Poetic Justice in Fatih Akins "Aus dem Nichts"

Fatih Akin thematizes the victims of the NSU murders and their relatives in "In the fade" (2017) and, as has been praised in the press, has returned to the image power and sensitivity of his early works, especially "Head on" (2004). What unites the two films is their successful connection of the major political issues and their ethical-metaphysical frameworks with the subjective inner view of individuals, without - here the strength - falling into pure acting out of stereotypes, even if stereotypes are definitely part of Akin's instruments. Interculturality, emancipation, neo-Nazism, terrorism, justice, love, a higher pathos is hardly imaginable and the likelihood of failure, the negotiation of platitudes, the moral index finger, the ending in kitsch is huge. Akin circumvents these shoals by the fact that the protagonists of both films are too particular, fragile and self-contained to allow a purely teaching-based reading, even if the political message is rather clear. The essay is devoted to parts of this message: the aesthetic and political dimensions of the concept of justice in "In the fade". The article traces the mechanisms that Akin implies to manipulate his audience to compassion with the victims and shows how cinema and literature take part in moral negotiation processes.