Local Stories, Global Histories

Department of German Studies
GE434
The Self and Others II:
Contemporary German Travel Narratives

Local Stories, Global Histories
The discovery of the global in the local and the undermining of historical master
narratives in W.G. Sebalds Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt
(1995) and Wolfgang Bschers Berlin-Moskau: Eine Reise zu Fu (2003)

QUESTION FOUR:
Contemporary travel writing is often preoccupied with local stories as an
example of global history. Explore this with reference to two texts on this
course. You must base your argument on ample evidence from the texts under
discussion.

Student
Andrew Jones

Module Convenor
Anne Fuchs
WORD COUNT
4192 excluding footnotes
GE434 THE SELF AND OTHERS II: CONTEMPORARY GERMAN TRAVEL NARRATIVES
German Studies Andrew Jones 2014
1
The discovery of the global in the local and the undermining of historical master
narratives in W.G. Sebalds Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt
(1995) and Wolfgang Bschers Berlin-Moskau: Eine Reise zu Fu (2003)

Travel writing, or Reiseliteratur, bezeichnet jede schriftliche uerung, die die
Beziehung zwischen Ich und Welt ber die Erfahrung und Verarbeitung des
Fremden artikuliert,
1
and is ein bedeutender Reflektor kulturspezifischer
Vorstellungen des Eigenen und des Fremden, die sich dann im Zuge der
Fremdbegegnung verschieben knnen.
2
The genre of travel writing, however,
appears threatened in a post-enlightened world, where little is foreign and
where little remains unknown. Travel writers are thus faced with the challenge
of finding a new Other about which to write. W.G. Sebald, in Die Ringe des
Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt, and Wolfgang Bscher, in Berlin-Moskau:
Eine Reise zu Fu, overcome this problem by finding the Other primarily in the
local, in relatively unknown places and individuals. This encounter with this
local Other, in an increasingly interconnected and globalised world, allows the
authors to explore global history, which, in turn, articulates their culturally
specific views on the Self (in more general terms, humanity) and the Other
(human history).
As can be gleamed from the works titles, both novels describe travels on foot.
Walking is an interesting choice for the protagonists in a modern world, where
various faster and more comfortable modes of mobility are readily available. In
historical terms, as Kaschuba explains, die Fureise ist seit der frhen Neuzeit
bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts [...] ein Privileg der Unterschichten, with
the rich travelling by less taxing means, the poors journey by foot meint [nur]
ein Wandern, um anzukommen.
3
Nevertheless, the Age of Enlightenment saw
the Fureise change from being a necessity for the underclasses to a leisure
activity of the emerging bourgeoisie, who saw das Reisen und Wandern als

1. Anne Fuchs, Reiseliteratur, in Handbuch der literarischen Gattungen, ed. Dieter Lamping, et al.
(Stuttgart: Krner Verlag, 2009), 593.
2. Fuchs, Reiseliteratur, 594.
3. Wolfgang Kaschuba, Die Fureise: Von der Arbeitswanderung zur brgerlichen Bildungsbewegung,
in Reisekultur: Von der Pilgerfahrt zum modernen Tourismus, ed. Hermann Bausinger, et al. (Munich:
C. H. Beck, 1991), 168.
2
eine Art bildungsbrgerliche Emanzipation.
4
The reasons for travelling were
inversed, and, as Goethe would later say, man reist ja nicht, um
anzukommen.
5
The end destination was no longer key but rather the journey,
where in der Begegnung mit der ueren Natur, mit dem stofflich Einfachen
und sthetisch Schlichten soll sich auch die innere, die menschliche Natur
wiederfinden.
6
Both authors consequently choose the Fureise as their mode
of mobility for two interrelated reasons.
7
Firstly, the end destinations are, as
they were for the bourgeoisie in the nineteenth-century, of little importance.
Indeed, Bscher only spares 4.5 pages of a 226-page novel to write about
Moscow, and the narrator of Sebalds work appears to lack any kind of plan,
with no apparent end destination in mind. The journey, which facilitates the
encounter with Otherness in the local and the rediscovery of things forgotten by
modernity, is thus of greater importance to the narrators of both texts. Secondly,
the Fureise fulfils the narrators desired therapeutic intentions.
The narrator in Berlin-Moskau, for example, is discontent with his comfortable
life in modern Berlin, writing: was wirklich ntig ist, ber die Schulter werfen
und den Rest fort, den ganzen trstlichen Ballast. Die Tr zu, morgen frh eine
andere und wieder eine und noch eine und weiter, weiter.
8
The subsequent
(relatively) pre-planned journey follows in the footsteps of great armies, one of
which his grandfather was a part: sein weg war meiner, und mein Weg war der
Weg Napoleons und der Heeresgruppe Mitte, und der letzte wiederum war
seiner gewesen (BM:17). He writes, Ich ging nach Moskau, und der Landser
ging mit (BM:17), and the Landser, the spectre of the grandfather, follows him
as a travel companion. The journey for the narrator is thus a way of coming to
terms with this troubled past, to understand the story of a relative he never
knew, for die historische Hflichkeit erforderte das (BM:17f.). Therefore,
tracing a strategic military route, rather than a touristic one, allows the narrator
to heal the wounds of his familys past, his encounters with the locals and their

