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ABSTRACT
Roland Suso Richter's 1999 courtroom thriller Nichts als die Wahrheit (After the Truth) alerts viewers to the power of film to manipulate its audience with implicit references to Wolfgang Liebeneiner's NS propaganda film Ich klage an (I accuse, 1941). In both courtroom dramas the accused defend their crimes as acts of euthanasia. Ich klage an sought to reach acceptance for the Nazi law on euthanasia. Nichts als die Wahrheit is a fictional trial in which Josef Mengele excuses his crimes during the Holocaust as euthanasia in order to appeal to audiences in recently reunified Germany. It engages with the National Socialists’ instrumentalization of film for propaganda purposes by employing similar filmic and rhetorical techniques as NS films in order to challenge viewers to find out whether these techniques still have manipulative effects. By presenting the character of a major Holocaust perpetrator as protagonist, Nichts als die Wahrheit cautions its spectators to be cognizant of their own susceptibility to Nazi propaganda and critical of the information about the National Socialist past with which they are presented in films.
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Notes
1 McGlothlin, “Theorizing the Perpetrator,” 213.
2 Adams and Vice, Representing Perpetrators in Holocaust Literature, 2–3.
3 Jordan, From Nuremberg to Hollywood, 198.
4 The title Nichts als die Wahrheit could certainly also be interpreted as a reference to Sidney Lumet's 1982 courtroom drama The Verdict, whose German title is translated as Die Wahrheit und Nichts als die Wahrheit. This interpretation of the title choice does indeed suggest its connection to the long tradition of American courtroom dramas. Loewy discusses Nichts als die Wahrheit in the context of the genre of predominantly American Holocaust courtroom drama, i.e. films that address aspects of the Holocaust in a legal setting, such as Stanley Kramer's 1946 Judgment at Nuremberg.
5 Alternative or counterfactual histories play a crucial role in Holocaust Studies, e.g. the question of a world without Jews that Jeffrey Gurock and Alon Confino address in their books (Confino, A World Without Jews). In The Holocaust Averted: An Alternative History of American Jewry, 1938–1967, Jeffrey Gurock explains the merits of alternative histories: ‘Counterfactuals are propositions and hypothesis about events that did not take place. […] [T]hrough contemplations of the directions history might have taken, we not only learn much about the real past but also gain a more nuanced appreciation of the world of our times’ (Gurock, The Holocaust Averted, 5–6).
6 For more information on Fritz Bauer's attempts to capture Mengele and prosecute him in Germany, see Irmtrud Wojak's 2011 biography on the Hessian Attorney General Fritz Bauer: 1903–1968. According to Wojak, Bauer also searched for Adolf Eichmann and Martin Borman (280). For more information on the Mossad's hunt for Mengele, see Posner and Ware, Mengele.
7 An unofficial Mengele hearing, i.e. a mock trial ‘conducted in a trial-like manner,’ took place at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem in 1985, when it was still unconfirmed that Mengele had indeed died. Mengele was tried in absentia by means of eyewitness testimonies and a panel, consisting of e.g. Telford Taylor, Gideon Hausner, Simon Wiesenthal, and Yehuda Bauer (Grodin, Mozes Kor, and Benedict, “The Trial That Never Happened,” 4.) The 106 survivor witnesses testified for three days and Mengele was convicted ‘in absentia for war crimes against humanity’ (Grodin, Mozes Kor, and Benedict, “The Trial That Never Happened,” 5; see also Posner and Ware, Mengele, 305–6). Posner and Ware describe the event as ‘an enormous success’ (Posner and Ware, Mengele, 306).
8 Hirsch, Photography, Narrative, and Postmemory, 22.
9 For further discussion on Holocaust postmemory in film and the discussion following Hirsch, see Bayer, “After Postmemory.”
10 Drexler, “Der deutsche Gerichtsfilm 1930–1960,” 72. Unless otherwise noted, all English translations from the German are my own.
11 Drexler, “Der deutsche Gerichtsfilm 1930–1960,” 71.
12 Drexler, “Der deutsche Gerichtsfilm 1930–1960,” 73.
13 Isensee, Das Justiz-Bild im NS-Spielfilm, 68. See his chapter “Die NS-Filmpolitik” in Das Justiz-Bild im NS-Spielfilm, 45–90. For a deeper understanding of how the NS judiciary wanted to see itself presented in film, Isensee recommends “Deutsche Justiz: Rechtspflege und Rechtspolitik” and “Deutsches Recht: Zentralorgan des Nationalsozialistischen Rechtswahrerbundes” (61).
14 Isensee, Das Justiz-Bild im NS-Spielfilm, 354–5.
15 Isensee, Das Justiz-Bild im NS-Spielfilm, 71.
16 Isensee, Das Justiz-Bild im NS-Spielfilm, 60.
17 Vatter, Gedächtnismedium Film, 268.
18 Isensee, Das Justiz-Bild im NS-Spielfilm, 355.
19 Isensee, Das Justiz-Bild im NS-Spielfilm, 160; 161.
20 Isensee, Das Justiz-Bild im NS-Spielfilm, 161; 164.
21 Dr. Maximilian Aue, the protagonist and narrator, who is a former SS member, in Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones, which came out in 2009, ten years after Nichts als die Wahrheit, addresses similar aspects: ‘But I don't think I’m a devil. There were always reasons for what I did. Good reasons or bad reasons, I don't know, in any case human reasons. Those who kill are humans, just like those who are killed, that's what's terrible’ (Littell, The Kindly Ones, 24).
