Cultural Dynamics in a Globalized World – Budianta et al. (Eds) © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-1-138-62664-5 Vergangenheitbewältigung/coming to terms with the past: Demystifying Hitler and the Nazi regime in German comics L. Kurnia Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia ABSTRACT: Hitler has been a controversial figure in German history. Although he was regarded as a war criminal, his figure has attracted the attention of some people. This was mainly triggered by the various myths surrounding him and his mysterious death. These myths have led to a fraud publication in the magazine “Stern” about Hitler’s diaries. A myth about Hitler can even be found in Indonesia in a book by Soeryo Goeritno (2010), which fabricated a story claiming that Hitler died in Indonesia (sic!). The young generation in Germany has a unique way of coming to terms with the past by demystifying Hitler in comic books such as Wolfgang Moers’ Adolf der Bonker and Äch, bin wieder da! These two comic books use humor to show how Hitler would be perceived by the youth if he were still alive today. The theme of the Holocaust as a collective memory is represented in Maus, a survivor tale, by Art Spiegelman. Maus has been accepted as the first comic book to be considered “serious” and to be analyzed in the academic world. Demystifying Hitler is a process of coming to terms with the past. 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Hitler and the Nazis As a leading figure in German history, Adolf Hitler has always been a controversial figure. This controversy has been triggered in academic circles by a large number of analyses and sto- ries about Hitler that have naturally led to different opinions and interpretations. Not much is known about the private life of Hitler outside his image of grandeur that was created and high- lighted when he was in the spotlight. To add to the numerous stories already circulating among the general public, historians came up with various analyses of Hitler, especially regarding his role in all sorts of economic, political, and military decisions, as well as the planned genocide of the Jews.1 The analyses of Adolf Hitler who was strongly linked to the atrocities of the Nazi regime against the Jews and the resulting war, which took place during his reign, have led to various studies on Hitler. One of the researchers of Hitler-oriented topics is Peter Matussek, a professor in the field of media. He published a book Affirming Psychosis, the Mass Appeal of Adolf Hitler in 20152, which discusses how Hitler was described or narrated in German history. According to Matussek, the writing or narration of history can be categorized into two types of arguments: the intentionalist and the functionalist. Intentionalist arguments tend to 1. The Genocide of the Jews is referred to as the Holocaust in the German literature. Holocaust is a Greek word, whereas in Hebrew it is termed Shoah. Holocaust means “burnt down” in Greek, whereas Shoah means “disaster”. These two words describe the systematic and well-planned annihilation of the Jews during the Nazi regime. The Nazi regime called it die Endlösung der Judenfrage (the final solution to the Jewish problem). 2. In the conclusion to his book, Matussek put forward four elements that he believes to constitute the most distinguishing personal characteristics of Hitler, namely his ongoing willingness to commit atrocities, his ability to admit the crimes that he had committed, his ability to control his actions, and the confirmation that he received from his supporters. These are the symptoms of a mentally disturbed person, and they were very prominent in Hitler. 167 support the view that all of the atrocities against the Jews and the subsequent wars that took so many lives were designed by Hitler, the Führer. On the contrary, functionalist arguments view the atrocities against the Jews as a result of various elements of the bureaucracy, namely the military, economy, and politics, where Hitler played a more passive role. At the core of the discussion proposed by Matussek is an attempt to reveal who Hitler really was and how a man like him could control a developed country with a long tradi- tion of high education. Matussek tended to classify his research as intentionalist in nature and considered Hitler as a psychopath who was extremely bold in expressing hatred and cruelty, something that does not usually occur in a society or among sane people. This was used by those who really wanted to get rid of the Jews and create the superiority of the white blue-eyed men over any other race in the world. Thus, Hitler was supported by people who matched his personality, and he became der Führer or the Leader for them. Hitler and his party NSDAP (National-Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or abbreviated Nazi) then managed to provoke the German people who were hit hard by World War I, and he was made the Chancellor of Germany. 1.2 Myths around Hitler Various myths have arisen from Hitler’s figure because he was revered and praised by racists who believed in the superiority of the Aryan race.3 Thus, he became a great figure who was always surrounded by an aura of mystery. The mystery was also largely due to the fact that Hitler’s body went missing after Berlin was seized by the Allied Forces. Hitler was hiding in a bunker or a basement with Eva Braun whom he married shortly before they committed sui- cide. When the Allied Forces entered Berlin, the city had already been occupied by the Soviet Army. That is why the whereabouts of Hitler’s body remains unknown. An official statement from the Soviet Army asserted that the bodies that had been found in the bunker were burned. This incident, for instance, led to a myth in a book which argues that Hitler had fled to Indo- nesia and lived in Sumbawa Besar as a doctor known as Dr Poch who then married a Sunda- nese woman.4 This myth of Hitler’s death in Indonesia is so far-fetched that it makes no sense at all because the documents concerning the entrance of the Soviet troops and the discovery of the bodies of Hitler, Eva Braun, and Joseph Goebbels and his family are completely valid and accompanied by photographs. The myths of Hitler in Germany are even more sophisticated because they are not concerned about the whereabouts of Hitler himself but his diary. A diary is a document that is often used in historical analyses to determine the thoughts of a histori- cal figure (see the figure below). Therefore, when Stern magazine in 1983 admitted to having purchased volumes of the diary from an antique dealer, it triggered an uproar. Stern was the victim of a mere fraud because it turned out that the diaries were forged.5 The majority of the German people are more inclined to regard Hitler only as a war crimi- nal and want to maintain this image. When the German state was established after World War II, neither the state nor the German people wanted to acknowledge their dark past. They tried very hard to forget it and not to talk about it. Such a situation arose from the realization that they had committed countless of atrocities resulting in the genocide of the Jews and other 3. The supremacy of the Aryan race was the state’s ideology during the Nazi regime. This view was also based on racial myths that had been created by racist-pseudo-scientists for the Germans. The word Arya is derived from Sanskrit, and its meaning is not yet known. The word was used by Persians and Indians to depict themselves. Linguists assume that the word was taken from the language that was used by the Persian ethnic group in prehistoric times. 4. This scenario can be found in the book Hitler died in Indonesia, The Secret Revealed written by Ir. KGPH Soeryo Guritno, M.Sc. and published by Titik Media in 2010. 5. At that time, Stern was one of the qualified political magazines. However, after the fraud was uncovered, the magazine lost its reputation, even though the editors responsible for the incident had been dismissed. Fraud such as this is actually very easy to prove, but the editors of Stern were under a strong influence of Hitler myths. It also turned out that people purchased the diary volumes at a very high price without examining them carefully. 168 races that were considered to be inferior to them, such as the gypsies and other such com- munities. Moreover, the generation immediately after the war was the same as Hitler’s, and most of them were actually his supporters. This attitude is observable among both political and social conservative leaders. In the field of education, for example, German professors who survived the war were those who had sided with Hitler and after the war still behaved in the same manner. They were very conservative and rigid in their teaching practices. This was not to the satisfaction of the younger generations born after World War II. They understood well that their dark past had to be addressed so that they could overcome it together.6 The younger generations in the 1960s wanted reconciliation with their nation’s past. They started by revealing facts about the Nazi regime and how almost all of the German people had sup- ported the regime. Efforts to deal with the past can also be observed in a variety of literary works, which may now have become classics, such as the works of Heinrich Böll, Wolfgang Borchert, the Nobel laureate Gunter Grass, Ingeborg Bachmann, and others.