reality just as it was without any unnecessary information out of the view of the common people. The literature was intended to help deal with the past and the recreation of the future, analyzing questions of truth, responsibility, and causes of the war and
Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
, as well as serving as a critique of the political and social restoration of Germany.
Well-known representatives
*
Wolfgang Borchert (''
Draußen vor der Tür'', ''
Das Brot'', ''
An diesem Dienstag'')
*
Günter Eich (Züge im Nebel, Inventur,
Latrine
A latrine is a toilet or an even simpler facility that is used as a toilet within a sanitation system. For example, it can be a communal trench in the earth in a camp to be used as emergency sanitation, a hole in the ground ( pit latrine), or ...
)
*
Heinrich Böll (
Haus ohne Hüter,
Wo warst du, Adam?,
Der Mann mit den Messern,
Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa…)
*
Wolfdietrich Schnurre (
Ein Unglücksfall,
Das Begräbnis), (
Auf der Flucht)
*
Wolfgang Weyrauch (
Tausend Gramm)
*
Heinz Rein (
In einer Winternacht)
See also
*
Gruppe 47
*
Stunde Null
*"
Trümmerfilme" ("rubble films") that came out in the late 1940s:
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trummerliteratur
German literary movements
20th-century German literature