Wie aus der Ferne

Summary

As from afar

After serving 20 years in prison, Albert Speer, the Third Reich’s chief architect and one of Hitler’s closest friends, made efforts to clear his name and became a public persona with the help of his successful autobiography. He made contact with Simon Wiesenthal, a former concentration camp prisoner who dedicated his life to locating and bringing Nazi criminals to justice. Wiesenthal saw this connection as an opportunity to access information about the Third Reich but also as a small victory for himself as a Holocaust survivor.

By combining fictional scenes of a meeting between the two and documentary based material like letters, biographies, and interviews, Wie aus der Ferne imagines Wiesenthal and Speer’s relationship through the lens of a short text by Ludwig Wittgenstein about memory images, their connection to the Holocaust memory discourse, and its representation in film.

Source: 64. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)