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| Our fathers the Nazis: film explores the legacy of atrocities | Our fathers the Nazis: film explores the legacy of atrocities |
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| Seventy years after Hans Frank, the SS governor of Poland who oversaw the Holocaust, appeared before the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, a documentary is released this week exploring his embittered family legacy and the possibility of reconciliation following the atrocities. | Seventy years after Hans Frank, the SS governor of Poland who oversaw the Holocaust, appeared before the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, a documentary is released this week exploring his embittered family legacy and the possibility of reconciliation following the atrocities. |
| My Nazi Legacy is a compelling journey into the horrors of occupied eastern Europe in the company of Frank’s son, Niklas, Horst von Wächter – whose father, Otto, was Nazi governor of Galicia (now mostly in modern Ukraine) – and Philippe Sands QC, professor of international law, many of whose family died during mass murders of the Jewish community there in 1942. | My Nazi Legacy is a compelling journey into the horrors of occupied eastern Europe in the company of Frank’s son, Niklas, Horst von Wächter – whose father, Otto, was Nazi governor of Galicia (now mostly in modern Ukraine) – and Philippe Sands QC, professor of international law, many of whose family died during mass murders of the Jewish community there in 1942. |
| The film deals with the relationship between the three men and their attempts to come to terms with what their parents inflicted or suffered, examining the way Germans have dealt with their poisoned inheritance and Ukrainians embroidered their fragile history of independence. | The film deals with the relationship between the three men and their attempts to come to terms with what their parents inflicted or suffered, examining the way Germans have dealt with their poisoned inheritance and Ukrainians embroidered their fragile history of independence. |
| Released in the immediate aftermath of the Paris massacres, the film’s imagined reconstruction of the innocent being herded into confined spaces to be shot delivers an awful contemporary resonance. | Released in the immediate aftermath of the Paris massacres, the film’s imagined reconstruction of the innocent being herded into confined spaces to be shot delivers an awful contemporary resonance. |
| Niklas Frank, now 76 and a retired journalist, was seven when his father was hanged by the allies after the Nuremberg trials. He has denounced his father and says he does not regret the execution. Horst von Wächter, also 76, has become an apologist for his father – an Austrian, claiming that he was trapped in the Nazi administration, could not walk away and tried to alleviate the worst violence. Von Wächter’s father evaded justice after the war and died of jaundice in 1949. | Niklas Frank, now 76 and a retired journalist, was seven when his father was hanged by the allies after the Nuremberg trials. He has denounced his father and says he does not regret the execution. Horst von Wächter, also 76, has become an apologist for his father – an Austrian, claiming that he was trapped in the Nazi administration, could not walk away and tried to alleviate the worst violence. Von Wächter’s father evaded justice after the war and died of jaundice in 1949. |
| Did their differing reactions reflect the range of postwar emotional responses among Germans and Austrians? “Because we have produced a lot of public monuments people think we have dealt with [the war],” explained Frank, who is in London for the film’s opening. | Did their differing reactions reflect the range of postwar emotional responses among Germans and Austrians? “Because we have produced a lot of public monuments people think we have dealt with [the war],” explained Frank, who is in London for the film’s opening. |
| “The silent majority in both countries are the same. They didn’t accept and don’t accept what their fathers did. There’s a thin skin covering [over the memories]. They are silent. There have been attacks on refugees in Germany. I don’t give a shit about what they say about Germany dealing with the past. It’s not true. Our monuments are politically correct; we were forced to [build them]. | “The silent majority in both countries are the same. They didn’t accept and don’t accept what their fathers did. There’s a thin skin covering [over the memories]. They are silent. There have been attacks on refugees in Germany. I don’t give a shit about what they say about Germany dealing with the past. It’s not true. Our monuments are politically correct; we were forced to [build them]. |
| “We are cowards still – yesterday [Tuesday] even, when we cancelled the Hannover football match ... You need civil courage. It always comes down to one person who is a coward. The only one I would like to get the death penalty was my father. Otherwise I’m against the death penalty. My father was a big coward ... I never want to be a coward like him; it helps me not being like him.” | “We are cowards still – yesterday [Tuesday] even, when we cancelled the Hannover football match ... You need civil courage. It always comes down to one person who is a coward. The only one I would like to get the death penalty was my father. Otherwise I’m against the death penalty. My father was a big coward ... I never want to be a coward like him; it helps me not being like him.” |
