Spring Lecture Series, Prof. Friederike Eigler's Lecture titled "Fluchtgeschichten: Post/Memories of Flight and Expulsion at the End of World War II"

Abstract:

Flight and Expulsion at the end of World War II affected approximately 12 million ethnic Germans. While there is consensus that a study of post-war East and West Germany has to include the legacies of National Socialism and the Holocaust, the history of flight and expulsion and its effects on post-war German societies have only recently received comprehensive scholarly attention. By contrast, post/memories of flight and expulsion have been the subject of literary representations ever since the early post-war period.

The lecture addresses the reasons for this delay in scholarship, and it introduces literature that addresses the legacies of flight and expulsion in national and in transnational European contexts.