Shandley - Die Mörder Sind Unter Uns and The Western

Rubble Canyons: Die Mörder sind unter uns and the Western
Author(s): Robert R. Shandley

Source: The German Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Spring, 2001), pp. 132-147
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Association of Teachers of German
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3072841
Accessed: 12-06-2016 10:35 UTC
REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3072841?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
American Association of Teachers of German, Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to The German Quarterly
This content downloaded from 132.203.227.62 on Sun, 12 Jun 2016 10:35:04 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
ROBERT R. SHANDLEY
Texas A&M University
Rubble Canyons: Die Mirder sind unter uns

and the Western
"Ein guter Deutscher ist firmlich daran zu cinema's generic and narrative codes had
erkennen, ob und wie er von diesem Film been so thoroughly delegitimated, it was
gepackt wird" unclear what cinematic language filmmak-
ers would be able to call upon once they
were in a position to resume production.
Introduction Harald Braun, a filmmaker in the Third
Reich whose career would blossom in the
The premiere of Wolfgang Staudte's postwar years as well, noted sarcastically
Die Morder sind unter uns on October 16, in November 1945 that German film had
1946, was a cinematic event unlike perhaps "den fragwiirdigen Vorzug gehabt, sich der
any other in German film history. It was besonderen Aufmerksamkeit und 'Betreu-
not only the opening act of postwar Ger- ung' der diktatorischen Stellen zu erfreu-
man filmmaking and the first feature film en."4 Braun goes on to propose making a
of the newly founded DEFA, it was a test of virtue out of this "Filmpause" imposed on
the medium.2 The cinema was rightfully German cinema for over a year. "Die
subjected to the controlling gaze of the oc- Ordnung des freien kiinstlerischen Spiels
cupying forces in Germany who were at will erarbeitet sein [...] die Selbststaindig-
best skeptical of Germans' relationship to keit der Entscheidung will neu begruindet
film. What stories Germans would seek to sein."5 Braun is exemplary of many in the
tell in film and how they would go about do- film industry who posed the primary ques-
ing so were topics of considerable interest tion that Die Morder sind unter uns had to
and debate among the Allied censorship address, namely "How does one make a
authorities, filmmakers, and the press.3 film in postwar Germany?" In many cases
While all these players disagreed on the it was accompanied by a moral query such
scope of influence German cinema should as, "How can one redeem this tainted me-
assume in the wake of its misappropriation dium?" As Braun put it, "niemand kann
by the National Socialists, they did agree heute so tun, im Leben nicht, im Theater
on at least one point: that filmic narrative nicht, im Film nicht, als habe es die Schuld,
was compelled to provide moral guidance. die Wirrnis, den Tod und die Angst der
The idea that cinema should assume a letzten Jahre iuberhaupt nicht gegeben."6
functionalist character was not novel. Cer- Braun's commandment begs a question
tainly, during the war, cinematic produc- for us over fifty years later when approach-
tion everywhere mobilized itself in the ser- ing the first German film of the postwar
vice of one national narrative or another. era: How would a German filmmaker ad-
But narrative cinema had played such a no- dress the crimes of the Nazi past? What is
torious role in the Nazi regime that Ger- the film's response to the questions of guilt
mans more than others had to interrogate and responsibility for the crimes commit-
their relationship to filmmaking. Many of ted during the Third Reich? These are
The German Quarterly 74.2 (Spring 2001) 132
SHANDLEY: Staudte 133
jk ej~~ C ~ ~ ?;r~
05~ ~
r Ag
X: Amj ~ ~ :a -
Photo courtesy of the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek.
questions its original audience was also ask- Westerns. Understanding the complex in-
ing of the film, questions that constituted a terplay of the Western with the domestic
crucial part of public discourse in 1946. melodrama will go a long way towards ex-
I will argue that Die Mdrder sind unter plaining the film's relation to the Nazi past.
uns seeks a solution to these problems
through cinematic generic structures,
among others, the narrative outlines of the The Story
Western. The presentation of the land-
scape, the hero, the heroine and much of A young woman, Susanne, returns to
the plot are analogous to Western codes. A Berlin from a concentration camp at the
lone, troubled man is lost in a wasteland. end of the war to find a man living in her
He struggles against his own troubled past apartment. Hans, lost in shell shock and
as well as against his lawless surroundings. self-pity, remains in the apartment, usu-
These are conventions with which, as I will ally showing up drunk. She reestablishes
show, Staudte would have been familiar. herself and makes a life for them both as
However, Die Mdrder sind unter uns is ob- they become lovers. Hans was a doctor be-
viously not a Western. It works with an- fore and during the war. He is possessed by
other familiar genre, the domestic melo- his memories of the war and seeks out
drama, in which the drive is toward the Briickner, his former captain in the army.
subject's integration with community val- The one-time officer who ordered the exe-
ues and social harmony. This conflict, cution of an entire village of innocent civil-
namely a counter-narrative creating inter- ians during the war is now owner of a fac-
nal narrative tension, often occurs within tory that turns battle helmets into cooking
134 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY Spring 2001
pots. Hans seeks to revenge the deaths of how Die Morder sind unter uns parallels
the innocent villagers through a vigilante the common mixture of the Western and
execution of his former captain. Susanne domestic melodrama genres. Mine is not
thwarts his plans in the last moment. The the first attempt among German film his-
film ends with an appeal to the justice sys- torians to place this film within an existing
tem to convict the murderers in their generic context. Anton Kaes sees the film
midst. as a crossbreed between Weimar Expres-
This summary sets up the conventional sionist stylistics and the documentary im-
reception and voices the problem with pulses of Italian neo-realism.8 Thomas
which the viewer is left. At the end of the Brandlmeier sees in many of the films of
film, the spectator is uncertain how the the era some international traits corre-
film treats the most recent German past. sponding to the American film noir. The
The murderer essentially goes unpun- traits include an underlying sense of dis-
ished. Susanne Wallner and Hans Mertens orientation and defeatism.9 Insofar as
call for a legal prosecution of Briickner and there is no filmic Ursprache, there is no
other war criminals at the very end of the reason to dismiss any of these readings.
film, and the final shot of Briickner shows The film engages the cinematic styles of
him standing behind an iron gate that is the Weimar era. But the return of that for-
suggestive of prison bars. But, since this is bidden aesthetic to Die M6rder sind unter
the first evidence in the film that any sort uns does not take a direct route. Both nar-
of state apparatus even exists, it is hard to ratively and stylistically the film echoes
muster much confidence in this solution. Fritz Lang's M, a similar story of shell
As the film ends, the murderer still lives shock, murder and revenge in an anxi-
among them. ety-ridden Berlin. Italian neo-realism ex-
A second disturbing aspect of the film is plains the film's style at least insofar as it
the character Susanne. We are told that she contextualizes Staudte's work with other
has just returned from a concentration concurrent filmmaking tendencies. How-
camp, where she was sent "wegen ihres ever, what might at first be taken as raw
Vaters," but no other details are given.7 documentary footage in Staudte's film is in
Further, Susanne is the most beautiful, fact carefully staged and stylized film-
physically healthy-looking and mentally making. I agree with Brandlmeier's obser-
well adjusted person in the film. Her main vations about the intertextuality of many
activity is helping Hans, the former soldier. of the rubble films and Hollywood generic
Dealing with the Nazi past requires deal- filmmaking. Noir stylistics certainly pick
ing with the Nazis' victims. Why does the up from Weimar cinematic practices. In
film present us with a victim and then leave fact, given the mass migration from Berlin
her so completely undeveloped? to Hollywood in the early thirties, they
These puzzles must be addressed and were often practiced by the same people.
better understood before we can evaluate Gender questions are often helpful de-
what the film does to "redeem" the me- terminants of filmic codes. Women play a
dium. significantly different, often more active,
role in many of the detective noir films
than the heroine plays in Die Morder sind
Establishing Place unter uns. The place of gender in the film
also inhibits me from seeing the Western as
My thesis is that the film's enigmas-- the only generic structure in play in the
what to do about guilt, memory, and moral film. Staudte uses many conventions ofthe
order, and what Susanne's role in the film domestic melodrama to portray the con-
is--can be best explained by examining text of Susanne's character.
Evidence of competing generic struc- of the music. The music is revealed as

