7-2023

This contribution presents an English summary of some of the important ideas of the project "Revisionen. Nationalsozialismus, Holocaust und Zweiter Weltkrieg im dokumentarischen Film der frühen Bundesrepublik Deutschland" (Revisions. National Socialism, Holocaust and World War II in Documentary Film in the Early Federal Republic of Germany) by the two authors Götz Lachwitz and Thomas Weber, which was published as a book. It deals with the hitherto little-noticed examination of the Nazi past, the Holocaust and the Second World War by the West German documentary films made up to 1961, which sought a new social approach to the past and thus sought to contribute to a resolution of the conflicts in their time. The project does not deal solely with well-known films such as Nuit et Brouillard by Alain Resnais or Mein Kampf by Erwin Leiser, but takes a look at a broader selection. Building on in-depth archival work, it also discusses films that have rarely or not at all been taken up in the specialized literature. Even if the discourses discernible in most of the films tie in with familiar interpretations, they still surprise us with a diversity of formats, distribution channels, and performance contexts, for example in documentary television series or political education work, which points to a more differentiated approach to the Nazi past in the early Federal Republic than has generally been assumed to date. Further Informations: https://produkte.avinus.de/produkt/lachwitz-weber-revisionen