Transformation of the postwar west German memory culture in the works of “Group 47” members: from forgetting to working through the past

The article examines key features of postwar West German memory culture (Erinnerungskultur) and their manifestations in the 1950s German culture. We have taken example of the West German literary association “Group 47” as its authors sought to critically comprehend and reflect on the national past in their works. Memories of the Second World War have been at the core of German memory culture and have created the most prominent cultural trauma for the German society in the 20th century. In the 1950s West Germany the predominant response to the cultural trauma of the past turned out to be forgetting. By analyzing the works of Ilse Aichinger and Ingeborg Bachmann, who were distinguished members of the “Group 47” in the 1950s, the study reveals how this literary association initiated a reevaluation of the predominant strategies of the 1950s memory culture, such as forgetting, collective silence, memory of “victims” and sacrificial narrative, notions of collective and individual guilt and responsibility. Consequently, the article identifies the critique strategies employed by Ilse Aichinger and Ingeborg Bachmann towards the 1950s West German memory culture that may have influenced the subsequent transformation of West German memory culture.