Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Finding the “Good German”
- 1 Re-Presenting the Good German: Philosophical Reflections
- 2 “Görings glorreichste Günstlinge”: The Portrayal of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Gustaf Gründgens as Good Germans in the West German Media since 1945
- 3 From Hitler's Champion to German of the Century: On the Representation and Reinvention of Max Schmeling
- 4 Wilhelm Krützfeld and Other “Good” Constables in Police Station 16 in Hackescher Markt, Berlin
- 5 The “Good German” between Silence and Artistic Deconstruction of an Inhumane World: Johannes Bobrowski's “Mäusefest” and “Der Tänzer Malige”
- 6 Saints and Sinners: The Good German and Her Others in Heinrich Böll's Gruppenbild mit Dame
- 7 Being Human: Good Germans in Postwar German Film
- 8 “The Banality of Good”? Good Nazis in Contemporary German Film
- 9 Memories of Good and Evil in Sophie Scholl — Die letzten Tage
- 10 Deconstructing the “Good German” in French Best Sellers Published in the Aftermath of the Second World War
- 11 Macbeth, Not Henry V: Shakespearean Allegory in the Construction of Vercors's “Good German”
- 12 A Good Irish German: In Praise of Hugo Hamilton's Mother
- 13 Shades of Gray: The Beginnings of the Postwar Moral Compromise in Joseph Kanon's The Good German
- Works Cited
- Filmography
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
1 - Re-Presenting the Good German: Philosophical Reflections
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Finding the “Good German”
- 1 Re-Presenting the Good German: Philosophical Reflections
- 2 “Görings glorreichste Günstlinge”: The Portrayal of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Gustaf Gründgens as Good Germans in the West German Media since 1945
- 3 From Hitler's Champion to German of the Century: On the Representation and Reinvention of Max Schmeling
- 4 Wilhelm Krützfeld and Other “Good” Constables in Police Station 16 in Hackescher Markt, Berlin
- 5 The “Good German” between Silence and Artistic Deconstruction of an Inhumane World: Johannes Bobrowski's “Mäusefest” and “Der Tänzer Malige”
- 6 Saints and Sinners: The Good German and Her Others in Heinrich Böll's Gruppenbild mit Dame
- 7 Being Human: Good Germans in Postwar German Film
- 8 “The Banality of Good”? Good Nazis in Contemporary German Film
- 9 Memories of Good and Evil in Sophie Scholl — Die letzten Tage
- 10 Deconstructing the “Good German” in French Best Sellers Published in the Aftermath of the Second World War
- 11 Macbeth, Not Henry V: Shakespearean Allegory in the Construction of Vercors's “Good German”
- 12 A Good Irish German: In Praise of Hugo Hamilton's Mother
- 13 Shades of Gray: The Beginnings of the Postwar Moral Compromise in Joseph Kanon's The Good German
- Works Cited
- Filmography
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
Shining a light on the ethical depravity of the Third Reich and the ethical disorientation of its aftermath, the figure of the “good German” invites us to imagine alternative, genuinely ethical forms of individual and collective life. As such it has a utopian moment, pointing towards a society in which people would live their lives in truly ethical ways. Moreover, it has exemplary force. By the power of example, it opens up an imaginative space in which the possibility of an ethical life is momentarily present.
The ethical rightness manifested by the figure of the “good German” should be understood as a truth claim of some kind. Although the figure evidently relates to a specific historical and socio-cultural context, its normative claim is context-transcending, indeed universal in scope: it not only extends beyond the particular context in which it is articulated, it demands acceptance by everyone of the validity of the ethical modes of thought and behavior it imaginatively projects. Claims to ethical rightness, like truth claims, have a transcendent reference point; this is what accounts for their putative universality.
To speak of exemplarity is to speak of the normativity of the example: its power to inspire and to motivate us in our thinking and action. There have been some recent attempts among philosophers to offer an account of exemplary validity in terms of the Kantian paradigm of reflective judgment.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Representing the "Good German" in Literature and Culture after 1945Altruism and Moral Ambiguity, pp. 16 - 28Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013