Ossi Wessi [1 ed.] 9781443815192, 9781847186751

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Ossi Wessi

Ossi Wessi

Edited by

Donald Backman and Aida Sakalauskaite

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Ossi Wessi, Edited by Donald Backman and Aida Sakalauskaite This book first published 2008 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2008 by Donald Backman and Aida Sakalauskaite and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-84718-675-0, ISBN (13): 9781847186751

Dedicated to Vytautas, Vilius, Saulius, and Steve for their support

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Images and Tables........................................................................... ix Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... x Introduction ................................................................................................ xi “A Difficult Marriage”: Marriage and Marital Breakdown in PostUnification Literature Alison Lewis................................................................................................ 1 Surveillance, Perversion ,and the Last Days of the GDR: A Reading of Thomas Brussig’s Heroes Like Us John Griffith Urang ................................................................................... 25 Literature and Reunification: Berlin Philip Broadbent........................................................................................ 37 The Zonenkinder Debate: An Analysis of Media Reaction to Two Popular Memoirs Written by East Germany’s Youngest Generation of Authors Jennifer Bierich-Shahbazi.......................................................................... 57 Ostalgie als Verfremdungseffekt in Neo Rauch’s Paintings Beret Norman ............................................................................................ 75 Screening the “Old” West Germany? The Federal Republic of Germany from Foundation to Unification in Sönke Wortmann’s Das Wunder von Bern (2003) and Leander Haußmann’s Herr Lehmann (2003) Andrew Plowman ...................................................................................... 89 Forgetting Die Architekten: Towards a New Approach to DEFA and Wende Film Susan Buzzelli ......................................................................................... 105

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Sächsisch als Verlierersprache?: An Examination of the “Mauer in den Köpfen” from a Linguistic Perspective 15 Years after Reunification Keith Kennetz.......................................................................................... 125 Negotiating German Identities in Classroom Interaction – An Analysis of Pronoun Use Anja Vogel .............................................................................................. 143 Was ist die DDR?: Suggestions for Presenting the GDR to the American High School Student Alexis Spry .............................................................................................. 171 Ossi-Wessi Queer: Literary Constructions of Gay Sensibilities and German Reunification Rolf Goebel ............................................................................................. 187 Unequal Sisters: The Wall Fell but (Language-)Barriers Remained Marion Gerlind ........................................................................................ 201 History in the Service of Politics: The Fiftieth Anniversary of the East German Uprising of June 17, 1953 and German National Identity Nadine Zimmerli ..................................................................................... 221 From SS to Stasi and Back Again?: Ossis, Wessis, and Right Extremists in Contemporary Germany Nitzan Shoshan........................................................................................ 241 Contributors............................................................................................. 267

LIST OF IMAGES AND TABLES

8.1 Combined Dresdeners’ Evaluation of Female Dresden Voice........... 129 8.2 Combined Dresdeners’ Evaluation of Male Dresden Voice.............. 130 8.3 Combined Bambergers’ Evaluation of Female Dresden Voice ......... 131 8.4 Combined Bambergers’ Evaluation of Male Dresden Voice............. 132 8.5 Perceptions of Local Speech, Dresden & Bamberg Informants ........ 133 8.6 Examples of Survey Questions (abridged) ........................................ 140 9.1 Berlin Research Participants .............................................................. 145 9.2 East Berlin teacher (male): inclusive ich ........................................... 147 9.3 East Berlin teacher (female): inclusive ich ........................................ 148 9.4 West German teacher (female): inclusive ich.................................... 149 9.5 East German teacher identification of students ................................. 152 9.6 East German teacher-student identification ....................................... 153 9.7 East German teacher-student identification ....................................... 155 9.8 East German teacher-student identification: your home .................... 155 9.9 West German teacher: exclusive identification ................................. 156 9.10 West German teacher: impersonal identification............................. 158 9.11 West German teacher: inclusive identity ......................................... 159 9.12 Student pronoun use......................................................................... 161 9.13 Student resistance to East German identity...................................... 162 9.14 Teacher Socialization Part I ............................................................. 165 9.15 Teacher Socialization Part II............................................................ 166 10.1 “Fünfjahresplan” Stamps ................................................................. 177 10.2 “20 Jahre Deutsche Demokratische Republik” Stamps ................... 178 10.3 The Established Phase Stamps......................................................... 179 12.1 Advertisement.................................................................................. 215 12.2 Sample Letter................................................................................... 216 12.3 Heighten Women’s Visibility .......................................................... 217 12.4 Translation of Namenwahl............................................................... 218

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to acknowledge the following sponsors whose generous financial support helped make the Fourteenth Annual Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference possible: The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), New York; The Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, Berkeley; The Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Berkeley; The Graduate Assembly of the University of California, Berkeley; and the Bonwit-Heine Fund of the German Department at the University of California, Berkeley. We would also like to thank the entire faculty, staff and graduate student body of the Berkeley German Department for their on-going efforts that sustain this long-running conference. Finally we acknowledge with special gratitude the tireless assistance of Cathie Jones, as well as the personal support and encouragement of Robert Schechtman, Joellyn Palomaki, Dayton Henderson, Katra Byram, and Julie Koser.

