British Writers in Occupied Germany, 1945–55 : Changing Hearts and Minds

This book offers an original account of the contribution of British writers to the denazification and re-education of Germany after World War II and explores the literature that emerged from the encounters these writers had with individual Germans in the defeated country.

British Writers in Occupied Germany offers an original account of the contribution of British mid-century writers and their works to the moral, political, and intellectual re-orientation of Germany after World War II (1945^–^55), as well as an examination of the literature that emerged from the encounters these writers had with the defeated country. At a moment when interest in the socio-political agency of the writer and the function of literature is intensifying, this book revaluates mid-century writers such as Stephen Spender, T. S. Eliot, and Elizabeth Bowen and their commitment to democratizing postwar Germany. Drawing on a wide range of previously overlooked archival material, it explores what motivated these writers, which forms their engagement took, which institutions propagated their activities, and to what extent the ''projection of Britain'' in occupied Germany was influenced by British experiences in the colonies, where literature had been viewed as a valuable means of guidance and the shaping of character. Through its analysis of some of the earliest accounts of British-German encounters against the backdrop of the devastation of the war, the book furthermore changes what we think we know about the British postwar understanding of the Germans and of the British self-image. When reconsidered in the light of this history, the ruins of Germany (particularly those of Nuremberg) emerge not only as tropes of decay and death, but also as prompts used by mid-century British writers to remember Germany''s multi-layered past and to contemplate the future that must inevitably be shaped by that past and its ruins.