Description
Write a ca. 5 page response to ONE of the following questions.
Times News Roman 12pts. Double spaced
1) Upon close inspection, the two films Hitlerjunge Quex and Deutschland im Jahre Null exhibit a great many similarities; however, they also have important differences. In the first part of your essay, please enumerate and explain those similarities and differences. In the second part, try to make sense of these remarkable correlations. Rossellini’s film was produced after the war, approximately 14 years after HJQ. What, if anything, is Rossellini trying to tell us by making this strikingly parallel film to the Nazi propaganda piece?
2) One of the rhetorical purposes of Deutschland im Jahre Null is to address the recent Nazi past.Another seems to be to show the plight of the German people ca. 1947 and therefore to call attention to a humanitarian crisis.
Are these two purposes in conflict with each other? One could easily see a contradiction between the two, since the first purpose could be seen as ascribing blame to the German people, whereas the second would not be concerned with blame, but rather with the humanitarian crisis existing in postwar Germany. Or does this film, like HJQ, have a way of resolving this rhetorical dilemma?
In your discussion of the humanitarian crisis, don’t neglect to address the reasons for it, including reasons for the hunger crisis on the allied-occupied site
If you cite a specific scene, do it this way:
“The following scene exemplifies Diederich’s hypocrisy (Staudte 00:15:43-00:20:07).”
