The Murders are Amongst Us, The Effect of the Airwar on GermanyDie mörder sind unter uns
17
© University of Reading 2006 www.reading.ac. uk 24 May 2022 Die Mörder sind unter uns Icon:Trümmer Richard McKenzie
-
Upload
richard-mark -
Category
Education
-
view
94 -
download
2
description
A review of the RAF's and USAAF's air attacks on Germany as seen through German film
Transcript of The Murders are Amongst Us, The Effect of the Airwar on GermanyDie mörder sind unter uns
© University of Reading 2006 www.reading.ac.uk
13 April 2023
Die Mörder sind unter uns
Icon:Trümmer
Richard McKenzie
Background – The Airwar
• Examples of Airwar
• British Pathe– Cologne bombed– http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=12130– Berlin bombed– http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=49028– Americans bombing Berlin– http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=13184
2
Background – The Airwar• Area bombing – asymmetric warfare • Conducted by RAF and USAAF• 482,437 tonnes of bombs dropped on Germany by
RAF 1939-1945– Berlin 33% destroyed– Frankfurt a/m 52% destroyed– Dusseldorf 62% destroyed– Munich 42% destroyed
• 305,000 civilians killed• 780,000 civilians wounded• 7,500,000 civilians “dehoused”• Source British Bombing Survey unit• United States Strategic Bombing Survey
Summary Report (http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS/ETO-Summary.html#taotraw%22 accessed 14/2/20011)
3
Die Mörder sind unter uns
• 1st DEFA German film after 1945
• Director: Wolfgang Staudte (1906-1984)
• Trümmer– physical– emotional
• Justice
4
Trümmer
5
Trümmer
6
Trümmer
7
Trümmer
• What is your view as to the purpose of the rubble?
8
Trümmer and Protagonists
• Mertens– Flat wrecked and
without windows– Needs love of woman
to restore inner turmoil– Understands need to
remove inner Trümmer
9
Trümmer and Protagonists
• Wallner– Dressed in white– Tidies up flat– Through love
restores Mertens
10
Trümmer and Protagonists
• Brückner– Flat restored and
middle class– Has restored
family relations– Does not
understand need to remove inner Trümmer
11
Trümmer
• Reminder of results of past– Film shot thorough with death, graves at beginning
and end
• Press down and oppress characters
• Create an urban desert or characterless ocean of guilt through which characters must navigate
• Become an outward sign of characters’ inner destruction
12
Justice
• “Staudte’s film is caught in a larger social, psychological and symbolic process of numbing, stuck somewhere between recognition and articulation of historical losses brought about by Germany’s mass annihilation of the Jews”(Pinkert 2008)
13
Justice and Guilt
• Original title of film:
“Der Mann, den ich töten werde”
• Brückner– Commissioned war
crime– Forgets war– It is the same to him
whether he manufactures steel helmets or cooking pots 14
Justice
• Brückner– Guilty of war
crimes– Is not shot but
ends up behind bars
– Does not recognise crime
15
“Ich bin doch unschuldig”
Victims?
• Former soldiers
• Fathers
• Women
• Children
• Jews?
Does this fit with an anti-fascist narrative?
16
Die Mörder sind unter uns
• Uses Trümmer as a metaphor
• Shows some Germans as victims of war
• Provides remedy of seeing present through prism of past
• Trümmer needs to be removed
• Contributes to a discussion of guilt at a time when Germans saw themselves as victims not perpetrators
17
