View No. 17 (2021)

No. 17 (2021)

ISSN:
1895-247X
eISSN:
2657-3571

Publication Date:
2021-12-20

Section: From research workshops

Playing with Holocaust symbols. The video game franchise ‘Wolfenstein’ as a case study for digital Holocaust representations

Johannes Breit

joe.breit@me.com

Studied history in Vienna and Berlin, and his interests focuses on the history of Nazi Germany, forced labor, and the German occupation of Yugoslavia. He is currently working on a doctoral dissertation on the significance and role of anti-Serb discourse during the German occupation of Serbia. He published, inter alia, Das Gestapo-Lager Innsbruck-Reichenau: Geschichte, Aufarbeitung, Erinnerung (2017).

ORCID logo https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8856-9223

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Lukas Meissel

lmeissel@campus.haifa.ac.il

graduate in History, Contemporary History, and Holocaust Studies in Vienna and Haifa. Ph.D. student at the University of Haifa analyzes photographs taken by SS guards in concentration camps. He was a scholarship holder of various institutions in Israel, the USA, Germany, Austria, and France. Published on Holocaust studies/education, visual history, and anti-Semitism. He is currently a Ph.D. scholarship holder at the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah in Paris.

ORCID logo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0872-6215

University of Haifa

Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały, No. 17 (2021), Pages: 329-357

Submission Date: 2021-12-18

Publication Date: 2021-12-23

DOI logo https://doi.org/10.32927/zzsim.882

Abstract

Digital games are the world’s most popular and profitable form of entertainment, accounting for 116 billion dollars in yearly revenue and 2.3 billion people playing in 2018. Games taking place during the Second World War and/or involving Nazis constitute a well-established sub-genre within this digital game culture. Given this background, comparatively little attention has been paid to the representation of Nazis in the medium and how this portrayal affects popular imaginations of Nazism and its crimes. This paper  aims to investigate these questions and discuss the impact of games set in WW2 on Holocaust memory using the example of the Wolfenstein Game series.

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Breit, J., & Meissel, L. (2021). Playing with Holocaust symbols. The video game franchise ‘Wolfenstein’ as a case study for digital Holocaust representations . Zagłada Żydów. Studia I Materiały, (17), 329–357. https://doi.org/10.32927/zzsim.882

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                            View No. 17 (2021)

No. 17 (2021)

ISSN:
1895-247X
eISSN:
2657-3571

Data publikacji:
2021-12-20

Dział: From research workshops