The Haarmann Case: Remapping the Weimar Republic

Since Germany's reunification, there has been a modest yet distinct resurgence of interest in the serial murderer from the 1920s, Fritz Haarmann, and recent works about him unsettle entrenched narratives about the Weimar Republic. After all, in both historiography and popular culture, the city of Berlin, as well as the lives of artists, intellectuals, and politicians tend to be privileged. Writers about Haarmann, on the other hand, shift attention to the provincial urban space of Hannover, highlight the experiences of lower‐middle class German citizens, and foreground the often‐overlooked years of hunger during the early years of socioeconomic instability following the First World War. With their German‐language graphic novel, Haarmann (2010), Peer Meter and Isabel Kreitz offer a counter‐narrative to inherited discourse, especially with their inclusion of conspicuously fictitious events, which encourage critical reflection about the Weimar period.