This thesis attempts to prove that Walter Kempowski writes historical fiction. For this reason he should be considered an important 20th century German author. This contention is based on the presence of historical references regarding the topic of Erziehung in the Kempowski Familienchronik.

O romance Wo warst du, Adam? (1951), de Heinrich Böll, e o \"diário coletivo\" Das Echolot. Barbarossa \'41. (2002), de Walter Kempowski, são representações literárias da Segunda Guerra Mundial. O romance foi escrito e publicado no período do pós-guerra, quando a sociedade alemã se encontrava em meio ao sofrimento por perdas materiais, perdas de familiares, e, também, confusa com a manipulação propagandística que havia sofrido por parte do governo alemão. Começava, ainda, a ter acesso a informações sobre os horrores e crimes bárbaros que haviam sido cometidos por soldados nazistas, principalmente contra o povo judeu. O \"diário coletivo\", por sua vez, é formado por colagens de textos individuais autênticos, escritos em sua maioria durante os acontecimentos da Segunda Guerra Mundial, por seus participantes e por aqueles que vivenciaram tal período. Não há nenhuma voz que relacione os testemunhos, a interpretação de tantas vozes dissonantes fica a cargo, exclusivamente, do leitor. Por haver cinquenta anos de intervalo entre as publicações, além de diferenças quanto ao gênero literário, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo verificar se a mudança de estrutura literária e a focalização das personagens/testemunhas estão ligadas à mudança da perspectiva atual da Segunda Guerra Mundial, a qual decorre da memória coletiva do grupo social sobre um acontecimento passado e da qual a literatura incorpora elementos. Não se trata de um estudo empírico sobre a recepção das duas obras literárias, mas sobre o potencial que as obras têm em configurar uma imagem da guerra para o leitor. Em função disso, estabelece-se uma comparação de algumas personagens e testemunhas centrais, não somente daquelas que participaram ativamente da guerra, mas também de quem esteve atento aos seus desdobramentos ou, ainda, a partir das perspectivas daqueles que seriam classificados como vítimas. O trabalho se abstrai de julgamentos pessoais sobre as testemunhas, mas os textos que produziram são analisados, comparando-as com as personagens ficcionais do romance. / The novel Wo warst du, Adam? (1951), from Heinrich Böll, and the \"collective diary\" Das Echolot. Barbarossa \'41. (2002), from Walter Kempowski, are literary representations of the Second World War. The novel was written and published in the post-war period, during which the german society found itself amidst suffering for material and for family losses, and also confused with the manipulative propaganda that had been used by the german government. The society was also gaining access to information about the horrors and hideous crimes that had been perpetrated by the nazi soldiers, especially against the jewish people. The \"collective diary\", on its turn, is composed by a collage of authentic individual texts written mostly during the Second World War, by people who participated in it and by those who lived during that period. There is no voice to connect the testimonies, and the interpretation of such an amount of dissonant voices is left exclusively to the reader. Because of the fifty-year period between the publications and the differences in literary style, this research aims at verifying if the change in literary structure and the focus on the characters/witnesses are connected to the change in the current perspective towards the Second World War, which derives from the collective memory of the social group regarding an event that took place in the past and from which literature incorporates some elements. This research is not an empirical study on the reception of both works. It studies the potential these works have in configuring an image of the war to the reader. Thus, a comparison is established between some characters and central witnesses, not only those who had actively participated in the war, but also those who had accompanied its developments, or even from the perspective of those qualified as victims. The work refrains from making judgements of the witnesses as individuals, but their texts are analyzed and they are compared with the fictional characters of the novel.