22 McGlothlin, “Empathetic Identification and the Mind,” 260.
23 Wittmann, Beyond Justice: The Auschwitz Trial, 188.
24 See Wojak, Fritz Bauer, 358.
25 As such, his defense can also be understood as a reference to the 1945 Nuremberg trials, in which the defendants were charged based on international law with ‘Crimes against Humanity,’ (‘Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit’), a charge he attempts to revert with his defense.
26 Sontag, “Reflections on The Deputy,” 119.
27 Ibid.
28 Nichts als die Wahrheit, 53:54–54:00.
29 Nichts als die Wahrheit, 55:00–55:05.
30 Kerner, “On the Cinematic Nazi,” 213.
31 For example, one survivor testimony against Mengele is by a pathologist who worked with Mengele. He might be based on the real Mislos Nyiszli, who wrote a memoir about his work under Mengele in Auschwitz, entitled Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account (1993). The film The Grey Zone is based on Nyiszli's memoir; see McGlothlin, “‘The Doctor is Different.’”
32 The exact wording may vary by state. The above quotation is from the state of Georgia. (http://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2010/title-17/chapter-8/article-3/17-8-52). According to §64 of the German Strafprozessordnung (StPO), Code of Criminal Procedure, witnesses have to swear the following oath or provide a non-religious affirmation, which is the same, but without reference to God: ‘(1) Der Eid mit religiöser Beteuerung wird in der Weise geleistet, dass der Richter an den Zeugen die Worte richtet: “Sie schwören bei Gott dem Allmächtigen und Allwissenden, dass Sie nach bestem Wissen die reine Wahrheit gesagt und nichts verschwiegen haben” und der Zeuge hierauf die Worte spricht: “Ich schwöre es, so wahr mir Gott helfe.”’ (‘The oath with religious emphasis is delivered in such a manner that the judge addresses the witness with the words: “You swear by God the Almighty that according to the best of your knowledge you have spoken the pure truth and have not withheld anything” and the witness responds to that with the words: “I swear, so help me God.”’) Instead of the repetition in the American version, “the truth and nothing but the truth,” the German oath emphasizes ‘the pure truth and withheld nothing.’ In German criminal courts, defendants are never under oath, only witnesses.
33 Nichts als die Wahrheit, 47:51–48:12.
34 Nichts als die Wahrheit, 1:03:03–1:03:12.
35 McGlothlin, “Empathetic Identification and the Mind,” 261.
36 Nichts als die Wahrheit, 1:53:03-1:54:11.
37 For more information on Mengele's human experiments in Auschwitz, see Nyiszli, Auschwitz.
38 For more information on the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trials, see Mitscherlich and Mielke, Dokumente des Nürnberger Ärzteprozesses.
39 Schmidt, “Gut gemeint ist nicht gut.”
40 Traudisch, Frauenfeindliche Propaganda im NS-Film, 102; Drexler, “Der deutsche Gerichtsfilm 1930–1960,” 74.
41 Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide, xiii, xii.
42 Isensee, Das Justiz-Bild im NS-Spielfilm, 355.
43 McGlothlin, “Empathetic Identification and the Mind,” 264.
44 McGlothlin, “‘The Doctor is Different,’” 191.
45 McGlothlin, “Empathetic Identification and the Mind,” 260.
46 Nichts als die Wahrheit, 1:51:07–1:51:30.
47 Nichts als die Wahrheit, 1:54:47–1:56:25.
48 McGlothlin, “Empathetic Identification and the Mind,” 262–3.
49 Traudisch, Frauenfeindliche Propaganda im NS-Film, 111.
50 Ich klage an; Parts quoted from Traudisch, Frauenfeindliche Propaganda im NS-Film, 111–22.
51 Traudisch, Frauenfeindliche Propaganda im NS-Film, 111. Strikingly, the emphatic ‘No, now I accuse! I accuse an article … ,’ which gives the film its title, evokes the title of Emile Zola's famous open letter to French President Felix Faure, ‘J’Accuse … ! Lettre Au Président de la Republique,’ published on the front page of the newspaper L’Aurora on 13 January 1898, in defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army sentenced to life imprisonment for treason due to anti-Semitism.
52 Nichts als die Wahrheit, 1:58:28–1:58:32.
53 Vatter, Gedächtnismedium Film, 280.
54 Nichts als die Wahrheit, 1:58:47.
55 Nichts als die Wahrheit, 1:59:42–1:59:50.
56 Littell, The Kindly Ones, 20, 24; for more research on Littell's The Kindly Ones, see Barjonet, Aurélie, and Razinsky, Writing the Holocaust Today.
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Kerstin Steitz
Kerstin Steitz is Assistant Professor of German in the Department of World Languages and Cultures and affiliated faculty member in the Programs of Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding as well as in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Her research focuses on questions of gender and sexuality during the Holocaust as well as historical Holocaust trials and their literary and filmic re-workings. Currently, she is completing her book with the working title, ‘Dichterische Holocaust-Wahrheit und -Gerechtigkeit: Fritz Bauer und die literarische und filmische Bearbeitung des Frankfurter Auschwitz-Prozesses (1963-1965).’ She was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Stipend 2019 and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) and German Studies Association (GSA) Best Article Prize 2018 and is the recipient of the Gerald Westheimer Career Development Fellowship 2015 from the Leo Baeck Institute New York.