From Adolf Eichmann’s trial to Holocaust TV series — German struggling with the legacy of National Socialism during the sixties and the seventies
Abstract
The analysis of the German society’s attitude to the legacy of National Socialism — mainly in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), partially in the German Democratic Republic (GDR)—seems to be interesting at least for two reasons:
(1) because the unprecedented character of task before which the Germans were brought after 1945, which implementation one may consider as rather successful;
(2) it allows to understand how memory refers to negative, often sensitive aspects of the past—in FRG there was a continuous transition from previously dominating inclusive model (Klaus Bachmann) which has integrated the society around a commonly shared belief that the responsibility for National Socialism, its actions and crimes, bears only a small group of people (“Hitler and his gang”) to a gradual acceptation of an indirect — collective and intergenerational — responsibility, mainly by younger generations. During sixties and seventies of the twentieth century, marking the scope of my deliberations, there has been a number of events that allowed such a shift: (1) the trials of Nazi criminals and their collaborators, 43 M. Saryusz-Wolska, op. cit., s. 283. 70 i.e. the Adolf Eichmann process in Jerusalem (1961–1962), Frankfurt Auschwitz processes (1963–1963), Third Majdanek process in Düsseldorf (1975–1981); (2) several debates in the Bundestag regarding the possible limitations on Nazi crimes in 1965, 1969 and 1979; (3) the students revolt starting in 1968 which were accompanied by a serious animosity between the generations of ‘38 and ‘68 (Götz Aly); (4) reception of various artistic representations: books, theatrical plays, feature films, documentaries etc., with particular emphasis on American TV production Holocaust (1978), broadcasted in the West German television and widely discussed in 1979. In late Seventies debates on the issues of National Holocaust and The Final Solution were no longer a domain of a narrow circle of specialists (mainly lawyers and historians) and the place hitherto occupied by bloated historical publications or process relations was intercepted by images: movies or television series.
(1) because the unprecedented character of task before which the Germans were brought after 1945, which implementation one may consider as rather successful;
(2) it allows to understand how memory refers to negative, often sensitive aspects of the past—in FRG there was a continuous transition from previously dominating inclusive model (Klaus Bachmann) which has integrated the society around a commonly shared belief that the responsibility for National Socialism, its actions and crimes, bears only a small group of people (“Hitler and his gang”) to a gradual acceptation of an indirect — collective and intergenerational — responsibility, mainly by younger generations. During sixties and seventies of the twentieth century, marking the scope of my deliberations, there has been a number of events that allowed such a shift: (1) the trials of Nazi criminals and their collaborators, 43 M. Saryusz-Wolska, op. cit., s. 283. 70 i.e. the Adolf Eichmann process in Jerusalem (1961–1962), Frankfurt Auschwitz processes (1963–1963), Third Majdanek process in Düsseldorf (1975–1981); (2) several debates in the Bundestag regarding the possible limitations on Nazi crimes in 1965, 1969 and 1979; (3) the students revolt starting in 1968 which were accompanied by a serious animosity between the generations of ‘38 and ‘68 (Götz Aly); (4) reception of various artistic representations: books, theatrical plays, feature films, documentaries etc., with particular emphasis on American TV production Holocaust (1978), broadcasted in the West German television and widely discussed in 1979. In late Seventies debates on the issues of National Holocaust and The Final Solution were no longer a domain of a narrow circle of specialists (mainly lawyers and historians) and the place hitherto occupied by bloated historical publications or process relations was intercepted by images: movies or television series.
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