Coping with a Family Nazi Legacy: Denial, Guilt, and the Banality of Evil

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Coping with a Family Nazi Legacy: Denial, Guilt, and the

Banality of Evil

Autobiographical documentary films on Nazi crimes within the filmmakers’ family past

Marleen Höster

University of Groningen Faculty of Arts

Master thesis, June 2019

Department of Arts, Culture and Media: Film Studies

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Coping with a Family Nazi Legacy: Denial, Guilt, and the

Banality of Evil

Autobiographical documentary films on Nazi crimes within the filmmakers’ family past

Marleen Höster S2743167

Thesis supervisors: Dr. Annelies van Noortwijk and Dr. Julian Hanich

Master Thesis in Arts, Culture and Media – Film and Contemporary Audiovisual Media

Faculty of Arts Master’s thesis Statement, University of Groningen

I hereby declare unequivocally that the thesis submitted by me is based on my own work and is the product of independent academic research. I declare that I have not used the ideas and formulations of others without stating their sources, that I have not used translations or paraphrases of texts written by others as part of my own argumentation, and that I have not submitted the text of this thesis or a similar text for assignments in other course units. Date: 17 June 2019

Place: Groningen Signature of student:

N.B. All violations of the above statement will be regarded as fraud within the meaning of Art. 3.9 of the Teaching and Examination Regulations.

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Ein Alptraum der kein Alptraum ist, sondern nur noch die Realität,

in der wir es nicht schaffen sie als Wirklichkeit zu empfinden.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor, dr. Annelies van Noortwijk, for supporting me

throughout this long, intensive writing process and for giving me valuable ideas and feedback during all the different stages of thewriting of this thesis. I would like to thank dr. Leo van Noppen for checking the English grammar in a large part of this thesis. Furthermore, I am very grateful to my parents for always supporting me and for helping me to realize my dreams. Since I was young, they have shown me the beauty of music, poetry, literature and film, which has led to my big love for arts. Finally, I would like to thank my boyfriend, Matthijs, for being very patient and supportive in all those months in which I immersed myself in the writing of this thesis.

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Abstract

After the Third Reich period, questions of responsibility and guilt with regard to ‘ordinary’ Germans participating in the Nazi regime have been repressed for decades. In the 1970s, the literary (fiction and non-fiction) autobiographical genre of Erinnerungsliteratur took some first steps in breaking with the taboo on the Nazi past of one’s family. In the beginning of the 21st century, a new autobiographical filmic wave arose of filmmakers exploring their family Nazi legacy that had been kept silent for years. The filmmakers go a step further then the authors of the preceding literary genre by actually engaging in discussion with their family members in front of the camera. Importantly, these films correspond to the wider discourse on the discrepancy between the public culture of commemoration and personal (private family) memories of the Nazi past. In the context of Erinnerungsliteratur, but also of Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963) and Claude

Lanzmann’s documentary film Shoah (1985) – two major contributions to providing a broader perspective on Holocaust crimes and its perpetrators – this thesis examines how the very recent wave of autobiographical documentary films provides a clear picture of the banality of evil and how it adds an additional layer to Germany’s Vergangenheitsbewältigung.

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Introduction

More than 70 years after the Second World War, the period of National Socialism in Germany and the terrible events of the Holocaust are still deeply ingrained in German society. Wounds have turned into scars and for most of the second and third generations questions of

responsibility and guilt regarding the Nazi period remain a difficult issue. In the last decades, Germans have increasingly examined the Third Reich and the war. Cohen-Pfister and

Wienröder-Skinner point out that “a flood of visual and literary documentation indicates a public need to acknowledge and publicize private memories of the war that have been both consciously suppressed and unconsciously repressed for decades.” (Cohen-Pfister and Wienröder-Skinner 3) In this thesis I will have a close look at autobiographical documentary films in which the filmmakers explore Nazi crimes within their family past. The need to uncover ones family past during the Third Reich period was already reflected in literary (fiction and non-fiction) autobiographical works from the 1970s onwards, in the so-called

Erinnerungsliteratur (literary memoirs). This was followed by a new autobiographical filmic

wave in in the beginning of the 21st century.In the case studies central to this thesis either the father or the grandfather of the filmmaker was involved with the atrocities of the Nazi regime. Through the medium of film, filmmakers of this kind of documentaries are breaking with the familial cover-ups that have lasted for so long. They try to get to grips with hidden events from the past by exploring historical documents and engaging in conversation with their (surviving) family members from different generations about their father’s or grandfather’s role during the Third Reich period. The conversations about this topic with their family

members show the deeply rooted feelings of denial, shame, guilt, as well as love.1 At the same time, these documentary films diminish the German cultural taboo – still very much alive today – on speaking about Nazi crimes within one’s family’s past.

Although research has been carried out on these autobiographical documentary films, not a single study is based on systematic research. In this thesis, I will rely on a large number of authors, including Kerstin Müller Dembling and Susanne Luhmann, who both have studied this autobiographical filmic trend from a film theoretical perspective. Even though they do

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For the course First Person Documentary and the Real I wrote a paper on the same topic, entitled “Unraveling the Dark Past: Reflection in Autobiographical Documentary Film on Holocaust Crimes by Second-or Third Generation Family Members of the Perpetrators.” (2017) In this first exploration of the topic I compared the interview- and cinematographic techniques used by the filmmakers in a sample of autobiographical

documentaries on the topic, as well as the positions the authors and their family members take with regard to the persons in question and the deeds they committed during the Nazi regime.

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address the psychic effects that these repressed histories of shame and guilt have on subsequent generations, their analyses do not take into account how the films relate to the ethical questions of responsibility and guilt, nor do they examine the broader filmic context in which these films are placed.

Vergangenheitsbewältigung

Germany has come a long way in its efforts to deal with its Nazi past. Over decades, various attempts in different fields have taken place in order to come to terms with the tragic events of the Holocaust. This process, commonly referred to as Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with, or mastering, the past), is characterized by a wide-spread culture of remembrance and commemoration. (König 385) Whereas the immediate post-war period was characterized by silencewhen issues of responsibility and guilt were broached, in the course of the 1960s this post-war silence was broken. Two important factors have contributed to this transition. Firstly, following on the well-known Nuremberg trial (Nürnberger Prozess) against 24 major war criminals between 1945 and 1946, a number of trials of Holocaust perpetrators led to a societal awareness of the past. (Fischer and Lorenz 134, 135) Secondly, as a reaction to these trials, the second generation (also known as the ‘generation of 1968’) ) confronted their elders with questions of guilt. (Bude 78) As pointed out by Aleida Assmann, the second generation not only brought about the collective critical discussion of German guilt, it also played a leading role in the erection of monuments, the founding of museums and the production of films and other forms of public memory culture regarding the war and the Holocaust. (A. Assmann, Der lange 27) In the decades that followed, several (highly emotional) public debates took place around the recurring question on how to deal with the Nazi past and the commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust. (König, Kohlstruck, Woll 11) For example, the Historikerstreit (1986-1988), the Goldhagen-Debate (1996), the debates on the

