The Instrumentalization of Sexual Violence in German Cold War Anti ...
The Instrumentalization of Sexual Violence in German Cold War Anti ...
The Instrumentalization of Sexual Violence in German Cold War Anti ...
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RCCS Annual Review, 5, October 2013<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Instrumentalization</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Sexual</strong> <strong>Violence</strong> <strong>in</strong> <strong>German</strong> <strong>Cold</strong> <strong>War</strong> <strong>Anti</strong>-Communist Discourses<br />
doubt about the fact that <strong>in</strong> <strong>German</strong>y the memories <strong>of</strong> the rapes were not a new topic <strong>in</strong> the<br />
public doma<strong>in</strong>. On the contrary, they had a past history <strong>of</strong> ideological <strong>in</strong>strumentalization,<br />
and one not immune to racist discourses. What director Helke Sander, as well as other<br />
<strong>German</strong> fem<strong>in</strong>ists who took an <strong>in</strong>terest <strong>in</strong> the subject, sought to do should then not be<br />
perceived as the break<strong>in</strong>g <strong>of</strong> a taboo, but rather as an attempt to redeem the memory <strong>of</strong><br />
sexual violence through the re<strong>in</strong>vention <strong>of</strong> a discourse whereby the suffer<strong>in</strong>g could be<br />
expressed outside a nationalistic, xenophobic mold. <strong>The</strong>refore, <strong>in</strong> order to understand the<br />
mean<strong>in</strong>gs acquired by this theme <strong>in</strong> post-unification <strong>German</strong>y one must take <strong>in</strong>to account<br />
the hegemonic discourses <strong>of</strong> the Adenauer era <strong>in</strong> which those memories had been<br />
recollected.<br />
Translated by João Paulo Moreira<br />
Revised by Teresa Tavares<br />
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