Semantron 2015

and the people who committed or overlooked atrocities in the war 5 . In addition to the fact that it was patently obvious that these people were not all monsters 6 , there was a need to understand how loved ones could have done such things. This is the tension that exists in German artistic output – to prevent such events happening again requires understanding why people committed them, but this understanding can be seen to provide excuses for their actions. However, the influence of Germany’s past in WWII is not simply confined to the artistic output that deals directly with the war. Difficult themes raised by Germany’s past are also often confronted in other literature and films that do not directly confront this topic. The Visit is a well-known example. Dürenmatt paints a compelling picture of a town of ordinary Germans who are led to consent to the killing of a man who had never done anything wrong to them. However, these people are normal, civilized human beings 7 – indeed, it is vital to note that of the many townspeople who voted unanimously for Alfred Ill’s death, only one townsman actually commits the murder. The others are not prepared to do so themselves, and even the doors are locked and lights dimmed when he is killed, seemingly because even seeing the murder would be too distressing for most of the townspeople 8 . With a few ringleaders prepared to commit the murder, all the townspeople have to do is simply vote and then receive the tangible rewards for themselves. The play carries strong parallels to the tacit consent of the German population to atrocities by their army and the deportation of the Jews to labour camps, both of which the population was aware of, but for which there was a definite distance from the acts themselves as well as tangible rewards for consenting to them. 9 Perhaps the most important theme in German post-war art that attempts to address issues raised by that period is the question of guilt – where other art tends to condemn all those who worked for the Nazis, German art often explores the difficulty of apportioning guilt to different people. The Counterfeiters (a film released in 2006) poses an interesting question as to the guilt of the Jews at Sachsenhausen who collaborated with the Nazis to forge banknotes. Criticizing them for this would seem unfair – they were in a concentration camp, and refusing to cooperate would have almost certainly spelled their death. And while we are probably most sympathetic to the situation of these men, this question can be applied to more ambiguous moral circumstances, such as that of Herzog, the head of the operation. As a concentration camp officer, fully aware of the horrors occurring in the wider camp 10 , many would see him as fully guilty. Yet, he makes sure to provide relative comfort and security for his charges. Furthermore, he is almost certainly in a closed situation. Refusing his superiors’ demand to head up the operation would only result in his demotion or punishment, and the appointment of a more brutal commander for the forgers. Does this lessen his guilt? The difficulty of assigning guilt is also a main theme of the controversial Generation War TV series. The case of Friedhelm is particularly difficult. As a pacifist, he was strongly against war. However, he was called up to the Russian front, and had no choice but to obey. There, he protested against questionable acts (like his brother’s execution of a captured commissar) and even managed to save the life of an 11-year old Jew about to be executed. However, by episode two (after witnessing a number of atrocities,) he realized the pointlessness of protest 11 . When ordered to shoot civilians, he did so in 5 In his Guilt about the Past , for example, Schlink talks about a friendly English teacher who had been in the Gestapo, or a kindly law professor who had previously written essays on the necessary exclusion of the Jews. (Schlink, 2009, Loc. 1014 – Loc.1035) 6 Schlink writes of the over simplicity of ‘the desire for a world where those who commit monstrous crimes are always monsters’ (Schlink, 2009, Loc. 1003). 7 One must remember the initial vehement protestations of the townspeople at the announcement of Claire’s offer. 8 Some might argue that the lights are turned out to preserve the charade of a ‘heart attack’, but this seems unlikely and pointless given the patent obviousness of the imminent murder – indeed they have all only just voted to kill Alfred Ill. 9 In this case, not speaking out carried the significant reward of not being arrested and possibly executed by the Nazi authorities. 10 Not only is he fully aware of the horrors, but quite unaffected by them - Indeed, at one point in the film we hear him reprimanding a camp guard, not for callously shooting dead a prisoner, but for firing the shots too close to his forgers’ compound, thus risking his workers’ lives. 11 This is perhaps due to the terrible things he has witnessed, including the shooting of the 11-year old girl he had just saved

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