Debunking the myth of the saubere Wehrmacht
MICHAEL TYl\1KIW
This paper will draw on key notions from several of Roland
Barthes's texts to examine how the Hamburger Imtihlt fLir
Sozialforschung l (HIS) used word and photographic image to
contest a widely beld belief in post-Second ''''orld War
Germany that ''''ehrmacht" soldiers were not directly involved
1Il committing Nazi war CrImes. The fIrst exhibition,
'Vernichtungskrieg: Verbrechen der vYehrmacht 1941 his
1944',3 ran from 1995 through to 1999 and was seen by
roughly 860 000 visitors in 33 cities in Germany and Austria. 4
The second show, 'Verhrechen der Wehrmacht: Dimensionen
des Vernichtungskrieges",5 was seen by approximately .120000
visitors in 13 cities in Germany, Austria and Luxemburg.1i
vYhile Nazi crimes were a subject of intense discourse in
post-Second World ''''ar Germany, particularly from the Ig60s
onward, one myth that gained considerable currency was the
notion that Wehrmacht soldiers were sauber7 - that is, that
they either did not know about Nazi gellocide or did not
directly participate in the killings. One reason for this myth was
that the Nuremherg war crimes tribunal ruled that the
Wehrmacbt could not be declared a criminal organization
and charged in its entirety, as had previously been done with
the Schutzstaffel (SS).u Although the tribunal's decision was not
meant to negate the direct responsibility or individual
Wehrmacht soldiers for Nazi war crimes," the court's focus
on prosecuting officers, the introduction of amnesty laws that
made it harder to try soldiers for war crimes, IO pressure from
Western occupying forces to create a West German army to
strengthen the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),
and a general shift from denazilication to reintegration in both
East and West Germany meant a sharp decline in the number
of war crimes trials beginning in 1952." These factors came to
be misinterpreted by some as proof that any Wehrmarht
soldier not convicted at trial was innocent of war crimes ~- a
view reinforced in numerous fIlms, illustrated war novels and
soldiers' war remembrances. 12 This myth found additional
support more recently in the 'Historikerstreit','3 a widely
publicized dehate that began in the mid-lg80s during which
varying acc'ounts of the Nazi past were proposed and
disseminated in the German mainstream media, some of
which attempted to reduce the burden of guilt associated with
Nazi genocide and its war of annihilation. q
Thf' manner in which the fIrst vYehrmacht exhibition
attempted to contest this myth made the show a lightning rod
for political controversy, which included df'monstrations,
countf'r-demonstrations, a petition to close down the exhibit
vVORD & Jl\·I.·"CE. YUL. ~3- NO. +- OCTOBER DECEl\IBER 2007
(one was signed by 300 000 Munich households'S), and the
bombing of the exhibition building in Saarbrucken, a city to
which the exhibition traveled. However, the show's hancliing of
photography also played a pivotal role in sparking controver,y.
In 1999, historian Bodgan Musial asserted in Vi1'11eljallips/zejle jiil"
:)ilgeschidlt/(; that some exhibition photos showed crinl.es
committed by non-German forces rather than by the
''''ehrmacht. 17 In addition, several other historians made charges
that the show misrepresented or even fabricated the photographs
on view. These charges quickly became the subject of widespread
debate and, amid mounting criticism, HIS director Jan Philipp
Reemtsma suspended the show in 1999 and appointed an
independent commission to assess what errors had bef'n
committed. While the commission absolved the exhibition
organizers of accusations of forgery, the commission recom-
mended that the exhibition be overhauled due to the insuHicient
vetting of sources, imprecise attributions, and the overall heavy-
handed style with which the curatorial team made its case.
When the revamped exhibition opened in 200! under a more
cautious title,IH especially noteworthy was the different way in
which photography was used. The new exhibition was twi('e as
large as the previous one, but contained only ~50 photos
compared to the first exhibition's 1400+ imagcs. 19 In addition,
only 10% of the photographs from the fIrst exhibition were used
in the second, and all photogTaphs were accompanied by a
large amount of contextual information - mostly in the fOITn of
ou
vvritten documcnts. Finally, the display techniques used to
present photography became much less theatrical, shifting liOl11
a large iron cross to individualized glass booths.
