The Holocaust Within the Artistic Postwar German Society

There is a massive sense of monumentalism to the space, with a deep recession extending back, which the lack of figures and exaggerated single point perspective only further emphasizes. Huyssen describes the depicted interiors, writing, “ the cavernous space and blackened walls from cremation remind us of a gigantic brick oven with its threatening size…emphasized by Kiefer’s use of an extremely low-level perspective.” (Huyssen) However, there are no direct references to violence, no vulgar remains or traces of what was inhumanely cruel. Instead, set deep within the space are tiny memorial candle flames, almost unseen inside the towering, horrifying space. (Huyssen)

With this gesture, Kiefer transforms the fascist architecture dedicated to the Nazis into a memorial for the Holocaust victims, which Matthew Biro believes “recalls the Holocaust in a way that recognizes the problems of individual and perspectival distortion to which its events are subject.” (Biro) Kiefer’s Shulamite, juxtaposes German and Jewish loss, and thus in a way maintains an aspect of his trademark hermeneutic undecidability; however, Shulamite appears to be an honest and terrifying confrontation with Germany’s past and the human loss that remains present, albeit ignored, in postwar Germany’s reality.

Kiefer’s most successful Holocaust representations present memory as a fluid and inclusive cultural collaboration and in employing hermeneutic undecidability, Kiefer hits a raw nerve within the German postwar society. (Biro) Meanwhile, Richter’s ambiguity of perception and reality speak more pointedly to the generation that had participated in and was held culpable for the horrific evils of the Holocaust, for how could it be possible to fully grasp and internalize the implications of these charges? Both Richter and Kiefer, though unable to fully apprehend the meaning and legacy of their national and personal histories, attempt to break the phobic repression that stunted the German postwar culture and society.

Moreover, the desire for mnemonic experience or a reckoning with the ghosts of the past speaks to the need for Richter and Kiefer, within their respective time periods, to anchor themselves in some way. Andreas Huyssen lauds such efforts; however, he also writes, “Securing the past is no less risky an enterprise than securing the future. Memory, after all, can be no substitute for justice, and justice itself will inevitably be entangled in the unreliability of memory;” recognizing, as Richter and Kiefer did, both the limitation and gravity of historical memory. (Huyssen)