NotNormativelyHuman 203
produced (but not released) before the collapse of the regime. This film
withthesuggestivetitle"LifeGoesOn"(orig."DasLebengehtweiter,"
1945; Wolfgang Liebeneiner, dir.) had been commissioned by the
propaganda ministry and was based on a script by none other than
Goebbels himself. In the film's narrative, Sauerbruch's prostheses were
displayed together with bunkers, makeshift housing and garage
inventions of new weapons^48 to deliver the message that the German
spirit remained undaunted and that a new normal had established
itself—the total war that Goebbels had proclaimed and which was
supposed to empower Germans to continue fighting regardless of what
would happen. Overall, there is a complicated interplay at work in the
film between various levels of "normal," all of them polemical in
Canguilhem'ssense.First,thisfilm isuniqueinthehistoryofNazifilm
production in that it acknowledged and even put on display the
hardships, the deaths, and destructions produced by the war in all their
ugly detail. At the same time, this seemingly realistic documentary
orientation is undercut by the film's governing intention to "normalize"
these ugly realities, to suggest that this is a "new normal." This new
normal is, however, a spectral one in that it serves as the basis of an
ideologicalmirage,thesuggestionthattheold"normal"iswaitinginthe
wings,toreturnaftertheEndsieg,thefinalvictoryofNaziGermany.^49
The idea that "life goes on," that there is indeed a way "back to
normal"iscertainlyhelpfulforsomepeopleandinsomecircumstances,
asacriticwritingfromoutsidethediseasemustalwaysacknowledge.At
the same time, an acknowledgment of the maieutic role of this concept
should not miss out on how in a larger social and cultural framework it
can also function as an insidious ideology. This may also be the reason
why Lorde, as an African American lesbian feminist, reserves her most
acrimoniousrecriminationsfortheroleplayedby"thecancerandplastic
surgery industries" (70) in forcing a spectral normality onto post-
(^48) Some material can be found in Roth, Wolf-Dieter. "'Das Leben geht weiter.'"
Telepolis.Heise Medien, 12 Apr. 2004. Web. 7 Apr. 2017. and Blumenberg,
Hans-Christoph.Das Leben geht weiter. Der letzte Film des Dritten Reichs.
Reinbek:Rowohlt,1993.Print.
(^49) Forabroaderhistoricalperspectivewhichalsoincludes"theprosthetizationof
theGermanbodyandNazibodypolitics"cf.Neumann120.