4. Kaschuba, Die Fureise, 170.
5. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, as quoted by Kaschuba in Die Fureise, 170.
6. Kaschuba, Die Fureise, 168.
7. Whilst the first-person narrators of both texts are easily identifiable as being the authors, to avoid any
ambiguity or confusion they shall henceforth be referred to as the narrators.
8. Bscher, Wolfgang. Berlin-Moskau: Eine Reise zu Fu. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch
Verlag, 2004.
Subsequent references to this text shall appear in the body of the essay, appearing in parentheses
with the abbreviation BM followed by the relevant page number.
3
stories helping to understand global history, a history that is of great importance
to his ancestry.
Sebalds narrator, by contrast, travels in der Hoffnung, der nach dem Abschlu
einer greren Arbeit in mir sich ausbreitenden Leere entkommen zu knnen.
He also hopes to overcome a feeling of melancholia and a lhmende Grauen,
das mich verschiedentlich berfallen hatte angesichts der selbst in dieser
entlegenen Gegend bis weit in die Vergangenheit zurckgehenden Spuren der
Zerstrung.
9
Diese Hoffnung, however, only erfllte sich [!] bis zu einem
gewissem Grad (RS:11). His journey has resulted in his hospitalisation, and he
still holds his pessimistic views on world history, one of unending destruction,
ever-present in the local. In beginning the narrative at the end of his journey, we
also gain an additional insight into Sebalds views on history.
The novel, unlike Bschers, has a non-linear, winding narrative, one that not
only mirrors the rhythm of walking but that, due to its cyclical nature, also
emulates the development of history as viewed by Sebald. Moreover, the
narrative is made increasingly more complex and winding by the other mode of
mobility utilised in the novel, for even whilst seemingly immobile in a hospital
bed, the narrator is still able to travel. As Barzilai explains, Sebald constructs a
first person, locally situated narrator who associatively journeys in his mind [!]
to distant historical and geographical places.
10
For example, whilst lying in the
aforementioned bed, a chain of associative thoughts leads the narrator to think
about Thomas Browne, a historical figure who he is currently researching.
Browne is connected to the local for he practised as a doctor in Norwich and his
skull is apparently to be found in the very hospital the narrator is staying in
(RS:19). The reader is then told of Brownes life (RS:21f.) and the narrator
speculates that Browne was present at the anatomy lesson depicted by
Rembrandt, a painting that the narrator saw whilst in Amsterdam (RS:22ff.). The
local thus acts, as it will continue to do so in the rest of the novel, as a
mnemonic tool that eventually connects the local to the global and the narrative