O romance Wo warst du, Adam? (1951), de Heinrich Böll, e o \"diário coletivo\" Das Echolot. Barbarossa \'41. (2002), de Walter Kempowski, são representações literárias da Segunda Guerra Mundial. O romance foi escrito e publicado no período do pós-guerra, quando a sociedade alemã se encontrava em meio ao sofrimento por perdas materiais, perdas de familiares, e, também, confusa com a manipulação propagandística que havia sofrido por parte do governo alemão. Começava, ainda, a ter acesso a informações sobre os horrores e crimes bárbaros que haviam sido cometidos por soldados nazistas, principalmente contra o povo judeu. O \"diário coletivo\", por sua vez, é formado por colagens de textos individuais autênticos, escritos em sua maioria durante os acontecimentos da Segunda Guerra Mundial, por seus participantes e por aqueles que vivenciaram tal período. Não há nenhuma voz que relacione os testemunhos, a interpretação de tantas vozes dissonantes fica a cargo, exclusivamente, do leitor. Por haver cinquenta anos de intervalo entre as publicações, além de diferenças quanto ao gênero literário, esta pesquisa tem como objetivo verificar se a mudança de estrutura literária e a focalização das personagens/testemunhas estão ligadas à mudança da perspectiva atual da Segunda Guerra Mundial, a qual decorre da memória coletiva do grupo social sobre um acontecimento passado e da qual a literatura incorpora elementos. Não se trata de um estudo empírico sobre a recepção das duas obras literárias, mas sobre o potencial que as obras têm em configurar uma imagem da guerra para o leitor. Em função disso, estabelece-se uma comparação de algumas personagens e testemunhas centrais, não somente daquelas que participaram ativamente da guerra, mas também de quem esteve atento aos seus desdobramentos ou, ainda, a partir das perspectivas daqueles que seriam classificados como vítimas. O trabalho se abstrai de julgamentos pessoais sobre as testemunhas, mas os textos que produziram são analisados, comparando-as com as personagens ficcionais do romance. / The novel Wo warst du, Adam? (1951), from Heinrich Böll, and the \"collective diary\" Das Echolot. Barbarossa \'41. (2002), from Walter Kempowski, are literary representations of the Second World War. The novel was written and published in the post-war period, during which the german society found itself amidst suffering for material and for family losses, and also confused with the manipulative propaganda that had been used by the german government. The society was also gaining access to information about the horrors and hideous crimes that had been perpetrated by the nazi soldiers, especially against the jewish people. The \"collective diary\", on its turn, is composed by a collage of authentic individual texts written mostly during the Second World War, by people who participated in it and by those who lived during that period. There is no voice to connect the testimonies, and the interpretation of such an amount of dissonant voices is left exclusively to the reader. Because of the fifty-year period between the publications and the differences in literary style, this research aims at verifying if the change in literary structure and the focus on the characters/witnesses are connected to the change in the current perspective towards the Second World War, which derives from the collective memory of the social group regarding an event that took place in the past and from which literature incorporates some elements. This research is not an empirical study on the reception of both works. It studies the potential these works have in configuring an image of the war to the reader. Thus, a comparison is established between some characters and central witnesses, not only those who had actively participated in the war, but also those who had accompanied its developments, or even from the perspective of those qualified as victims. The work refrains from making judgements of the witnesses as individuals, but their texts are analyzed and they are compared with the fictional characters of the novel.

Walter Kempowski (1929-2007) is one of the most important authors in post-war German literature. In 1971, he published his first novel, Tadellöser & Wolff. This historical novel takes its point of departure in the everyday life of the bourgeois Kempowski family in Rostock shortly before and during World War II until the surrender of the city to the Red Army. The novel was initially very well received by literary critics and was also a commercial success. After the adaptation of the novel for film in 1975, Kempowski became even more of a public figure and won popular acclaim. In the film, however, important aspects of the novel’s literary mediation were lost, and as a result, the attitude among critics towards Kempowski changed considerably. In some groups he was viewed with suspicion and seen as the uncritical representative of the bourgeoisie. It was not until the beginning of the 1990s that he received extensive praise and recognition, much due to the publication of his multi-volume historical documentary work, Echolot. The present study explores Kempowski’s mode of writing in Tadellöser & Wolff from a narratological perspective. The main theoretical points of departure for the analysis are Franz K. Stanzel, one of the leading scholars of classical narratology, and Monika Fludernik, his successor in postmodern narratology. The mediation in the novel is very intricate and carries its theme in a complex and significant way. Though the novel depicts the milieu and atmosphere of the time in a detailed and realistic manner and, through the narrator, the voices, thoughts and opinions of the period resonate in a rich polyphony, yet the predominant narrative perspective is exploited in such a marked way as to create distance to what is portrayed. The fictional first-person narrator proves to be not altogether reliable.