Aktuelle Fiktionalisierungsformen der juristischen Aufarbeitung nationalsozialistischer Verbrechen am Beispiel von Der Fall Collini von Ferdinand von Schirach (2011) und Deutsches Haus von Annette Hess (2018)
Current forms of fictionalization of the legal processing of National Socialist crimes using the example of Der Collini by Ferdinand von Schirach (2011) and Deutsches Haus by Annette Hess (2018)

Author(s): Christine Arendt
Subject(s): German Literature, Fascism, Nazism and WW II
Published by: Društvo germanista u Bosni i Hercegovini (DGuBiH) / Germanistenverband in Bosnien-Herzegowina (GViBH)
Keywords: fiction; legal processing; Nazi crimes;
Summary/Abstract: This contribution examines two recent forms of fictionalisation of the legal reappraisal of National Socialist crimes: Der Fall Collini (2011) by Ferdinand von Schirach and Deutsches Haus (2018) by Annette Hess. Recently, a focus on Fritz Bauer, the initiator of the Auschwitz trials, can be observed in works that address the trials of National Socialist crimes. The novel Deutsches Haus should be seen in the context of these cinematic representations: It thematises the first Auschwitz trial. The protagonist is the young interpreter Eva Bruhns, who happens to step in shortly before the start of the trial to translate witness statements from Polish. The novel makes the trial and its procedure as well as the reactions of society at the time vivid and shows the involvement of "normal" people in the crimes. The novel Der Fall Collini takes up one of the biggest judicial scandals of the Federal Republic: Due to the change in the statute of limitations, many trials could no longer be held, so that the crimes remained unpunished.

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