A review of the RAF's and USAAF's air attacks on Germany as seen through German film

1. D ie M örder sind unter uns
Icon:Trümmer
Richard McKenzie
10 May 2012 © University of Reading 2006 w w w . r e a d in g

2. 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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3. 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
• U n it e d S t a t e s S t r a t e g ic B o m b in g S u r v e y
S umma ry Re port (
h t t p : //w w w . i b i b l i o . o r g /h y p e r w a r /A A F /U S S B S /E T O -S u m m a r y . h t m l #t a o t r a w % 2 2 a c c e s s e d
14 /2 /2 0 0 11)
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4. D ie M örder sind unter uns
• 1st DEFA German film
after 1945
• Director: Wolfgang
Staudte (1906-1984)
• Trümmer
– physical
– emotional
• Justice
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5. Trümmer
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6. Trümmer
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7. Trümmer
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8. Trümmer
• What is your view as to the purpose of the rubble?
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9. 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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10. Trümmer and Protagonists
• Wallner
– Dressed in white
– Tidies up flat
– Through love
restores Mertens
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11. 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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12. 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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13. 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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14. 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
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15. Justice
• Brückner
– Guilty of war crimes
– Is not shot but ends
up behind bars
– Does not recognise
crime
“Ich bin doch unschuldig”
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16. Victims?
• Former soldiers
• Fathers
• Women
• Children
• Jews?
Does this fit with an
anti-fascist
narrative?
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17. D ie M örder 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
• C o n t r ib u t e s t o a
d is c u s s io n o f g u ilt a t a
t im e w h e n G e r m a n s s a w
t h e m s e lv e s a s v ic t im s n o t
p e rp e tra to rs 17