9. W.G. Sebald, Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer
Taschenbuch Verlag, 1997), 11.
Subsequent references to this text shall appear in the body of the essay, appearing in parentheses
with the abbreviation RS followed by the relevant page number.
10. Maya Barzilai, Melancholia as World History: W.G Sebalds Rewriting of Hegel in Die Ringe des
Saturn, in W.G. Sebald and the Writing of History, ed. Anne Fuchs, et al. (Wrzburg: Knigshausen &
Neumann, 2007), 74.
4
of world history. The subsequent description and interpretation of this painting
offered by the narrator proves crucial to the understanding of the text and sheds
further light on the narrators intentions and his criteria for the selection of his
travel destinations.
The anatomy lesson was hailed as ein bedeutendes Datum im Kalender der
damaligen, aus dem Dunkel, wie sie meinte, ins Licht hinaustretenden
Gesellschaft (RS:22), yet the narrator, with such an interjection as wie sie
meinte, casts doubt as to whether humanity has actually progressed,
emerging from the so-called darkness of the Dark Ages to the light of the
Enlightenment. This idea is furthered when the lesson is referred to as an
archaische Ritual der Zergliederung eines Menschen, one that is about more
than die grndlichere Kenntnis der inneren menschlichen Organe (RS:23). Of
particular note is the repeated use of the term Mensch, rather than a
depersonalised term such as Leib. In contrast to the scientific objectification of
the subject by the anatomists, the narrator is emphasising the humanity of the
subject. This subject is dissected with the aid of an anatomischen Atlas, in dem
die entsetzliche Krperlichkeit reduziert ist auf ein Diagramm (RS:23), and the
negative tone continues when we are told of Descartes, who wrote this Atlas:
Bekanntlich lehrte Descartes in einem der Hauptkapitel der Geschichte
der Unterwerfung, da man absehen mu von dem unbegreiflichen
Fleisch und hin auf die in uns bereits angelegte Maschine, auf das, was
man vollkommen verstehen, restlos fr die Arbeit nutzbar machen und,
bei allflliger Strung, entweder wieder instand setzen oder wegwerfen
kann. (RS:26)
The body is no longer a living organism to respect but a machine to be
disassembled, its constituent parts to be used or thrown away. The light of the
Enlightenment has, in Sebalds view, created a dark and destructive
utilitarianism that disregards (human) life in the name of science and progress,
leading to a Geschichte der Unterwerfung. As Fuchs explains, Sebald implies
that Descartess rationalism produces a dangerously utilitarian concept of
nature that categorises life according to its usefulness.
11
Moreover, the mind
has been elevated to an almost mythical status of importance, emotions