***
A large part of the fIrst show's polemical effect came from the
'shock and awe' techniques used to incite public reaction. One
aspect of this strategy involved choosing political or religious
venues, sLlch as city halls or Frankfurt's Paulskirche, to polarize
visitors before they even walked through the door. Another
aspect of this strategy was the display structure used to show
close to a quarter of the f'xhibit's pholographs (fIgure I). This
structure mimicked the shape of an iron cross, the medal
awarded to German soldiers since 1813 for bravery and honor.
Hannes Heer, chief curator of the exhibition, explained this
display structure and the photos within as follows:
fIlhesc documents cOllvey the message that in this war, war
crimes wen:, not an exception to tlw rule but thrmsdves the
 rule, that they were not a means to an end but thcrmelves the
goal of the war. The creators of these photographs are also
present in their images - laughing, triumphant, or business-
like and cold while fiillilling their duty. This place is, in my
opinion, at the center of Hitler's vVchnnacht one IS
standing inside the 'heart of darkness'. 0'
To drive horne the fact that the 'creators of these photographs
[were] ... present in their images', the fIrst exhibition's
curatorial team strongly emphasized the personal connection
that soldiers had with the photographs. For example, both the
exhibition and the catalog underscored the fact that a large
number of the photographs were taken by the soldiers
themselves, found in the soldiers' belongings on the battlefield,
or part of personal photo albums. Additionally, inscriptions
found on the reverse side of the images were often reproduced,
such as those from several photos (found in a soldier's bag) of
public hangings, which read: 'They (lid not want to work for
Germany' (fIgure 2)."2
By positioning the photos as mementos, the curatorial team
almost seemed bent on using the photograph 10 reanimate the
living reality of Wehrmacht war crimes much in the way
that the vVinter Garden photograph in Camera lucida provoked
for Barthes an 'involuntary and complete memory' akin to
Proust's experience of seeing the 'living reality' of 'his
grandmother's true face' when 'tak[ing] off his boots'.23 This
maneuver is also not unlike the one adopted by New York's
Ruth Horovvitz Gallery in its 2000 exhibition 'vVitness', which
showed postcards of lynchings, along with inscriptions by
lynching proponents, v\!ithout contextual information. 2" Critics
of 'Witness' claimed that this display practice made the viewing
experience too raw, too direct; others said the display practice
Figure I. Installation view, "Vernichtungskrieg: Verbrechen der \'Vehnnacht 1941 bis 1944', Freibmg, 1996. Thomas Beckmann.
486 MICHAEL TYl\fKTW
was racist or transformed violence into spectacle."5 Yet whereas
the New York Historical Society took pains to add signilicant
con textual information to address these concerns when it
presented a reformulated version of the show the same year
under the title 'Without sanctuary: lynching photography in
America',,6 the first Wehrmacht exhibition appears to have
been caught between two competing approaches.
On the one hand, by placing photos of Wehrmacht soldiers
committing violent war crimes in a bIO\'\lIl-up version of an iron
cross, Heer combined two forces that Barthes situated in
opposition to one another in Camera lucida - the Photograph
(which may 'bloc[k] memOlY' and selve as 'a counter-memory')
and the Monument (the 'immortal' 'thing which spoke
Death').27 However, as the display structure was not permanent
and merely appropriated the iron cross's form without any of
its contingency (e.g. it had no link to a particular soldier), Heer
created a kind of ersatz, mythical monument which simulta-
neously immortalized the crimes of the \'\Tehrmacht while
challenging earlier attempts to immortalize Wehrmacht
2R
soldiers as categorically heroic. In particular, the photo-
graphs provided a 'certain but fugitive testimony' to counter
the nostalgic memory that many Germans had after the
Second \'\Torld War for family members who served in the
\'\Tchrmacht, while the display structure offered a way for these
visitors to scrutinize, walk through and literally trample upon
the ultimate symbol of Wehrmacht honor. 29
On the other hand, one could argue that the grouping and
labeling of the photographs undermined this intended effect by
de-traumatizing the violence contained in each photo. Within
the display structure photos were divided into si..x groups, each
defined and labeled by a different activity: Tormenting Jews,
Figure 2. Photograph found ill the belongings of Gerrnall soldier Fritz Lawen, '94+ Shown in 'Vernichtungskrieg: Verbrechcn def \Vchrmac:ht '9V bis '9'14'.
lVloscow Stale Archive.

