Fierberg, 1

Jeffrey Fierberg
FILM 3514
Prof. Weber
10/11/10

Nietzsche and Nazis: Remembering Fascism in Nowhere in Africa

Western culture portrays the Holocaust in literature and film in order to represent fascism

and its effect on culture. Specifically within the last twenty years German society has grappled

with the idea of how to properly represent its past. Andreas Huyssen specifically addresses the

shift in German ideology as a response to Frederich Nietzsche’s idea of productive amnesia.

Huyssen argues that while society continues to portray the past in cultural objects, then society

cannot forget, but must instead identify how to remember productively. Caroline Link’s Nowhere

in Africa (2001) is one example of a media product that does not conform to Huyssen’s idea of

productive memory. The film more exemplifies Nietzsche’s amnesia, and why its existence in

cultural products is dangerous to our interpretations of The Holocaust.

Andreas Huyssen presents the idea of a productive memory as an opposing force and idea

to Nietzsche’s argument of productive amnesia. Nietzsche’s argument is framed most

substantially in his essay entitled, The Use and Abuse of History. The primary point to the

argument of productive forgetting or amnesia is the need to separate ourselves from the historic (

Nietzsche, pg. 3). In order to live a productive life, forgetting becomes necessary because

without forgetting we, “destroy present existence and thus impresses [a] seal on the knowledge

that existence is only an uninterrupted living in the past” (Nietzsche, pg. 3). The temporal present

will suffocate without being distanced from the past, through forgetfulness. Nietzsche presents

an idea that moving on from trauma requires a moving away from the emotion it evokes; to

portray it as a sterile temporal lapse in existence that cannot be connected to anyone or anything
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outside of itself. While Nietzsche believes that making the past a vacuum is the only way society

can productively move forward, Huyssen believes the opposite. By understanding Nietzsche’s

idea, we can better understand what Huyssen means by productive memory in culture.

Huyssen argues that while Nietzsche’s ideology held during the era of his work, after

World War II memory had to be dealt with differently as society changed. In his essay,

Presenting Pasts: Media, Politics, Amnesia, Huyssen speaks in direct dissent of Nietzsche’s idea

because of the “fragmented” (Huyssen, Pg. 17) culture present post 1945. Perhaps most

importantly, Huyssen points to a clear focus within culture on media as a creator of memory.

With this central idea of memory coming specifically from cultural products such as art, film and

news Huyssen argues that Nietzsche’s argument for forgetting no longer holds validity, not when

our memories are made from storied pasts made for entertainment, or sensationalized. Instead,

Huyssen argues for a need to focus on memory as a cultural product. The need for memory to

productively inform our present is paramount. According to his text, the need is predominant

more now than ever because of our linked past and future which is attributed to an “ever

increasing time-space compression” (Huyssen, Pg. 17). This compression can also be linked to

the continued reliance on media as a memory function. Film, which can be set in any era closes

the temporal gaps in history bringing the past directly into contact, and sometimes conflict with

the present, again proving Nietzsche’s theory incompatible with modern culture.

According to Huyssen’s idea of productive memory, Nowhere In Africa (2001,Dir.

Caroline Link) isn’t a productive memory because of its inability to properly deal with the

questions of fascism in 1930s Germany. The inability of the text to contend with difficulties

surrounding the traumatic source of the characters uprooting leaves the narrative detached from

historical context. Kristin Kopp, a German and Russian studies professor at University of
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Missouri, often points to fascism as being characterized as childish within her work entitled

Exterritorialized Heritage in Caroline Link's Nirgendwoin Afrika. Kopp points to the use of

children as the only perpetrators of Nazi propaganda within the film (Kopp, 114). This can be

seen in the beginning sequences of the film. While the only red arm band signifying the rule of

fascism is seen from the pocket of a blonde prepubescent boy in the opening sequence it can be

argued that Link’s attempting to show the pervasiveness of fascism. By showing children as

perpetrators the idea of a society in the throws of a mob mentality can truly be expressed.

However, without showing adults portraying the same behavior, the effect is lost and it appears

to the viewer that the persecution has no responsible party.