11. Anne Fuchs, Ein Hauptkapitel der Geschichte der Unterwerfung: Representations of Nature in W.G.
Sebald's Die Ringe des Saturn, in W.G. Sebald and the Writing of History, ed. Anne Fuchs, et al.
(Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann, 2007), 125.
5
devalued. The author, however, speculates that mit ihm dem Opfer, und nicht
mit der Gilde, die ihm den Auftrag gab, setzt der Maler sich gleich (RS:27). The
duality of the term Opfer, however, highlights the differing interpretations of the
past: the anatomists and Descartes would take it to mean sacrifice, a necessity
for progress, yet Rembrandt, according to narrator, and the narrator himself,
would view the subject as a victim. The Sebaldian narrator constantly takes the
side of the victims of humanitys destructive history and thus travels in search of
the Spuren der Zerstrung, the Geschichte der Unterwerfung, ever-present in
the local, in search of the stories of its forgotten victims, to make their suffering
known.
Such history of subjugation can easily be found in the history of colonialism and
imperialism, by-products of this enlightened utilitarianism. The Belgian King
Leopold, for example, according to the narrator, wished to colonise the Congo
[um] die Finsternis zu durchbrechen, in der [!] noch ganze Vlkerschaften
befangen seien (RS:144). It was to be an enlightened crusade, centred on
Eurocentric ideas of civilisation, [um] das Jahrhundert des Fortschrittes seiner
Vollendung entgegenzufhren (RS:144), that was to end in barbarity.
Zwischen 1890 und 1900 lassen jedes Jahr schtzungsweise
fnfhunderttausend [!] namenlosen, in keinem Jahresbericht verzeichneten
Opfer ihr Leben (RS:144f.), writes Sebald, highlighting yet more pointless
death and destruction, the deaths not even recorded, discarded, surplus to
requirements of the master narrative of progress. Whilst the episode further
highlights Sebalds pessimistic view of history, it would appear at first-glance to
be disconnected from the locality of the narrators travels in East Anglia, which
lies over 4000 miles away from the Congo. However, in another chain of
associative thought that demonstrates the interconnectedness the local and the
global, and of world history, triggered when the narrator watches a BBC
documentary whilst in Southwold ber den mir bis dahin unbekannt
gewesenen [!] Roger Casement (RS:125), a British diplomat involved in
highlighting the injustices of imperialism, particularly those in the Congo, the
narrator is able once again to journey in space and time.
In another episode that links the local to the global, the narrator encounters
eine schmale eiserne Brcke ber den Blyth (RS:165). The bridge was built
6
for a railway line deren Waggons [...] ursprnglich bestimmt waren fr den
Kaiser von China (RS:166), whose story is subsequently told. The emperors
story is another linked to imperialism, this time that of the British. The British too
are also said to have wrought destruction in the name of progress, im Namen
der Ausbreitung des christlichen Glaubens und des als Grundvoraussetzung fr
jeden zivilisatorischen Fortschritt geltenden freien Handels (RS:170). We are
told how the British destroyed a palace complex there due to der unerhrten
Provokation, welche die aus der Wirklichkeit geschaffene, jede Idee von der
Unzivilisiertheit der Chinesen sogleich vernichtende Paradieswelt darstellte
(RS:174). Sebald tells of this episode in an attempt to separate the reader from
a Eurocentric idea of what constitutes civilisation, for this act of destruction, like
others in the novel, highlights the subjectivity of the term civilisation. The
Europeans viewed the Chinese as a backward, unenlightened people, whilst
Sebald views the Europeans actions as a barbaric act of vandalism. These
opposing viewpoints highlight issues of perspective in history, which Sebald
also explores.
Die romantische Geschichtsallegorie geht aus von der Mglichkeit eines
Sieges des Guten ber das Bse
12
and this is a perspective that is often
transposed onto representations of history. Sebald argues that what constitutes
good and evil is subjective and often decided by the victors, distorted by
representations of the past. Whilst telling of the interconnected biographies of
Roger Casement and Joseph Conrad and their involvement with Belgian
imperialism, for example, the Sebaldian narrator tells of his own visit to Belgium,
where he visited a panorama that depicts the Battle of Waterloo (RS:149f.). Of
his experience he writes:
Das also, denkt man, indem man langsam im Kreis geht, ist die Kunst
der Reprsentation der Geschichte. Sie beruht auf eine Flschung der
Perspektive. Wir, die berlebenden, sehen alles von oben herunter,
sehen alles zugleich und wissen dennoch nicht, wie es war. (RS:151)
The panorama is seen to be a grotesque simulation of history. The people
involved become props, participants in a glorified act of destruction, one that
omits the suffering and turns history into an immersive and enjoyable

12. Anne Fuchs, Geschichte als Metaphysik des Unglcks, in Die Schmerzensspuren der Geschichte:
zur Poetik der Erinnerung in W.G. Sebalds Prosa (Kln: Bhlau, 2004), 191.
7
experience for the spectator. The battle is portrayed as something positive,
despite the large-scale destruction. Similarly, when in Southwold the narrator
looks out to the sea, thinking of the Battle of Sole Bay that took place there,
which makes him think of a pictorial depiction of the battle that he saw whilst in
Greenwich Maritime Museum (RS:94f.). It is a painting that vermgen, trotz
einer durchaus erkennbaren realistischen Absicht, keinen wahren Eindruck
davon zu vermitteln, wie es auf einem der [...] Schiffe zugegangen sein mu
(RS:95). The two episodes, as Kilbourn explains, demonstrate Sebalds view
that images destroy memory, and therefore a certain conception of history, by
interposing a visual representation between the viewing subject and the
authentic past.
13
History is adapted and simplified to suit the master narrative
of never-ending progress.
Sebald, however, is also guilty of manipulating history to fit his own master
narrative, but rather one of history as a continuous interconnected chain of
human destruction. He attempts to overcome the Flschung der Perspektive
by focusing on individuals, such as Browne, Casement and the Chinese
Emperor:
Es verluft nmlich die Geschichte jedes einzelnen, die jedes
Gemeinwesens und die der ganzen Welt nicht auf einem stets weiter und
schner sich aufschwingenden Bogen, sondern auf einer Bahn, die,
nachdem der Meridian erreicht ist, hinunterfhrt in die Dunkelheit.
(RS:35f.)
The stories of these individuals are told due to their connection to the local,
which also connects them to a dark global history, of which everyone is a part
and which deconstructs the idea of progress. The idea of the local is, however,
similarly deconstructed, for these local stories are always of global-scale and
the idea of globalisation as a recent development is additionally quashed.
14

