Why Language Matters

Why Language Matters: Propaganda and remembering German women's experiences of defeat in 1945

Talk outline

Eighty years after the defeat of National Socialism, one word still has the capacity to provoke heated debate across the political spectrum: “Befreiung,” or liberation. When Berlin announced a one-off public holiday to commemorate Germany’s “liberation from National Socialism and the end of World War II,” the right-extremist party Alternative for Germany led the dissenting voices. Had 8th May really marked the end of violence and the start of freedom for most Germans? Had Germany’s women truly encountered Allied soldiers as liberators and not aggressors? This talk is about the importance of language in allowing German women to tell their stories of defeat—on their own terms and for the purposes of reconciliation rather than propaganda.

**This talk will include references to wartime sexualised violence.

About Dr Katie Stone

Dr Katie Stone is an Associate Professor of German Studies at the University of Warwick. Her research focuses on how women’s involvement in National Socialism and their experiences of World War II—especially sexualized violence—have been remembered.