| Abstract | Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter, produced by Nico Hofmann's company TeamWorx for ZDF in 2014, was the most expensive German TV production to date and was successfully sold to a global audience, including the US where it was awarded an Emmy, and China. The article examines the mini-series in the context of its German reception and the previous debates around representations of German suffering. It argues that the film combines two previously separate modes of visual representation, the historicist mode, known from Der Untergang and Dresden, and the traumatised aesthetics of contemporary immersive film and TV productions, such as Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers. Particular attention is paid to the issue of the manufacturing of audience empathy and film's claim to historical veracity, ostensibly supported by the two documentaries from Guido Knopp's 'Redaktion Zeitgeschichte' that accompanied the screenings. (English)
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