Gallows, Dead Zones, Shooting Operations, Captivity,
Deportations. 30 Rather than placing the cursory explanatory
text or inscription adjacent to each image, such text was put at
the end of every grouping (figure 3). By separating explanatory
text from the individual photo and by grouping the photo-
graphs according to activity, the curators injected what Barthes
woule! call a 'suprasegmental' meaning into the ensemble of
photographs. In 'The Photographic Message', Barthes
explained that:
... several photographs can come together to form a sequence
(this is commonly the case in illustrated magazines); the

Figure 3. lnstallation View, 'Vcrnirhtungskricg: Vcrbrcchcn der Wehrmacht 1~)41 bis 1944', !vhlllich. '9'17. Pictul"l'-Alliancc.
 signifier of connotation is then no longer to be found at the
level of anyone of the fragments of the sequence hut at that
- what the linguists would call the suprasegmental level -
of the concatenation .... The st'qucnce (and the sequence
alone) offers an effect of comedy which emerges, according to
a familiar procedure, from the repetition and variation of the
attitudesY
While I do not want to suggest that the effect of the exhibition's
grouping structure was in any way comic, I would lil,e to
propose that the sheer repetition and variation within each
grouping turned the photogTaphs into a kind of typology for
which, to borrow the words of Bernd Becher, 'the uniformity of
presentation both establishe[s] a type and [draws] attention to
the small ditTerences among examples of the type'.:J o Yet
because neither these small differences nor the brief explana-
tmy texts provided enough context to offer a full understanding
of the circumstanc.es surrounding each photograph's traumatic
events (what was the reason the person was shot or hanged?
was the killing performed at the soldier's personal discretion or
after deliberation in a legal tria!?), the typology effectively
reduced the contingency of 330 indivi.dual photographs to SLX
general criminal actions, echoing the deformation of personal
history into gesture as described by Barthes in A~),thologies. 33
Drained of their specificity, the individual photographs ran the
ri~k of losing their power of authentication, the very power
which counters what Barthcs called i.n Camera lucida the
medium's 'impoten[ce] with regard to general ideas (to
fiction)'':14 The suprasegmental signifier thus emerged as a
Figure 4- Installation View, 'Verbrechen der ''Vehrmacht: Dimensionen des Vel11ichtungskriegcs', Berlin,
488 1'-HCHAEL TYl\IKHV
vague notion of collective crinlinality unable to be authenti-
cated by the trauma of the individual photograph.
