Reconstructing the Self and the City: Wolfgang Koeppen's Rubble Film Bei Betty (1946–1948)

This article discusses Wolfgang Koeppen's to date unpublished screenplay Bei Betty (ca. 1948) and makes a case for its importance both within Koeppen's oeuvre and as an artifact of postwar German culture that helps us understand the category of the Trümmerfilm as well as the complexity of the “zero hour.” In contrast to other rubble films, Bei Betty portrays postwar reconstruction (Wiederaufbau) as an ambivalent process, allowing some individuals to “remake” themselves while others remain damaged by the war. This visual narrative thus links physical reconstruction with acts of self‐refashioning in the aftermath of the war, highlighting the political and social stakes of performing a “new” self in response to the Allied occupation. In contrast to Koeppen's novels, full of interior monologue, the screenplay emphasizes the impenetrability of surfaces and performed social selves, the acts of concealment and masquerade that proliferated after the war's end.