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In his play Duell an der Havel (1954), the German playwright Fritz von Unruh took the liberty to imagine a fictional encounter between historic figures like Frederick the Great of Prussia and President George Washington. In his play, Unruh attempts a difficult mediation between opposing models of Enlightenment governance and the opposition of freedom and duty. Although historic events in Unruh’s play are completely invented and staged, the author argues that the play holds up as a way of thinking about the complex history of the transatlantic relationship between Germany and the United States, from Washington and Fredrick the Great to Trump and Merkel. (DIPF/Orig.)

Historical images originally meant for one national audience can nevertheless influence audiences worldwide. In this contribution, the transatlantic transfer of historical images at the microlevel is analyzed. The author explores how John Ford’s depiction of the American West profoundly influenced Austrian writer Peter Handke, winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature. Handke’s work is full of direct and indirect references to John Ford’s life and work. Ford was a pioneer of the Western genre and greatly contributed to cementing the West as the American epic myth. Handke’s ideas about America and the West, as well as many aspects of his artistic life, can be directly traced to the cinema of John Ford, which is characterized by everyday people, the epic landscapes of Monument Valley, and the bonds that hold communities together. For Handke, John Ford served as his teacher; watching Ford’s films was an educational experience about both American history and life itself. Ford’s depictions of the American West imbued Handke with a “prosthetic memory” of the American West without having experienced it firsthand. By examining John Ford’s reception at the microlevel, the author illustrates the power historical images can have over diverse audiences. (DIPF/Orig.)

The author shows how Feuchtwanger’s attitude towards educational aspirations changed through his experience with the rise of fascism in Germany. Feuchtwanger’s play Waffen für Amerika (1946), which he wrote after he fled from Nazi Germany to the USA, deals with the Franco-American military alliance of 1778 against the British in the War of Independence. At the same time, he implies certain parallels to current events. For Feuchtwanger, the forging of a military alliance of Britain, the USA, and the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany was a callback to this earlier European-American cooperation in transatlantic history. The lesson Feuchtwanger wants his audience to learn from this history is to find confidence in the human progress achieved through the European-American alliance and that despite all chauvinistic abuses, both sides of the Atlantic will in the end prevail. (DIPF/Orig.)

The author presents various theoretical and practical approaches from the US and Germany that tackle the question of how people and societies deal with their histories. He identifies similarities and differences between concepts like public history, popular history, and historical culture and asks whether they reflect on the educational dimension of historical representations in popular media. He also addresses research desiderata, hints at possibilities of interdisciplinary research, and describes the history of historical cultures as a neglected subject for the History of Education field. (DIPF/Orig.)

Demonstrating, representing, or showing is at the heart of every educational action. Historical representations on screen and stage do not "teach" us history but rather influence our ideas and interpretations of it. The contributions to this volume explore the depiction of history in theater and film from the intersection of historical scholarship, aesthetics, memory studies, and education. They examine the creation of historical images, film production and reception, the scriptwriting process, educational programming, and depictions of German-American encounters. Above all else, they explore how various theatrical and filmic productions show history rather than tell it. (DIPF/Orig.)

Even commercial theaters now offer a variety of educational programs for their historical theater productions which provide historical backgrounds and contexts for the plays and enrich regular theater experiences with aspects of historical learning. The author presents a variety of techniques for teaching complicated histories in conjunction with the current playbill. For example, for the stage play adaptations of The Diary of Anne Frank or Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, the Stratford Festival arranged post-show chats, workshops, and prologues. She talks about her experiences with this educational framework program and reflects on the impact it had on the audiences. (DIPF/Orig.)

The final contribution examines the production history of Conspiracy (2001), a dramatization of the 1942 Wannsee Conference. The author uses archival sources such as script drafts, meeting minutes, and correspondence in order to trace just how filmmakers create historical images. This piece critically assesses Conspiracy as a case study for how filmmakers responsibly make complex and difficult histories accessible to wide audiences while largely avoiding cliché and sentimentality. Furthermore, as an Anglo-American production, Conspiracy also serves as an example of how Americans have depicted a key event from “German” history that had global impact. (DIPF/Orig.)

