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Book
Author Baird, Jay W.

Title Hitler's war poets : literature and politics in the Third Reich / Jay W. Baird
Published New York : Cambridge University Press, 2008

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  831.912 B1635/H  AVAILABLE
Description xiii, 284 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Contents 1. Heroic Imagery in the Literature of the Third Reich -- 2. Rudolf G. Binding and the Memory of the Great War -- 3. Josef Magnus Wehner and the Dream of a New Reich -- 4. Hans Zoberlein: The Heritage of the Front as Third Reich Prophecy -- 5. Edwin Erich Dwinger: Germany's Iconic Literary Anti-Bolshevik -- 6. Hitler's Muse: The Political Aesthetics of the Poet and Playwright Eberhard Wolfgang Moller -- 7. The Testament of Zarathustra: Kurt Eggers and the SS Ideal -- 8. Epilogue
Summary "Jay W. Baird comes to grips with a theme that has been generally avoided by more than two generations of scholars and literary critics. He argues that German literature did not end with the advent of Hitler in 1933 only to be reborn after the fall of the Third Reich in 1945. Baird demonstrates how poets and writers responded enthusiastically to Hitler's summons to artists to create a cultural revolution commensurate with the political radicalism of the new state, thereby affirming the centrality of renewed German culture." "Hitler's War Poets focuses on the lives and the works of six leading conservative, anticommunist, yet revolutionary authors who articulated the dream of World War I veterans to form a socially just national community. Tradition was redrawn by Rudolf G. Binding, while Josef Magnus Wehner dramatized the link from Flanders Fields and Verdun to the Third Reich. Hans Zoberlein exalted anti-Semitism, the Free Corps, and Nazi violence, providing the counterpoint to Edwin Erich Dwinger, who launched an unrelenting assault against "Jewish-Bolshevism." The torch was passed to Eberhard Wolfgang Moller, the leading bard of the revolutionary young generation. But it was Kurt Eggers, a tank commander in the Fifth SS Panzer Division "Viking," who delighted Hitler as he appeared as a prophet bearing the testament of Nietzsche's Zarathustra. Taken together, these authors offered the regime significant support. More importantly, theirs was a tragic legacy because they provided aesthetic accompaniment to Nazi barbarism and ultimately to the Holocaust."--BOOK JACKET
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-276) and index
Subject German poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
National socialism and literature.
German poetry -- Themes, motives.
World War, 1914-1918 -- Influence.
Heroes in literature.
Nationalism in literature.
Antisemitism in literature.
LC no. 2007020893
ISBN 9780521876896 (hardback)
0521876893 (hardback)