Nazi Past Legacy in Post-War Germany - Movie Review Example

Nazi Past Legacy in Post-War Germany Director Roberto Rossellini’s 1948 film Germany, Year Zero is the final film in an unofficial war film trilogy, which includes Rome, Open City (1945) and Paisa (1946). The film captures the reality in Germany in the year following its near total obliteration in the WWII, with particular attention on the consequences of fascism, both on the society in general and on the individual in particular. In that regard, German, Zero Year is Rossellini’s attempt to make sense of Nazism and its effects on individuals and communities in which they live (Crowther, 2015); the film’s principle photography was partly done on location in the devastated, rubble-strewn city of Berlin and partly in Rome studios. The film follows the life of a greatly alienated 13-year old boy, Edmund Koeler; Edmund puts up with his brother, sister and bed-ridden father in what the film represents as dreadfully penurious conditions in post war Berlin. Edmund’s father suffers from malnutrition and a fatal illness while his brother, a former Nazi soldier, is hiding to avoid being arrested; in addition, Edmund’s sister has resorted to using her sexuality as a way of making money to support her family. In the film, Edmund Koehler struggles for bare survival in the devastated ruins of Berlin; he wanders the expanse of the city unsupervised, scouring the rubbles for food, money and cigarettes. Consequently, the boy eventually becomes entangled in the black market machinations of a gang of degenerate teenagers. Edmund also encounters a former teacher, Herr Enning, who is an ardent Nazi sympathizer (Armes 1971, p.83); Edmund’s pro-Nazism ex-teacher grounds him in the Nazi propaganda that the weak must die and only the fit can survive. Enning exhibits a pedophilic interest in Edmund, gives him Hitler’s record to sell on the black market and entrusts him to the care of Jo and Christi. Following his ex-teacher’s counsel, Edmund poisons his sick father; in the aftermath of his father’s death, Edmund is so overwhelmed with guilt and confusion that he scuttles towards a tragic end (Germany Year Zero, 1948). This paper will explore the manner in which German, Year Zero represents the legacy of the Nazi past in Post-War Germany and what the film suggests are the consequences of that legacy in the country. The film German, Year Zero represents the legacy of the Nazi past in Post-War Germany remorselessly, without a hint of the traditional “Christian charity” that had characterized Rossellini’s earlier films. The film represents the Nazi past legacy in post war Germany through a nightmarish vision of a society in which the moral bankruptcy of the individual is accurately paralleled to the physical devastation of the city, which is documented in repeated, lengthy tracking shots. According to Jose Luise Gurner, the repeated use of lengthy tracking shots in the film obtains an “obsessive…hallucinatory feeling” (Reeves 2004, p.226). In an opening tittle, the film overtly proclaims that it is a portrayal of what could occur in the event that “an ideology strays from the eternal laws of morality and of Christian charity” (Reeves 2004, p.226). As a result of its uncaring representation of the legacy of the Nazi past in Post-War Germany, the film was badly received both by critics and audiences, most of whom perceived it difficult and unpalatable. The film’s spectacular failure at the box office is attributable to the mere fact that it was released in the context of a country (Italy) that had just embarked on an attempt to leave the harrowing experience of the war behind. In the aftermath of WWII, the national identity of West Germans was inevitably in an unpleasant state because it was unvaryingly associated with the monstrosity of the Nazi legacy. The first post-war generation of Germans in post-war Germany inevitably suffered critical trauma, as a result of the negative identity and burdened memory of the Nazi past legacy. Consequently, gripped by a generalized feeling of guilt, the people were afraid of unravelling the truth about their past and possible contribution to the atrocious crimes of Nazism. State discussions in the few years following the end of the war were focused on the issue of guilt; people were still attempting to come to terms with what had happened and were basically divided on whether to accept the burden of guilt liking the past to the present or to simply forget it and move on. Evidently, director Rossellini’s unsympathetic confrontation with the past in the film Germany Zero Year did not go down well with the Italian audiences, most of who were still struggling to put the Nazism memory behind them and to move on. Ominously, Edmund’s own family is torn between his anti-Nazi father and his pro-Nazi older brother while his sister’s politics are blatantly ignored; the divisions in Edmund’s own family cut across the fabric of the entire Germany society, which was still torn on how to deal with the Nazi past legacy. Experiencing the film, one hardly ever gets the feeling that the director is restraining his compassion to moral allies; at worst, one is more likely to overthink the motivations for Edmund to poison his anti-Nazism father, after encountering his pro-Nazism ex-teacher. The film’s title offers a subjective vision of a documentary fact, that is, not just a city and a population reduced to chaos, but also a terrain levelled both spiritually and morally (Rosenbaum, 2013). Precisely, the film depicts post war Berlin as a place to build and entrusts that responsibility to the emerging young post-war generation, even though it does not necessarily specify what is to be built there. The director’s choice to represent an upsetting portrait of an obliterated Berlin through the eyes of a fifteen year old is a deliberate move to yield a levelled up portrayal of the consequences of fascism, both for the society and the individual, without the influence of pre-existing underpinnings or entrapments. Rossellini himself confesses in Tag Gallagher’s biography that the whole film was conceived particularly for the sequence with the innocent child that is wandering unattended through the ruins of the rubble-strewn post-war Berlin. In that decisive moment, the director simply conceptualizes the corruption of childhood as the most tragic consequences of the Nazi past legacy in the post-War Germany (Clarke 2005, p.40). Perhaps, Edmund’s behaviour such as playing with the rubble as if it were a gun and the culmination of his game in suicide, best illustrates the devastating corruption of childhood by the Nazi legacy. The film comes out as a gesture of despair that presents an individualized grief laced with an intense empathy for the dispossessed; that is indeed what gives it the enduring authenticity. The film creatively employs its characters to interrogate the state of the nation by assigning them allegorical roles; eventually, the director utilizes these roles to represent what he considers the lasting effect of the Nazi-past legacy on the Germany populations. The film’s characters perform a critical function, with each one of them depicting the numerous ways in which the post-war Germany was ineradicably affected by the past Nazi legacy (Rosenbaum, 2013). The generational gap between the characters serves to highlight the marked contrast between notions of the so-called “old” Germany and “new” Germany. Significantly, the character of the protagonist’s father (Herr Koehler) represents a reincarnation of the country in the aftermath of the war on so many levels. Precisely, one can reach at one among various conclusions about post-war Germany, by delving into the character of Edmund’s father. For instance, Herr Koehler is presented as bedridden, terminally ill and impotent; in that respect, Edmund’s father represents the crippled country in the years immediately following its devastating defeat in the war that had nearly ripped it apart in all manner of speaking. Like the devastated “old” Germany, Herr Koehler is at the mercy of his children, who represent the upcoming generation of the “new” Germany, for support and sustenance. As an ex-Nazi soldier, Edmund’s brother (Karl-Heinz) also mirrors the overwhelming burden entrusted to the next generation of the “new” Germany by its predecessors (Doyle, 2011); Karl-Heinz’s character represents the crushing guilt haunting guilt among the German people. Even though he is entitled to it, Karl-Heinz is hesitant to register for the food ration card because he is afraid of being indicted for his role in the Nazi past legacy and therefore prefers to hide away from authorities instead. On the other hand, Edmund’s sister (Eva) is yet another character whose allegorical role has been utilized to portray the lasting impact of the Nazi past legacy on the Germans. In an attempt to help provide for his devastatingly impoverished family, Eva is pushed beyond her options to the brink of prostitution; this girl desperately resorts to exploiting her sexuality as a way of making money to support her family needs. Left with no other option, Eva is forced to frequent night club scenes, where she regularly flirts with American soldiers; in those nightclubs, Eva pockets the cigarettes she is offered with the intention of selling them later on to make some money to support her family. The young Edmund is forced to drop out of school to hassle on the streets to eke a living for his devastatingly impoverished family, thereby coming into direct contact with the damning influence of the Nazi past legacy upon the Germany youth in the post-war German. Pointedly, the primary responsibility of providing for Herr Koehler’s family rests with Edmund, who despite being Herr Koehler’s youngest, principally works digging graves in order to get enough money that can support all his family needs (Rosenbaum, 2013). In that respect, the director highlights and reiterates his idea of the German youth as the direct victims of the devastating consequences of the Nazi-past legacy in the post-war Germany. It is of critical significance that Rossellini portrays post-war Germany through the eyes of a child because the image of the child has traditionally been exploited throughout the film industry as a cinematic code for the uncertain future. In the context of the devastating portrait of post-war Germany, Rossellini exploits the uncanny connection between the image of a child and the indeterminate future to give a cinematic vision of the future of the “new” Germany. In the years immediately following the devastating defeat and near to total annihilation of Germany in the war, the country was just beginning to get back on its feet from the ruins of the Nazi-past legacy. Through the character of Edmund and the events that characterize his interrupted childhood, the director portrays what he believes might befall the future of the “new” Germany (Doyle, 2011). Edmund becomes a petty thief, occasionally defrauding the affluent for mere bread for his family, when he fails to land himself steady employment in the “new” post-war Germany. The prevailing conditions in the country are so hostile that not even the innocent youth are spared the corruption of the Nazi past legacy, which is perfectly represented by the turning of the youth to criminality (Rosenbaum, 2013). The film paints a grim picture of the irredeemable state of the ruined country, which by extension points out to the near to impossible redemption of the country’s youth who have been inevitably corrupted by the Nazi-past legacy. Edmund is unable to return to his childhood when he attempts to play for the first time in the film; both the group of children he tries to join in play and the degenerate Henning reject him in the aftermath of his father’s death. Edmund’s family is just but a single segment of the society; Edmund’s family’s dwellings are representative of the devastating impact of the Nazi-past legacy for the ordinary people in the Germany society. Edmund’s family struggles with difficulty to overcome the devastating legacy of the Nazi-past as they move forward into the “new” Germany in the post-war era. The film does suggest that Edmund’s family will never be able to transcend its historical past that is characterized by the pervasively demoralizing consequences of the Nazi-past legacy. By extension, Rossellini seems to also suggest that, just like Edmund’s family, the whole country will never be able to overcome the haunting consequences of the Nazi-past legacy, which were visited upon its people. The film’s phenomenal visual power forcefully complements the messages carried by its densely complex and thought provoking narrative; ridden with elements of expressionism, the film manages to convey its intended messages with unrivalled potency. Dominant images of the horrible state of the post-war German society include towering ruins that dwarf characters in street scene settings (Doyle, 2011); these tall ruins cast enormous and menacing shadows, thereby foreboding the devastating impact of the Nazi-past legacy on nearly all aspects of Germany’s future. The appearance of the film’s protagonist in dark night scenes as he tumbles from the innocence of his childhood further into the abyss of criminality is symbolic for his gradual entrapment in a world of hopelessness and lawlessness. On the other hand, the highly imposing and unrealistic lightness of a vast majority of the film’s exterior daytime scenes yields a surreal sensation, thereby highlighting the apparent removal of the film’s characters from any sort of normalcy. In other words, the film suggests that the characters have been thrust into an uncertain void, a pessimistic world of nothing but blinding whiteness and nothing can be done to redeem their blurry futures. The bleakness of the images in the final sequences suggests that there is no moral recovery for anyone, even if the buildings are being reconstructed, for Edmund, supposedly the hope of the future of the “new” Germany commits suicide at the end. Overall, this paper has delved into the manner in which Director Roberto Rossellini’s 1948 film Germany, Year Zero represents the Nazi past legacy in Post-War Germany and what it suggests are the consequences of that legacy to both the individual and the society. Rossellini’s film represents Germany’s post-war Nazi-past legacy blatantly, without his usual hint of traditional “Christian charity”. He achieves this through a nightmarish vision of a society in which the physical devastation of the city, which is documented in repeated, lengthy tracking shots, is significantly paralleled with the moral bankruptcy of the individual. The film’s title offers insights into the director’s subjective interpretation of a documentary fact, that of a city and a population reduced to chaos and a terrain levelled both spiritually and morally. The director conceptualizes the corruption of childhood as the most tragic consequences of the Nazi past legacy in the post-War Germany. Young Edmund, the film’s protagonist is denied a normal childhood by being forced into adulthood by the inadequacies of the adults in his family; as the primary bread winner for his family, Edmund is exposed to the corruption of the morally deprived individuals he encounters such as his Nazism sympathizing ex-teacher. The film paints a grim picture of the irredeemable state of the ruined country, which by extension points out to the near to impossible redemption of the country’s youth who have been inevitably corrupted by the Nazi-past legacy. References Armes, R., 1971. Patterns of Realism. A Study of Italian Neo-Realism, Cranbury, NJ: Barnes. Clarke, D., 2005. The Cinematic City. NY: Routledge. Crowther, B., 2015. Germany Year Zero (1947). NY times. [Online] Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/74492/Germany-Year-Zero/overview [accessed 09/01/2015] Doyle, R. (2011). Review: Germany Year Zero (1948). Next projection. [Online] 4 November. Available at: http://nextprojection.com/2011/11/04/review-germany-year-zero-1948/ [accessed 09/01/2015] Germany, Year Zero, 1948. Dir: Rorberto Rossellini, Motion Picture, G.D.B Film. Italy. Reeves, N., 2004. The Power of Film Propaganda: Myth or Reality. London: A&C Black. Rosenbaum, J., 2013. Germany Year Zero: The Humanity of the Defeated. Criterion. [Online] Available at: http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1358-germany-year-zero-the-humanity-of-the-defeated [accessed 09/01/2015] Read More