In addition to documentary theater, performances that reenact historical events with amateur actors prove to be a form of historical theater that keeps memories alive. Looking at the historical re-enactments at the Offenburger Freedom Festival in Germany or Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, the author draws attention to the entangled German-American history of the Civil War and discusses the limits and possibilities offered by historical reenactments for history and civic education. He argues that besides the accepted forms of experimental archeology and living history programs in openair museums, historical theater – with students both as actors and audiences in live-action roleplay – can create positive effects for school curriculum-based learning processes. (DIPF/Orig.)

The author discusses the concept of historical images and how storytelling conventions pioneered in early twentieth-century Hollywood became global practices. His contribution uses the film Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer (2015) as a case study for the creation and transmission of historical images on film. The film, a dramatization of Fritz Bauer’s involvement with the capture of Adolf Eichmann, explores the Attorney General’s life before he served as lead prosecutor at the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials (1963-1965). He analyzes the ways that Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer utilizes storytelling techniques pioneered in Hollywood to construct historical images of the Hessian Attorney General while simultaneously perpetuating well-worn myths about Bauer’s private life. For the author, the film exemplifies our current globalized film culture, where differences in national filmmaking styles have largely fallen by the wayside in favor of films that appeal to more global, transnational audiences connected to streaming services and no longer dependent on the theatrical distribution model. (DIPF/Orig.)

This article examines the film historian and critic Richard Schickel’s negative reception of Hollywood war films, particularly William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). For the author, critics like Richard Schickel miss the mark when they deride war films such as The Best Years of Our Lives as jingoistic and unrealistic lies because they expect too much from the Hollywood dream factory and fall into the trap of casting themselves as crusaders for truth against patriotic propaganda. He argues for a more nuanced approach towards war films which treats audiences with respect instead of as passive consumers unwittingly accepting every fiction Hollywood delivers them. This contribution argues for an acknowledgment of the historical context in which films like The Best Years of Our Lives were made and a more balanced approach for analyzing Hollywood’s depiction of World War II. (DIPF/Orig.)

Historical authenticity in popular media has to be harmonized with aesthetic and dramatic considerations. With concepts like documentary theater (Dokumentartheater), theater-makers challenge historical authenticity and try to make historical sources accessible on stage. The author created another unique theater project based on collected sources. Her play The 614th Commandment is a result of over two years of research on the intersections of public history, documentary theater, and Jewish collective memory undertaken as part of the author’s Master’s thesis research for her Public History degree at the Free University of Berlin. The play itself is based on over 200 interviews conducted with American Jews in Los Angeles, California. She was inspired to embark on this project because of her both her own family history as well as her own experiences living in Berlin. Both the essay and the play deal with the intergenerational passing down of historical trauma and memory and ask how – or if – remembering such painful history can ever become less painful. (DIPF/Orig.)

2014, 12 S., Dieser Beitrag ist ein Versuch, einen der ... zentralen Texte zur Theorie des historischen Denkens (und Lernens), nämlich das Kapitel “Zeiterfahrung und Selbstidentität” in Historische Vernunft von Jörn Rüsen (Rüsen 1983, S. 48-58) sowie seine Typologie der Sinnbildungen historischen Denkens und einzelne Erweiterungen und Veränderungen der darin vorgeschlagenen Konzepte und Begriffe für Anfänger verständlich auszudrücken. ... Die Historik Rüsens beruht wesentlich auf einer Bestimmung historischen Denkens als einer individuell wie gesellschaftlich bedeutenden Orientierungsfunktion des historischen Denkens. Diese wird im Beitrag erläutert. Die von Rüsen vorgelegte Typologie bei solchem Denken analytisch wie synthetisch zum Einsatz kommender Grundtypen historischer Sinnbildung erweist sich bei näherem Hinsehen als unzureichend - auch in der Fassung von 2013. Sie wird in wesentlichen Punkten weiter fortgeschrieben. (DIPF/Autor)