On the difficulties of letting the other speak: The German-Polish relationship in Christoph Hochhäusler’s "Milchwald".

Authors

Katrin Polak- Springer, Rutgers, the State University of New JerseyFollow

Abstract

This article seeks to interpret Christoph Hochhäusler’s 2003 film Milchwald (This Very Moment), associated with the contemporary German film movement Berliner Schule. At the beginning of the 21^st century, the German-Polish relationship, despite all efforts at European integration, remains a deeply emotional matter, overshadowed by the mental consequences of the population politics and destruction carried out by Germans during National Socialism. In my reading, Milchwald reveals that diplomacy can only be successful, if it engages the agents of intercultural exchange, people in their daily interactions with one another, on an emotional level. The imagery of the EU as "family", and the altruistic rhetoric surrounding European integration, cover up the fundamentally materialist motivations at the basis of the German-Polish relationship around the time of the film's release. Milchwald ultimately points to the dangerous consequences of such purely economic interests between two countries with a traumatic common past.

Recommended Citation

Polak- Springer, Katrin (2011) "On the difficulties of letting the other speak: The German-Polish relationship in Christoph Hochhäusler’s "Milchwald".," EDGE - A Graduate Journal for German and Scandinavian Studies: Vol. 2: Iss. 1, Article 2.
Available at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/edge/vol2/iss1/2