Rubble canyons: 'Die Morder sind unter uns' and the western
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Wolfgang Staudte's Die Mrder sind unter uns was the first film made in postwar Germany. As such it had to fulfill many functions, not the least of which was to show that it was legitimate for Germany to again make films in the wake of the Nazis abuse of cinematic discourse. At the same time, the film had to find a filmic language with which to tell a story about the immediate German past. This article argues that Staudte finds solutions to both of these problems through generic conventions most generally associated with the Hollywood western of his time. The Hollywood western does the things that Die Mrder sind unter uns needs to have done.
