داستان‌های جنایی: خیال‌پردازی جنایی و فرهنگ بحران در آلمان وایمار

The Weimar Republic (1918–1933) was a crucial moment not only in German history but also in the history of both crime fiction and criminal science. This study approaches the period from a unique perspective - investigating the most notorious criminals of the time and the public’s reaction to their crimes. The author argues that the development of a new type of crime fiction during this period - which turned literary tradition on its head by focusing on the criminal and abandoning faith in the powers of the rational detective - is intricately related to new ways of understanding criminality among professionals in the fields of law, criminology, and police science. Considering Weimar Germany not only as a culture in crisis (the standard view in both popular and scholarly studies), but also as a culture of crisis, the author explores the ways in which crime and crisis became the foundation of the Republic’s self-definition. An interdisciplinary cultural studies project, this book insightfully combines history, sociology, literary studies, and film studies to investigate a topic that cuts across all of these disciplines. CONTENTS FIGURES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 CRIME, DETECTION, AND GERMAN MODERNISM Chapter 2 WRITING CRIMINALS Outsiders of Society and the Modernist Case History Chapter 3 UNDERSTANDING CRIMINALS Th e Cases of Ella Klein and Franz Biberkopf Chapter 4 SEEING CRIMINALS Mass Murder, Mass Culture, Mass Public Chapter 5 TRACKING CRIMINALS Th e Cases of Peter Kürten, Franz Beckert, and Emil Tischbein CONCLUSION Criminalistic Fantasy after Weimar BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX