Backwarded Forward

Abstract In the German restoration discourse after 1945, the restoration of old values and traditions was diagnosed as a potential danger of the continuation of National Socialist ideas. This article shows how the post-war author Peter Rühmkorf inscribes himself in this discourse by criticizing a ‘false’ reception and continuation of the historical avant-garde as an expression of literary restoration. According to Rühmkorf, ‘traditionalist’ post-war writers would strip the avant-garde of its original revolutionary character, thereby degenerating it into pure artistry ( Artistik ) and an escape from reality. So although they claim to be revolutionary, according to Rühmkorf they are only covering up their own backwardness. Rühmkorf’s critique of restoration serves to strengthen his poetics of schizography and his neo-avant-garde movement finism as the rightful legacy of the avant-garde and to assert it in the literary field.