tures is visible from the start of Staudte's diegetic, drawing the man who otherwise
film. The background music that accompa- appears to be walking without direction
nies the credits at the beginning of the film into the brothel, advertising "Tanz, Stim-
is at once somber and melodramatic, in no mung, Humor." Although the intertitle an-
way a break with pre-1945 cinematic con- nounced "Berlin," the ragtime-like music
ventions. As the credits finish, the screen and landscape suggest an uncanny combi-
goes black with a white text appearing, nation of the former "Reichshauptstadt"
placing the story specifically both histori- and a half-abandoned ghost town.
cally and spatially: "Berlin, 1945 ... die Both the music and the image now dis-
Stadt hat kapituliert." Before any image solve into the second half of the opening se-
has been projected, we know the story to be quence, temporarily leaving the Western
set in perhaps the world's most contested analogy. The brothel sign is superimposed
space and its most troubled time. onto an extreme canted shot of a train
The camera opens on two dark mounds speeding past. The music changes to an or-
that fill the screen. As the shot cranes up- chestrated, dramatic non-diegetic score.
ward, the mounds reveal themselves to be While in the first half-sequence the staging
graves, marked by flowers, a Wehrmacht was slow and evocative of death, the
helmet, and a cross-Berlin as graveyard, rhythm picks up in this second part. Every-
"Tombstone." As the camera continues to thing about this mise-en-scene indicates a
lift, we are finally provided a view of a be- sometimes edgy vitality. The shot is framed
rubbled landscape, littered in the foreground with a metal beam, cutting the frame in
with a disabled tank and other debris. half diagonally. Passengers are dangling
The opening shot is canted slightly, sug- from the sides of the cars. The wagons ap-
gesting to viewers that they are going to be pear to have no interior. The film cuts to a
presented with a world that is askew. The countershot, supposedly a point-of-view
tinny piano music is in discord with the shot from the train itself. The camera does
framed shot of the grave. It is annoyingly not survey the landscape as the train ar-
cheerful and lively, given the image of rives but remains fixed on the ruins of the
death it accompanies. A lonely figure platform itself. This is a very urban kind of
dressed in a long coat and a brimmed hat, clutter, very different from that shown in
framed in the canyons of destroyed build- the first shot of the film. As the locomotive
ings, stumbles along a rocky, treacherous enters the station, the film cuts back to a
path. He moves slowly and tentatively to- fixed shot from inside. It pans slowly, fol-
ward the camera while young children lowing the train as it is partially blocked
move easily and swiftly around him. As the from view by a twisted metal beam.
character approaches the camera it cranes As the train enters the station, the im-
upward, providing a shot of this drifting ages gradually change from angular to
wanderer from above. The character's rounded. The film cuts to a still slightly
movement indicates no particular goal. canted eye-level shot of a crowd, presum-
But the music gets louder, suggesting that, ably walking down the train platform. The
while the camera is not subjective, we are figures are dressed darkly and looking
hearing what the character does. away from the camera. As an old man
The man approaching the camera is be- crosses in front of the camera he reveals a
ing held deliberately in the dark. The cam- young woman in a white coat. The music
era simultaneously zooms in and rises turns from the driving symphonic score to
slowly.1? This move serves to keep his face soft strings. The woman occupies the cen-
dissected by a shadow. Slowly he makes a ter of the shot and is fully frontally lighted
three-quarter turn in search of the source as she moves in for what becomes a me-
dium close-up. The woman, who will short- the recent European history and film tra-
ly be introduced as Susanne Wallner, is ditions on one hand, and, on the other, a
clean, beautiful, and bears no signs of cinematic narrative code that could still
trauma apart from an apparent shock at produce the moral lesson the film will have
the sight and bustle of the city in which she to present. In effect, Die M6rder sind unter
has just arrived. uns, the first of what will become known as
The train, the bustle, the sharp angles "rubble films," will mimic most forcefully
provided by the canted camera and the or- another generic tradition.
chestral music draw upon yet another film
history, namely the urban fascination of
the Weimar cinema. In this case, it looks as Die Mirder sind unter uns
if the actors are returning to the set of and the Western
Walter Ruttman's Berlin, Die Sinfonie der
Grosstadt. Susanne is most clearly a part of The Western elements, first visible in
something. the opening sequence, are numerous
The film then cuts to a counter-shot, throughout the film. The landscape of de-
presumably a subjective one. Her look is di- stroyed Berlin, with its scattered bricks,
rected toward a group of broken men lying destroyed tanks and cars, mimics the rub-
or sitting next to a wall. One of them ble, scrubby brush, and bleached-out bones
crosses in front of the others with his back of familiar desert scenes. The obvious ex-
toward the camera, revealing the prisoner ample to which Staudte might have had ac-
of war marking on the back of his coat. As cess is John Ford's Stagecoach, a film ap-
the man crosses, the camera zooms in on proved by the Allies for public showing in
what is apparently the object of her atten- 1946. The blocks of bombed out buildings
tion: a travel poster of Nuremberg that form urban canyons. The cinematic pre-
hangs crookedly on the wall. The camera sentation is not organized around docu-
zooms in on the poster, which dissolves into mentation, i.e., the spectator is not going to
a shot of towering ruins reminiscent of see what Berlin really looks like in 1945.
Monument Valley. This shot then dissolves Unlike the overrun former Reichshaupt-
to one of Susanne walking among these ru- stadt, this city is devoid of its population. It
ins. As she passes, it then closes in on an in- shares more similarity with John Ford's
tact statue of a woman and a child framed conflation of the great empty landscapes
by the destroyed buildings. with the character's inner life. This goal,
The film's opening sequence introduces often stated by Ford, corresponds to one
the two main characters in a discordant stated by Staudte in 1946. "Die Bezie-
manner. We suspect that the film is about hungen des Menschen zu seiner jetzigen
bringing them together, but the film's task Umwelt [...], das ist das Grundthema die-
ends up being much larger. It is experi- ses Films [...]. Wir wollen mit der Kamera
menting with filmic convention, language, an die Landschaft des menschlichen Ge-
and images, seeking a device that will tell sichts heranfahren, wollen in die Empfin-
their stories. This then leads to other dis- dungswelt des Menschen hineinfahren.""11
cords in the opening seconds between the Other important Western tropes are
spectator's expectation of a Berlin city- adapted such that, at various points in the
scape and the film's presentation of an im- film, we even see trash and papers blowing
age that bears a far greater resemblance to by that are reminiscent of tumbleweeds.
the set of a Hollywood Western. The pres- These function in the film the same way
ence of a torn auto carcass, a destroyed tumbleweeds are often used in Westerns--
tank, and the ruins of a European metropo- as symbols of the past being delivered to a
lis on this set creates a dialogue between character.
