Prompted by recent challenges to and debates about the relative public silence concerning the effects of the Allied air war over Europe during World War II, this collection of essays examines literary, visual (film and photography), and institutional (museums) representations of the bombing of civilian targets, predominantly in Germany. The authors examine narrative strategies of both well-known and relatively little known works as well as the moral and ideological presuppositions of the varied representations of the depredations of total war. The introduction and afterword by the editors invite the readers to expand the contours and historical context of the debates about the German public discourse on the bombing war beyond the narrow confines of perpetrators and victims. The volume will be of interest to literary scholars, historians, and the general reading public interested in warfare and its effects on civilian populations. Table of Contents Wilfried WILMS & William RASCH : Introduction: Uncovering their Stories: The Rubble of Memory and the Bombing War I. Narrative and History Brad PRAGER: Air War and Allegory Daniel FULDA: Abschied von der Zentralperspektive. Der nicht nur literarische Geschichtsdiskurs im Nachwende-Deutschland als Dispositiv für Jörg Friedrichs Brand Stephan JAEGER: Infinite Closures: Narrative(s) of Bombing in Historiography and Literature on the Borderline between Fact and Fiction Henning HERRMANN-TRENTEPOHL: “Das sind meine lieben Toten” – Walter Kempowskis “Echolot”-Projekt Jennifer BAJOREK: Holding Fast to Ruins: The Air War in Brecht’s Kriegsfibel Thomas C. FOX: East Germany and the Bombing War Benedikt JAGER: Die gepolsterte Nussschale des Bootes – Der Luftkrieg aus der Sicht skandinavischer Korrespondenten II. The German Experience Timm MENKE: W. G. Sebalds Luftkrieg und Literatur und die Folgen: Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme Florian RADVAN: Religiöse Bildlichkeit und transtextuelle Bezüge in Gert Ledigs Luftkriegsroman Vergeltung Walter PAPE: “Mich für mein ganzes leben verletzendes Geschehen als Erlebnis”: Die Luftangriffe auf Salzburg (1944) in Thomas Bernhards Die Ursache und Alexander Kluges Der Luftangriff auf Halberstadt am 8. April 1945 Stuart SMITH: “Das war nicht mehr wie vor Ilion”: Servicemen, Civilians and the Air War in Gerd Gaiser’s Die sterbende Jagd Andrew WILLIAMS: “Das stanniolene Rascheln der Weinblätter”: Hans Erich Nossack und der Luftkrieg III. The Allied Experience Paul CROSTHWAITE: “Children of the Blitz”: Air War and the Time of Postmodernism in Michael Moorcock’s Mother London Erwin WARKENTIN: Death by Moonlight: A Canadian Debate over Guilt, Grief and Remembering the Hamburg Raids Diederik OOSTDIJK: Debunking ‘The Good War’ Myth: Howard Nemerov’s War Poetry Steve PLUMB: Art and the Air Campaigns of 1940/41 and 1945: Visual Representations of the London and Dresden Bombing Raids Silke ARNOLD-de SIMINE: Memory Cultures: The Imperial War Museum North and W. G. Sebald’s Natural History of Destruction Anna LEAHY & Douglas DECHOW: Keep ’Em Flying High: How American Air Museums Create and Foster Themes of the World War II Air War IV. Film Jaimey FISHER: Bombing Memories in Braun’s Zwischen Gestern und Morgen (1947): Flashbacks to the Recent Past in the German Rubble-Film Christina GERHARDT: The Allied Air Bombing Campaign of Germany in Herzog’s Little Dieter Needs to Fly Wilfried WILMS: Hollywood’s Celluloid Air War Jerome F. SHAPIRO: Ninety Minutes over Tokyo: Aesthetics, Narrative, and Ideology in Three Japanese Films about the Air War Afterword William RASCH: ‘It Began with Coventry’: On Expanding the Debate over the Bombing War.

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