MLR, I03.3, 2oo8 905 to Paver) only partially successful narrative structures, in terms of what they 'do' rather thanwhat they 'say': Schlink inparticular iscriticized forhis undifferentiated presentation of social class, forhis assumption thathis 'generation' all share his edu catedmiddle-class perspective on theNazi past. The thirdchapter, on theother hand, which examines one work of 'documentary literature' (Helga Schubert's Judasfrauen) and two documentary films (Helke Sander's BeFreier und BeFreite and Ruth Beck ermann's Jenseits des Krieges), explores theways inwhich gender shapes post-war memory of theThird Reich. Paver contends that these female film-makers are essen tially trapped in a double bind, since their laudable attempts to replace the clichieof theauthoritative male voice-over with amore exploratory female perspective merely perpetuate thedistinction theyare seeking to subvert. The fourth chapter analyses the relationship between Marcel Beyer's Flughunde, Michel Tournier's Le Roi des Aulnes, and Volker Schlondorff's film adaptation of Tournier's novel (Der Unhold), comparing theirdepictions of an ambivalent hero and, inparticular, the implications ofusing different languages todescribe theNazi period. The finalchapter uses abroader discussion of theways in which memory has been con structed in the formerconcentration camps Mauthausen and Ebensee as the starting point for an analysis ofChristoph Ransmayr's novelMorbus Kitahara, which Paver reads as a (specificallyAustrian) 'critique of the culture of commemoration' (p. 122). This phrase could also be applied toPaver's perceptive study. If it is at times per haps a touch too brisk, if itdeliberately ignoresmany of the standard literary texts of the period, this is doubtless due to its remit as a guide to students of European cultural studies. At all times aware of its own methodological bias (the conclusion, for instance, usefully reminds us thatnot allGermanic literature isobsessed with the Third Reich), it fulfils this remit admirably, and will doubtless find itsway onto the standard reading-lists for theperiod. In taking a step back from the academic indus tryof 'Vergangenheitsbewaltigung' and asking some basic methodological questions, Paver has produced a thought-provoking introduction to the critical issues of con temporary 'Gediichtniskultur'. UNIVERSITY OF KENT BEN HUTCHINSON Germans as Victims: Remembering thePast inContemporary Germany. Ed. by BILL NIVEN. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2oo6. iX + 292 pp. ?18.99. ISBN 978 1-4039-9043-3. This rich and fascinating collection gives a fresh and eminently readable overview of thememory politics which has made the years since unification so remarkable in Germany. Since the i960s Germans have been confronting the legacy of theThird Reich as a perpetrator collective. Arguably, however, since the I990S and especially since 2005, theHolocaust no longer takes centre stage in theGerman culture of memory, but rather theproblem ofGerman victimhood-from theAllied bombings ofGerman cities, or the rape ofGerman women, to the expulsions ofGermans from Eastern Europe after thewar. This volume seeks todeconstruct the idea that a signi ficant taboo was broken in 2002 with the controversial publication ofGunter Grass's ImKrebsgang (and to a lesser extentwithW G. Sebald's Luftkrieg und Literatur lec tures,published in I999), and todemonstrate instead that the topos ofvictimhood has been a constant, if largelyunrecognized, undercurrent of post-war German culture. An essay by thehistorian Robert G. Moeller sets the termsof the debate, focusing on the search for what might be termed 'a usable past': also the subtitle of his influ ential War Stories (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 200I)): a search which dominates this volume as a whole. A first section moves broadly chronologically: 906 Reviews Moeller contributes a second essay focusing on 'Victims inUniform' and analysing threeGerman war filmsof the I950s; Paul Cooke also focuses on film,but traces a trajectory from theearlyHeimatfilm through the critical impetus ofNew German Ci nema to 'a cinema of consensus' (p. 9I) as represented by Sonke Wortmann's football melodrama, Das Wunder von Bern (2003). Helmut Schmitz exposes German vic timhood as a subterranean agenda of theHistorikerstreit of the I98os and Bill Niven explores how theAllied bombing ofDresden has been figured in theart and literature of theGDR and on into thepresent. A cluster of essays then address what might be broadly termed a 'decentring' of theHolocaust discourse within public commemorative politics.With reference to re cently accessed files,Pertti Ahonen demonstrates how the killings at theBerlin...