Murderers Are Among Us - Reckoning with the History of the National Socialist Underground in German Cinema

Abstract

In 2011, the world learned that the National Socialist Underground (NSU) was a terrorist and neo-Nazi organization. Two years later, one of the longest and most important trials in modern German history, the so-called NSU trial, began. Even before the verdict was passed, filmmakers tried to depict the activities of the National Socialist Underground. The main research question of this paper is - what image of the NSU is conveyed by German feature films? In what connection do cinematic representations continue to have with the media debate on this neo-Nazi organization? To complement it, or to create other images of right-wing terrorists? The research body of this article includes the following films: Letzte Ausfahrt Gera - Acht Stunden mit Beate Zschäpe (dir. R. Ley, 2016), Die Täter - Heute ist nicht alle Tage (dir. Ch. Schwochow, 2016), In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts, dir. F. Akin, 2017) and Wintermärchen (dir. J. Bonny, 2018).