Operation Valhalla collects eighteen texts by German media theorist Friedrich Kittler on the close connections between war and media technology. In these essays, public lectures, interviews, literary analyses, and autobiographical musings, Kittler outlines how war has been a central driver of media's evolution, from Prussia's wars against Napoleon to the so-called War on Terror. Covering an eclectic array of topics, he charts the intertwined military and theatrical histories of the searchlight and the stage lamp, traces the microprocessor's genealogy back to the tank, shows how rapid-fire guns brought about new standards for optics and acoustics, and reads Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow to upset established claims about the relationship between war, technology, and history in the twentieth century. Throughout, Operation Valhalla foregrounds the outsize role of war in media history as well as Kittler's importance as a daring and original thinker.

Editor's Preface / Ilinca Iurascu, Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, and Michael Wutz  vii
Introduction: The Wars of Friedrich Kittler / Geoffrey Winthrop-Young  1
Part I: Guns, Germans, and Steel: The Hardware(s) of War
1. Free Ways (Translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young)   53
2. A Short History of the Searchlight (Translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young)  62
3. Fragments of a History of Firearms (Translated by Michael Wutz)  69
4. Tanks (Translated by Michael Wutz)  73
Part II. Wires, Waves, and Wagner
5. Noises of War (Translated by Michael Wutz)  79
6. Playback: A World War History of Radio Drama (Translated by Michael Wutz)  91
7. Operation Valhalla (Translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young)  110
8. When the Blitzkrieg Raged (Translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young)  117
Part III. Vanishing Animals and Returning Nomads
9. Animals of War: A Historical Bestiary (Translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young)  123
10. On Modern Warfare: A Conversation with Alexander Kluge (Translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young)  127
11. Of States and Their Terrorists (Translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young)  136
Part IV. Love and War
12. Manners of Death in War (Translated by Michael Wutz)  151
13. Ottilie Hauptmann (Translated by Ilinca Iurascu)  166
Part V. Pynchon's War
14. On a Novel That Would Not Only Be Fiction . . . (Translated by Michael Wutz)  193
15. De Nostalgia (Translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young)  198
16. Media and Drugs in Pynchon's Second World War (Translated by Michael Wutz)  211
Part VI. Kittler on Kittler
17. Biogeography (Translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young)  227
18. Theology (Translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young)  233
Notes  235
Bibliography  273
Index  287
Credits  295
 

Friedrich Kittler. Edited and translated by Ilinca Iurascu, Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, and Michael Wutz