Wehrmachtsausstellung (between 1996 and 1999) and the debate on the construction of the

Holocaust Memorial in Berlin (2005). (Brockhaus 39) In addition, important literary and audiovisual works led to more transparency and reflection with regard to the Holocaust and its perpetrators. A well-known example of these works is the ZDF Holocaust television series by Guido Knopp, including Hitler’s Henchmen (Hitlers Helfer, 1996/1998) and Hitler’s

Warriors (Hitlers Krieger, 1998). These series, as pointed out by Wulf Kansteiner,

extensively examined the motives of the Nazi authority and acknowledged the fact that the German military was involved in the Nazi genocide and ethnic cleansing. (Kansteiner 124)

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However, it is important to note that, like many other productions, Knopp’s films, as

Kansteiner asserts, “(…) aestheticized Nazi power and focused again on the Nazi leadership while ignoring the “average” perpetrators of the genocide.” (Kansteiner 124) In other words, questions of responsibility and guilt with regard to ‘ordinary’ Germans remained undiscussed.

Important reflections on the Holocaust

In order to contextualize the very recent wave of autobiographical documentary films about families and their Nazi past, questions of evil regarding the Holocaust in Hannah Arendt’s study Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963) and the portrayal of multiple perspectives in Claude Lanzmann’s documentary film Shoah (1985) will be discussed. Both reflections have been crucial – both in their own unique way – to the portrayal of (individual) evil-doing within the Nazi regime. Arendt’s political-theoretical reflection on the notorious Eichmann trial has placed the Holocaust, its perpetrators and questions of responsibility and guilt in a broader perspective. In his cinematic reflection, Lanzmann has provided a comprehensive image of the Holocaust, bringing to light detailed information on the Final Solution from different perspectives and emphasizing individual responsibility. In this thesis I will base on Erin McGlothlin’s study Listening to the

Perpetrators in Claude Lanzmann's “Shoah” (2010) when examining the position of

perpetrators in Shoah.

In February 1963, Jewish political theorist Arendt (1906 – 1975)2 published the highly controversial study Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, in which she reports on the trial against Otto Adolf Eichmann (1906 – 1962), an SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) who was one of the main Nazi war criminals responsible for the mass murder of the Jews. To date, Arendt’s study is severely criticized, partly for portraying Eichmann as an ‘ordinary’, efficient bureaucrat, who thoughtlessly accomplished his deeds, rather than as a monstrous embodiment of evil. A view that, as described by Jennifer Geddes, “(…) trouble[s] our preconceptions about those who do evil and those who suffer evil.” (Geddes 104) More precisely, she explains that as a man with no motives, “the sort of person that Eichmann appeared to be did not square either with the deeds for which he was being tried or with the traditional preconceptions about the kind of person who does evil.” (Geddes

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Although Arendt is often also described as a philosopher, Arendt strongly rejected this notion. See Hannah Arendt, Zur Person: Hannah Arendt im Gespräch mit Günter Gaus (ZDF, 28 October 1964).

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108) In approaching Eichmann’s character in a nuanced manner, Arendt comes to the conclusion that there is no unequivocal answer to the question whether he had a truly evil personality. Her study led to new debates on questions of responsibility and guilt and has played an important role in Germany’s Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Importantly, Arendt’s thinking on the so-called “banality of evil” indirectly concerns many Germans, since many German families are dealing with family members who participated in the Schutzstaffel (SS).

The nine-hour documentary film Shoah by French filmmaker Lanzmann (1925 – 2018) has taken some important steps in providing a more versatile picture of the Holocaust and its perpetrators. It is highly acclaimed in cinematic circles for its intimate, comprehensive portrayal of the cruel circumstances and events around and within the extermination camps, provided by eye- and ear witnesses, but also by bystanders and perpetrators. Strikingly, Shoah only makes use of present-day footage of the camps and their environs. In doing so, it is the first film in the tradition of Holocaust documentaries without the inclusion of any archival footage. Nonetheless, Lanzmann has managed to provide a detailed, uncensored picture of the Holocaust. The film, as a personal homage to the many victims of the Final Solution, has been – and today still is – of great importance for the disclosure of the atrocities of the Shoah. Lanzmann’s portrayal of multiple perspectives, including that of individual perpetrators (which makes them appear like ‘ordinary’ people)is of great interest for Germany’s

Vergangenheitsbewältigung, since it provides a versatile image of the Holocaust. Also

remarkable is his steering role and clear presence on-screen as a filmmaker. It is important to note that Lanzmann takes a different stance with regard to this form of evil-doing than Arendt. Whereas Arendt takes a more nuanced view towards Nazi perpetrators, Lanzmann claims that the perpetrators certainly knew that their actions were evil, approaching them within his film in a subjective, non-observational way.

Family Nazi legacy

In his notable work Schuldig geboren: Kinder aus Nazifamilien (1987), Peter Sichrovsky writes:

The Third Reich did not only consist of a few major leaders, on the contrary. It was the hundreds of thousands of good and decent officials, policemen, officers, mayors, railway

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In this passage, Sichrovsky refers to two important issues: the involvement of the many (‘ordinary’) German people in the Nazi regime and the way in which their participation has marked their children (and grandchildren). As this thesis will show, the impact of Nazism within a family’s past on subsequent generations can be enormous. This is also emphasized by McGlothlin when describing the mark of children of German perpetrators as hereditary, as “an internal genetic flaw that is passed down from perpetrator parent to child, an identification that signifies how the child is bound to the parent’s criminal legacy.” (Prager, Nazi 218) Before the rise of autobiographical documentary films that deal with a family’s Nazi legacy, there was already an important trend of literary, largely autobiographical, texts about this subject matter, the so-called Erinnerungsliteratur. The central theme of this literature is the processing of the Nazi past and the complications between generations that are caused by this past. Erinnerungsliteratur consists of two subgenres: The so-called Väterliteratur (father literature) of the 1970s and 1980s and the Familienroman (family novel)4 from the 1990s and continuing into the 21st century. (A. Assmann, Limits 33) In both genres, as pointed out by Assmann, the focus is “(…) on a fictitious or autobiographical first person who asserts his or her identity relative to his/her own family and to German history.” (ibid.) In Väterliteratur, the second generation tries to explore and overcome their elders’ Nazi past by confronting them and rebelling against them. The Familienroman by contrast, is marked by the desire to understand and heal the family bond. Further, in this genre, as Assmann argues, “(…) the search for identity gains an historical depth and complexity, which is conspicuously absent in

Väterliteratur.” (A. Assmann, Limits 33, 34) Furthermore, the Familienroman is often based

on research, including family archive material and other documents. (A. Assmann, Limits 34) However, in the literary genre, a direct confrontation in the form of a dialogue with the authors’ family members remains absent. A possible explanation for the fact that earlier a filmic exploration and expression of a dark family past was felt to be indelicate and inconsiderate, may be that the impact of audiovisual material is so much harsher and more

