'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria
'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria
'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria
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(Deutschland im Herbst n. pag.). 14 Hence Fassbinder uses his mother as a mouthpiece<br />
for a memory <strong>of</strong> Hitler common for Germans <strong>of</strong> the war generation: that Hitler was a<br />
benefactor who at one point went insane. Through the discussion <strong>of</strong> mother and son, as<br />
well as through Fassbinder‟s relationship with his lover, the viewer is confronted with the<br />
legacy <strong>of</strong> fascist modes <strong>of</strong> thinking and behaviour in the Federal Republic <strong>of</strong> the late<br />
1970s.<br />
Deutschland im Herbst inspired several individual projects that addressed<br />
Germany‟s fascist past (Kaes 27). The heroine <strong>of</strong> Kluge‟s episode <strong>of</strong> the collective film<br />
is Gabi Teichert, a Hessian school teacher who attempts to excavate Germany‟s fascist<br />
past. Teichert reappears as the heroine <strong>of</strong> Kluge‟s film Die Patriotin (The Patriot, 1979)<br />
where digging for Germany‟s buried history serves as the film‟s central metaphor.<br />
Fassbinder used his conversation with his mother in his segment <strong>of</strong> Deutschland im<br />
Herbst as the impetus to reflect on the Federal Republic <strong>of</strong> the 1940s and 1950s in his<br />
BRD-Trilogie (FRG-Trilogy), which includes Die Ehe der Maria Braun (The Marriage <strong>of</strong><br />
Maria Braun, 1979), Lola (1981), and Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss (The Longing <strong>of</strong><br />
Veronika Voss, 1981). Edgar Reitz, in his episode <strong>of</strong> Deutschland im Herbst, had shown<br />
a border guard, speaking in dialect, aspiring to one day become an aviator. Reitz later<br />
took up these themes in his filmic saga Heimat (1979).<br />
14 In this instance I quoted the English subtitle <strong>of</strong> the film as I did not have access to the original German<br />
script.<br />
22