Hans Mertens is, in many ways, a stock forms a tracheotomy to save the life of a
genre hero, be it gangster, film noir or West- young girl and thereby legitimates his role
ern. He is the man with the mysterious past as social authority figure. Furthermore,
that he refuses to discuss. The opening shot we see the murder plot literally through his
pins it down more specifically. He arrives in a eyes as a necessary act taken in the name of
lawless wasteland where he at first occupies bringing justice to chaos. He is not the
himself with alcohol and brothels. He is both "murderer" among us. In justifying the
driven and hindered, both strong and de- vigilante legal sense of the Westerner, An-
pressed. He is reluctant to take up his calling. dre Bazin noted "where individual moral-
A typical Western hero meets a typical West- ity is precarious it is only law that can im-
ern heroine. She is a woman who is pure, civi- pose the order of the good and the good of
lized, and out of place in the lawless waste- the order. But the law is unjust[...]. If it is
land. But, analogous to the Western, their to be effective it must be dispensed by men
love affair seems out of place, in fact inappro- who are just as strong and daring as the
priate to the Westerner's character. "If there criminals."s1 Only the Western has the ge-
is a woman he loves, she is usually unable to neric force to allow a man's redemption to
understand his motives; she is against killing come in the form of a marshalling of social
and being killed[...]."12 And yet, the woman order through direct, vigilante confronta-
plays an important role in the Western. tion. Unlike the urban dramas, in the West,
"[W]omen are often portrayed as possessing morality has more force than legal code.
some kind of deeper wisdom, while the men, The Western elements thus provide moral
for all their apparent self-assurance, are fun- guidance in Die Morder sind unter uns
damentally childish."13 In the case of Die where justice appears to be missing. It is
Morder sind unter uns, Susanne provides a because the viewer can identify with the
moral compass to Hans's disturbed person- hero who is goingto commit a murder in or-
ality. She keeps his righteousness from be- der to bring justice to the community that
coming criminal. this film becomes an ethical benchmark for
In the typical Western, the hero's sense Lenning, the reviewer quoted above.
ofjustice becomes refined through his con- But there is an important difference
frontation with evil in the showdown. between Die Mdrder sind unter uns and the
Warshow notes, typical Western, a difference that compli-
cates the moral message of the film--there
No death can be paid for and no stain tru-
is no final shoot-out. Hans pulls a gun on
ly wiped out; the movie is still a tragedy,
Briickner at the end of the film, but he does
for though the hero escapes with his life,
he has been forced to confront the ultima-
not kill him. Has Hans, at this moment,
found "the ultimate limits of his moral
te limits of his moral ideas. This mature
sense of limitation and unavoidable guilt ideas," as Warshow claims Western heroes
is what gives the Westerner a "right" to usually do? Or is the moment a triumph in
his melancholy. 14 which Hans abandons vigilantism and em-
braces a new and better ethic? Our under-
Until almost the final moments of the standing of the film will depend crucially
film, we see Hans as a righteous vigilante. on our reading of this scene.
Why is it that the spectator does not dis-
pute the righteousness of his cause even
when he is preparing to murder? In part, it Berlin as Tombstone, or Why Make
is because the film foils the first plot to am- a Western in 1946 Germany?
bush Briickner by reestablishing Hans's
subjectivity as a legitimate bourgeois agent Westerns were a very familiar genre to
through the operation scene, where he per- German filmmakers already in the 1920s.
As Lutz Koepnick has shown, the Ameri- inspiration from 1920s German cinema.
can Western occupied an integral part of FW. Murnau was a major influence on
the urban fantasy space in Weimar Ger- Ford, and thereby on the Western tradition
many.16 During the war years, American as a whole. Although many directors and
films did not, of course, find their way into all the major Hollywood studios produced
German cinemas. But, Goebbels held Westerns in the first half of this century,
screenings of the top Hollywood films to John Ford's name was already synony-
which he would invite selected members of mous with the genre by 1940. In his biogra-
the filmmaking community. Westerns were phy of Ford, Tag Gallagher has noted how
a main staple in the immediate postwar on- the filmmaker was "enchanted by the in-
slaught of films with which the Americans tense stylization of Murnau's painterly in-
flooded the German cinemas."7 vention, in which a character's conscious
The idea of a German Western clearly rapport with his physical world seemed
has precedence, both in popular literature suddenly palpable." 19As is so often the case
and in film. Adolf Hitler's favorite author, in many Weimar era German films, the mi-
Karl May, is the obvious literary example. lieu and the landscape in Ford films be-
Luis Trencker's "mountain films" share comes a part of the character. Gallagher
the same signature landscape fascination. writes that "Contrasts between subjective
Koepnick claims that "the long-standing and objective reality, theater and docu-
German pre-occupation with the iconogra- mentary, character and directorial pres-
phy of the Far West" constitutes "a discur- ence become vital aspects of John Ford's
sive site at which Germans negotiated and cinema."20 After his encounter with Mur-
contested the meaning of modern culture nau, Ford's characters share Murnau's si-
and society."18 If May, and Hitler's attach- multaneous resistance to and respect for
ment to him, compromised the genre, its communal codes. Gallagher also notes
return in the form of Hollywood Westerns Ford's use of a Murnau psychological tac-
immediately following the war would have tic, namely the close-up of the horrified
reclaimed the moral potential of the genre. face to portray a startling event taking
As I will discuss below, the German rela- place in view of the character.21 Western
tionship to the Western is not easy. Cul- filmmakers, especially Ford, adopted many
tural specificities in Germany affect the Weimar-era filmic conventions.22 It cer-
narrative parameters of German versions. tainly is not far-fetched to suggest that the
But, the idea that Staudte would call upon "expressionist" tendencies that some have
such a narrative economy seems therefore seen in Staudte's film were mediated
quite plausible, whether he made the deci- through Ford. The latter would easily ac-
sion consciously or not. count for the Murnauian traces in the film.
Given a whole century's worth of Ger- I do not claim that Wolfgang Staudte in-
man fascination with America, it might tended to mimic a Western. What is certain
appear easy to establish one-way commu- is that the filmmaker chose certain filmic
nication between the American Western motifs that, upon closer study, parallel the
and German culture. However, the influ- generic film patterns, predominantly
ence actually went in both directions. In a those of Hollywood Westerns made prior to
land of immigrants, especially in Holly- 1946. And perhaps this is not surprising.
wood, the 19th-century German fascination The things that get done in Westerns are
with the American West was instrumental the things that needed doing in postwar
in creating the Western mythology. Fur- Germany-the establishment of a moral
thermore, John Ford, who was more influ- order, confrontation of one's own shady
ential than anyone in creating the generic past, and confrontation of evil within a
