'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

Amerikaner haben mit Holocaust uns Geschichte weggenommen” (102) 22 because films
in the style of the mini-series prevented Germans from “unsere Vergangenheit
erzählerisch in Besitz [zu] nehmen, aus der Welt der Urteile aus[zu]brechen” (100). Ian
Buruma refutes Reitz‟s polemic regarding American appropriation of German history,
stating, “In fact, Holocaust had done no such thing. German artists themselves had failed
to find a narrative for Auschwitz” (89).
In sum, West German critical reactions to NBC‟s Holocaust ranged from praise
for the mini-series‟ ability to bring home the horror of Nazi atrocities to rejection of the
work for its exploitation of Jewish suffering for commercial profit and its expropriation
of German history. While it is difficult to assess the actual effect that Holocaust had on
the West German public, it is certain that the film generated a new interest in images and
narratives of the past. As Anton Kaes asserts:
The German Autumn of 1977 had evoked an “excessive motivation” (Kluge)
among intellectuals and filmmakers to deal with German history, but only the
broad reception of Holocaust allowed the numerous films about the recent
German past to find an audience. Germany in Autumn presented impressions of a
country on which the past weighs heavily; the German reaction to Holocaust
showed how much still had to be done to master that past. […] It cannot be denied
that in […the] wake [of Holocaust] a new historical consciousness emerged in the
Federal Republic. The past suddenly seemed very present. German filmmakers
felt challenged to come to terms with German history and its images (35).
The immense media attention generated by Holocaust caused some New German
Cinema directors to recognize in the “history film” an opportunity to gain worldwide
attention (albeit mostly in the United States) and to finally open a truly international
market for their works (Weinberger 11). As Edgar Reitz put it:
22 Reitz claimed, “The Americans have stolen our history through Holocaust” (102) because films in the
style of Holocaust hindered Germans “from taking narrative possession of our past, from breaking free of
the world of judgments” (100).
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