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This is my translation of Sichrovsky’s following phrase: “Das Dritte Reich bestand nicht nur aus einigen großen Führern, im Gegenteil. Es waren die Hunderttausende braver und anständiger Beamte, Polizisten, Offiziere, Bürgermeister, Bahnangestellte, Lehrer usw., die diese Diktatur funktionieren ließen. Und die interessierten mich. Die Kinder von ihnen, wie sie aufwuchsen, was sie wussten, was sie fragten und wie sie mit dem, was sie wussten, lebten.” (Sichrovsky 15)

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direct than literature. As pointed out by Annelies van Noortwijk, the power of film can be ascribed to its emotional impact: “(…) moving image media relies first of all on images and sounds that exploit the innate perceptual capacities, although of course learned linguistic, visual and aural competences also play an important role.” (Van Noortwijk 4) Furthermore, as asserted by Roxana Waterson, it is the non-verbal communication within (memory

documentary) film that has the important ability to provide insights at an emotional level. There are certain elements of memory, like emotions, gestures and specific situations that are difficult to provoke with words. However, film is able to display such elements and

emphasizes its presence. (Waterson 65)

Emerging in the beginning of the 21st century, autobiographical documentary film is a fairly new form of reflecting on the topic of Holocaust perpetrators. Axel Bangert declares that “after the turn of the millennium, several productions set out to explore the lives and legacies of collaborators as well as perpetrators, bringing into sharper focus the relationship between shame and identity.” (Bangert 33) In line with this transition to a more personal approach of experiences of the Nazi period, there sprung up a trend among filmmakers of exploring their family’s past during the Third Reich from a first-person stance. (Bangert 29) In their

autobiographical documentary films, they break with the familial silences that have lasted for years by searching for archival material and interviewing their family members. In contrast to the aim of Väterliteratur to overcome the past, the emphasis in these films, as indicated by Luhmann, is placed on the unification and reconciliation with the previous generation. (Luhmann 117) So, by and large, these films are more in line with the Familienroman. Nevertheless, as this thesis will demonstrate, some films also show some similarities with the confrontational, critical stance of Väterliteratur.

Robin Curtis and Angelica Fenner also point to the value of these family films, stating that they not only “(…) bear archival value, but they also contribute to the reframing of national history from a localized, even subjective, point of view.” (Curtis and Fenner 8) As this thesis will show, these films portray multiple, often competing versions of historical events. This multifaceted representation of a family past shows that the portrayal involves a representation of different private memories, or as Alexandra Tacke describes: “a reflection on historical perception.” (Bangert 36) Furthermore, although primarily reflecting on the same topic, there is a variety in which the filmmakers of these documentaries represent their own family story. This development of filmmakers representing their family’s Nazi past from a personal

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perspective is of tremendous importance for Germany’s dealing with its Nazi past. It must be noted that the scope of films that belong to this trend is very brief.

Nazi legacy vs. collective and individual memory

Films that unravel the (traumatic) past are dealing with “the relation between the present and the past”, that is to say with memory. (Hirsch, Posttraumatic 16) Memory is an important concept with regard to autobiographical films that deal with a family’s Nazi legacy, since they show that familial memories can differ considerably from each other. In the groundbreaking sociological study Opa war kein Nazi (2003), Harald Welzer, Sabine Moller and Karoline Tschuggnall examine how the memory of the war and the Nazi crimes is transmitted within German families. They argue that the generation of grandchildren does not want to know anything about the Nazi past of their grandparents and tends to completely deny their involvement in the Nazi regime. Their study shows that there is a discrepancy between the public culture of commemoration (collective memory) and the way in which Germans

privately approach the Nazi past in the context of their family. In fact, as explained by Cohen-Pfister and Wienröder-Skinner, whereas collective memory focusses on the Holocaust and the crimes of National Socialism, “(…) the private remembering of families focuses on suffering of family members in the war. The individual picture of German history reflects the felt history and emotions expressed and passed on within families.” (Cohen-Pfister and

Wienröder-Skinner 19) Interestingly, another study by Welzer (2010) even shows that orally transmitted wartime memories that do not fit into an idealized image can become

(unconsciously) reshaped by subsequent generations. As a result, Welzer explains, “(…) stories can become so altered that in the end they have undergone a complete change of meaning.” (Welzer 7) The incompatibility between historical facts (collective memory) and individual memory is clearly visible in the autobiographical documentary films regarding this topic. It is interesting to explore how these films function with regard to Germany’s

Vergangenheitsbewältigung in the context of other audiovisual and literary reflections on the

subject-matter of Nazi crimes.

In her article Opa Was a Nazi: Family, Memory, and Generational Difference in 2005 Films

by Malte Ludin and Jens Schanze (2011), Müller Dembling provides a comparative film

analysis, referring to the generational difference regarding this Nazi legacy. In her article

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Luhmann compares three documentary films of this autobiographical trend5, discussing the effect of the families’ Nazi past on subsequent generations. Both Müller Dembling and Luhmann have noticed similarities between the abovementioned Erinnerungsliteratur and the subsequent autobiographical filmic trend. Furthermore, they have pointed to the contribution of these films in showing the discrepancy between collective German memory and the way in which individual Germans approach the Nazi past in the realm of their families’ Nazi past. In this thesis I will use these two texts when referring a) to the similarities between the

autobiographical filmic trend and Erinnerungsliteratur, and b) to the incompatibility between collective and private family memory with regard to the Nazi past. Furthermore, I will base on Müller Dembling’s study when discussing the filmic trend in connection to the

aforementioned research Opa war kein Nazi (2003) by Welzer, Moller and Tschuggnall. To address the way in which broader questions of responsibility, guilt and evil and the feelings of denial become evident in these films, Arendt’s thinking on the banality of evil will be central.

Aims and methods

As outlined above, in this thesis I aim to examine how autobiographical documentary filmsin which filmmakers explore Nazi crimes within their family past relate to the trend of

Erinnerungsliteratur and add an additional layer to Germany’s Vergangenheitsbewältigung. I

will do so by analyzing these films in the context of Erinnerungsliteratur and the

aforementioned studies by Arendt and Lanzmann. By examining how this literary trend and these studies portray perpetrators and evil-doing within the Nazi regime, I attempt to provide a varied overview of reflections on the subject-matter of Nazi crimes, prior to the very recent wave of autobiographical documentary films. Furthermore, this analysis provides a context for determining how these films give a clear picture of the banality of evil. Within the theoretical framework as explained in Chapters 1 and 2, I will then do a close analysisof the three following films: Malte Ludin’s 2 or 3 Things I Know About Him (2 oder 3 Dinge, die

ich von ihm weiß, 2005); Jens Schanze’s Winter’s Children – The Silent Generation

(Winterkinder - Die schweigende Generation, 2005); and Janina Pigaht’s The Diaries of an

Elephant (Dagboeken van een olifant, 2012). I will analyze various cinematic aspects,

including the interview techniques and editing techniques used by the different filmmakers and the cinematography of the film, in order to examine the following elements: the

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The films Luhmann examines are: Malte Ludin's 2 or 3 Things I Know About Him (2005), Jens Schanze's Winter Children: The Silent Generation (2005) and Michael Gaumnitz's Exile in Sedan (Exil in Sedan, 2002)

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portrayal of multiple perspectives (by which I will refer to both the multiple perspectives of the filmmaker him or herself [like the perspective of narrator, camera person and

subject/protagonist] as well as the multiple perspectives of the different characters in the film narrative), the positions of the second/third generation and the difference between individual and collective memory. Furthermore, I will examine how the banality of evil becomes evident in these films. On the basis of the outcomes of the case studies, I will conclude with

attempting to define the way in which these films add an additional layer to Germany’s

Vergangenheitsbewältigung, in comparison to the studies and literary autobiographical trend

discussed earlier.

