Burdens of History, Ethics of Engagement: German Film and the Afghan War

Abstract

Based on the analysis of two contemporary German films on the war in Afghanistan – Auslandseinsatz (Till Endemann, 2012) and Zwischen Welten (Feo Aladag, 2014) – through the philosophical lens of the ‘just war theory’, this article discusses how the classic genre of the ‘boots on the ground’ war film is used to reflect on the ethical justifiability of military force in the context of Germany’s strategic culture at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The article argues that these two films are paradigmatic examples of a new and specifically German subgenre of the war film I suggest calling the ‘humanitarian military film’ that has its roots in the particular historical constellation that led to the development of the country’s current military culture.

Keywords:

• humanitarian military film
• just war theory
• war in Afghanistan
• war film
• German military history

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Florian Zappe

Florian Zappe is a cultural critic and interdisciplinary scholar based in Berlin. He is the author of books on Kathy Acker (Das Zwischen schreiben—Transgression und avantgardistisches Erbe bei Kathy Acker, transcript, 2013) and William S. Burroughs (‘Control Machines' und ‘Dispositive’—Eine foucaultsche Analyse der Machtstrukturen im Romanwerk von William S. Burroughs zwischen 1959 und 1968, Peter Lang, 2008), the editor of the forthcoming volume ReFocus: The Films of Abel Ferrara (Edinburgh University Press) and the co-editor of the essay collections The American Weird: Concept & Medium (Bloomsbury, 2020), Surveillance|Society|Culture (Peter Lang, 2020) and Spaces and Fictions of the Weird and the Fantastic: Ecologies, Geographies, Oddities (Palgrave, 2019). In addition to that, he has published widely on literary and visual culture. For further bio-bibliographical information, please see: https://www.florianzappe.xyz