Crime stories
Subtitle: criminalistic fantasy and the culture of crisis in Weimar Germany
By: Todd Herzog.
Edition: 1st ed.
Series: Monographs in German history -- v. 22
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 182
ISBN-13: 9781845454395
Subjects: Popular culture -- Germany -- History -- 20th century; National characteristics, German -- History -- 20th century; Crime in popular culture -- Germany -- History -- 20th century; Criminals -- Germany -- History -- 20th century; Crime in literature; Modernism (Literature) -- Germany -- History -- 20th century; Crime films -- Germany -- History -- 20th century; Germany -- Intellectual life -- 20th century; Germany -- Social conditions -- 1918-1933; German literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism
Description: The Weimar Republic (1918{u2013}1933) was a crucial moment not only in German history but also in the history of both crime fiction and criminal science. This study approaches the period from a unique perspective - investigating the most notorious criminals of the time and the public{u2019}s reaction to their crimes. The author argues that the development of a new type of crime fiction during this period - which turned literary tradition on its head by focusing on the criminal and abandoning faith in the powers of the rational detective - is intricately related to new ways of understanding criminality among professionals in the fields of law, criminology, and police science. Considering Weimar Germany not only as a culture in crisis (the standard view in both popular and scholarly studies), but also as a culture of crisis, the author explores the ways in which crime and crisis became the foundation of the Republic{u2019}s self-definition. An interdisciplinary cultural studies project, this book insightfully combines history, sociology, literary studies, and film studies to investigate a topic that cuts across all of these disciplines.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Crime, detection, and German modernism; title: Writing criminals : outsiders of society and the modernist case history; title: Understanding criminals : the cases of Ella Klein and Franz Biberkopf; title: Seeing criminals : mass murder, mass culture, mass public; title: Tracking criminals : the cases of Peter K'rten, Franz Beckert, and Emil Tischbein; title: Conclusion: Criminalistic fantasy after Weimar.