'A presence...called Germany': personal history in the construction of national identity by post-war German intellectuals: three case-studies

Abstract

Behind the 'Verdrossenheit' (frustration) of the West German intellectuals lies not merely the ideological shock of the loss of Marxism, but, at a deeper level, the inability to come to terms with the relationships to the family, the nation, and the past. This thesis is supported by textual analysis of mernories of child hood and metaphors of loss in autobiographical writings of three left-wing post-war intellectuals, viewed at this point as case-studies, rather than as typologies of the generation of post-war intellectuals who are now in the socially dominant positions of the new FRG.