ABSTRACT
This chapter examines literary representations of two generations — the so-called 1968ers and 1978ers — that, together with the 'Flakhelfer' generation, have been particularly prominent in West German debates. It demonstrates the passage of time can change generational scripts to reflect new historical or biographical insights. The chapter turns from place to generational belonging as an identity anchor. The emotional experience of belonging to a collective, of participating in mass demonstrations and sit-ins, of having a clear common enemy, and of being part of something bigger also added to its potency. In Rebellion und Wahn, Peter Schneider negotiates a narrative path between individual fates and collective fortunes, public personas and private personalities, intimacy and distance, and rebellion and delusion to portray the 1968ers as a generation with a desperate longing to belong. Hein's novel Landnahme shows that the socialist dream of a new Heimat remained unrealisable due to persisting ethnic and territorial claims.
