Suchergebnisse

The experiences of six adolescents in Berlin, as depicted in two documentaries, serve as examples of failed integration. These young people, some with and some without a migrant background, allow glimpses into their lives in Neukölln Unlimited (2010) by Agostino Imondi and Dietmar Ratsch, and in Bettina Blümner's Prinzessinnenbad / Pool of Princesses (2007). This article highlights how the films corroborate the findings made by social system theorist Ulrich Schmidt-Denter about disaffected youth in Germany. He argues that German self-loathing is a significant reason for the failure of many migrants and their children to integrate. An apparently specifically German tendency to observe and reflect on oneself critically seems to sabotage integration and aspiration. To illustrate how both documentaries validate Schmidt-Denter's findings, I analyse the six protagonists' attitudes to themselves and others, demonstrating that they contradict the diagnosis of a new German norm in relation to national identity.

In den letzten Jahrzehnten haben Deutschlands Teilung und die darauf folgende Wiedervereinigung die Art und Weise beeinflusst, wie die Geschichte des Landes verstanden wird, wobei östlich und westlich geprägte Erzählungen zu einer neuen Geschichtsschreibung verschmolzen. Die verschiedenen Sichtweisen auf das Leben und den Tod der jüdisch-deutschen Kommunistin Olga Benario, der Lebensgefährtin des brasilianischen Freiheitskämpfers Luis Carlos Prestes, dienen der deutschen Autorin Dea Loher in diesem Zusammenhang als aussagekräftige Fallstudie. In ihrem Theaterstück Olgas Raum (1994) werden die leeren Wände der Bühne genutzt, um auf ihnen Geschichte, Geschichten und Mythen zu projizieren, bevor die Figuren durch ihre eigenen tragischen Fehler diese Entwürfe dekonstruieren. Dabei werden die Konstruktionsmechanismen, die hinter der Entstehung von Geschichte und Geschichten liegen, enthüllt. Das Publikum wird so in eine aktive Rezipientenrolle gedrängt, nicht zuletzt wenn es mit dem leeren Raum, den Olga und die anderen Akteure nach einander verlassen, alleingelassen wird. Eine Flucht in den Mythos ist nicht mehr möglich in Anbetracht der Erkenntnis, dass Gewalt und allgemeine Fehlbarkeit zutiefst menschlich sind. ; Over the past few decades, Germany's division and subsequent unification have altered he way the country's history is understood, with Eastern and Western narratives needing to merge into a new master narrative. The different accounts of the life and death of the Jewish-German communist Olga Benario, partner of the Brazilian freedom fighter, Luis Carlos Prestes, serve as a powerful case study for Germany's author Dea Loher. In her theatre play Olga's Room (1994) the empty stage walls are used in such a way as to serve as a screen for history, her stories and myths, before the actors deconstruct these walls themselves by disclosing their own tragic flaws. In the process, the construction mechanisms that lie behind the history and stories are revealed. The audience is thereby pushed into an active reception role, not least when left with the empty space which Olga and the other actors leave one by one. Escapism into a myth is no longer possible; after all, the realisation that violence and general fallibility are profoundly human prevents this folly.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, unification and the subsequent reinvention of the nation, German filmmakers have revisited their country's 'Heimatfilm' traditions with a view to placing themselves creatively in the context of its intellectual and artistic heritage. However, German directors like Ute Badura, Volker Koepp, Andreas Dresen, Peter Welz and Andreas Kleinert, choose an Eastern setting for their films – rather than alpine or heath landscapes – as they ascribe symbolic value to the Baltic region and former German territories in the East. In many instances their films culminate at the sea which stands for the rough elements of nature as experienced in numero u s maritime disasters in the untamed tidal waters of Germany's limited coastline. The ocean drives home the message that the only certainty in life is change. But why did they choose the contested Eastern German territories and the Baltic Sea? Is this reorientation and paradigm shift in the Heimat genre from the west to the east a rapprochement or, rather, a territorial claim? Are the shores of the Baltic Sea perhaps expressing a yearning for former German territories further east that were lost after 1945? This article will probe several interpretations of the Baltic shore as a cinematic motif.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, unification, and the subsequent reinventionof the nation, German filmmakers have revisited theircountry's cinematic traditions with a view to placing themselves creativelyin the tradition of its intellectual and artistic heritage. One ofthe legacies that has served as a point of a new departure has beenthe Heimatfilm, or homeland film. As a genre it is renowned for itsrestorative stance, as it often features dialect and the renunciation ofcurrent topicality, advocates traditional gender roles, has antimodernovertones of rural, pastoral, often alpine, images, and expressesa longing for premodern times, for "the good old days" that supposedlystill exist away from the urban centres. The Nazis used Heimatfilms in an effort "to idealize 'Bauerntum' as the site of desirable traditionsand stereotyped the foreign (most often the urban) as thebreeding ground for moral decay."

Einleitung -- Der Kriegsausbruch in Westaustralien -- Die Geschichte der Gefängnisinsel Rottnest -- Das Internierungslager auf Rottnest Island -- Die Internierten -- Die deutschen Internierten -- Die österreischen Internierten -- Das Wachspersonal -- Die inhaftierten Strafgefangenen -- Die Schliessung des Lagers -- Das Nachspiel -- Bibliographie -- Anhang -- Index