The research question of my thesis is as follows:

How do autobiographical documentary films in which filmmakers explore Nazi crimes within their family past add an additional layer to Germany’s ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’?

The first chapter forms the theoretical and contextual framework. First of all, I will provide a definition of autobiographical documentary filmin the context of the autobiographical literary genre.Furthermore, I will examine the different practices and meanings of the inclusion of home movie material in contemporary autobiographical documentary film. Then I will discuss the process of Germany’s Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which is an important foundation for the topic of this research. The origin and definition of the term will be examined, followed by a brief overview of the political and social developments in Germany from the immediate post-war period until today. In the last section of this chapter, I will go into the notion of memory, exploring the discrepancy between individual and collective memory with regard to the Nazi past. In order to accordingly explain the concepts of individual and collective

memory, I will explore a more narrow distinction of ‘communicative’ and ‘cultural’ memory, followed by an examination of transgenerational memory. In addition, I will briefly discuss the impact of the medium of film on collective (cultural) memory with regard to the Third Reich period. By doing so, I will attempt to demonstrate the value of (documentary) film for historiography and Germany’s Vergangenheitsbewältigung. In order to put the very recent wave of autobiographical documentary films in its proper context, the second chapter analyses the three following different reflections on the Holocaust: Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A

Report on the Banality of Evil (1963) and Lanzmann’s Shoah (1985) and the trend of Erinnerungsliteratur. In the last chapter, I will do a case study on the three abovementioned

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films. Each case study will start off with a synopsis of the film. Thereafter, I will examine the multiple perspectives of the filmmakers and the multiple perspectives of the characters in the film narrative. Next, the positions of the second/third generation will be analysed.

Subsequently, I will explore how the difference between individual and collective memory is apparent in these films. Lastly, I will examine the way in which the banality of evil becomes evident in these films. In conclusion, I will do a comparative analysis of the case studies with regard to Germany’s Vergangenheitsbewältigung. In order to do so, I will connect the gained insights of the case studies in Chapter 3 with the film’s functioning on Germany’s

Vergangenheitsbewältigung. I will reflect on the manner in which the discussed

autobiographical documentary films relate to Erinnerungsliteratur and how they add an additional layer to Germany’s Vergangenheitsbewältigung.

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Chapter 1: Theoretical and contextual framework

In order to come to a proper understanding of the autobiographical documentary films on a family’s Nazi past as analysed in Chapter 3, this chapter will first provide a definition of autobiographical documentary film in the context of the autobiographical literary genre. Furthermore, this first section will examine the different practices and meanings of the inclusion of home movie material in contemporary autobiographical documentary film, since this is an important feature within the recent trend of documentaries on a family’s Nazi past. Subsequently, the process of Germany’s Vergangenheitsbewältigung will be discussed by examining the origin and definition of the term, followed by a brief overview of the political and social developments in Germany from the immediate post-war period until today. It should be mentioned here that in discussing Germany in the period before the reunification in 1990, specifically the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) is meant. A discussion of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), where the political system was vastly different from West Germany, falls outside the scope of this thesis. The last section of this chapter will examine the major discrepancy between the collective culture of commemoration and the way in which individual Germans approach the Nazi past. In order to accordingly explain the concepts of individual and collective memory, a more narrow distinction of ‘communicative’ and ‘cultural’ memory is explored. After that, this section analyses the

transgenerational transmission of memory. We will clearly see how relevant this process is for the constitution of memory in Chapter 3. Additionally, this section will examine the formation of cultural memory in relation to the medium of film.

1.1 Defining autobiographical documentary film

Giving a clear definition of “autobiography” has turned out to be difficult. This applies to the scholarly field of film, as well as to the literary field where autobiographical characteristics of a text have been extensively studied. When discussing autobiography, literary and film

scholars often refer to the French theorist Philippe Lejeune, who is known for his classical concept of the “autobiographical pact” from the 1970s. Lejeune’s theory, as described by Helga Schwalm, examines autobiography as “an institutionalized communicative act where author and reader enter into a particular ‘contract’ – the “autobiographical pact” – sealed by the triple reference of the same proper name.” (Schwalm) This means that autobiography

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presumes that the author’s proper name concerns a “singular autobiographical identity”, recognizing the author, the narrator of the story and the protagonist as one identity. (ibid.) Crucial to Lejeune’s work, asCurtis and Fenner indicate, is the conception that “there are no characteristics that ontologically define a text as autobiographical.” (Curtis and Fenner 11) Instead, Lejeune considers autobiography as “a mode of reception” through which the reader engages with the text, and “(…) that is encouraged by specific characteristics that a given text may exhibit.” (ibid.) It is important to note that Lejeune considers autobiography as a

“historically mutable form” that may transform over time. Curtis and Fenner point to his observations on a reader’s reception of a text as autobiography when generally signaling the following characteristics: “a retrospective prose narrative of an actual person, about the individual’s own existence, qualified as putting emphasis on the individual’s personal life and in particular on the development of the personality.” (ibid.) So, this definition, as Curtis and Fenner point out, indicates that the reception of a text as autobiography may depend on a variety of factors concerning an individual person. Furthermore, the text may highlight a particular moment in an individual’s life, or a series of moments which are significant to the individual and at the same time touch on broader social trends. Although Lejeune’s definition of autobiography provides a starting point for defining filmic autobiography, Curtis and Fenner argue that literary discussions cannot be simply transferred onto the film field. (ibid.) In the influential essay Eye for I: Making and Unmaking the Autobiography in Film, Elizabeth Bruss states that the (classical) concept of autobiography is not compatible with film. As she argues, film-making includes different roles and diverse stages of production, so that there is no “unquestionable integrity of the speaking subject” that she considers to be necessary for autobiographical authorship. (Dowmunt 264) In other words, because of the diverse roles of the filmmaker – including that of the (overall) narrator, cameraperson and protagonist – the speaking subject is divided. Bruss explains this as follows:

The unity of subjectivity and subject matter – the implied identity of author, narrator, and protagonist on which classical autobiography depends – seems to be shattered by film; the autobiographical self decomposes, schisms, into almost mutually exclusive elements of the person filmed (entirely visible; recorded and projected) and the person filming (entirely hidden; behind the camera eye). (Bruss 297)

As Bruss points out here, in (written) autobiography the logically different functions of author, narrator and protagonist are conjoined. This means that a single person occupies “(…)

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a position both in the context, the associated ‘scene of writing’, and within the text itself.” (Bruss 300) Film-making however seems to be a disunited practice. This is most evident, as Tony Dowmunt clarifies, in documentaries in which the autobiographical filmmaker shows up in front of the camera, for example partly taking the role of the cameraperson. (Dowmunt 264) The separation of different roles within film-making is, of course, in contrast to the traditional conception of autobiography. However, it must be noted that Bruss’ theory is dating back to 1980. It is of crucial importance to take into account the later emergence of digital video cameras in the 1990s, which has simplified the practice of autobiographical film-making. The development of this modest and highly portable equipment, as pointed out by Fenner and Curtis, has ensured that filming can be more spontaneous, which “(…) enhances trust and intimacy in spaces and situations where a camera might previously have inhibited social actors or elicited the reproach of violating protocols of privacy.” (Fenner and Curtis 16) Furthermore, the fact that the filmmaker can aim the camera at arm’s length as easily at him- or herself as at others – without the need for an extended technical crew – has certainly made it easier to record life from a first-person view. These technical developments have been crucial to what Fenner and Curtis define as the “autobiographical turn” in documentary film. (ibid.) This is endorsed by Dowmunt, who argues that by recent available technologies, Bruss’ exclusive categories of “person filmed” and “person filming” have been (potentially) brought together (in the case of video diary forms they actually merge). (Dowmunt 265) Nevertheless, it should be noted that the ambiguity Bruss points to can still be apparent in contemporary autobiographical documentary film. Despite the possibilities to film from a first-person view, the divergence of roles within the film-making process (for example protagonist and cameraperson) can nonetheless be continued. In line with the technological developments outlined above, it may be said that Lejeune’s theory can be used for defining contemporary autobiographical documentary film, but with the proviso that the ambiguity of film-making may well continue to play a role.

Multiple perspectives

Let us take a closer look at the multiple perspectives that are apparent in autobiographical documentary film. Several authors have emphasized the usefulness, richness and diversity of the medium of film for contemporary forms of autobiography. In the article Autobiographical

documentary – the ‘seer and the seen’ (2013), Dowmunt explores the relationship between

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him- or herself. He asserts that “film may enable autobiographers to represent subjectivity not as singular and solipsistic but as multiple and as revealed in relationship.”6 (Dowmunt 264) The autobiographical filmmaker takes multiple perspectives, for example the perspective of overall narrator, cameraperson, and subject/protagonist. Taking (a part of) these perspectives may lead to what Dowmunt describes as “the representation of contemporary non-unified selves.” (Dowmunt 264) As discussed elsewhere, these multiple perspectives are interesting to explore, because conjointly they represent the filmmaker’s personal standpoint on different levels. (Höster 3) The filmmaker’s presence as a subject in the film provides a view on the way in which his identity is revealed, and used, especially in relation to the other – non-authorial – subjects in the film. (Dowmunt 269) Dowmunt indicates that in contrast to written autobiography, “(…) autobiographical film-making necessarily confronts the author/narrator, both with him/herself and with her/his ‘others’ (friends, family and any other characters in the films).” (ibid.) As discussed elsewhere, Dowmunt points here to the fact that during the filmmaking process, the filmmaker is always “visible” in relationship to the filmed subjects. This may be in an actual way, which is, when the filmmaker appears together with the subjects on-screen, or in an indirect way, namely when the filmmaker’s presence is noticed off-screen. (Höster 3) In addition, he argues that “these confrontations invariably lead to a reflexive quality manifested in the films.” (Dowmunt 269) It is of importance to bear in mind that these reflexive strategies go completely against the observational documentary practices of Direct Cinema of the 1960s, in which was aimed to not make use of any form of interaction between the filmmaker and the subjects in the film, let alone any (voice-over) comments of the filmmaker. This pursuit of representing ‘reality’ as objectively as possible became the norm for documentary film at least until the 1980s. (Winston 5) Apart from the inevitable choices involved in editing, the filmmaker’s personal stance was absent from documentary film, which generally, at that time, was considered to be purely journalistic.

Given the fact that there are multiple subjectivities within autobiographical film, one could argue that, as Susanna Egan has affirmed in her study (1994), there is no question of a “privileged autobiographical author”. (Lane 31) However, there is a difference between the positions of the diverse subjects within the film, which Jim Lane in his study (2002) points to with his concept of “hierarchy of voices”. According to Lane, the multiple perspectives of the film – including shooting, editing, as well as the presence of different subjects in the film –

6

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“(…) construct hierarchies that appear as the various events of a retroactive narration of the text.” (Lane 32) He points here to the various levels of voices that appear in the film. Importantly, the concept of “voice” does not essentially indicate the sound or voice-over of the documentary film, but the manner in which a film rhetorically aims at the viewer. (Lane 24) In other words, by “voice” is meant the manner in which the film’s “social point of view” is conveyed. (ibid.) It is therefore not surprising that the filmmaker has the “primary voice” in the film, organizing the other subjectivities that appear in the film in a particular manner. (Lane 32) Lane explains this as follows:

The tensions that emerge between these voices are framed by an analytical or expressive voice – call it the voice of the narrator – that organizes the overall autobiographical representation. The narrative voice controls the various manipulations of sounds and images most obviously in voice-over narration but also in the various editorial decisions that determine the ﬂow of image and sound. (ibid.)

This shows that by using various filmic decisions, the filmmaker serves as the primary voice of the film. The filmmaker creates what Lane calls “a subjective interplay of primary and secondary voices”, which determines the hierarchy of voices in the film. (ibid.) This hierarchy, however, does not exclude the fact that interaction is a fundamental part of autobiographical documentary, it indicates the filmmaker’s personal intentions and point of view. (Lane 31) So, considering the concept of the filmmaker’s “primary voice” as explained by Lane, it can be confirmed that there is a “privileged autobiographical author”. This

understanding of the filmmaker’s position is of crucial importance for the subsequent analysis of these types of film, since it emphasizes that the manner in which other perspectives are displayed is exclusively determined by the filmmaker.