rules for the Western, drew much stylistic community.
In using Western tropes to confront the generic set includes domestic melodramas,
ghosts of recent history, Die Mbrder sind comedies, and musicals. It is distinguished
unter uns is putting the genre to a familiar by conflicts that derive from a "struggle of
task. The Western genre is the American the principal characters to bring their own
"historical film par excellence."23 Quite of- views in line either with one another's or
ten the cathedral-like canyon spires and more often, in line with that of the larger
desolate western horizons are sites of dis- community."27 As we will see, Staudte
placement for entirely different histories. needed elements from both codal sets.
Whether the threats of industrialization, In its search for a narrative foothold,
post-Civil War racial politics, or rising xe- Die Morder sind unter uns calls upon many
nophobia as a reaction to increasing immi- generic tactics. Not only is the German/
gration, or telling us something about what American Expressionism line an obvious
it means to establish a state, astute observ- one to follow, but the less obvious gangster
ers have traced ideological production and genre also gives us a model for understand-
dissemination in the Western in many ing the film. The gangster film's hero is of-
fruitful and often contradicting directions. ten driven by a troubled past and seeks so-
Despite the variety of questions the genre lace in a domesticating woman. While all of
positions itself to address, certain formu- these genres, including the Western, are
laic constructions usually remain in place. usually melodramatic, they are not neces-
A definition of genres as "[...] formal sarily domestic melodramas. The latter
systems for transforming the world in genre is most noted for the narrative and
which we actually live into self-contained, visual role that the domicile itself plays.
coherent, and controllable structures of Thus any claim that Die Morder sind unter
meaning" makes us see why resorting to uns stays tied dogmatically to a specific ge-
implicit codes would be appealing.24 It is neric code is tunnel-visioned.
precisely coherence and control of meaning Shatz's metageneric categories help ex-
that is at stake in Die Mbrder sind unter plain the underlying tensions of the film
uns. Adopting accepted cinematic narra- more than a strict genre reading. If ever
tive norms, whether from Hollywood or there was a place where "fundamental val-
from Soviet filmmaking practices, provides ues were in a state of sustained conflict" it
a seemingly easy fix to the strained legiti- was postwar Germany. The most urgent
macy of filmic discourse. Hollywood genre task facing Germans as a collective in 1945
films were well-established and popular was the restoration of a moral order in a
structures that had again become the main place where almost all legal, religious and
stock for the German film spectator. political discourse had lost legitimacy.
Film genres are, according to Thomas Likewise, the simple task of telling a story
Schatz, sets of "interrelated narrative and had become difficult given the loss of those
cinematic components that serve to contin- same legitimating anchors. Westerns take
ually reexamine some basic cultural con- as their fundamental conflict both ques-
flict."25 Schatz divides genre films into two tions of how the subject deals with "his"
different categories, based on the narrative history and how communities are brought
and spatial thematics, namely genres of so- back into legal discourse. As such, the
cial order or those of social integration. The genre can be said to function as abooster to
former genre films, which include West- a narrative economy that needs reinvig-
erns, gangster and detective films, often orating and guidance. It gives support to
take place in contested, determinate spaces. the fantasy of an individualistic moral hero
In these films, the struggle is for ideological in a society that had, up to then, praised
control since the "fundamental values are mass/collective actions.
in a state of sustained conflict."26 The other
Shutting out the Past with Her cinematic structure is highly con-
the Domestic Melodrama trolled. The cuts are quick. Shots occasion-
ally dissolve into one another. The general
The conflict of basic values in postwar effect is artificial. Shots on Hans are me-
Germany made the Western an apt choice dium to long. The takes are much more ex-
for the first postwar German film. But, of tended and editing almost non-existent.
course, the filmmaking environment was The film ties her to the desire for commu-
even more complicated than that. Ger- nal integration and domesticity. Her reac-
mans not only had to scrutinize their own tion to having been cast out, i.e., having
past behavior and investigate theirs and been incarcerated in a concentration camp,
others' wrongdoings, they also had to find a is to seek to reengage herself in the commu-
way to live together again. If they were to nity. In the famous shot of the couple look-
find a way to survive and heal, they would ing out onto the ruins of Berlin, the win-
have to rearticulate narratives of commu- dow contains Susanne while Hans's frame
nity and coexistence. Some of the early dis- is still open. Domestic order belongs to the
courses on guilt in postwar Germany, most value structure with which she becomes
notably Karl Jaspers' Die Schuldfrage, are identified. In fact, once she regains her
grounded in the attempt to recreate com- apartment, the only activities we see her
munity. Thus, Western independence and engaged in are either domestic, maternal
vigilantism tropes were not by themselves or both.
enough to articulate Staudte's political One of the film's most memorable im-
message. He also resorted simultaneously ages occurs in the canyonesque low-lighted
to a contrasting generic structure--the nighttime sequence. In it, Hans is drawn
sort in which characters struggle to inte- out into the landscape that has defined
grate their idiosyncratic histories and him. The sequence marks the high point of
value systems into the community. this film's domestic melodrama and is also
Descriptions of "domestic melodrama" a harbinger of the return to the Western.
generally include a couple, a civilized The force of the confrontation between the
space, the conflation of domestication with two protagonists comes from Hans's resis-
societal integration, a maternal-familial tance to the stable environment into which
code, and community cooperation.28 Su- he has fallen. Her compulsion toward inte-
sanne's introduction of exactly those ele- gration and humanity gains the upper
ments gives rise to what amounts to the hand against his poorly articulated alien-
film's generic tension. Their forced co-do- ation.
mestication undermines Hans's stated sta- Their entire argument seems contrived
tus as a loner, i.e., she tames him against to remove them to the "moonlit" rubble
his will. She clears the rubble, the signifier set.29 Although she draws him into the
of Hans's alienation, from the house, re- landscape that marks his internal destruc-
claiming it for civilized functionality. tion, this is the point where Susanne will
Throughout the film the domestic space attempt to extract Hans from the emo-
becomes more comfortable and critical to tional ruins and back into her domestic
Hans's well-being. Susanne provides the fantasy. He overtakes her along the wind-
moral code that runs the household, one ing moonlit path and declares his intention
that Hans's self-pity and drunkenness con- to fall in love with her. At this moment,
fronts constantly. Staudte retrieves his hero, albeit tempo-
The opening sequence announces at rarily, from the rubble canyons that had
least two structural possibilities by intro- consumed him. Despite the fact that realist
