The Fingerprints of Fascism: Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther Novels, Nazi Noir, and the Continuing Presence of the Past

This chapter argues that the Nazi legacy is a common denominator connecting disparate European experiences both in terms of the persistent trauma of atrocity, and as a ‘buried history’ that insistently reappears in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century European popular culture. In particular, the past-oriented genre of crime fiction offers a cultural mode for engagement with this history. Focusing on Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels, this chapter argues that ‘Nazi Noir’ challenges the crime genre’s typical insistence on the individual nature of crime, and that it sees fascism as a stain that spread across Europe and beyond in the World War II and post-war eras. Kerr’s exploration of this collective past is not an attempt to heal a historical wound, but an acknowledgment of its persistence. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.