Furthermore, in highlighting the mass murder undertaken by the Belgians in
Congo (RS:144f.), of a British racial superiority in China (RS:174) and of
Croatian involvement in ethnic cleansing (RS:119f.), Sebald is implicitly

13. Russell J.A. Kilbourn, Catastrophe with Spectator: Subjectivity, Intertextuality and the Representation
of History in Die Ringe des Saturn, in W.G. Sebald and the Writing of History, ed. Anne Fuchs, et al.
(Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann, 2007), 141.
14. See Barbara Hui, Mapping Historical Networks in Die Ringe des Saturn, in The Undiscoverd
Country: W.G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, ed. Markus Zisselsberger (New York: Camden House,
2010), 293.
8
attempting to de-demonise the history of Germany. This becomes evident in
Chapter III when the Sebaldian narrator tells of the overfishing of the herring, of
which he is reminded after seeing fishermen on the coast south of Lowestoft
(RS:67ff.), and of Major Le Strange, who, he learns from a newspaper cutting
he reads after this encounter with the fisherman, was involved in the liberation
of Bergen-Belsen (RS:77ff.). Through the use of intermediality (see-Figs.-1-
and-2), Sebald, in what Fuchs rightly describes as a daring juxtaposition,
15

draws parallels between the overfishing of the herring and the mass murder in
the concentration camps of the Second World War.

This juxtaposition, Fuchs continues, underlines the common denominator of
both stories of destruction: a cold and objectified biopolitics which disregards
the value of life.
16
Sebald argues that humanity is (unjustifiably) destructive and
that this destruction is not exclusive to the German nation:
Der reale Verlauf der Geschichte ist dann natrlich ein ganz anderer
gewesen, weil es ja immer, wenn man gerade die schnste Zukunft sich
ausmalt, bereits auf die nchste Katastrophe zugeht. (RS:270)

15. Fuchs, Ein Hauptkapitel der Geschichte der Unterwerfung, 126.
16. Fuchs, Ein Hauptkapitel der Geschichte der Unterwerfung, 126.
9
Whilst Bscher does not appear to fully subscribe to Sebalds interpretation of
world history, Berlin-Moskau shares many of the themes, such as issues of
representation and perspective, established in Die Ringe des Saturn. Bschers
narrative is more firmly rooted in the local, as can be seen when comparing the
journeys of both narratives (see-Figs.-3,-4,-and-5). Although the local stories
told are connected to a global history, they are primarily concerned with that of
the Second World War and its legacy, and these stories, in contrast to Die
Ringe des Saturn, remain highly localised in setting. Bscher, however, similarly
attempts to challenge a master narrative of history, one that in the post-war
period has propagated the notion of Germans as perpetrators.

For a German growing up on the western side of the Iron curtain, the East, as
Bscher admits, is auf der einen Seite ein von historischem Wissen erflltes
10
Land, auf der anderen Seite ein von totaler Erfahrungslosigkeit geprgtes
Land.
17
As a result, the narrator, due to this historical foreknowledge, is able to
expect what he will encounter there but can simultaneously expect this
expectation to be challenged, for the East acts as an exotic Other. Der Osten
ist ein Geschichtengrab, ein Tagebau des Tragischen, der Stoff liegt dicht unter
dem Gras, er ist wirklich roh, unbearbeitet, ungeschliffen (BM:119), which
implies the history of the East has, according to the narrator, been buried and
forgotten by the West. It is raw and ready to be molded into a comprehensive
picture, hence the journey, as Amann explains, hat die ffnung dieses Grabes
zum Ziel.
18

