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Drawing on the Freudian concept of Nachträglichkeit in his theory of trauma formation, this article argues that Bachmann's turn away from the lyrical genre in the 1960s may be viewed as a belated response to Theodor Adorno's famous 1949 proclamation about the impossibility of writing poetry after Auschwitz. By analyzing three poems—Früher Mittag, Exil, and the posthumously published Nach vielen Jahren from Bachmann's early, middle, and late period respectively—the article traces the development of Holocaust imagery in her poetry in order to demonstrate how its increasing intensity gives voice to an increasingly traumatized identification with Holocaust victims. While her early poetry becomes symptomatic of repressed trauma and remains as such situated in what Lacan defines as the symbolic register, much of her late poetry—specifically Nach vielen Jahren—may be seen as exemplifying a traumatic encounter with the real. (ER)