'Wallraffen': Zur geschichte eines literarischen genres. Im internationalen vergleich

This study initially examines documentary literature and the reportage, starting in the second half of the 19 th century. This overview, furthermore, gives a perspective of society: The history of workers (male and female) seems to have come full circle - their struggle has to be re-launched all over again. In this historic context, the work of Egon Erwin Kisch, one of the prominent reporters from the 1910s to the 1940s, is analyzed. The affinity with some of Wallraff's 13 unerwunschten Reportagen is also shown.; The examination of Gunter Wallraff's Industriereportagen is important. Of great interest are Wallraff's methods in his early career: Was he just the onlooker, registering what he saw? Some evidence suggests that he drew more from theories of social science than has previously been known.; Wallraff's strategies include the use of irony and varying narrative points of view. Irony is an important topic in Chapter V - widely used in Ihr da oben---wir da unten, where it develops into Wallraff's type of Happening. In Chapter VI, Ganz unten, Wallraff's last book, is also compared with his stint at the tabloid BILD-Zeitung, which clarifies the author's further development. A linguistic comparison with Kromschroders Als ich ein Turke war deals with issues of reception.; Gunter Wallraff's affiliation with Sweden calls for a comparison with Goran Palm's Ett ar pa LM---one year with today's corporation Ericsson. Palm's two LM-books are analyzed in comparison with Wallraff's work So are the American examples, Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed and, briefly, J. H. Griffin's Black Like Me, linking them to today's problems and topics: racism and workplace issues. The Chapter IX discussions reconnect with initially stated problems presented in this genre. Chapter X, finally, evaluates the reporters from three countries: What (or who) is a Wallraffer? It also argues that methods and topics to do with Wallraffen are a literary genre of the present and the future.