One practical implication of this display strategy was that
the viewer walked away without a sufficient understanding of
what distinguished the actions in these photographs from the
hangings or shootings that are part of what the curators
referred to as any 'nonnal, decent war'.35 On another level, by
placing these images in a typological structure that prevented
the eye from concurrcntly ingcsting text and image, Heel' both
drew attention to the systematic nature of the Wehrmacht's
crimes and denied the viewer the ability to use text to explain
away the visible evidence of these crimes. In other words, the
typological structure not only de-traumatized the individual
photos; it also became a means to insist on the incontestability
of the Wehrmacht's violence within theaters of war beyond the
battlefield. Viewed in this light, the strategy of separating
photographic. inlage from explanatory text and inscription
allowed the iron crass display structure to expose the velY push
and pull that Pierre Nora placed at the heart of a lieu de mel/wire
- 'moments of history torn away from the movement of
history, then returned; no longer quite life, not yet death, like
shells on the shore when the sea of living memory has
receded' .3 6 The iron cross display structure thus became both
an act of resistance against attempts to deform memory
through revisionist history and a way to use photographs as
historical documents to 'block the work of forgetting' and to
'immortalize [the] death[s], caused by the Wehrmacht's
extensive involvement in the Nazi war of annihilationY
2001. Picture-Alliance.
 *** tl1ese killings, tl1e curators drew on another senes of photos
The second exhibition, which opened in 2001, generated from the Prague Archive most probably taken by a different
approximately 50% fewer visitors and far less controversy than photographer. However, the curatorial team also used
the flrst. Less polemical venues were chosen (in Berlin, for nurn.erous army reports, a letter written by a German soldier
example, the show took place at the contemporary art
stationed in Tarnopol to his parents, and other written
exhibition venue Kunst-\!\Terke),~18 and the space was designed
documentation to ascertain how to combine these two sets of
to be much more neutral (critics often called it a white cube)
photographs into a temporally accurate sequence. Through
(figure 4).39 In addition, no iron cross was used to display
photographs, and the evidence presented comprised largely this research, the curatorial team proved that the photographs
written documentation rather than photography. According to showed victims of both the NK\VD and of pogToms in which
Ulrike .Jureit, spokesperson for the second exhibition's Ukrainian militia and Polish, Ukrainian and \!\Thite Russian
curatorial team, the smaller role ascribed to photography was civilians first forced Jews to exhume the NKvVD victims' bodies
partly a function of the more thorough vetting process and and then murdered these .Jews in retaliation for the NKvVD
partly a tunction of the team's attempt to provide greater killings. 10 This explained why, for instance, a young boy who
contexl for all photographs shown.-+"
appeared in one photo assisting with the identification of
One of the most distinctive characteristics of the new
exhumed bodies was later shown dead (figures 5, 6). Fur-
exhibition was what the curatorial team called 'text and image'
thermore, as the pogToms began a clay after Tarnopol's
documents. These documents were primarily text-based
occupation by the Waffen-SS division (which at that time
explanations that drew on photographs, letters, otlicial
communications, and other material to illustrate key points
of \vritten arguments. In some respects, the text and image
document represented a reversal of the relationship between
text and image in most press photography. In press photo-
graphy, Barthes claimed that 'the text constitutes a parasitic
message designed to connote the image, to "quicken" it with
one or more second-order signifleds' .-+1 In the second
exhibition, the text and image documents adopted the more
traditional mode of illustration found in illustrated manu-
scripts, in which 'the image functioned as an episodic return to
denotation from a principal message (the text) which was
experienced as connoted since, precisely, it needed an
illustration' .l2 For Barthes, '[f] ormerly, the image illustrated
the text (made it clearer); toelay, the text loads the image,
burdening it with a culture, a moral, an imagination' .43 Yet
even if the curatorial team escaped the problem of freeing the Figure 5. Photogr"ph, Tarnopol, 1941. Shown in 'Verbrechen der
Wehrmacht: Dimensionen de, Vern.ichtungskrieges', Berlin, 2001. Prague
image from the caption's parasitic message, the question still
Military History Archive, Picture-Alliance.
arises as to whether the second show's predominantly tcxt-
based approach de-traumatized the image, given Barthes's claim
that trauma involves 'a suspension of language'.H A further
question arises as to whetl1er the photographs could still have
punclulIl, since, according to Barthes, 'iw]hat I can name cannot
really prick me'.":'
Ultimately, however, it is the written documentation that
helped expose the extent of the trauma contained in the
individual photograph. This becomes clearer in one part of the
exhibition in which the curatorial team attempted to illustrate
the complexities of using photos as historical evidence. This
portion of the second show concentrated mostly on determin-
ing the parties responsible for the killing of victims shown in a
handful of photographs (called the Tarnopol photos) - a
direct response to assertions made by several historians that the
Figllfe G. Photograph, Tarnopo!, 1941. Shown in 'Vcrbrcchcn dec
images showed victims of the Russian secret police (NKWD) ' .VehnnLlcht: Dinlensionen dt's Vt'rnichtungskriegrs', Berlin, ~OOI. Prague
rather thall of German forces. To determine responsibility for }.Iilitary History Archive, Picture-Alliance.
belonged to the Wehrmacht), one could infer that thc German
army probably played a role in igniting the pogroms:!! If we tic
this historical analysis back to Barthes's notions of trauma and
jJ1lnctum, it should be fairly dear that words (incompatible with
trauma and punctum) and cognition (antithetical to the 'affective
consciousness' which punctum penetrates+8 ) arc precisely what
allowed the multiple layers of trauma within these photographs
to become visible.
