Tales of Tirpitz – The Battleship in European Documentaries and Museum Exhibitions

Exploring transnational memory potentials in the United Kingdom, Germany and Norway

The German battleship Tirpitz was sunk by the British in Norway during World War II. How do media create a trustworthy story about such a historical event and why should audiences accept the told story as true? Seemingly objective documentaries and museum exhibitions from the three involved countries, the United Kingdom, Germany and Norway, mediate different narratives and different modes of rhetoric of collective memory about the stories of the battleship. Applying the analytical focal points of paratexts, sound and music, original footage and original objects, re-enactments, eyewitnesses and text, Dr Juliane Bockwoldt´s PhD thesis explores different memory potentials in the selected media. Through the repetition of these authoritative, authentic and affective stylistic devices, the documentaries and museum exhibitions can gain different memory potentials about the same historical events. Depending on the stylistic tools, the story about the Tirpitz is the one of a beast, a lonely queen or of an investigative endeavour.

Tirpitz in Bogen Bay near Narvik, in northern Norway, 1943-44. German Federal Archives.

PhD Thesis Link: Tales of Tirpitz – The Battleship in European Documentaries and Museum Exhibitions