Holocaust memory on trial: Nazi propaganda film techniques in Roland Suso Richter's Nichts als die Wahrheit

Abstract

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.