loCAliZAtion As AdAptAtion in the WOLFENSTEIN frAnChise
205
legal background for these filtering processes regarding the Wolfenstein
series’ German market. The German legal background is then compared
to the actual filtering that happened in the Wolfenstein games. This allows
for an evaluation of the results of institutional filtering. The final section
shows how the narrative strategy of mythologization is amplified in the
filtered Wolfenstein games, and why this seems to be a paradoxical result
of the intentions behind the legal restrictions against depicting (symbols
of) the Nazi regime.
Mythologization of the Holocaust in Popular Media
What are the views of the past in popular media, and how do they conceptualize history? Florian Evers examines popular media strategies for
narrating the Holocaust and the depiction of Nazi Germany. One of the
strategies he reconstructs can be found in the Wolfenstein games. It is
the narrative strategy of mythologization (Mythisierung). 4 The tabooed
cultural trauma of a Western society committing genocide is transformed
into a modern myth by amalgamating fact with fantastic f iction. In
mythicized narratives, the world can function according to dichotomies
of good and evil. 5 What cannot be explained in a factual discourse is
explained by an irrational, mythical discourse. Mythologization enables
explanations of the irrationality of a modern, “rational” society committing
genocide:
For what is most scary about Nazism is that it could happen again. That the
murder of millions could take place at the center of Western civilization is
frightening, as is the understanding that it was not sadists who were the
perpetrators of genocide as Nazisploitation films would have you believe. 6
Due to the genre’s specific narrative possibilities, first-person shooters narrate stories as shaped by individual actions. Set during the Second World War,
Wolfenstein consists of missions whose goals are to hinder Nazi Germany’s
4 Florian Evers, Vexierbilder des Holocaust: Ein Versuch zum historischen Trauma in der
Populärkultur, Populäre Kultur und Medien 4 (Berlin: Lit, 2011), 60–65; cf. Hayton, “Digital
Nazis,” 208, who argues the Second World War to be “mythologized” in the Wolfenstein games.
5 Eva Kingsepp, “Hitler as Our Devil? Nazi Germany in Mainstream Media.” In Monsters in the
Mirror: Representations of Nazism in Post-War Popular Culture, ed. Sara Buttsworth and Maartje
M. Abbenhuis (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010), 37.
6 Hayton, “Digital Nazis,” 210.
205
legal background for these filtering processes regarding the Wolfenstein
series’ German market. The German legal background is then compared
to the actual filtering that happened in the Wolfenstein games. This allows
for an evaluation of the results of institutional filtering. The final section
shows how the narrative strategy of mythologization is amplified in the
filtered Wolfenstein games, and why this seems to be a paradoxical result
of the intentions behind the legal restrictions against depicting (symbols
of) the Nazi regime.
Mythologization of the Holocaust in Popular Media
What are the views of the past in popular media, and how do they conceptualize history? Florian Evers examines popular media strategies for
narrating the Holocaust and the depiction of Nazi Germany. One of the
strategies he reconstructs can be found in the Wolfenstein games. It is
the narrative strategy of mythologization (Mythisierung). 4 The tabooed
cultural trauma of a Western society committing genocide is transformed
into a modern myth by amalgamating fact with fantastic f iction. In
mythicized narratives, the world can function according to dichotomies
of good and evil. 5 What cannot be explained in a factual discourse is
explained by an irrational, mythical discourse. Mythologization enables
explanations of the irrationality of a modern, “rational” society committing
genocide:
For what is most scary about Nazism is that it could happen again. That the
murder of millions could take place at the center of Western civilization is
frightening, as is the understanding that it was not sadists who were the
perpetrators of genocide as Nazisploitation films would have you believe. 6
Due to the genre’s specific narrative possibilities, first-person shooters narrate stories as shaped by individual actions. Set during the Second World War,
Wolfenstein consists of missions whose goals are to hinder Nazi Germany’s
4 Florian Evers, Vexierbilder des Holocaust: Ein Versuch zum historischen Trauma in der
Populärkultur, Populäre Kultur und Medien 4 (Berlin: Lit, 2011), 60–65; cf. Hayton, “Digital
Nazis,” 208, who argues the Second World War to be “mythologized” in the Wolfenstein games.
5 Eva Kingsepp, “Hitler as Our Devil? Nazi Germany in Mainstream Media.” In Monsters in the
Mirror: Representations of Nazism in Post-War Popular Culture, ed. Sara Buttsworth and Maartje
M. Abbenhuis (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010), 37.
6 Hayton, “Digital Nazis,” 210.