ducing Susanne simultaneously with Hans. consistency would have had the two walk-
They are presented entirely differently. ing away from the camera, the film's block-
ing has them move toward the camera. As about her past and about their growing do-
they do so, the dramatic night shot of ruins mestic and love relationship, Suzanne is
diminishes in comparison to the humans. protected from being forced to become ei-
In the course of a minute, the shot goes ther self-righteous or defensive.
from an extreme long shot to an extreme Herr Timm, the soothsayer, is Briick-
close-up. ner's moral Doppelgdinger in his ability to
Shot composition varies widely be- exploit postwar conditions. Timm calls
tween the two generic structures in this upon individual fears and desperation
film. The interior shots are primarily me- about the future and provides a false com-
dium-close to close. In fact, the editing of fort. He is exposed in the sequence where
the close-up shots is often quite jarring. As he "predicts" Mondschein's immanent re-
do Westerns, much of Die Mdrder sind union with his son. In fact, the film uses the
unter uns is constructed primarily of me- exploitation subplot to introduce the moral
dium and long shots, often so long that poverty exemplified to a greater extent by
Hans is dwarfed in the landscape. The Briickner in the following sequence.
move from one cinematic form to the other The last of the subplots contrasts
often makes for the most impressive imag- Ferdinand Bruickner as war criminal and
ery of the film. loving father with Hans Mertens, righ-
teous drunk. Just as alcohol is used to con-
ceal Hans's real character, the scenes of do-
Subplot Contextualizations mestic tranquility and prosperity in the
Bruickner household are used to set up an
It takes thirty minutes to introduce the ideal, one that the film will gradually un-
Briickner plot strand into the film. Before veil as false. The film works to replace the
that, a number of subplots are introduced, domestic fantasy based on lies and exploi-
any one of which could have provided inter- tations as embodied in Briickner, with one
esting cinematic material. The old neigh- based on a sense of social justice and altru-
bor and patron of the apartment building, ism, the position gradually established for
Mondschein, has worked hard to reestab- Hans. Briickner sees the world through
lish a life for himself out the war's rubble. new glass windows, while Mertens sees it,
It is unclear whether or not he may have literally, through objects of his past. These
belonged to the list of those persecuted by subplots, along with the one in which Hans
the Nazis. Susanne expresses surprise that performs the emergency operation, give
he is still alive after the war. And his son the appearance of a community context in
had obviously emigrated to America. It is a Berlin that is otherwise depicted as
the hope of that son's eventual return that empty.
motivates Mondschein to continue living.
His role in the film is to cast a moral gaze
upon the unfolding drama of Hans and The Final Sequence:
Susanne. In many ways, he is Susanne's re- A Showdown between the Western
inforcement in the task of resocializing and the Melodrama
Hans.
The other characters in the house serve The move between the two generic
similar functions in the film. The house structures and the rhythm that it estab-
Klatschtante is put in place to provide in- lishes becomes critical for understanding
formation about Susanne that the film the film's final sequence and its outcome.
uses to establish her moral authority, but For the end of the film amounts to a show-
for which it has no other use. By having the down, not only between Hans and Brick-
neighbor woman convey the information ner, but also between the order-oriented
Western and the domestic melodrama's mates the most, his pathos of control, action
drive toward social harmony. The generic and pure physical experience."30 In the final
structures will demand different resolu- showdown, Hans needs only tell Brdickner
tions of the problems the narrative sets out that he is demanding revenge, restating the
to solve. These differences account for the statistics of the brutal village liquidation.
ambiguities regarding the film's treatment Susanne has told us the rest of the history.
of the questions of crime and punishment. Words do not interfere with his desire.
The sequence begins with domestic or- Hans increasingly closes in the space. If
der having been established. Hans and Su- the community is endangered by the "mur-
sanne have set up a comfortable bourgeois derer among us," the camerawork and
existence together, celebrating Christmas. staging slowly entrap the criminal, a stag-
The outside, which throughout the film has ing similar to the final sequence of Lang's
represented the film's primary threat, has M. The shadow that Hans has become will
been shut out with the film of Hans's past, be the very location of the showdown.
the x-rays he saved from his days as a medi- Nothing else occupies the space. The
cal student. The x-ray photos are signs of diegetic and non-diegetic music is gone.
his internal self. He is able to use this me- Hans confronts Bruickner in an empty
dium to discuss his distant past as a suc- space, a hallway. As Bruickner backs away
cessful young doctor, until memory of the he is consumed by Hans's shadow, gradu-
intervening history arises. Hans is really shrinking in the space. Hans is pre-
minded of the war and Briickner's order to pared to kill the murderer who is, in fact,
liquidate the population of a village. His now visually internal to him. It is as if the
mood turns dark and he takes out his gun. classical Western has reached a noiresque
In the very moment that Hans picks up defining moment. Hans has indeed con-
his gun, the film's generic duality re- tained the evil and needs only eliminate it.
emerges. Hans immediately turns from an He is, in that moment, purely external, i.e.,
eloquent storyteller to a silent shadow. The nothing but surface and gaze. He has in-
shots of him pull back so that, in the next stalled fear into the eyes of his enemy.
scene, when he stops to listen to "Silent One sound brings the showdown to an
Night" being sung outside a ruined church, end; not the sound of a shot, but the calling
his small silhouette is projected onto a of Hans's name. Hans is called back to him-
darkened facade. He is again portrayed as self by Susanne. The series of medium
an alienated and haunted figure whom we close-ups of him, her, and Bruickner breaks
know to be headed for a showdown. up the action. The tension is relieved, space
As Hans strolls through the city witness- is expanded. Her final statement that "wir
ing its Christmas Eve activities, the specta- haben nicht das Recht zu richten," fol-
tor knows to look in his eyes for the discord lowed by accession to democratic due pro-
to this supposed harmony. His gaze delin- cess, is clearly integrationist. The Western
eates the space as troubled and contested. structure has given way to the domestic
The words of peace and reconciliation are melodrama. Hans is drawn away from
but a thin ice covering the sea of moral quick and immediate justice into the slow
chaos. What Hans sees, Susanne speaks. In narrative of legal discourse. Briickner ends
his absence, she finds and reads his written up visually/symbolically behind bars.
account of the Christmas Eve three years
earlier. Koepnick noted apropos of the West-
erner that he practices "forms of linguistic The Missing Shoot-Out
minimalism [...] for his words open his sub-
dued masculinity to a multiplicity of rela- The analogy to the Western lacks a criti-
tions and stimuli that threaten what he esti- cal element, namely a final gun battle. The
