7 - Being Human: Good Germans in Postwar German Film

Summary

If justice perishes, human life on earth has lost its meaning.

— Immanuel Kant

And you shall unearth love underneath the rubble of hatred.

— Ernst Wiechert

The focus of this chapter is on the cinematic representation of the “good German” in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, and the reorientation of defeated, isolated, and morally devastated Germans, not only by addressing the country's all-too-recent genocidal past, but especially by highlighting the possibility of moral truth, autonomous agency, and ethical action, and thereby, the possibility of a better future. Representations of humanity, decency, and the courage to disobey or change were projected during this early postwar period onto often makeshift cinema screens as seeds lying dormant under thousands of cubic feet of rubble. Provided with the fertile ground of honesty and integrity, audiences in the early postwar era were encouraged to believe that a community and a value system based on equality and human dignity could once again take root.

With the end of the hitherto unimaginably destructive war, with “Hitler dead but nonetheless requiring repeated exorcism” as Jaimey Fisher puts it in his recent study of the representation of youth in re-education and reconstruction processes in Germany after 1945, film became an important representational tool. Screenings of both documentary and fiction films were intended to rouse and educate passive audiences and to encourage reflection regarding the individual's vital role in the reconstruction of the German imagined community.