The Holocaust in British Television and Film: A Look over the Fence

Abstract

The essays by Tim Cole and James Jordan in this volume confirm the impressions one regularly gets when considering public media in Britain since 1945: the Holocaust was not a topic of major concern but merely seen as an add-on to the Second World War. The war itself and the Nazis were much more interesting — and easier to make fun of. One can only admire the lightness and easiness with which British television series, from Dad’s Army to Alio, Alio!; from Fawlty Towers to That Mitchell and Webb Look, deal with the Second World War and the Nazis, usually turning it into a light affair complete with a laughter track. The Germans are mainly characterised as fools, speaking English with a heavy German accent and outwitted by everyone — an exception here may be Dad’s Army which places the irony and humiliation firmly on the caricatured members of the British Home Guard. The only German-produced equivalent that comes to mind are episodes of Obersalzberg within the comedy show Switch Reloaded that has run on channel ProSieben since 2007.¹ Here, the German version of The Office meets Hitler’s headquarters: a deranged Hitler is barely in control of his office, struggling with missing swastika keys on the typewriters, bullied and controlled by Goebbels and constantly sent poisoned cookies by Graf Stauffenberg.