Home movie material

An important technique used in the autobiographical documentary films discussed in Chapter 3 is the incorporation of home movie material, audio material and/or family photographs. The inclusion of private material of the filmmakers and/or their family members can have different practices and intentions. Above all, it gives extra depth to their identity and historical and social background, which is actually crucial for almost all autobiographical efforts. In a recent article (2013), Efrén Cuevas explores the different uses and meanings of home movies as

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personal archives in autobiographical documentaries. He points to the significance of the incorporation of home movie material by contemporary documentary filmmakers as follows:

The work of these film-makers shows how home movies, placed within autobiographical settings, offer first of all valuable traces for the identity search of the filmmakers, who return to their origins as a necessary framework for understanding themselves, especially when those roots arise from the crossing of diverse ethnic, religious or national identities. (Cuevas 18)

As Cuevas outlines here, the use of home movies thus fulfills an important function for the filmmakers themselves: it provides a basis for self-exploration. Furthermore, in this new public setting, the home movie material offers new perspectives and provides unconventional, complementary insides to historical narratives, or to the prevailing social frames that are presented by the media. (ibid.) Interestingly, taking Lejeune’s concept of the autobiographical pact as a guiding framework, in home movie footage of family members, autobiography is not characterized by a singular identity of the filmmaker (author), but by the identity of the

filmmaker and his or her family as a whole. Cuevas has described this as follows: (…) Home moviemaking shows identification between the author and the subject, not in an individual sense, but taking the family as the identity unit.” (Cuevas 18, 19) The incorporation of photographs and home movies from the autobiographical filmmakers’ own family brings about different dynamics. Because the filmmakers (usually through voice-over) emphasize their personal connection with the images, family members are materially displayed in a specific period and setting. (Cuevas 19) The visual and/or audible representation of the filmmakers’ family members (and possibly of themselves) and the historical dimension they add to it, is of great value for the viewer. Because the characters are materially displayed, the viewer does not have to create the complete image of the narrative subject him- or herself (i.e. by the use of imagination). Instead, the footage portrays the subjects in their material form, so that there is a direct experience of such elements as physical appearance, body language or voice, which can otherwise only be portrayed in an indirect manner. This already leads to the viewer empathizing or de-empathizing with the subjects seen in the film. Nevertheless, the viewer’s attitude towards the subjects mainly depends on the manner in which they are framed by the filmmaker. This brings us to the various practices of including home movie material. Cuevas analyses the different meanings of the inclusion of home movies into autobiographical documentaries on the basis of three basic strategies: naturalization,

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(naturalization) is the recycling of home movies in the most standard way, preserving the original set of values of the footage. Many autobiographical documentary filmmakers make use of this strategy, in order to set up or strengthen the narrative. (Cuevas 20) It is important to note that the filmmaker, as a “primary voice”, is nonetheless providing a certain point of view to the footage. The second type of recycling home movies (contradiction) is

characterized by a contestation and contradiction of their standard meanings, which occurs when the film changes the context of the original footage that is included. In this case, the presumed truth claim is brought to light or there is added a new context with additional understandings to it. This strategy is often used by autobiographical filmmakers who portray traumatic events within their family past. They contrast seemingly happy family archival footage with painful stories, usually told by the filmmaker in voice-over texts or by family members during interviews. (Cuevas 23) This style of combining original archival footage with a contrasting (traumatic) narrative clearly illustrates the destabilization of the original meaning of the archival material and strengthens the significance of the filmmakers’ position. Since this strategy is a suitable way of representing (the effect of) one’s traumatic family past, it is not surprising that, as will be specified in Chapter 3, all autobiographical documentary films discussed in this thesis make use of family archival material, including home video material and/or photographs. In the third strategy (historicization), home movies recycled in autobiographical films function as the exploration of history. That is to say, with the ability to function as witnesses of historical events and periods (including ordinary life), the familial archive can provide an useful and unique source of historical documentation. (Cuevas 25) In comparison with the previously mentioned strategies, it can be supposed that this strategy is of even greater importance for communal value, since it can contribute to a better (collective) understanding of values and social structures from the past, which may also be of importance for dealing with (similar) social issues in current society. These three basic strategies are helpful in analysing the meanings and practices of home movie material that is incorporated in autobiographical documentary films. This in turn can help us to get a better grip on the complete message and aims of these documentaries.

1.2 Vergangenheitsbewältigung

After the fall of Hitler’s Third Reich on 8 May 1945, twelve years of Nazi rule and its horrible criminal actions were not just over. Germany lay, literally and figuratively, in ruins. In the years that followed, during the period of reconstruction, Germany had to find a way of dealing

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with its dark past. The notion of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with, or mastering, the past) refers to this enormous task. This notion is of major importance for understanding the underlying structures of the content of the autobiographical documentary films as discussed in this thesis. It shows the difficulties of Germans coping with the Nazi past and the major impact this has had on the second and third generation. Germany’s

confrontation with the past was, and still is, a long-term process, which Peter Reichel labels “the second history of National Socialism.” He describes it as follows: “It is the ongoing, conflict-ridden process of coming to terms with guilt and repression of guilt, of political change, of commemoration [des trauernden Gedenkens], of public remembering and forgetting, of historiographical interpretation and reinterpretation, of invention and narration.”7 (Reichel 9)

1.2.1 Definition

Let us look at how the process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung can be understood. The term

Vergangenheitsbewältigung finds its origin in 1955, when Erich Müller-Gangloff, founder

and director of the Evangelische Akademie Berlin, organized the conference Verbindlichkeit

und Problematik unserer Geschichte. He criticized Germany’s post-war silence on the Nazi

past and spoke of an “unmastered past” [unbewältigte Vergangenheit]. He emphasized the task of dealing with the shadows of an unresolved past. Somewhere in the 1980s, this remark was changed into the term Vergangenheitsbewältigung. (König, Kohlstruck, Woll 8; Carrither 50) Whereas the notion was originally initiated for referring to theethical-moral treatment of the Nazi past in Germany, today, Vergangenheitsbewältigung has become a generic term in political and social scientific analyses for the replacement of dictatorships by democracies. (König, Kohlstruck, Woll 7) Throughout this thesis, the term Vergangenheitsbewältigung will refer to the original definition that indicates Germany’s Nazi past.

The goal of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, as understood by Helmut König, is making a

repetition of the past impossible and bringing about a new beginning of political thinking. The implication is that one must have a clear idea of the causes and modes of operation of the past, whose enduring power is to be ended. (König 378) However, a mere rational change

7

This is my translation of Reichel’s following phrase: “Es ist der bis heute andauernde, konfliktreiche Prozess der Schuldbewältigung und Schuldverdrängung, des politischen Wandels, des trauernden Gedenkens, des öffentlichen Erinnerns und Vergessens, der historiographischen Deutung und Umdeutung, des Erfindens und Erzählens.” (Reichel 9)

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regarding the past is not enough: in this process, the emotional processing of the past should be taken into account as well. Therefore, it is very important that individuals are encouraged to attempt to deal with their inner feelings regarding the past. The process of

