Peter Barton
Otago German Studies recently published online the first of Marianne Angermann’s journals held in the Hocken Collections. Angermann was a German biochemist who migrated to New Zealand in 1948. This presentation will discuss the second journal which is currently in preparation. The journal entries cover some of Angermann’s experiences in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, but from early 1937 the voice switches to that of Angermann mère who goes on to give an account of life on the home front in Dresden during the years 1937 – 1945. Though initially sympathetic to the national-conservative end of the political spectrum, Angermann senior’s opinions predictably undergo a change during the war and she ends explicitly hostile to National Socialism. The reader-editor might be forgiven for asking whether this is a genuine conversion, or whether her conservatism would be restored under favourable economic conditions (Wirtschaftswunder). But is it fair for an editor to make these sorts of judgements?
ganz.ac.nz 