Staring into the Wasteland: Different Perspectives of Shock and the Aesthetic of Direct Gaze in Gert Ledig’s Vergeltung and Stig Dagerman’s Tysk höst

This study investigates the aesthetic of direct gaze as expressed in Gert Ledig’s novel Vergeltung and in Stig Dagerman’s collection of reportages Tysk höst. The article analyses the different modalities of gazing into the extreme suffering caused by the bombings upon German cities during the Second World War, specifically confronting the perspective of the German insider chronicler, as depicted in Vergeltung, with that of the Swedish outsider witness, as presented in Dagerman’s work. This study focuses on how the inexplicability of shock is overcome in both Vergeltung and Tysk höst and on the narrative strategies adopted by the authors in order not to dissimulate civilian distress and the sense of horror caused by the consequences of war. The article analyses not only the sense of shock produced by the works, but also how the authors described the civilian reactions to the horrors of combat. A part of the analysis is dedicated to the questions of choice and impartiality regarding the selection of topics and images portrayed in the works. The study focuses moreover on the comparison between, on the one hand, the need perceived by the Swedish Stig Dagerman of giving a voice to the destroyed German society of 1946 through his journalistic work and, on the other hand, the self-imposed German silence on the air bombings and on the German-speaking literature regarding the topic.