ABSTRACT
Alexander Kluge published a whole range of media on the First World War concentrating on the interrelation between war, image, and art. This chapter analyzes why Kluge uses the horses as a vehicle to represent the Great War. It argues that all of Kluge's comical, indeed grotesque, elements are precisely the ones that in the end turn out to strike a nerve in the viewers' innermost being. Kluge's fake interviews function as a distortion of the interview with contemporary witnesses who play a crucial role in historic representations. The chapter also analyzes one specific irritating feature of Kluge's ambiguous images of war: the comical effect they have on the viewer. It also argues that the horse functions as a dispositive of discourse that ties together tragedy and comedy, the viewers' empathy and distance, and, finally, that it serves as a vehicle of communication—especially in the period around the First World War but also up to now.
