Community of Faithful Dissidents. Representations of Anabaptism in Swiss Historical Fiction by Walter Laedrach and Katharina Zimmermann

Abstract

The twentieth-century Swiss local authors Walter Laedrach and Katharina Zimmermann rediscovered the dark chapter of Swiss history documenting the torture and execution of non-resistant and non-conformist Christians in the Bernese Oberland. The following anal­ysis of the literary representation of these pacifist Anabaptists will identify historiographical sources that served as inspiration to the authors and the contributions their historical no­vels make in Switzerland’s process of coming to terms with its tragic past.