East German Film and the Holocaust

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-78920-747-7
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, Band 22, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 233 mm, Gewicht: 530 g

Reihe: Film Europa

East Germany’s ruling party never officially acknowledged responsibility for the crimes committed in Germany’s name during the Third Reich. Instead, it cast communists as both victims of and victors over National Socialist oppression while marginalizing discussions of Jewish suffering. Yet for the 1977 Academy Awards, the Ministry of Culture submitted Jakob der Lügner – a film focused exclusively on Jewish victimhood that would become the only East German film to ever be officially nominated. By combining close analyses of key films with extensive archival research, this book explores how GDR filmmakers depicted Jews and the Holocaust in a country where memories of Nazi persecution were highly prescribed, tightly controlled and invariably political.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ward, Elizabeth

Ward, Elizabeth Margaret

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Geschichtspolitik, Erinnerungskultur
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Deutsche Geschichte Deutsche Geschichte: Holocaust

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

Introduction

Part I: 1945–1949

Chapter 1. Picking Up the Pieces. Kurt Maetzig’s Ehe im Schatten

Part II: 1949–1961

Chapter 2. The German Democratic Republic’s Ambassador of Good Will. Konrad Wolf’s Sterne

Chapter 3. Reframing Victimhood. Konrad Wolf’s Professor Mamlock

Part III: 1961–1971

Chapter 4. Crimes of the Past and Politics of the Present. Wolfgang Luderer’s Lebende Ware

Chapter 5. ‘In Babelsberg, Nothing New’. Gottfried Kolditz’s Das Tal der sieben Monde

Part IV: 1971–1980

Chapter 6. New Encounters on Well-Worn Paths: Kurt Jung-Alsen’s Die Bilder des Zeugen Schattmann

Chapter 7. Returning to the Past: Frank Beyer’s Jakob der Lügner

Part V: 1980–1989

Chapter 8. Shifting Identities. Michael Kann’s Stielke, Heinz, fünfzehn

Chapter 9. Calendar-Based Shame? Siegfried Kühn’s Die Schauspielerin

Conclusion

Filmography

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Ward, Elizabeth
Elizabeth Ward is a Lecturer in German Studies and specializes in German film. She is a steering committee member of the German Screen Studies Network and has published on East German cinema, contemporary Holocaust film and twenty-first century German cinema.