Re-Education

After the capitulation of the Nazi state the allied gouvernments started the project of re-educating the german and austrian population to re-integrate them into the civilised world. Through films the public was confronted with the reality of the atroce crimes in the death camps. After the beginning of the cold war in 1947 this strategy was modified in a second phase which turned re-education into re-orientation in a divided world: Propaganda for consumer society and representative democracy or for the communist world more and more replaced the images of the camps. The history lesson presents some of these films (Deutschland erwache USA/D 1945, Auschwitz UdSSR 1945, Frischer Wind in allen Gassen D 1951) and aims to link their historical context with actual reflexion: How was re-education conceptualized? How can the history of the re-educative project be conceived in the perspective of radical political thought and action today?