After the reunification of Germany, when the country had regained unity and sovereignty, the image of the Nazi past was reframed with a view toward the private. Using documentary as well as fictional genres, cinema and television were crucial in bringing about this profound change in cultural engagements with the period. The two media literally changed the face of the Nazi past by moving away from distanced accounts of political history and toward intimate portrayals of private lives during the Third Reich. On the one hand, these could be the lives of ordinary Germans, exposing their experiences of war and their participation in the regime. On the other, particularly after the turn of the millennium, these could also be the lives of major figures, from members of the Nazi elite to activists of the resistance group Die Weiße Rose (White Rose). Although guilt and responsibility continue to play a role in these postreunification history films, at the same time they go beyond them, being less interested in questions of agency and more in trying to convey personal experiences and subjective perceptions of history. As a result, new ways of looking at the Third Reich emerge, most important, reactions of shame in confronting one’s private past and the identity problems that legacies of guilt create for subsequent generations. By offering “close views” of the Nazi past, German film since 1990 has also asked how we as viewers react to this troubling history and how we see ourselves in relation to it.

Shameful Exposures: Documenting Person al Stories and Family Histories

In February 1990, the premiere of Mein Krieg by Harriet Eder and Thomas Kufus caused an uproar at the Berlin Film Festival. Produced by Känguruh-Film in association with the public broadcaster WDR, the documentary was arguably the first film to deal with the private experiences of German soldiers during the Second World War. My Private War, as the title of the film was translated into English for its limited release in New York, portrays six veterans of Operation Barbarossa who documented the 1941 military campaign with their 8 mm and 16 mm cameras.