Citation

Kutch LM. Peace Change 2009; 34(2): 184-207.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Peace History Society; Peace and Justice Studies Association, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1468-0130.2009.00549.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In her politically influenced plays and essays, German author Ilse Langner (1899–1987) rigorously analyzes her own gendered theories concerning war, peace, and guilt. This article views Langner's drama Klytämnestra (1947) along with the author's subsequent essays on peace theory as a framework for investigating her observations on the evolving relationship between German politics and gender roles. The belligerent atmosphere of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s forced Langner to recalibrate her previously rigid and traditional paradigms of male and female war involvement. After allegorically treating a temporary interruption marked by female aggressiveness with Klytämnestra, Langner returns to the notion of the enduring female role of maternal peacemaker in her theoretical writings (1946–1948). The assertion that women have the inherent ability and responsibility to administer peace in the postwar era directs Langner's work into ongoing gendered debates surrounding women's accountability for wartime violence.