While the largely text-based analysis of the Tamopol photo-
graphs may have exposed the degree of trauma contained
within the individual images, the curators complicated the role
of photography by narrowing the exhibition's focus principally
on the criminality of officers rather than of all soldiers. 49
The focus on officers was largely a flmction of the second
exhibition's emphasis on written documentation, for officers Figure 7. Installation View, 'Verbrechen der vVcllmlacht: Dimensionen
were more likely to have written or signed letters, memos, des \lernichnulgskrieges', Berlin, 2001. Pirturc-Alliance.

decrees and communiques. This new focus was most evident in

the murderers'. and the latter added: 'The means of
the portion of the exhibition called 'Handlungsspielraume?"
differentiation is a tex!'.".} Perhaps. Yet a more dangerous
which began with a subsection 'Befehl ist Befehl'5 1 centering on
the different paths three ofIicers took in carrying out orders to possibility exi~ts, namdy that 'Handlung~spielraume' created a
space that severed the visual link between the Wehnnacht
killJews.so One refused to comply and did not suffer significant
consequences, a second complied without protest, and a third soldiers and their murderous acts. Heer, not part of the second
complied only after demanding a written explanation to clarifY show's curatorial team, sharply criticized the later exhibition in
why Jewish women and childrf11 should be shot for being his book Vonz Versdzwi71dell der Tater,5.5 where he wrote that the
'partisans'53 In the third case, a private decided to close hi~ exhibit 'show[ed] crinles without criminals. The war of
6
eyes while carrying out his officer's order so that he would miss annihilation took place, but nobody was there.'5 This
some of his victims. While I do not want to brush aside the particular clainl of Heer's is inflated, since most sections of
curators' attempt to illustrate the various shades of grey with the second show made a convincing case for how the
which one must reckon when assigning guilt, the dominance of Wehrmacht - particularly its officers -- played a direct role
information regarding officers, the extensive citation of war in Nazi genocide. At the same time, the display techniques and
crime tribunal testimony, and the somewhat rosy characteriza- the cboice of what photographs were shown and omitted in
tion of non-offIcers (e.g. the private's self~described resistance 'Handlungsspielraume' had the potential of reinforcing the
effort) carried the risk of being misinterpreted by some as very myth of the saubere Wehrmacht that thr organizers meant
support for long-held misconceptions that the 'average' soldier to contest.
was not guilty of war crimes and that the outcomes of war
crime trials represented an accurate barometer of guilt.
'Handlungsspielraume' also displayed many enlarged pass-
port -type photographs that cut off the photographed individual
just below the shoulders (figure 7) and ollered a noticeable
absence of photographs showing soldiers can)'ing out execu-
tions (before-and-after images of towns destroyed were the
closest thing). In fact, the curatorial team appears to have made
a decided attempt to include photographs that showed the
'human side' of the soldiers: group shots of army regiments,
family photos with children and wives, even a photo of a soldier
receiving an iron cross (figure S). "Vhile these images are just as
much a part of war photography as images of executions, it is
worth asking what consequences arise when the very section of
the exhibition designed to examine degrees of complicity,
resistance and guilt omitted photographs of executions and
Figure 8. Photo.graph, Awarding an Iron Cross, 1941. Shown in
included largely sanguine images of camaracierie, family values '\lerbrechen cier \Vthnnacht: DU11CllSiollf:n des \'ernichtungskricges'-,
and honor. Jureit and Reemt~ma offered one justification when Berlin, 2nD!. Landcsarchi,· Nordrhcin-\Vestfalen, Hauptstaadtsarchiv
the former claimed that 'photos alone don't say anything about Diissddorf, Selll,,/! Kalkum.

