Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Ist die Mörder sind unter uns ein Film über die Vergangenheit oder über…
Ist die Mörder sind unter uns ein Film über die Vergangenheit oder über die Zukunft Deutschlands?
Introduction
Basic information about the film
German film from 1946 and is directed by Wolfgang Staudte
It is the first post-war film from DEFA
It is characterised as a Trümmerfilm
The real Trümmer was used as a set in Berlin for many post-war German films
Brief description of the film
The film follows the two main protagonists: Susanna Wallner(played by Hildegard Knef) and Dr.Mertens (played by Wilhelm Borchert) Susanna has just returned from a concentration camp to her flat in Berlin where she finds the Dr.Mertens residing. Dr.Mertens is having traumatic flashbacks to his life as a world war 2 soldier in Germany. Susanna supports him but then Mertens remembers that his former captain in the war, Captain Brückner (played by Arno Paulsen) ordered the mass killing of citizens. Mertens wants to bring these people justice by murdering Brückner however Susanna stops him and tells him that this is not the way that justice should be accomplished. Instead, Brückner is put on trial and serves his time in jail for his war crimes.
Add in a section here about the fact that people who committed war crimes in Germany had to go to trial.
The film encompasses ideas about Germany's past and potential future, but it also deals with how people were living in the Trümmerzeit at that time, in other words the film is also about German's present time. All the characters must come to terms with their past to have a life in the future, and therefore be able to rebuild Germany.
This essay will be split into three sections:
How Germany's past is presented in the film
How Germany's future is presented
How these two are interlinked.
First section: How Germany's past is presented in the film
During the film, we are constantly reminded of Germany's past through the use of physical and mental memories of the second world war.
Mental memories
Dr.Mertens, a surgeon who has come back from the German army appears to be suffering with a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Mertens continues to have flashbacks to his time as a soldier during the war - suggesting the past weighs heavily on him and is a heavy burden. He cannot seem to forget. (Die Mörder sind unter uns, n.d.)
Mertens can be seen as a metaphor for Germany here, as Germany is not able to forget it's past easily - these memories are a huge toll on the country, not allowing it to move forward into the future.
Physical memories
Another constant reminder of the war is seen through the rubble in the streets of Berlin. After the war ended, the rubble from destroyed buildingsn served as a reminder that it would take a long time for Germany to 'heal' itself.
A rubble film 'Trümmerfilm' typically uses the destroyed cityscape not only as a setting, but also as a metaphor for the human condition. The rubble is simultaneously the signifier of the worst of times and the visualised hinge on which the door from the past to the future swings. (Wickham, 2014)
This represents that because cities were still covered in rubble, in which the rubble served as a natural set for the film, the country could not move on from it's past. It served as a constant reminder, just like Merten's flashbacks.
Bibliography:
Die Mörder sind unter uns. (n.d.). [online] Available at:
http://www.film-kultur.de/publikationen/moerder_unter_uns.pdf
[Accessed 15 Mar. 2022].
Wickham, Christopher. “Postwar Tales of Two Cities: Rubble Films from Berlin and Munich.” Film criticism 38.3 (2014): 24–47. Print.
Uni-kiel.de. (2022). Trümmerfilme [Das Lexikon der Filmbegriffe]. [online] Available at:
https://filmlexikon.uni-kiel.de/doku.php/t:trummerfilme-1905
[Accessed 16 Mar. 2022].
(reference to what Trümmerfilmen are)
Google Arts & Culture. (2016). Die DEFA - Eine Babelsberger Geschichte - Google Arts & Culture. [online] Available at:
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/kQXhwvTiPxoA8A
[Accessed 16 Mar. 2022].
(reference to what DEFA is)
Rentschler, E. (2010). The Place of Rubble in the Trümmerfilm. New German Critique, [online] 37(2), pp.9–30. Available at:
https://read.dukeupress.edu/new-german-critique/article-abstract/37/2%20(110)/9/33055/The-Place-of-Rubble-in-the-Tru-mmerfilm
[Accessed 16 Mar. 2022].
(reference to rubble in streets - link between physical and mental rubble)
Himmelsbach, A. (2016). Leonie Treber, Mythos Trümmerfrauen. Von der Trümmerbeseitigung in der Kriegs- und Nachkriegszeit und der Entstehung eines deutschen Erinnerungsortes, Essen: Klartext 2014, 483 S., EUR 29,95 [ISBN 978-3-8375-1178-9]. Militaergeschichtliche Zeitschrift, [online] 75(2), pp.629–631. Available at:
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/mgzs-2016-0129/html?lang=de
[Accessed 16 Mar. 2022].
(reference to Trümmerfrauen)
Second section: How Germany's future is presented in the film.
Fraulein Wallner initially talks only briefly about her past in the concentration camp. She says "Ich hatte Angst vor der Freiheit. Angst vor den Menschen. Und Angst vor dem Wiedersehen mit unserer Stadt. Jetzt sitze ich wieder her. So wie damals."
This quote shows how she is still thinking about her past and what happened to Germany, but because this is nearly the only reference we hear from her past, it shows that she is determined to move on with her life.
She is almost a representative of the German spirit to carry on with their lives. There is the need to remember but also the need to move on and become better.
Susanna could be seen as a representative of the well-known Trümmerfrauen, women who had to clear away the rubble from the streets after the war had ended. The so-called Trümmerfrauen seemed to work hard to oragnize and move on with their lives after the war. They seemed to represent moving on - acceptance that they were moving into the future. However, they also did not deny the past.
The women in Trümmerfilms seemed to be extraordinarily strong and seemed to support the men in getting over their horrific pasts as soldiers in the war. They represent the future of Germany.
Overall, this seems to show that the film is about moving into the future. The characters represent Germany's society after the war and therefore they represent that society is willing to move into the future.
Third section: how do the past and the future link together?
In the film, the characters seem to confront their past face on, but also they do not delve back into the past. They move on with their futures.
This is also what happened in Germany. For example, Mertens goes to shoot Brückner which would have been seen as justice for him in the past.
However, the future way to deal with this was all about re-education, denazification and trials.
Many war criminals were tried in court and therefore spent time in jail or faced other penalties.
This therefore shows that Germany was to an extent determined to remember it's past - the likes of this can still be seen today, however the past needs to be remembered so that similar things that happened in the past do not once again happen in the future.
Denazification
Denazification: the term used to describe the process of removing nazis and nazism from public life in Germany and across occupied Europe. Five categories of nazis:
Major offenders (to be sentences to life imprisonment/death)
Activists, militarists and profiteers (up to ten years)
Lesser offenders (probatopn for up to three years)
Nazi followers and supporters (surveillance and fine)
Exonerated individuals (no punishment)
After world war 2, international, dometstic and military courts conducted trials of tens of thousands of accused war criminals.
Conclusion
The film shows that all characters are surrounded by memories of the second world war and now lay with the consequences which shows that the past can never be forgotten. The film is overall about the want for a better future. It's about remembering the past but also moving Germany into the future.