‘Ein Strudel der Selbstauflösung’: The Contested Role of Form in Poetry from the Concentration Camps

Abstract

German-language concentration camp poetry has been frequently criticized for its formal failings, particularly its lack of innovation and overreliance on traditional forms. In this article, I undertake close readings of three formally conventional texts: Alfred Kittner’s ‘Molotschna’ (composed in Obodowka, a Transnistrian extermination camp, in 1943), Fritz Löhner-Beda’s ‘Sonett auf das Revier im KZ-Buchenwald’ (composed in Buchenwald in 1940) and Heinrich Steinitz’s ‘Wo bist Du, Gott?’ (composed in Buchenwald between 1938 and 1942). I will demonstrate how traditional forms provided stability in the midst of extremity through their regularity, structure and link to a more stable past and identity. Moreover, I will propose that they were not simply readily available containers for the poet’s suffering, but also enabled the poet to shape their individual depiction of the camps and therefore provide as valid an insight as those works which respond to extremity with fragmentation and innovation.