«...und es mag am deutschen Wesen einmal noch die Welt genesen»: sulla rappresentazione della “germanicità” e del nazismo in Imperium (2012) di Christian Kracht

The representation of the ‘Germanness’, and later of Nazism, in the novel 'Imperium' by Christian Kracht is a parody of the pursuit by the wilhelminist propaganda of German identity and greatness at the end of the 19th century. Those years were rife with the quest for the socalled Platz an der Sonne, and then with the German ambition to a leading role in the world order as summarised by the last lines of the poem 'Deutschlands Beruf' (1861) by Emanuel Geibel, which give my contribution its title and which were a motto of the era.