The lack of adult responsibility in the episodes involving anti-Semitism is seen by Kopp

as an attempt to isolate guilt away from Germany, and towards the African colonies, specifically

the British colonialists. By displacing the anti-Semitic behavior away from Nazi Germany, Link

creates the idea that anti-Semitism was a global phenomenon during the period. While anti-

Semitism was seen in British society as well as around the world, especially during the rise of

communism, Link’s portrayal suggests Nazi Germany was less forthright with its discrimination

because the only institutions within the film to show a preference against Jews is a British

school. ultimately, and regardless of British anti-Semitism the lack of institutional

discrimination within the first act of the film trivializes the widespread and severe discrimination

of Jews that led to The Holocaust in Germany. Link further distances the action of the film from

the events of The Holocaust through the letters sent from the family during acts two and three of

the film.

The Redlich family receives the news of Hitlers final solution through coded letters sent

by family still within the boundaries of Nazi power. These letters appear on the surface to inform
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the historical context of the film, but undermine the traumatic events by suggesting that the

Redlich’s don’t understand the circumstances they fled from. Four times within the film, letters

come addressed to Jettel from her family still trapped within occupied Europe. The letters are

coded with phrases that Walter understands to be the euphemistic treatment of the final solution.

The clearest example of this occurs when a letter states the family is, “Headed East”. This

euphemism occurs to Walter to mean they are being shuttled to a concentration camp, most of

which were east of Germany in Poland and Eastern Europe. However, Jettel does not understand,

and subsequently believe in Walter’s interpretation. The suggestion that Jettel does not

understand the situation she escaped from undermines the idea that Jettel fled from a known

danger in Nazi Germany against her ethnic group. While on the surface this seems like a

productive way to tie the narrative to the historic events of the era, it disconnects the narrative

further. This occurs by obstructing the fact that the Redlich’s left Germany because they feared

for their lives. By only portraying the events that drove the Redlich’s from their home through

letters, or subjective voices within the narrative, the events seem fantastic, and only decipherable

through code. This is another example of a trivialization of the historical context of the film,

because it further isolates the narrative in Africa, and away from the circumstances that created

the diaspora of the redlich family.

These examples of how Link’s film separates the films narrative from the historical

context of its events are examples of Nietzsche’s productive amnesia. Link’s dislocation of the

narrative from its historical context is allowing her narrative to live independent of the

connotations of Nazis, The Holocaust, and persecution. This productive forgetting exemplifies

Nietzsche’s idea of distancing ourselves from the past to move forward as a culture. Within the

film Nazi Germany functions only as a frame story, a loose temporal reason to place the
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Redlich’s within Africa, and not a traumatic resettling of German citizens fleeing for their lives.

This also successfully separates the film from the emotional response depictions of The

Holocaust often evokes. while this allows the narrative to function without discussing

victimization of the Jewish race or the European theater of the war, which many critics may

argue is the point of the movie, it also suggests that in order to portray Germany’s past, it is

acceptable to not address The Holocaust, or how the Nazi’s came to power. This suggestion is

dangerous to our present society because of our dependence on cultural products to inform our

representations of the past.

According to Huyssen’s idea of productive remembering, Nowhere in Africa (2001, Dir.

Caroline Link) is an example of how forgetting or misrepresenting the past is not productive to

society. Nowhere in Africa doesn’t add to our cultural memory of The Holocaust because of its

inability to represent it. Instead the film seeks to remain independent. Link chooses to distance

her film from its context, and in doing so cannot properly address Fascism in a competent way.

Without addressing Fascism and its consequences Link’s film remains isolated from our cultural

identity, unable to inform our representations or be informed by our ever evolving cultural

memory.

Works Cited:

Huyssen, Andreas. "Present Pasts: Media, Politics, Amnesia." Public Culture: n. pag. Print.
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Kopp, Kristin. "Exterritorialized Heritage in Caroline Link's 'Nirgendwo in Afrika.'" New

German Critique, No. 87, Special Issue on Postwall Cinema (Fall 2002): 106-132.
JSTOR. Web. 11 Oct.
2010. <http://Jstor.org>.

Link, Caroline, dir. Nowhere in Africa. 2001. DVD. Germany

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Use and Abuse of History. N.p., 1874. Scribner Writers Series. Web. 11
Oct. 2010.