Memory or reappraisal? Experience- and knowledge production in Holocaust films of the FRG, GDR and Italy 1945–1990

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Bernhard Groß
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 550229441

The project is based on the observation that the feature films and documentaries about the Holocaust made in the former fascist countries of Germany and Italy during the Cold War are particularly heterogeneous in terms of aesthetics, reception, and production. Aesthetically, the films oscillate between depicting a closed past and one that is open to the present; they oscillate between genre films and documentaries and between 'coming to terms' with a virulent past and 'remembering' a closed past: what is special is that these ambivalences often occur within one and the same film. The forms of reception are also ambivalent: Films by 'left-wing' filmmakers, for example, are praised by the conservative press and torn apart by 'left-wing' critics; further award-winning films lead to internal and interstate scandals. The assumption is that between 1945 and 1990, particularly in the former fascist countries, it was not yet clear, both within each state and between them, whether the films and the debate about them were dealt with the representation of historical facts, i.e. coming to terms with them, or with memory, i.e. the representation of a closed past. This internal and external filmic contrast is to be understood as a struggle over the sovereignty of interpretation of the events, which is underpinned by the respective ideologies of the blocs and their national forms. This struggle does not develop linearly from the 1940s to the 1980s, but is characterised by continuities and ruptures, aesthetic alliances, and exclusions, and thus by a perception of the Holocaust that is itself always historically changeable. The aspect of the historical, aesthetic and political heterogeneity of the feature and documentary films of the three countries between 1945 and 1990 has taken a back seat in film studies in the wake of the dominance of remembrance and memory research in the humanities since the 1990s. Based on the complete corpus of films from the three countries, the project therefore aims to analyse their feature films and documentaries about the Holocaust between 1945 and 1990 and compare them with their reception and the film- and cultural policy directives relating to these films and their filmmakers. The country comparison is intended to highlight the differences and similarities of the heterogeneity influenced by the Cold War, as it is on the one hand a domestic (Italy) and on the other hand an interstate (FRG/GDR) debate. The project consists of two coordinated and mutually complementary sub-projects on the FRG/GDR and Italy. The project is framed and summarised by a country-comparative perspective (project leader). To ensure the comparability of the results, the films of all sub-projects will be examined on the same methodological basis and analysed according to defined parameters.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants