The War in the Empty Air: Victims, Perpetrators, and Postwar Germans [Hardcover]

Dagmar Barnouw (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2005

Sixty years after the defeat of the Nazis and the discovery of Auschwitz, the impact of WWII on the German people remains a subject that is difficult to broach in public discourse. The experiences of Germans civilians were little studied, as if the memories of the defeated were not deserving of preservation. In "Germany 1945", an examination of Allied photography of postwar Germany, Dagmar Barnouw demonstrated one of the means by which the victors sought to impose the burden of responsibility for World War II and the Holocaust on the German people as a whole. Now, in "The War in the Empty Air", she demonstrates how deeply that narrative took hold and the silence it imposed. In Germany, the re-emergence of memories of wartime suffering is being met with intense public debate. In the United States, the recent translation and publication of "Crabwalk" by Gunter Grass and "The Natural History of Destruction" by W. G. Sebald offer evidence that these submerged memories are surfacing. Taking account of these developments, Barnouw examines this debate about the validity and importance of German memories of war and the events that have occasioned it. Steering her path between the notions of 'victim' and 'perpetrator', Barnouw seeks a place where acknowledgment of both the horror of Auschwitz and the suffering of the non-Jewish Germans can, together, create a more complete historical remembrance for postwar generations. Dagmar Barnouw is Professor of German and Comparative Literature, University of Southern California, and author of "Weimar Intellectuals and the Threat of Modernity", "Germany 1945", and "Naipaul's Strangers" (all Indiana University Press), among other books of cultural criticism.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...an analysis of and commentary on the debates of the last decade and a provocative contribution to them." -- Journal of European Studies 37; 103; 2007

"...makes vital reading for any Americanist with an interest in identity politics, multiculturalism, public memory or the war in Iraq." -- Journal of American Studies, December 2006

"...should be read as another provocative contribution... forcefully argues for a new politics of Memory..." -- H-NET Book Review, March 2006

"...this unique study...focuses on the suffering of non-Jewish Germans...special attention is paid to the reasons behind the silence..." -- PLA - Carla Bauman Franks

"Barnouw's articulate War in the Empty Air . . . makes for lively reading." -- German History, vol.25, nr.2, 247-249

"Barnouw's occasionally surgical approach toward the culturally approved . . . discourses of memory...[are] too unnerving..." -- Shofar Book Reviews, March 2007, (Samuel Rosenthal Center for Judaic Studies website) case.edu/artsci/rosenthal/reviews

"confronts the...officially approved memories of the German past...that have dominated German public discourse over the past 20 years." -- German Studies Review 30/1 (February 2007): 221-223

"...[P]assionate...interspersed with personal remembrances and comments..." -- Shofar, 2005. Volume 26, No. 3

... [A]n engaging, provocative outline...[with] fascinating uses of autobiography... -- Clio 36:3 2007

From the Publisher

-- A 2006 AAUP Public and Secondary School Library Selection --

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 303 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (November 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253346517
• ISBN-13: 978-0253346513
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,310,829 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fresh, thoughtful look at the World War II historical narrative, September 13, 2007

By 

Jordan C. Peterson (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The War in the Empty Air: Victims, Perpetrators, and Postwar Germans (Hardcover)

Given the central role of World War II in American culture, most Americans know surprisingly little about its impact on German civilians at the end stage of the war. More, the Germans themselves, copying the American view of W.W.II as the absolutely "good, clean, just war we won" over the absolutely bad and collectively guilty Germans, have shown little interest in remembering their own war experiences. Since the Allies' goal to get rid of a criminal regime had been good, very few if any questions were asked about their means, such as the American and British fire-bombing, especially late in the war and using new and devastating technology. It is still controversial in the U.S. and in Germany to discuss the wholesale destruction of German cities and the mass killing of civilians in terms other than the richly deserved punishment of the defeated. But the extent and manner of this destruction was an important part of that arguably worst war in Western historical memory and it needs to be analyzed and remembered as such. Based on a wealth of new historical and contemporary documents, Barnouw's new book The War in the Empty Air discusses the political uses of the memory of W.W.II in their impact on the history of the German and American experience of that war. Anticipating accusations that German interest in their own memories meant disrespect for the uniqueness and centrality of the Holocaust, the German intellectual and political elites have over many decades censored them so that they only recently began to be discussed more openly. Barnouw welcomes this beginning of a more inclusive, more questioning, more historical narrative of W.W.II, not only in Germany, because it might enable more people to learn more about and from that huge human disaster that was W.W.II. Instructively, one of her topics is the invocation in the post-war era of the Good, Just W.W.II to justify America's unjust wars and war-like interventions, a prime example being the invasion of Iraq. To quote from one of the reviews at Amazon.co.uk: "Barnouw's book covers the ground thoroughly. It is a book for the thoughtful reader." Given the catastrophic situation in Iraq and the current critical interest in the politics of the Israel Lobby, it is also a very timely book.

25 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Current German Thinking of World War II, March 12, 2006

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The War in the Empty Air: Victims, Perpetrators, and Postwar Germans (Hardcover)

This book is an examination of thinking about World War II from the German side. Right after the war a series of photographic essays were published by the Allies showing the concentration camps and the inhumanity shown by the Nazi's on conquered people. These images seem to have created a skeleton in the closet that in turn became difficult to discuss.

Now that sixty years have passed since the end of the war, and the integration of what were two Germanies into one, there appears to be an awakening of discussion about the war. Perhaps there will be a merging of the horror of Auschwitz with the horror of Dresden.

I notice though there is very little such discussion coming from Japan. Nothing appears to have been Japan's fault. They were going peacefully along when all of a sudden we started dropping atomic bombs on them.