Trümmerliteratur

Trümmerliteratur ("rubble literature"), also called Kahlschlagliteratur ("clear-cutting literature"), is a literary movement that began shortly after World War II in Germany and lasted until about 1950.

It is primarily concerned with the fate of former soldiers and POWs who could return to Germany, who must stand both before the rubble of their homeland and their possessions as well as before the rubble of their ideals and deal with it. American short stories served as a model for the authors of this epoch. The stylistic means employed were simple, direct language, which laconically described but did not evaluate the destroyed world, and a restriction, usual for short stories, of the space, narrated time, and characters.

It is because of this simplification that this epoch is also named Kahlschlagliteratur ("clear-cutting literature"). This simplification was used because of the abuse of German language by the Nazis. They tried to show the reality just like it was without any unnecessary information out of the view of the common people. A great example is Wolfgang Weyrauch who stressed the magical realism. This literature should help to deal with the past and the recreation of the future. The aim of the authors were to clean the language by shortening the sentences because of its abuse by the nazi ideology. The main topics were the analysis of the truth, to find the answer to the question whose responsibility it was, why the war and Holocaust happened and the critic on the political and social restoration of Germany.

Well-known representatives

• Wolfgang Borchert (Draußen vor der Tür, Das Brot, An diesem Dienstag)
• Günter Eich
• Heinrich Böll (Haus ohne Hüter, Wo warst du, Adam?, Der Mann mit den Messern, Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa…)
• Wolfdietrich Schnurre (Ein Unglücksfall, Das Begräbnis), (Auf der Flucht)
• Erich Kästner
• Arno Schmidt (Brand's Haide, Schwarze Spiegel)
• Wolfgang Weyrauch

Possible representatives

• Heimito von Doderer — Austrian post-war novelist

See also

• Stunde Null

The "Trümmerfilme" ("rubble films") that came out in the late 1940s:

• Die Mörder sind unter uns
• In jenen Tagen
• de
• Liebe 47
• Und finden dereinst wir uns wieder
• Razzia, among others