Vergangenheitsbewältigung can be expressed ina wide-spread culture of remembrance and commemoration, which consists of memorials, memorial days, museums and exhibitions. However, as König points out, remembrance and commemoration cannot be enforced directly, or controlled by law. This applies generally to processes of political enlightenment and self-reflection, as well as to the change of political consciousness, since these processes cannot be decreed or imposed. Still, König asserts, it is possible to create political and administrative conditions that are indirectly conducive to dealing with the past. (König 385) Germany’s attempts to come to terms with the Nazi past is associated with recurring questions on the concepts of memory, remembrance, and commemoration. This applies to two issues. Firstly, it applies to the transmission of mental stress, on the part of the victims and on the part of the perpetrators. Secondly,it addresses the importance of generational affiliation [Generationszugehörigkeit] that is activated in the various areas of coming to terms with the past, that is to say, multiple generations are concerned with the Nazi past. Further, the recurring questions on how to deal with the Nazi past are also noticeable in the various debates about the construction of memorials and monuments for the victims of National Socialism. (König, Kohlstruck, Woll 11) Examples are the debates on the

Wehrmachtsausstellung (a series of two exhibitions of the Hamburg Institute for Social

Research on the crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941 to 1944, from 1995 to 1999 and from 2001 to 2004) and the debate on the construction of the centrally positioned Holocaust Memorial (2005) in Berlin. Highly emotional debates like these have always revolved around the question of guilt and responsibility for the Nazi crimes. (Brockhaus 39)

The term Vergangenheitsbewältigung has been repeatedly criticized. König, Kohlstruck and Woll point out that some theorists state that Vergangenheitsbewältigung may be possible in the general sense, but that National Socialism with its singular crimes must be exempted. Other authors assume that coping with the past is also conceivable and possible for National Socialism, but point to the difficulty of the terminology. (König, Kohlstruck, Woll 8) In the literal sense, the wort Bewältigung (“coping with”) implies the assumption that the

confrontation with history could be completed, that is to say, that it comes to a finalization. But according to König, Kohlstruck and Woll, this assumption is deceptive, since the most important thing in dealing with the Nazi past lies in the realization that it is impossible to

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come to terms with it, or cope with it. (König, Kohlstruck, Woll 9) With regard to this difficulty, Carrithers refers to the German author Bernhard Schlink, who in his text Die

Bewältigung der Vergangenheit durch Recht (1998) also criticizes – and even rejects – the

term Vergangenheitsbewältigung:

What is past cannot be overcome. It can be remembered, forgotten, or repressed. It can be revenged, punished, expiated, and regretted. It can happen again, consciously or

unconsciously. It can be affected in its consequences, so that it does not act – or does not act in a certain way, or acts precisely in a certain way – upon the present or future. But what has happened has happened. What is past is unreachable and unchangeable. (Carrithers 50)

“Overcoming the past” in the literal sense seems to be a difficult, unfitting term, because “overcoming” seems to indicate that the past itself can be affected. Moreover, it undermines the heinousness of the war and the Holocaust and the large scale impact it has had. Therefore, many authors use instead the term Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit (“processing the past”), which was introduced by Theodor Adorno during a discussion in 1959. (König, Kohlstruck, Woll 9)This latter notion does not prejudice the events from the past. However, the fact that the war and the Holocaust have not only deeply affected its Zeitzeugen8 (‘time-witnesses’) but subsequent generations too, already shows that major events like these carry on through time and therefore cannot be literally overcome. Acknowledging this restriction, I will continue to use the term Vergangenheitsbewältigung in this thesis.

1.2.2 Immediate post-war period

The immediate post-war period was characterized by silence in terms of questions of responsibility and guilt. In 1946, psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers wrote in his famous essay The Question of German Guilt (Die Schuldfrage): “Practically the whole world denounces Germany and the Germans. Our guilt is discussed with indignation, with horror, with hatred, with contempt.”9(Brockhaus 42) This observation about Germany’s

8

The notion Zeitzeugen is generally understood to designate “(…) people who have witnessed a time period or an event of historical importance.” (De Jong 32). It is a commonly used word in German language, until today there has been not defined an English equivalent. For a more detailed description of the concept of Zeitzeugen see Steffi de Jong’s study The Witness as Object: Video Testimony in Memorial Museums, chapter 1: “The Witness of History: Conceptual Clarifications”.

9

This is my translation of Jaspers’ following phrase: “Fast die gesamte Welt erhebt Anklage gegen Deutschland und gegen die Deutschen. Unsere Schuld wird erörtert mit Empörung, mit Grauen, mit Haß, mit Verachtung.“ (Brockhaus 42)

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confrontation with hatred and contempt on a global scale illustrates what Gudrun Brockhaus calls the “primal scene” [Urszene], which deeply influenced the German way of dealing with the history of guilt: the main concern was the rejection of allegations of guilt. (ibid.) This led to a situation in which the vast majority of Germans remained silent about their dark past. However, this so-called “amnesia” did not apply to the war-experiences of the Germans themselves. Searching for a way to deal with the sufferings caused by Nazi Germany – a search that came under worldwide scrutiny – Germans, as Ruth Wittlinger explains, “(…) rejected notions of guilt by focusing on their own victimhood.” (Witllinger 203) Gilad Margalit explains this interesting “strategy” in a similar way: “The obsession with collective suffering reflected an attempt to shake free of the psychological pressure caused by the information that the Germans had committed crimes unprecedented in human history.” (Margalit 54) During this time, the issue of individual Germans having difficulties in coping with strong feelings of guilt was discussed by several scholars. Most remarkable is Adorno’s text Was bedeutet: Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit (originating from his lecture before the coordinating council of associations for Christian-Jewish cooperation in 1959), in which he demonstrates, as outlined by Christian Schneider, the inadequacy of the “coping discourse” [“Bewältigungs-Diskurs”] in that period, establishing an alternative program to the education about the Nazi period. (Schneider 161)

At the level of politics in that period, measures have been taken to convict leading Nazi figures and to “de-Nazify Germany on a large scale.” (Wittlinger 202) Of considerable

importance for this procedure was the Nuremberg trial (Nürnberger Prozess), an International Military Tribunal against 24 major war criminals and six National Socialist organizations accused of criminal activities. Lasting from20 November 1945 to 1 October 1946, the trial was meant to reveal to the entire world, but most of all to the German population, the criminal dimensions of the Nazi dictatorship. Torben Fischer and Matthias Lorenz call attention to the selection of the accused parties in the trial: not only the Nazi leadership, but also the military, the Reich Security Main Office, the Ministry of Propaganda and the war economy should be tried. Fischer and Lorenz argue that this shows that the Nuremberg trial also functioned as an important element of democratic reorientation of the German cultural and educational system (they refer to this with the term “reeducation”). Above all, the trial can be considered as the most visible sign of the intended denazification. (Fischer and Lorenz 19, 21)

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1.2.3 Breaking with the post-war silence