| David Evans, the film’s director, believes the documentary shows “how justice is complicated by issues of the heart; about those you should love, but don’t love. We find it easy to make clear moral judgments about people who are others, but when you come close to home you are blinded in your ability to do so.” | David Evans, the film’s director, believes the documentary shows “how justice is complicated by issues of the heart; about those you should love, but don’t love. We find it easy to make clear moral judgments about people who are others, but when you come close to home you are blinded in your ability to do so.” |
| Sands, an expert on war crimes, describes himself and Niklas Frank as easy in each other’s company. “We have come to treat each other as friends. We have known each other for the past four years. “Can you imagine in 70 years’ time, the son or grandson of one of the masterminds of the Bataclan attack sitting with [the descendants of those who were killed]? It’s very hard to imagine today and yet our relationship reflects what’s possible.” | Sands, an expert on war crimes, describes himself and Niklas Frank as easy in each other’s company. “We have come to treat each other as friends. We have known each other for the past four years. “Can you imagine in 70 years’ time, the son or grandson of one of the masterminds of the Bataclan attack sitting with [the descendants of those who were killed]? It’s very hard to imagine today and yet our relationship reflects what’s possible.” |
| Reluctant to draw too close a parallel, Sands nonetheless identifies similarities between the Nazis’ origins in the national humiliation of the Versailles peace treaty and the process after the allied invasion of Iraq in 2003, which removed and humiliated Sunni and Ba’ath party officials. Purged Ba’athists helped establish Islamic State. | Reluctant to draw too close a parallel, Sands nonetheless identifies similarities between the Nazis’ origins in the national humiliation of the Versailles peace treaty and the process after the allied invasion of Iraq in 2003, which removed and humiliated Sunni and Ba’ath party officials. Purged Ba’athists helped establish Islamic State. |
| Frank is less inclined to accept the analogy. “It’s something completely different. Hitler was always against religions. I won’t compare German crimes ... I’m a chauvinist in regard to German crimes.” One sequence not recorded in the film are remarks made by Von Wächter after meeting Ukrainians who still wear Nazi uniforms in memory of the Galician SS divisions which fought against Stalin on the eastern front. | Frank is less inclined to accept the analogy. “It’s something completely different. Hitler was always against religions. I won’t compare German crimes ... I’m a chauvinist in regard to German crimes.” One sequence not recorded in the film are remarks made by Von Wächter after meeting Ukrainians who still wear Nazi uniforms in memory of the Galician SS divisions which fought against Stalin on the eastern front. |
| Frank explained: “I never asked [Horst] about what his father had done. We were friends.” Now there is estrangement. “We came to the SS [commemoration in Ukraine]. He said he that from now on he never wanted anyone to talk about his father as a mass murderer or killer.” | Frank explained: “I never asked [Horst] about what his father had done. We were friends.” Now there is estrangement. “We came to the SS [commemoration in Ukraine]. He said he that from now on he never wanted anyone to talk about his father as a mass murderer or killer.” |
| International commemorations of the Nuremberg tribunal – the legal progenitor of all subsequent war crimes courts – take place in the southern Germany city this weekend. Sands, along with the German actor Katja Riemann, will participate in a performance of music and readings, entitled A Song of Good and Evil, to be held in courtroom 600 in the Nuremberg palace of justice, where the original Nazi war crimes trials took place. | |
| Film has been intimately linked with Nuremberg: the proceedings in 1945 and 1946 were recorded on camera; judges were shown captured, Nazi propaganda newsreels that recorded atrocities. “[The film’s sequence in Nuremberg] underscores the need for some space in which you can stand back and not be tribal and not be familial and look at things with a greater distance,” said Sands. | Film has been intimately linked with Nuremberg: the proceedings in 1945 and 1946 were recorded on camera; judges were shown captured, Nazi propaganda newsreels that recorded atrocities. “[The film’s sequence in Nuremberg] underscores the need for some space in which you can stand back and not be tribal and not be familial and look at things with a greater distance,” said Sands. |
| “Courts are supposed to be the place where that happens. We know that Nuremberg was not a perfect trial but it provided the means, with some degree of openness, about what happened. A world without such courts would be a more problematic and troubled world.” | “Courts are supposed to be the place where that happens. We know that Nuremberg was not a perfect trial but it provided the means, with some degree of openness, about what happened. A world without such courts would be a more problematic and troubled world.” |
| My Nazi Legacy, premieres at the UK Jewish film festival on 19 November. It is released in select cinemas and on VOD from 20 November. | My Nazi Legacy, premieres at the UK Jewish film festival on 19 November. It is released in select cinemas and on VOD from 20 November. |