The war novel in German literature from 1945-1965 : a critical survey of the representative German war novels, giving an analysis and appreciation of their form, style and ideas, together with the evaluated views of contemporary critics.

In this thesis it is attempted to give a general classification and a detailed analysis of the German war novels about World War II which are of an acceptable literary standard. Since the volume of the war literature is so huge, the scope of the thesis had to be limited strictly to those novels which have as their central motive the subject of war (either at the front or in the rear, but excluding memoirs, reports, diaries, popular novels of inferior standard, prisoner-of-war novels, Heimkehrer-romane and short stories,