490 1\1lCHAEL TYMKI\,·

 As an ironic endnote, although the first show provoked
intense debate concerning \l\Tehrmacht criminality, the
Deuts('hes Historisches Museum (DHM)'s acquisition of the
rights to the second show (and not to the first) will probably
cause the later exhibition to bt' remembered as the catalyst for
contesting the my1h of the unsullied vVt'hrmarht. On a certain
It'vel, the DHM's decision to historicize the second show makes
sense, since the exhibition's largely text-based argument oozed
the kind of externality that Barthcs described at the core of
writing collective history: 'History is hysterical: it is constituted
only if we consider it, only if we look at it _. and in order to
look at it, we must be excluded from it. As a living soul, I am
the very contrary of History, I am what belies it, destroys it for
the sake of my own history (impossible for me to believe in
'witnesses'; impossible, at least, to he one ... ).'''7 However, a
more trouhling possibility is that thc first show might only be
remembered for the allegations of photo forgery (later
detennined to be unfounded) rather than for the show's
success in drawing on the photogTaph's capacity as 'witness', in
using the iron cross display structure to contest nostalgic
notions of the vVt'hrmacht's untainted honor, and 111
constructing a typology to underscore the German army's
systematic involvement in a broad array of genocidal actions.
Though many dung to the myth of the saubcre vVehrmacht
more insistently as the first exhibition became an object of
discourse, the show's ahility to bring to a head such attempts
at collective forgetting probably made some visitors more
willing' to allow the Wehrmacht's criminality to become
historicized by the time the second exhibit went on view.
Admitteclly, the act of pushing Wehrmacht war crimes across
tlle threshold of history carried the risk of transforming these
crimes into rational, digestible objects of study - objects that
could be explained away and then forgotten as they moved
from study to archive. Hut crossing this threshold might have
also represented a necessary step in provoking at least some
viewers with family members who served in the Wehrmacht to
begin the more daunting task of rf'writing their personal
historics -~ a task which opened the door for more accurate
versions of both collective history and 'my own history' finally
to intersect.
NOTES
I - Ellglish translation: Hamburg lmtitute for Social Research.
:1 - Eng1i. . h translation: Gelman anned foret's.
3 _. English translation: vVar of annihilation: crimes oftbe \Vehrmarht 19.P
to 19+1-.
+ - Jan Philipp Reemtsma. 'AfterlVord: on the reception orthe exhibition in
Germany and Austria'. in 77/C Gamall Am~J' alld Gl'llocid" INew York: New
Press, 1999), p. 209.
5 - English translation: Crimes of the \'\'chrmarht: dimensions of" war uf
annihilatioll.
6 - Avaibble al: hllp:/ /ww\\".\Trbrcdwn-der-lVchrmacht.ck
7 - English tramlation: unsullied. [ bave italicized only those foreign "ords
not included in tht' naITIr:s or orp;aniza1ions exhibitions (lr honks.
1 30 -- The title- 'Dead Zont's' dues not C'xplicjtly suggest an 'activil),', lJulthe
R - English translation: Protective squadron.
CJ - The court stated: 'Although til<' Tribunal is of the opinion that the term
"group" in Article 9 must mean something more than this collection of
military ollicers, it has heard much evidence as lo the pa'-ticipation of these
oHirers in planning and \'\'aging aggressive 'war, and in committing \oliar
crimes and crimes against humanity. The c\~dence is, as to many ofthcm,
clcar and convincing'. Trial if t/If 1I1t!;'or war crimillul5 bejore the Illtematiuna/
Afilitml' Ti,hlUWi, N"'.",llbtrg, IJ No,',",zu"r 194., - I Odobel" 19-/6, vol. I
(Nuremberg: Intcmational Military Tribunal, 19+9), pp. 278--9.
10 - On~ such example is a law passed on 17 July 195-l, which gave amnesty
for a broad range of crinTinal uffenses cnl11mltted 'under the influence or
unusual conditions during the [Nazi regime's] collapse from I October
Ig++ to 31July 19~5·. Alfred Streim, 'Saubere Wchrmacht: Die Verfolgllng
von Kriegs- und NS-Verbrechen ill del' Bundesrepublik und in der DDR',
in TellzizhtulZgsk,ieg: l'abledzm riel Jl ritl1lwr/zt 19P·-l!}J.J (Hamburg:
Hamburger Edition, 1~95), p. 576.
