@article {Yanacek20, author = {Holly A. Yanacek}, title = {Fighting Fascism through Theater: Defining a Socialist Humanist Aesthetic in Willi Bredel{\textquoteright}s Die Enkel (1953)}, volume = {112}, number = {1}, pages = {20--37}, year = {2020}, doi = {10.3368/m.112.1.20}, publisher = {University of Wisconsin Press}, abstract = {This article examines the important role of the theater in early East German cultural politics as illustrated in Willi Bredel{\textquoteright}s Die Enkel (1953), the third novel in his socialist realist trilogy, Verwandte und Bekannte (1941{\textendash}1953). By focusing on the novel{\textquoteright}s use of the {\textquoteleft}play within a story{\textquoteright} device to depict two stage performances, Verdi{\textquoteright}s opera Il trovatore and Lessing{\textquoteright}s drama Nathan der Weise, I show how Bredel implicitly defines a fascist aesthetics and a socialist aesthetics, similar to Walter Benjamin{\textquoteright}s distinction between fascist and socialist art in his essay {\textquotedblleft}Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzier-barkeit{\textquotedblright} (1935). Taken together, these scenes serve as didactic moments for Bredel{\textquoteright}s ideal readers and call for art that is closely aligned with the political and cultural goals of socialist humanism. (HY)}, issn = {0026-9271}, URL = {https://mon.uwpress.org/content/112/1/20}, eprint = {https://mon.uwpress.org/content/112/1/20.full.pdf}, journal = {Monatshefte} }