pynchon's germany

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

in that movie by the dubini brothers someone, probably christine wexler, 
reported that trp, while writing "gravity's rainbow", liked to wear (original) 
nazi clothing in public now and then which helped him to write the book cause it 
enabled him to get real with the scandalous thesis that the vietnam war turned 
the usa into something similar like the third reich. "we were the new nazis and 
tom was writing down the story". if one asks what political germany means to 
pynchon - think of the herero genocide of 1904, of von braun, hilarious or karl 
bopp - the answer could be this: the german mirror shows america the dangers of 
modern totalitarism. racism inside the country, führerkult, aggressive 
nationalism, imperialistic warfare and genocide. here the usa, since ww2 
definitely the world's leading nation, are always endangered to lose their, 
well, balance. in pynchon's work this danger is metonymically expressed 
especially in two real world events: the naturalization of von braun and his 
team (later echoed by the character of karl bopp) and the genocide of 1904 which 
is, in my opinion, so important in v and gr because it allows pynchon to connect 
germany's imperialistic history to the enslavement of africans america has 
made herself guilty of ~ kai