Intertextuality, Ecocriticism, and Human Interaction with Nature in Wilhelm Schäfer’s Novella “Anckemanns Tristan” (1936). How to Engage with Literature by a Nazi Sympathizer in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

This essay makes an effort to rescue a completely forgotten novella from a German writer, Wilhelm Schäfer (d. 1952), who was, horribly dictu, a strong advocate for the Nazis at least until 1945. While fully acknowledging the highly problematic political background of the author, the analysis focuses on the intriguing and masterly intertextual operations in the text, the superior psychologizing of the emotional relationships, and the ecocritical aspects in the story which could be of considerable relevance today despite the author’s explicitly formulated ideology in support of Adolf Hitler and his movement and actions.