missing shoot-out in Die Mdrder sind unter The officer's reason for demanding a dif-
uns is very important to understanding the ferent ending reveals an attitude about
film. What does a shoot-out typically ac- film that would influence DEFA through-
complish in a Western? It is the tool the out the rest of the decade. The Soviet au-
hero uses to reestablish a moral order in a thorities had an agenda for film as a tool of
lawless land. It is quick justice. The pur- education and socialization. The projection
pose such cathartic bloodletting is to allow of a private fantasy that would be in conflict
the spectator the fantasy ofpurejustice tri- with a public value was not acceptable.
umphing over evil, unadulterated by legal Even the original screenplay was not
stratification. completely in line with the standard West-
In a number of John Ford Westerns, for ern's lawless answer to justice. The differ-
example, the final showdown has a precari- ence between Staudte's proposal and the
ous relationship to the law. In Stagecoach final product is the difference in attitudes
we sympathize with the John Wayne char- about German guilt. Hans becomes the
acter's need to avenge the death of his test case of criminal law instead of Briick-
brother and father. The shooting of Liberty ner. The proposal also takes the story
Valence is, in legal terms, a murder.3' In al- through a trial where the former captain is
most all of the portrayals of Wyatt Earp painted as a pillar of society and Hans a cow-
and Doc Holliday, the showdown at the OK ardly murderer. The story of the wartime
Corral is an ambush.32 The pursuit of jus- "liquidation" becomes Hans's defense testi-
tice in these and many other classic Holly- mony. The proposal would then have had
wood Westerns suggests that law functions the film end with the court's deliberation,
without clear moral boundaries between i.e., without a verdict.34Ultimately, this test
good and evil. of the legal system was not one that the au-
But in Die Mirder sind unter uns, the thorities were willing to risk.
showdown is cut short. Why is there no fi- Neither the original screenplay ending
nal shoot-out? The most obvious explana- nor the conclusion that made it on film is
tion is that the Soviet censors would not let very satisfying. The film sets us up for a
Staudte make such a film. The Soviet cen- showdown that does not happen. The solu-
sors' reasoning may have been that they tion of relying on the legal system is un-
could not allow an endorsement of vigi- grounded in the rest of the film and inex-
lante justice in postwar Germany to be plicit, finally. Legal authority, whether it is
shown. They had to maintain public order. in the form of Allied forces, local justice, or
Cathartic bloodlettings may work in film, even bureaucratic restriction is completely
but they are unacceptable in occupied ter- absent.35 That is not to say that Staudte's
ritories. As Staudte explains it, original proposal, in which a legal system
was apparent, would have provided such a
Der sowjetische Offizier war von dem narrative. It too would have failed to pro-
Stoffbegeistert, nur einen Einwand hatte duce the moral drama necessary to bring
er: Ich sollte den Schlu aindern. Er lehn-
the film to a satisfactory conclusion. The
te diese Art von Selbstjustiz ab und malte
spectator would never have found suffi-
mir die Folgen aus, die aus der Wirkung
cient legal or moral closure.
des Films entstehen kinnten, wenn jeder
The failure of the final showdown to
hinginge und jeden erschoB, so selbstver-
produce catharsis is largely a function of
stindlich der Wunsch auch sein mochte.
Die Menschen miiten ordentlichen Ge- the generic restlessness of this text. But, at
richten zur Aburteilung iibergeben wer- the same time, the lack of a shoot-out ad-
den.33 heres to the conventions of the distinc-
tively German Western.36 While the West-
ern can in many ways be said to be as much
a part of German popular imagination as it way, i.e., to have become at one with com-
is American, the traditional German rendi- munity values. An American Westerner
tion varies somewhat from its New World would do what he had to do and thereby es-
counterpart. German Westerns seldom tablish community values.
have final shoot-outs. And the heroes are What does the film's relationship to
often more communicative, choosing to Western narrative practices, both of the
talk their way out of potentially violent sit- American and German variety, tell us
uations. Koepnick claims that German about how this film works with the Nazi
Westerns "rewrite the quest for law and or- past. The Western provides an interesting
der as a romantic search for spiritual re- model for a relationship to the past, even if
finement and communal harmony.""37 carrying it out to the end was impossible.
Koepnick argues elsewhere that "the re- Staudte (and perhaps the audience) advo-
moval of the gunfight from publicness in cate quick justice--they want to purge the
German Western expresses an aspiration murderers from their midst (and perhaps
to collapse private and public realms[...]by from themselves). Given the very guilt that
exposing the striking role, not of bullets, they would have liked to purge, this possi-
but of words."38 When Hans resorts to the bility is obviously closed. Cathartic vio-
legal system at the end of the film, it could lence may be a useful Hollywood tool, but it
be argued that he is adhering to the generic is not an option in the first postwar Ger-
code of the Western in its German specific- man film. So the characters, the film and
ity. Or, the inherent domesticating tension the audience are left to appeal to a demo-
within most Westerns is exhibiting its in- cratic legal system, one for which there is
fluence. not yet a public discourse or understand-
If the German Western is, to use ing. The film does not know how to portray
Schatz's terms, more integrationist than it. And, in 1946, there would have been no
its American counterpart, that would still reason why an audience would have had
leave us with some incongruities. For the any confidence in such a system. The sub-
shadows that serve throughout the film to stitution for quickjustice of a slow and per-
define and determine Hans's alienated haps unlikely prosecution explains why
character would confuse our comparison of the end of the film is so unsatisfying.
Die Mirder sind unter uns with the generic
patterns of the Hollywood Western. A typi-
cal German Western hero, Sutter in Luis Innocence sans Victimhood
Trencker's Der Kaiser von Kalifornien for
instance, seeks integration. He desires ac- Finally, I would like to turn to the puz-
ceptance by the community. The American zle presented by Susanne in the film. Why
Western hero often becomes integrated de- is she so undeveloped? What is her role in
spite himself. He avoids community, but the film? Why are we told that she is a con-
community seeks him out. Hans behaves centration camp survivor and then given
more like the latter. He is driven to carry no more details? Why is this concentration
out vigilante justice. In the proposed ver- camp survivor represented as healthy, re-
sion he succeeds and then asks for affirma- deeming, and optimistic? We can answer
tion for his decision. In the final version, these questions by thinking about the con-
Susanne prevents him from carrying out flicting role of women in Westerns and do-
his ownjustice. A man of few words, hisjus- mestic melodramas.
tification for killing Briickner consists of Susanne is no more out of place, nor is
the raw figures of those the latter had "liq- her story any less developed, than most
uidated." According to the proposal, Hans women in Westerns are. In fact, through
would have hoped for the verdict to go his Susanne, a problem arises, one that speaks
to the classical Western narrative as well, Conclusion