The Geschichtengrab is gradually opened through the narrators interest in the
local on his travels. Ich ging und ging und kaute und kaute diese Namen und
diese Geschichten (BM:16), the narrator states early on in his journey whilst
visiting the Seelow Heights, demonstrating his preference for personal stories,
his unceasing appetite for more and more. He prefers such stories for they
highlight the subjectivity of history, how it affects people differently, in contrast
to a homogenising memory culture back at home. The narrators distaste for this
memory culture is highlighted when he encounters the Abst von Lubin, who
tells of how he travels to Auschwitz every year um dort stundenlang auf der
eiskalten Erde zwischen den Gleisen zu sitzen. Auf der Selektionsrampe
errichtete er einen kleinen Steinalter und betete fr die Seelen der Ermordeten
und der Mrder (BM:38). At first the narrator finds this lcherlich und absurd
(BM:38), but:
Dann sah ich den Mnch dasitzen in seinem Versace-Shirt und seiner
suchenden Unfertigkeit und musste an die leise surrender
Gedenkmaschine daheim denken, deutsche Wertarbeit, in der das
Fallgerusch eines einzigen lockeren Schrubchens zu einem Skandal
fuhren knnte, und ich sah den Mnch und dachte, das eine einzige
lockere Schraube wertvoller ist als die ganze perfekte Maschine und eine
einziger Suchender mehr wert als volle eintausend Gedenkingenieure
(BM:38f.)

17. Matthias Prangel, Zu Fu nach Moskau: Ein Gesprch mit Wolfgang Bscher, literaturkritik.de 8,
no. 7 (2006): Interview, accessed March 17, 2014,
http://literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rez_id=9674&ausgabe=200607.
18. Wilhelm Amann, Solvitur ambulando: Pilgerrume bei Werner Herzog, Vom Gehen im Eis und
Wolfgang Bscher Berlin-Moskau, in Weltliche Wallfahrten: Auf der Spur des Realen, ed. Stefan
Brnchen, et al. (Paderborn: Fink, 2010), 269.
11
The narrators initial rejection of this act of remembrance is due to its
individuality, for it is something that is so different, or Other, to the mechanised
acts of the masses he is accustomed to back home. The metaphor of the
Gedenkmaschine, which reminds the reader of Germanys globally renowned
engineering prowess, is an ironic representation of a memory culture for which
Germany has also become famous. A slight deviation from the master narrative,
a loosening of a screw in the machine, can lead to scandal, a situation with
which Bscher takes issue, for it homogenises peoples experiences and
understanding of history. As Rieger points out, [Bscher voices] discomfort at
the ritualistic, predictable elements in the Federal Republics memorial
culture.
19
Bscher instead prefers a more individualistic and sincere
engagement with history, such as his own, which highlights the local stories of
individuals that helps to weave a more complex and less binary picture of global
history.
Whilst the narrator encounters many individuals on his travels who share their
unique local stories, there are three significant tales that are worth looking at in
greater detail, namely die Liebe einer polnischen Grfin (BM:40-51), die Liebe
eines russischen Partisanen (BM:91-96) and die Liebe eines deutschen
Hauptmanns (BM:118-125). The perspective differs in all three stories in terms
of nationality and social class, yet it soon becomes clear that such categories,
as well as our clear-cut moral categories of right and wrong, good and evil, are
highly irrelevant and naive in times of war. We should instead consider these
individuals as just that, autonomous individuals, and in doing so the master
narrative of the Allies as good and the Axis as evil is undermined.
The story of the Polish countess, for example, told by her son, who the narrator
meets whilst visiting their castle in Poland (BM:40f.), tells of morally dubious
fraternisation, the countess having to collaborate with the Germans in order to
save the life of her husband. These Germans, however, are shown to both help
and hinder in her story (BM:49) and she eventually ends up working as a
double agent, working for the Wehrmacht but also sending information to the
Polish resistance (BM:50). A retrospective judgement that categorises people
as victims and perpetrators is deconstructed through this narrative of a Polish

