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

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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

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”

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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