Die Konstruktion neokolonialen Wissens in deutschen Dokumentarfilmen über die deutsche Geschichte

The way Germans treat the chapter of their own history connected with the colonial period is characterized by ambiguity. For decades German governments were reluctant to call by that very name the genocide of the Herero and Nama people committed by the German defense troops. The article analyzes a German documentary film on the history of German colonies. The three-part documentary film titled “The German Colonies” was produced and broadcast by the ZDF station in 2005. The authors of the film intended to present the subject in a scholarly but accessible way so that it could be used as a teaching aid in schools. Documentary films draw largely on authentic testimonies and are therefore especially important for the analysis of mindsets pertaining to neocolonialism. Thanks to mass media broadcasting their impact is often understood and treated as a verbal instrument of education.