The autobiographical impulse dominated German-language literature of the 1970's, finding its expression in autobiographies of crisis, women's coming-to-consciousness, and disrupted childhoods. This study examines the historical, sociological, political and literary-historical context for this phenomenon, and in so doing engages the critical international discussion of autobiography as a changing genre. Detailed analyses of works by Ingeborg Bachmann, Elisabeth Plessen, Christa Wolf and Peter Handke suggest new critical approaches to autobiographical form. The author provides an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources, as well as a chronological table of autobiographical works of the decade.