On the occasion of Takis Würger's novel "Stella" and the reissues of "Schindler's List" and the miniseries "Holocaust", there was much discussion in German Feuilleton about how National Socialism and Shoah should and should be portrayed. At the same time, dealing with fact and fiction, their allegedly imprecise demarcation and careless mixing caused uncertainty and controversy. And even beyond the culture of remembrance, the question seems to arise: is the liberal handling of facts from the realms of art and entertainment in politics and journalism sloshing?

This week, with "Iron Sky 2 - The Coming Race", a movie is coming to the cinemas to bring together and organize these discussions. The first part of 2012 related that the Second World War took another end than imagined: Hitler and a cohort of supporters have saved themselves on the dark side of the moon. After decades of extra-terrestrial exile, they finally launched a nuclear war against Earth in 2018, making them almost uninhabitable.

In the sequel, almost 30 years later, the survivors of this war have been rescued from the earth to the moon. But in the ruins of the Nazi enclave, it can live badly. In the interior of the earth, on the other hand, there still seems to be parts of untouched nature. But of course this paradise, including dinosaurs and other reptiloids, has its own moon nazis.

New popular cultural narration patterns

Instead of dismissing the "Iron Sky" films as trash fireworks, it is worthwhile making the potential of such narratives fruitful for the debates on fiction and historical narratives: Both parts of "Iron Sky" exemplify the boom of counterfactual imaginations in audiovisual media since the beginning of the 1990s - not only thanks to an altered production culture of films based on crowdfunding, but also due to changes in popular cultural narrative patterns as well as societal needs.

Counterfactual narratives do not negligently blur the line between fact and fiction. They consciously and intelligibly deviate from historical events for the public at a point of divergence. From there they develop a "what if". For this, they must focus on historical events or epochs that are so well-known that the deviation from factuality can be understood by the public and that speculative play can be read as such.

The staging of the alternative course of history can be just as pleasurably absurd as it is seriously speculative. Or the counterfactual is used to correct history utopian corrective. History, as it should have been, takes the place of actual history. The intolerability of the fact that the past is immutable: Here it can be lifted for a short time.

Arrived in the mainstream

After counterfactual films had long been a niche existence and seemed particularly hot in Germany because they mostly showed alternative developments after World War II after 1945, they have made it into the entertainment mainstream for several years. Series successes such as "The Man in the High Castle" and "SS-GB" or movie productions like "Inglourious Basterds" or "Kung Fury" are just a few examples that fill the numerous blogs and forums of the fan base, but now also by a less nerdy Audience be perceived.

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Scene from "Inglourious Basterds"

For a long time, however, there were few noticeable counterfactual productions in Germany, perhaps because of the necessity of overcoming the repression of actual historical events. In any case, the exile into the area of ​​at least popular cultural, but usually simply inadmissible historical speculation has obscured the view that counterfactual narratives quite a very different relationship to the past and especially our narratives of it.

Even more than other historical narratives, they affirm or critically undermine our present view of history. Do history and its continuities have to cause us discomfort in the present? Or can we sit back and relax, because everything could have been much worse? With such questions they not only have a critical but also more political potential than they are often granted.

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"Iron Sky 2": fascism on the moon

Especially the narration of the victorious Nazi Germany offers a horrible shudder and the possibility to ask how compatible the Nazi fascist ideas and rhetorics are with current political positions. For example, the first part of "Iron Sky" claimed that National Socialist ideologies could fit seamlessly into the US election campaign and the central narrative of American supremacy in the world.

In addition, both parts go beyond making fun of the absurdity of conspiracy theories (lizardmen!). They expose their attractiveness, which is also in their great show value, the simple good-evil schemes and their resistance to facts.

Stable memory cultural status quo

The fact that a film like "Iron Sky 2" is now produced with great German participation and can start this week in numerous cinemas, certainly has to do with the impression of a stable memory cultural status quo. The firm place, which National Socialism supposedly has in the Federal Republic's self-image, seems to allow a freer dealing with historical facts and the ironic play with conspiracy theories as compatible for a larger public.

It remains to be seen whether this will change with the increasing attacks on just this cultural-cultural consensus about the German past. Even the growing time gap to National Socialism certainly contributes to this. Moreover, the typical desire for post-modern pastiche in counterfactual films corresponds to current popular-cultural narrative patterns.

ddp images / polyband

Scene from "Iron Sky"

However, many of these potentials are not exhausted in "Iron Sky 2". This may be due to the long production time of the film, which has come at the expense of the half-life of current affairs (Sarah Palin haunts the film as president ghost, as well as the Steve Jobs references obsolete) - or that director Timo Vuorensola can not decide what is more important to him: the political or the numerous media references, which refer not only to the conventions of Exploitation cinema, but also, for example, to "Star Wars".

The medial self-referentiality is not uncommon. In fact, counterfactual narratives are often less concerned with historical events themselves than with how we tell stories, and which patterns of explanation we construct, often in moving pictures. The film adaptation of "He's back" is a media satire; "Inglourious Basterds " is a genre reflection and film-historical reference game; In "The Man in the High Castle", a vanished film plays a central Enlightenment role.

Precisely because the films do not convey any historical knowledge and certainly do not replace a history class, they can stand next to "factual" film and sharpen our view of history and historiography. For it is less the decision between fact and fiction that decides the appropriateness and admissibility of a Nazi representation than the interpretation and attitude in relation to historical events. We can not avoid looking at and discussing them - whether factual or fictional or even counterfactual. If there are perhaps more productive films than "Iron Sky 2".