namely that she is defined through an en-
tirely different set of generic characteris- To read Die Mbrder sind unter uns as
tics than is Hans. Her motivations and de- analogous to a Western, and to see the ways
sires lie in a wholly different drama than in which it stops short of being a Western,
his, namely in a domestic melodrama. will help find some answers to the film's
Hans and Susanne seem like characters in more enigmatic elements. Its answers to
different films, films that are then forcibly Germany's past are grounded in Holly-
merged. From the very start, these differ- wood narrative schematics. Susanne re-
ences cause tension between the two of mains a disturbingly underdeveloped
them and between the viewer and the film. character, as do Western women. The ge-
In Westerns, women are the symbols of neric codes that best suit her story, namely
civilization, innocence and community. the domestic melodrama, at best serve to
They are clean slates, bearers of language. insert legal discourse into the film. All this
To be sure, Susanne is all of these things in leaves us with the big question with which
Die Marder sind unter uns. But why make we started. Does Die M6rder sind unter
Susanne a concentration camp survivor? uns-the first German postwar film-re-
Because of the discourse of guilt that in- deem the medium of filmmaking in Ger-
cluded all Germans in 1946, the film needs many?
to find a position of innocence from which it Not quite, I would argue. The film's
can civilize Hans. Any ordinary woman end, even if Staudte had been free to pur-
who had been living in Germany at the sue his original version, leaves us with
time would have been burdened with a troubling generalizations. To be sure, one
morally questionable past. And since the would not have wanted to legitimate infor-
point of the film is to rehabilitate Hans, it is mal executions as a method of dealing with
all the more convenient to exclude the past. But, one would also not necessar-
Susanne's past through resorting to a ily want to portray the crimes of the Nazi
genre that, by definition, is a male fron- past as a distant problem with distant solu-
tier.39 tions. Likewise, the end of the film sets up
Only in the fantasy of the filmmakers, German soldiers and dead Christians (rep-
however, was someone in a concentration resented by a zoom shot of hundreds of
camp as naive, unburdened and optimistic gravemarking crosses) as the victims of the
as Susanne is portrayed. Obviously the murderers among us. In a film that either
filmmakers elide the realities of concentra- set for itself or was granted by others such
tion camps. Germans in the immediate high moral aspirations, this sloppiness had
postwar years were often heedless of all a critical effect.
suffering other than their own. While im- At the very least, the appeal of Die
mediately following the war they had M6rder sind unter uns both to the occupy-
plenty of information regarding Nazi ing authorities and to audiences showed
atrocities, they had few intellectual and filmmakers that historical truth and accu-
emotional tools to process it. And they, like racy were not values that the censors
Hans, assumed guilt to a blindingly selfish would enforce. The premiere of Staudte's
degree. In this questionable view of the film was followed in the same week by the
world, victims were seen as lucky in com- premiere of Gerhard Lamprecht's Irgend-
parison. wo in Berlin, a realist drama of the perils of
family life in destroyed Berlin, and Milo
Harbich's Freies Land, a propagandistic
film about Soviet-style land reform in the
eastern occupation zones. Both films
failed.40 While they portrayed actual condi- Notes

