The world Hitler never made : alternate history and the memory of Nazism / Gavriel D. Rosenfeld.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rosenfeld, Gavriel David, 1967-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

World War, 1939-1945--Germany.

World War, 1939-1945.

Imaginary histories--History and criticism.

Imaginary histories.

Alternative histories (Fiction)--History and criticism.

Alternative histories (Fiction).

National characteristics.

Memory--Social aspects.

Memory.

Physical Description:

xii, 524 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Summary:

What if the Nazis had triumphed in World War II? What if Adolf Hitler had escaped Berlin for the jungles of Latin America in 1945? What if Hitler had become a successful artist instead of a politician? Gavriel D.Rosenfeld's pioneering study explores why such counterfactual questions on the subject of Nazism have proliferated in recent years within Western popular culture. Examining a wide range of novels, short stories, films, television programs, plays, comic books, and scholarly essays that have appeared in Great Britain, the United States, and Germany since 1945, Rosenfeld shows how the portrayal of historical events that never happened reflects the evolving memory of the Third Reich's real historical legacy. He concludes that the shifting representations of Nazism in works of alternate history, as well as the popular reactions to them, highlights their subversive role in promoting the normalization of the Nazi past in Western memory.

Contents:

Part I The Nazis Win World War II

Comparative overview 29

1 Great Britain defeated: between resistance and collaboration 34

2 The United States and the dilemmas of military intervention 95

3 Germany's wartime triumph: from dystopia to normalcy 161

4 Other nations: a dissenting view 187

Comparative conclusions 195

Part II Alternate Hitlers

5 The fugitive Fuhrer and the search for justice 199

6 The world without Hitler: better or worse? 271

Part III Hypothetical Holocausts

7 Hypothetical Holocausts and the mistrust of memory 333

Appendix Alternate histories by theme, era, nation, and medium 510.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 492-509) and index.

ISBN:

0521847060

OCLC:

58052431

Publisher Number:

9780521847063