An Investigation of the Female Figures in Siegfried Lenz's German Course and Heinrich Böll's Billiards at Nine and a Half

In recent years, gender has played an increasingly important role in scholarly debates about the contradictory efforts of post-war Germans to confront their Nazi past. Historians have argued that the collapse of National Socialist society led to a serious crisis of masculinity, making it difficult to rebuild some form of male authority. Various studies in the literature have shown how women in Germany after the war were viewed both as guilty of sexual betrayal in the context of defeat and as symbols of moral purity untainted by Nazi crimes. In the post-war years, women's participation in the Nazi regime was systematically ignored in representations and discussions of the country's National Socialist legacy. They are given the responsibility of providing a fresh start and helping the men come to terms with their past. The main purpose of this study is to examine the female figures in Siegfried Lenz's "German Lesson" and Heinrich Böll's "Billiards at Nine and a Half".