II -- In former East Germany, from 1951 to 1958 th~ number of war crime
convictions df'CTf:'3Sed f1'o111 33T to I. In former \t\'cst Gennan)" i)'onl T9.')1 to
1958 the number of war crime convictions decreased from 259 to 22. Ibid.,
P·575·
12 - Examples includc films like Des Teufel5 Grucral(The dcvil's general,
'955) and Sla/i'I",rJ"ffld (1959), iUustrated war novels like Hasso Grabner's Del
Str.it U/II die Partisallell (The fight owr the partisans, 1958), and soldiers' war
remembrances published in DeT Sian and OJ/iek.
13 - r~nglish translation: Hislorians' war.
q - Saul Friedlander. l\ft'll/Oll', Histo~l" alld the Ertemzillation if the ]1'11.". of
Eurofle, (Bloomington: Indian" Cniversity Press). pp. 27-:1-1.
15 - T''rb,edz", ({,>, Tre/mnazht: Dim""s;ollell des T'alZiciztllllgskliege5 '9P-19-14
(Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2002), p.692.
16 - English translation: Quarterly for history.
17 - Bogdan Musial. '13ilder einer AllssteUllng. Kritisrhe Anmerkungcn zur
Wanderausstellung, Vernichtungskrieg: Verbrechen der \rVehrmacht 19+J-
J9++', T,elteija/mhefiefiil ':::citgc5chichle, +7:+ (1999), Pl'· 563, 572.
18 - The new title, 'Crimes of the vVehrmacht: dimen5iolls of a war of
annihilation' (emphasis added), suggests that the crimes of the vVehrmacht
were only SOllIe of 1113.11), di1l1ensions of the war of annihilation.
19 Karl-Heinz Schmick, Altn II ,ill ill }{ellf"Tl Sehliil/dzm (Siiderbrarup:
Freiland, 2002), p. G9.
~o Samson iVladievski, 'The war of extermination: the crimes of the
Wehrmacht in 1941 to 19++', Rdhillkillg Hi,to,l', ]:2 (20()3), p. 2.p.
~r - thp (,'rnmw .-lmtJl Gild Gt'flocidc, p. 17'2.
2~ - Temichtllllgr/,:rif'g: T'rrbnd"" deT Tl'ehrll7arh/19P-I9+!, pp.318-19.
~:1 - Roland Barthe" Call1era iu(ida: Reflectioll5 011 P/lOtogmflkl', trans. Richard
Howard (New York: Hill & Wang, J(81), p. 70.
2+ - Sarah Valdez, 'American abject - exhibition - ' vVithout sanctuary
lynching photogTaphy in America', .. Jrt ill Amrrica, 88:ro (October 2000),
pp.88-9 0 .
25 Brent Staples, The perils of growing comfortable with evil', Nat, l;Hk
Tim", (9 April ~ooo), p. ~.. 16.
26 - Valdez, pp. fl8- 90.
27 - Harthes, Cnmera /urida: Rf'jlecti01lS 011 Phol.()gmfl/9', Pl'. 91, 93. I have stayed
consistent here with Barthes's capitalization of 'the Photograph' and 'the
lVlonument' .
2Po· T say 'my1hiral' since th~ acts of emptying the iron cross of its
speciticity and of transfol1ning a two-dimensional medal into a three-
dimcllsional form dovetail with Barthes's description in l'{1'lhologU5 of the
signifier's tran~ition frOlTI 'lneaning' to 'form' during its progression [rOln
the order oflanguage to that ofmyth. He"r's creation of an ersatz, mythical
Monumellt s"ems analoguus to Barthe,'s claim that 'the best weapon
against myth is perhaps to mythily it in its turn, and to produce an artiji£1([i
myth'. RolanclHarthes, l\[),tI/Olo<~i", trans. Annette Lavers (New York: Hill
& vVang, 197~), PI'· 117, 12~, 13.1· Original emphasis.