19. Bernhard Rieger, Memory and Normality, History and Theory 47, no. 4 (2008): 570.
12
protagonist who repeatedly changes sides, whose story is portrayed as a heroic
strategy.
The German officer, whose story the narrator learns from an eyewitness whilst
in Minsk, verliebte sich [!] so sehr in ein deutsches jdisches Mdchen im
Ghetto, dass er alles aufgab, seinen politischen Glauben, seine militrische
Ordnung, sein ganzes bisheriges Leben, um sie zu retten (BM:119). The
master narrative of the Jew-hating German is challenged, another individual
once again decoupled from the stereotypes concerning nationality, their
motivations more easily understood in emotional and personal, individualistic
terms.
Whilst in Nowogrudok, we learn of the Russian partisan, someone he just
happens to meet, in the style of an interrogational confession. The former
prisoner of war describes his time in captivity in a rather neutral manner,
counter to the master narrative of German maltreatment: es gab ausreichend
zu essen. In den zwei Jahren war keiner von ihnen gestorben (BM:92). His
subsequent escape and the perception thereof highlight how perspective
determines moral categories and judgements: Fr die Deutschen war er ein
Gefangener auf der Flucht. Fr die Weirussen war er ein Wostotschnik. Und
fr die Sowjets so etwas wie ein Verrter (BM:93), and, although the partisan
had worked for the Germans whilst in captivity, his collaboration was
gezwungenermaen natrlich, aber fr Feinheiten war nicht die Zeit (BM:93).
Again, the turmoil of war does not allow for a moralising clear-cut judgement of
victim-perpetrator that the historical master narrative demands. This master
narrative is further undermined when we also learn that es gab polnische
Einheiten, die gegen die Deutschen kmpfen, aber hier an der Memel gingen
die Polen gegen die Partisanen vor (BM:94). Not all the Polish were anti-Nazi
in a similar manner to how not all the Germans were Nazis. Of particular note is
how the Germans in the context of the Second World War are never referred to
as Nazis in Bschers text. This in no way excuses the crimes of the Third
Reich, the term German is instead more ambiguous and complex than the
homogenising and stereotypical term Nazi, and the term German in fact
reminds the (German) reader that these crimes were committed by their
13
forefathers and should not be made Other through the use of such an
alienating and othering term as Nazi.
Although the narrator fails to learn much, if anything, of his grandfathers
actions in the war, the issues of perpetration and victimhood are contextualised
to a greater extent than a detached memorial culture at home ever could have
achieved, allowing him to put the spectre of his grandfather to rest. Ich lie ihn
hier (BM:225) he writes, when [er] befand [s]ich zwei Tagesmrsche vor
Moskau, und alles jetzt war wie am ersten Abend bei den Steinen von Seelow
(BM:224). He realises that the war dead are all victims, no matter for which side
they died nor why they died. Perpetration and victimhood is shown to exist on
all sides of the war through the encounter with Otherness, which is recast as an
encounter with history that undermines the master narrative.
To conclude, both authors encounter with the Other in the local allows the
authors to explore issues of global history. Sebald finds the local Other in the
landscape and the stories of individuals associated with it, whose stories he has
either researched or has learnt from an encounter. These encounters act as a
mnemonic tool that takes the author and the reader on a journey in time and
space, one that demonstrates the interconnectedness of history and of the local
and the global. Bscher, on the other hand, finds the local Other more directly
in the people he meets on his journey, focusing on their stories and how they
relate to and help our (re)understanding of global history.
Both novels show how, in a modern interconnected and globalised world,
Otherness is rather a mode of perception rather than a defined object. Such
encounters with Otherness are also shown to undermine master narratives in
history, with Sebald challenging the perception of German history as uniquely
destructive, Bscher that of the Germans as a perpetrator race. In challenging
the master narrative, Sebald reinterprets the past, theorising that history should
instead be understood as a chain of interrelated and on-going destructive
events caused by mankind, irrespective of nationality, and highlights the
problems associated with (adequately) representing history. Bscher also
continues exploring the problems associated with representing history, his
encounters with the local highlighting how history is subjective and not as
14
clear-cut as the romanticised master narrative of good versus evil portrays.
Although Bscher is revisionist, he fails to provide a cohesive theory on the
nature of history as Sebald does. Nevertheless, both authors appear to
question the linearity of history, the idea of progress, with history often
repeating itself, humanity failing to learn from its mistakes, its legacy ever
present in the local.
15
Bibliography

