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").

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)

Possible representatives

• Heimito von Doderer — Austrian post-war novelist

See also

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

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