Helmut’s Triumph

How can Nazi psyche and praxis be adapted and disguised in a democratic society? This video essay offers a reflection on how in Martha (1973), a Sirkian melodrama directed by Rainer W. Fassbinder for German television, the imprint of Nazi contamination emerges through the power of metaphor, as usual in the German filmmaker's work. The character Helmut Salomon is the walking metaphor that Fassbinder constructs to represent post-Nazi ideology and its normalisation/masking within a new democratic and tolerant society. As a metonymic figure of this normalising process, Helmut interests us, therefore, from his individual psychology, that is, from the way he relates to others (especially Martha, his wife) and embodies the tics associated with the legacy of Nazi horror. Alain Resnais, Billy Wilder, and Jean-Luc Godard will also be brought up.