Before and After the Wall : A Social History of German Cinema

Abstract: This thesis deals with the perception of the Cold War in selected German feature films. Sonnenallee (Leander Haussmann, 1999), Die Unberührbare (Oscar Roehler, 2000), Good Bye Lenin! (Wolfgang Becker, 2003), Herr Lehmann (Leander Haussmann, 2003) and Das Leben der Anderen (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006) have been selected for a comparative analysis that focusses on narratives of the Cold-War era after reunification, and for an examination of how the social impact of German unification has been addressed in these films. In terms of methodology, the thesis uses Pierre Sorlin's social history of cinema and Pierre Nora's concept of lieu de mémoire to describe the social imagination and nostalgic representation of memories. There is a research gap in previous studies concerning how the Cold War has become a topic in recent German feature film production, and this study aims to complement those earlier works.