the murders are amongst us, the effect of the airwar on germanydie mörder sind unter uns
DESCRIPTION
A review of the RAF's and USAAF's air attacks on Germany as seen through German filmTRANSCRIPT
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© University of Reading 2006 www.reading.ac.uk
13 April 2023
Die Mörder sind unter uns
Icon:Trümmer
Richard McKenzie
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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
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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)
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Die Mörder sind unter uns
• 1st DEFA German film after 1945
• Director: Wolfgang Staudte (1906-1984)
• Trümmer– physical– emotional
• Justice
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Trümmer
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Trümmer
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Trümmer
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Trümmer
• What is your view as to the purpose of the rubble?
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Trümmer and Protagonists
• Mertens– Flat wrecked and
without windows– Needs love of woman
to restore inner turmoil– Understands need to
remove inner Trümmer
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Trümmer and Protagonists
• Wallner– Dressed in white– Tidies up flat– Through love
restores Mertens
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Trümmer and Protagonists
• Brückner– Flat restored and
middle class– Has restored
family relations– Does not
understand need to remove inner Trümmer
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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
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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)
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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
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Justice
• Brückner– Guilty of war
crimes– Is not shot but
ends up behind bars
– Does not recognise crime
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“Ich bin doch unschuldig”
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Victims?
• Former soldiers
• Fathers
• Women
• Children
• Jews?
Does this fit with an anti-fascist narrative?
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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
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