29 - Harthes, Camera IlIu·da: Rdhlioll5 all P/wtogmpl!)" p. 93.
photographs wilhin this section depirl llI<' destruction of li\-ing spaces or
49 1
channels of transportation (e.g. by burning buildings or blowing up railroad
tracks).
31 - Roland Barthes, 'The photogTaphic message', Imag!' --l\IllSic --- 1"e.\'t,
traIlS. Slephen Hcath, (l"ew York: Hill & ,Yang, 1977), I'p. 2-!-5.
32.- Ulf Erdmann Ziegler, 'The Bechers' industrial lexicon', A,t in America,
90:6 (2002), pp·92-101.
33 - In the context of his description (If the relation of deformatiDn that
'unites the concept of the myth second degTee signified to its meaning tirst
degree signifier', Barthes wrote: '\Vhat the concept distorts is of courst'
what is full, the meaning: the lion and the Negro are deprived of their
history, changed into gestures'. The 'Negro' reiers to a black French soldier
saluting the French flag in a Pa/'s lHatch photograph, and the 'lion' refers to
the phrase 'quia ego 1l00ninor leo' (because my naLne js lion). Harthes,
11{ytho/ngies, p. [2".
3-! - Barthes. Camera lilcida: Rq/ections Oil Photograp/~l', 1'.87·
35 - 77" German Am~J' and Genocide, p. 19·
36 - Pierre 1\1ora, 'Between memory and history: Its liel/x de memoirr',
Reprcscntations, ~6 (Spring 1989), 1'.12.
37 - Nora, 'Betweell memory and history: ies ii,'ILY de millloirr', p. 19.
33 - English translation: Institute for Contcmponuy Art.
39 - Peter Richter, 'Die KLllst der Erinllerullg', Frallkfllrter Allgmu:ine :;:'eil1ll1g
(-! September 2001), p. BSL
.io --I\IichaelJeismanIl, 'Die Wehrmacht war keine Mbrderbande',
Fran/1i<rler :Jl(~emrine ;"'ilulIg (27 Novcmber ~OOI), P.50.
-!I - Bartbc" 'The photographic message', 1'.25.
492 MICHAEL TYMKIVV
4~ - Barthes, 'The photographic message', 1'.25·
.13 Barthcs, 'The photograpbic message', p.26.
44 - Barthes, 'The photographic message', 1'.30.
-!5 - Bartbcs, Caillall lucida: Ref/ediulls "" PllOlogmpl!!" 1'.:;1.
-!6 f'erlmehen drr It''e''rmacht: Dinzensio1le1l drs f'el1lit;htllllgskrieges IY-P-I9.14,
PI'. 108, 121.
-!7 -- fr,.blechell de.- H ,'''rmalhl: DimensiolleJl des f'nilidltUlzgskn·~l!,es If}P-I.94-J,
p.108.
-!8 - Barthes, C/lillera lucida: Rcff,'clions UII PllOlograph.1', P.55.
-!9 IVladievski claims that the 'new exposition has moved the main focus
to the genf'rals'. However J documentation in the second 5ho\,\r'5 exhibition
catalogue suggests that the focus was more precisely on officers rather than
just OIl generals. lVladievski, 'The war of extermination: the crimes of the
\Vehrmacht in 1941 to 19H', 1'.248.
50 - English translation: Options for action.
51 .- English translation: Orders are orders.
52 - Verbredlen del IVe/mnarhl: Dilllfllsionell des f'mlichtUlzgskri~l!,es 19-1-'-194-1,
1'.5 8 1.
53 f'erbredlen der I V"h,-machl: Dimension,," des VemichtUllgsk,-ieg"s 19-JI-I944,
1'1'.580 I.
5-! - Madicvski, 'The war of extermination: the crimes of the Wehrmacht
in 19-!1 to 19-14', 1'.247·
55 English translatiDn: Concerning the disappearance of criminals.
56 - Heel', 1'011 I~TSdllVillden dcr Tiitcr (Berlin: Auibau-Verlag, 2005), p. I I.
57 - Barthes, CaIJ"ra lucida: Rt.flections 011 PholograMy, 1'.65,