In the course of the 1960s, the post-war silence regarding questions of guilt and responsibility for the Nazi period was broken. More trials of Holocaust perpetrators took place, among which the well-known trial of Adolf Eichmann, who organized the deportations of over three million Jews and other victim groups to the concentration and extermination camps. (Fischer and Lorenz 134) The Eichmann-trial, which was extensively broadcast on television, had an enormous effect on the German public and exerted strong pressure on politics and the judiciary, which recognized the urgency of prosecuting Nazi perpetrators. The trial not only expanded knowledge about the extent of the genocide, it also significantly led to awareness of the past within politics and society. (Fischer and Lorenz 135) As Wittlinger explains,

Germany’s Nazi past and its crimes “started to gain considerable visibility,” with the result that “questions of guilt started to be addressed in debates about Vergangenheitsbewältigung.” (Wittlinger 203) But perhaps even more important for breaking with the post-war silence was the reaction of the second generation, also known as “the 1968 generation.” It confronted its elders with questions of guilt, which led to “a turn from a shame- to blame-culture.” (Bude 78) The issues of the second generation with their parents’ hidden past, is what Heinz Bude describes with the term “origin complex,” [Herkunftskomplex] with which he refers to the intertwining of the two generations. The second generation is expected to do what their parents can neither reject nor accept in feelings of shame, despair and guilt. Their parents’ history seems to be so much interwoven with their own identity that a “feeling of being born guilty” [“Gefühl des Schuldiggeborenseins”] is deeply rooted in them. (Bude 83) However, it is important to note that despite the second generation’s confrontational attitude towards their parents, open and honest conversations were never held. As explained by Margit Sinka, “(…) its accusatory assaults had not been conducive to breaking the thick crusts of icy silence encasing the past or to eliciting anything other than defensive reactions from the generation of perpetrators and their millions of bystanders.” (Sinka 202) In the 1970s and 1980s, the second generation tried to overcome their elders’ Nazi past in the so-called Väterliteratur (father literature), which is discussed in Chapter 2. It is important to note, as Assmann points out, that the second generation not only initiated the critical discussion about German guilt (especially on a collective level), but also played a leading role in the establishment of monuments, the founding of museums and the production of films and other forms of public memory culture. (A. Assmann, Der lange 27)

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After the initiatives on the level of public remembrance culture in the 1970s and 1980s, the late 1980s are characterized by the well-known Historikerstreit, a fierce debate among German intellectuals. As pointed out by Karl Wilds, the debate focused on two essential questions. Firstly, how to position National Socialism within German history. Secondly, how to deal with German history on the contemporary level of politics.10 (Wilds 84) The debate shows that the Nazi past remained a difficult and sensitive issue within German society. As indicated by Cohen-Pfister and Wienröder-Skinner, in the period after the reunification between East- and West Germany in 1990, Germany’s “leading role as a free and democratic nation in the new European order” was accompanied by a process of “normalization”, in which Germany attempted to somewhat free itself from the ballast of its past. (Cohen-Pfister and Wienröder-Skinner 8) At the time, the third post-war generation, the so-called

Enkelgeneration (generation of grandchildren), became strongly interested in the historical

experiences of their grandparents,eager to find out whether or not they were involved in the crimes of the Nazi period. However, in this period the Zeitzeugen of the Third Reich period began to die out and with the fading of that generation “the lived memory of its experiences” was also taken. (Cohen-Pfister, Wienröder-Skinner 4) This meant that generations after the third generation could only rely on the (untold) stories of their parents and on historical documents. In line with this phenomenon, Bude has made the interesting point that for the later generations, the Nazi period is not memory, but history. He speaks of a transition between the generations from the personally witnessed “communicative memory”

[“kommunikatives Gedächtnis”] to the symbolically fixed “cultural memory” [“kulturelles Gedächtnis”]. (Bude 82) This shift emphasizes the importance of recording testimonies from

Zeitzeugen from the Nazi period by the second and third generation. However, as this thesis

will show, the communicative memory of Zeitzeugen at times gives rise to an image that springs from their private family memory but which is inconsistent with historical facts. To resume, it is important to mention that despite the process of ‘normalization’, in German public culture debates took place “(…)about the role and responsibility of ‘ordinary’

Germans for the Holocaust.” (Wittlinger 204) An example of these debates is the previously mentioned Wehrmacht-debate about the exhibition on the crimes of the German armed forces. Wittlinger argues that in view of major public debates like this, which focusses “(…) on the role of the ‘ordinary perpetrator’, by the end of the 1990s it appeared that Germany’s National Socialist past had become an integrated part of German collective memory.” (ibid.)

10

For a more detailed explanation of the Historikerstreit see Wilds article: Identity creation and the culture of contrition: Recasting ‘normality’ in the Berlin Republic (2000) p. 84-89.

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1.2.4 Aftermath

As pointed out by Brockhaus, Germany has earned recognition and respect for its wide-ranging culture of commemoration and the debates surrounding perpetration, self-awareness and participation of the population. (Brockhaus 38) In her recent article Nicht unsere

Geschichte: Anhaltende Überforderung durch die NS-Vergangenheit (2018), Brockhaus

discusses from a psychological perspective the variety and controversy on how Germany has publicly and privately dealt with its Nazi past. She points out that part of the German

population believe that in our day and age there is too much emphasis on the Nazi past, which they regard as a fixation on the ‘cult of guilt’. Others, by contrast, find the way the Germans are facing up to the history of Nazi crimes is still completely inadequate, characterized by a defensive attitude towards questions of responsibility and guilt. Brockhaus refers to the research Opa war kein Nazi (Welzer et al. 2003), which indeed shows that there is a major discrepancy between the public culture of commemoration and the subjective dealing with National Socialism. Up until today, people fail to involve the Nazi crime story in what Brockhaus calls their own “self-image”. Despite the knowledge of the extensive part of the Germans that agreed at the time with the Nazi regime, as well as the large participation in exclusion and destruction, Nazicrime history could not be integrated into subjective experience and perceived as a part of one’s own history. (ibid.) This is also argued by Wittlinger:

Although the issue of culpability might have been dominant in the public debate of the period [from the 1960s onwards], family memory as well as organisations such as those of the expellees ensured that the question of culpability never really gained a stronghold in German historical consciousness. (Wittlinger 205)

As mentioned before, during the immediate post-war period, German people did not recognize themselves as responsible for the events during the Third Reich period. Instead, they saw themselves as victims of the war. As explained by Brockhaus, most Germans had only heard of the mass crimes committed in the German death camps, but they themselves had witnessed the atrocities to Germans (or as they have been perceived), including Allied bombing raids, flight and expulsion, as well as famine and the dismantling of German industry (known as “Demontagen”). (Brockhaus 41) So German people did not associate themselves with exclusion and destruction, since their position within the regime was so normalized that it did not cause any moral questioning and was therefore not worth

Coping with a Family Nazi Legacy: Denial, Guilt, and the Banality of Evil

Coping with a Family Nazi Legacy: Denial, Guilt, and the

Banality of Evil

Coping with a Family Nazi Legacy: Denial, Guilt, and the

Banality of Evil

Acknowledgements

Abstract

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Theoretical and contextual framework