tions in Germany, they provided little of
the fantasy space sought by the film audi- 'Walter Lenning, Berliner Zeitung, October
ence. Die Mbrder sind unter uns offers re- 17, 1946, n.p.
demption to its troubled male subject, the 2Deutsche Film Aktiengesellschaft: The film
studio of what would become the German Dem-
potential of domestic happiness to the
ocratic Republic.
long-suffering woman, and a promise of
3For a thorough discussion of the reemer-
(an albeit weak) moral order restored to a
gence of German cinema in the immediate post-
confused community. war years see Robert R. Shandley's "Disman-
Renarrating the moral course of its au- tling the Dream Factory" in South Central Re-
dience is an unrealistic task to expect of a view (forthcoming, Spring, 1999); see also
film, especially when the audience also ex- Wolfgang Schivelbusch In a Cold Crater: Cul-
pects some form of entertainment. At best tural and Intellectual Life in Berlin, 1945-1949
Die Mdrder sind unter uns speaks to the (Berkeley: U of California P, 1998).
ability of film to include moral questions. 4Harald Braun, "Die Bedeutung der 'Film-
To be sure, it labors under delusions about pause'," Die Neue Zeitung, Miinchen, Novem-
ber 12, 1945, n.p.
what it means to be a concentration camp
5Braun, 1945, n.p.
survivor. It gives no clear message about
6Braun, 1945, n.p.
justice, guilt, or the problems of the Ger-
7The screenplay indicates that she was sent to
man past. Schatz is correct in claiming that the concentration camp because her father was
"... movies are considerably more effective a communist. This last detail is, however, omit-
in their capacity to raise questions than to ted from the final version of the film.
answer them. This characteristic seems 8Thomas Brandlmeier, From Hitler to Hei-
particularly true of genre films."41 In call- mat: The Return of History as Film, (Cam-
ing upon generic storytelling, Staudte does bridge: Harvard UP, 1989) 12.
manage to create a space in film where such 9See Hilmar Hoffmann, ed., Zwischen Ges-
questions can at least be posed if not an- tern und Morgen: Westdeutscher Nachkriegs-
filme 1945-1961 (Frankfurt/Main: Deutsches
swered. As many of the postwar German
Filmmuseum, 1989) 55-56.
historical debates have taught us, opening
o1Alfred Hitchcock, who comes from the same
space in the public sphere for debate on generation offilmmaking, will exploit this anxi-
Germany's Nazi past is a significant task. ety producing tactic to the fullest.
As Jiirgen Habermas has argued in a much nlHilde Lest, "Erster DEFA-Film im Atelier
more recent debate, 'Die Morder sind unter uns',"Die franz6sisiche
Wochenschau Nr. 25, 1946.
wie wir Schuld und Unschuld im histori- 12Robert Warshow, "Movie Chronicle: The
schen Rickblick verteilt sehen, spiegelt Westerner," ed. Jim Kitses and Gregg Rick-
auch die Normen, nach denen wir uns ge- man, The Western Reader (New York: Lime-
genseitig als Bufrger dieser Republik zu light Editions, 1998) 37.
achten willens sind [...].42 13Warshow 38.
14Warshow 40.
16See Andre Bazin, "The Western: or the
Die Marder sind unter uns set the tone for
American Film par excellence" What is Cinema
an entire set of DEFA films in the late for-
Vol. II. Trans. Hugh Gray. (Berkeley: U of Cali-
ties that thematize the Schuldfrage from fornia P, 1971) 146.
varying perspectives. It is an often over- 16Lutz Koepnick, "Unsettling America: Ger-
looked cinematic legacy that tells us much man Westerns and Modernity," MODERN-
about the early politics of the past in post- ISM/modernity 2.3 (1995): 5-6.
war German culture. 17Peter Pleyer, Deutscher Nachtkriegsfilm
1946-1948 (Miinster: Fahle, 1965) 453-58
18Koepnick 1.
19 Tag Gallagher, John Ford: The Man and his Gunfight at the OK Corral (John Sturges,
Films (Berkeley: U California P, 1986) 50. 1957), Tombstone (George P. Cosmatos, 1993).
20 Gallagher 53. " Christiane Miickenberger and Giinter Jor-
21Gallagher 139. dan, "Sie sehen selbst, Sie haren selbst:" Die
22 Mertens is constructed around the classical DEFA von Ihren Anfdngen bis 1949 (Berlin:
Weimar male subjectivity norms, e.g., frequent Hitzeroth, 1994) 41.
close-up shots of a starkly lighted emasculated 3 Egon Netenjakob, et al, Staudte (Berlin:
figure, norms just as easily found in Ford films Edition Filme, 1991) 155-57.
from the late twenties onward. `6 This is a curiosity for the psychoanalytically
2 Bazin 140. inclined. What Lacanians have come to under-
24 Patrick Phillips, "Genre, star, and auteur: stand as the big Other or the symbolic order is ex-
an approach to Hollywood cinema," Jill actly what is in chaos.
Nelmes, ed., An Introduction to Film Studies ~ See Koepnick 1997, 428.
(London: Routledge, 1996) 127 37 Koepnick 1995, 11.
25Thomas Schatz, Hollywood Genres: For- " Koepnick 1997, 429.
mulas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System 39 It is arguable that a haggard heroine and/or a
(Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1980) 16. Jewish woman would not have been interested in
26Schatz 26. redeeming the German man. It would have to be
27 Schatz 29. an entirely different film and filmic genre, one
28Schatz 35. with different gender codes (perhaps film noir) to
29Although the film was produced in the Ger- have allowed her a past.
many that consisted primarily of heaps of rub- 40 Miickenberger/Jordan 58.
ble, Staudte recreates in a studio his own ruins. 41 Schatz 35.
30 Lutz Koepnick, "Siegfried Rides Again: 42 Jiirgen Habermas, "Geschichte ist ein Teil
Westerns, Technology, and the Third Reich," von uns: Warum ein 'Demokratiepreis - Eine
Cultural Studies 11.3 (1997): 429 Laudatio' fiir Daniel J. Goldhagen?" Die Zeit 14
"s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962). March 1997, n.p.
32My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946),

Shandley - Die Mörder Sind Unter Uns and The Western

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Shandley - Die Mörder Sind Unter Uns and The Western

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Shandley - Die Mörder Sind Unter Uns and The Western

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Rubble Canyons: Die Mörder sind unter uns and the Western

Author(s): Robert R. Shandley

Rubble Canyons: Die Mirder sind unter uns

The German Quarterly 74.2 (Spring 2001) 132

Photo courtesy of the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek.

Evidence of competing generic struc- of the music. The music is revealed as

to the classical Western narrative as well, Conclusion

failed.40 While they portrayed actual condi- Notes

You might also like