Primary Texts
Bscher, Wolfgang. Berlin-Moskau: Eine Reise zu Fu. Reinbek bei Hamburg:
Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 2004.
Sebald, W.G. Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt. Frankfurt am
Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1997.
Secondary Literature
Amann, Wilhelm. Solvitur ambulando: Pilgerrume bei Werner Herzog, Vom
Gehen im Eis und Wolfgang Bscher Berlin-Moskau. In Weltliche
Wallfahrten: Auf der Spur des Realen, edited by Stefan Brnchen and Georg
Mein, 259-270. Paderborn: Fink, 2010.
Barzilai, Maya. Melancholia as World History: W.G Sebalds Rewriting of Hegel
in Die Ringe des Saturn. In W.G. Sebald and the Writing of History, edited
by Anne Fuchs and J.J. Long, 73-89. Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann,
2007.
Cosgrove, Mary. Sebald for our Time: The Politics of Melancholy and the
Critique of Capitalism in his Work. In W.G. Sebald and the Writing of History,
edited by Anne Fuchs and J.J. Long, 91-110. Wrzburg: Knigshausen &
Neumann, 2007.
Fuchs, Anne. Geschichte als Metaphysik des Unglcks. In Die
Schmerzensspuren der Geschichte: zur Poetik der Erinnerung in W.G.
Sebalds Prosa, 165-205. Kln: Bhlau, 2004.
. Ein Hauptkapitel der Geschichte der Unterwerfung: Representations
of Nature in W.G. Sebald's Die Ringe des Saturn. In W.G. Sebald and the
Writing of History, edited by Anne Fuchs and J.J. Long, 121-138. Wrzburg:
Knigshausen & Neumann, 2007.
. Reiseliteratur. In Handbuch der literarischen Gattungen, edited by
Dieter Lamping, Sandra Poppe, Sascha Seiler and Frank Zipfel, 593-600.
Stuttgart: Krner Verlag, 2009.
Hoorn, Tanja van. Der Engel der Geschichte erzhlt W.G. Sebalds Die Ringe
des Saturn. In Weltliche Wallfahrten: Auf der Spur des Realen, edited by
Stefan Brnchen and Georg Mein, 221-234. Paderborn: Fink, 2010.
Hui, Barabara. Mapping Historical Networks in Die Ringe des Saturn. In The
Undiscoverd Country: W.G. Sebald and the Poetics of Travel, edited by
Markus Zisselsberger, 277-298. New York: Camden House, 2010.
Hutchinson, Ben. Die Ringe des Saturn. In W. G. Sebald: die dialektische
Imagination, 87-91. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 2009.
Kaschuba, Wolfgang. Die Fureise: Von der Arbeitswanderung zur
brgerlichen Bildungsbewegung. In Reisekultur: Von der Pilgerfahrt zum
modernen Tourismus, edited by Hermann Bausinger, Klaus Beyrer and
Gottfried Korff, 165-173. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1991.
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Kilbourn, Russell J.A. Catastrophe with Spectator: Subjectivity, Intertextuality
and the Representation of History in Die Ringe des Saturn. In W.G. Sebald
and the Writing of History, edited by Anne Fuchs and J.J. Long, 139-162.
Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann, 2007.
Prangel, Matthias. Zu Fu nach Moskau: Ein Gesprch mit Wolfgang Bscher.
literaturkritik.de 8, no. 7 (2006): Interview. Accessed March 17, 2014.
http://literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rez_id=9674&ausgabe=200607
Rieger, Bernhard. Memory and Normality. History and Theory 47, no. 4
(2008): 560-572.

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