"Nuit et brouillard" – Die erinnerungskulturelle Gedächtnismaschine. Ein Blick auf Alain Resnais' Meisterwerk

he documentary film Nuit et brouillard of the year 1955 is a masterpiece. Ten years after the end of World War II, Alain Resnais (1922‒2014) created a striking documentary about the NS regime’s policy of extermination. The movie had a lasting impact on the visual commemorative culture of the Shoa. Numerous iconographic illustrations of the Shoa are based on this documentary. Hence, later documentaries and motion pictures borrowed heavily from the imagery of Nuit et brouillard. This paper focuses on the history of reception of Nuit et brouillard and outlines one possible application for history lessons at secondary levels I and II.