INTRODUCTION

Im Jahre 1961 wurde die Lage in Europa stabilisiert, wurde der Frieden gerettet .... Die Mauer wird in 50 und auch in 100 Jahren noch bestehen bleiben, wenn die dazu vorhandenen Gründe noch nicht beseitigt worden sind. —Erich Honecker, January 19891

Could Erich Honecker have known, when these words were spoken, that the very idea of the GDR was about to be threatened? We read these words today with a great feeling of irony; yet, they were intended as a declaration of the strength and solidarity of the SED2 and the GDR. As the coming years progressed these words would be regarded as the misguided ramblings of a leader attempting to prop up a failing government. The conflict between Honecker’s motivations and the later interpretation of his words; the present political situation in Germany, and the Wende’s representation in contemporary German literature were but a few of the issues we hoped to explore during the course of the fourteenth annual Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference, “Ossi Wessi,” held at the University of California, Berkeley (March 17-19, 2006). The volume that follows is a collection of the papers presented at that conference, and offers a sampling of research presently being conducted about Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Truly, the history of the Berlin Wall begins not in 1961, or 1945. It began January 18, 1871 when Kaiser Wilhelm, declared the existence of a united, imperial, German nation: Wir übernehmen die Kaiserliche Würde in dem Bewußtsein der Pflicht, in Deutscher Treue die Rechte des Reiches und seiner Glieder zu schützen, den Frieden zu wahren, die Unabhängigkeit Deutschlands, gestützt auf die 1

“In 1961 the situation in Europe was stabilized, the peace was saved...The Wall will in 50 even in 100 years persist in its existence, if the reasons for its presence have not been abolished.” (trans. Donald E. Backman) 2 Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland (Socialist Unity Party of German)

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INTRODUCTION geeinte Kraft seines Volkes, zu verteidigen. Wir nehmen sie an in der Hoffnung, daß dem Deutschen Volke vergönnt sein wird, den Lohn seiner heißen und opfermütigen Kämpfe in dauerndem Frieden und innerhalb der Grenzen zu genießen, welche dem Vaterlande die seit Jahrhunderten entbehrte Sicherung gegen erneute Angriffe Frankreichs gewähren.3

With these equally famous words, Kaiser Wilhelm created the first version of a united Germany. His vision of the new Germany is that of an independent, united nation, whose strength derives from the strength of its people. The strength of his people will guide Wilhelm in his quest to maintain a lasting German peace. Since this time the German nation has been in almost constant turmoil, the ins and outs of which need not be detailed here. Suffice it to say that World War I, World War II, and the years 1945-1989 served to further delay Kaiser Wilhelm’s dream of a united, peaceful Germany. When the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989 there was a feeling of hope, of wrongs righted, and of endless possibilities that swept the globe. There were discussions of the potential economic superpower that would be a united Germany, and there were discussions in the GDR of needing to protect their own interests in fear of being simply taken over by the FRG. Over the following 20 years some of these hopes and fears have become a reality, but the question of the German nation is still one that deserves further discussion. In the words of Benedict Anderson, The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them...has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations. ... Finally, it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. (Anderson, 7)

But what does one do in a nation that has been forcefully divided into two nations, then at the behest of both nations reunited, only to find that they had lost a lot of the common ground that used to unite them? Does the 3

We assume the Imperial dignity in the awareness of the duty to protect, in German loyalty, the rights, the peace of the empire and its members; to defend the independence of Germany, founded on the united strength of its people. We assume it in the hope that the German people will be granted the reward for its heated battles, in which they willingly sacrificed, and that they will enjoy continuous peace within [Germany’s] borders, and bestow upon the fatherland protection against renewed attacks from France, which it has lacked for centuries. (trans. Donald E. Backman)

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deep, horizontal comradeship still exist? If so, is it strong enough to ever fully reunite the German people into one nation, or will they eternally be referred to as Ossis and Wessis? The story of the Berlin Wall is in this manner not entirely unlike that of the US Civil War. Although our war caused a rift and division that lasted only four years, there is still much talk of the differences between North and South. Recent debates about educational quality below the Mason-Dixon Line4, as well as issues surrounding the flying of the Confederate Flag serve to underline the fact that after 143 years we, in the United States, still struggle with our own issues of reunification. It is not our intention to hold the United States up as a paragon of reunification, but our situation is one that should receive more attention when the long German struggle for reunification is discussed. If the US is yet to overcome four years of separation it should come as no surprise that the Germans still struggle with similar issues. Unemployment is still at record levels in former East Germany, and the recent successes of the NPD5 in elections point toward continued dissatisfaction with the reunification process. In 2008, 18 years after reunification it is clear that the community everyone had imagined will be a long time coming. From the perspective of linguistics the situation is perhaps even more complicated. It was not until the Early New High German period (end of 14th century to the beginning of 18th century) that the German Language finally began moving toward unification. Before this, the German language and German speaking areas were strictly divided into dialects. The Early New High German period is not marked by any outstanding linguistic change in language. Most of the changes, such as diphthongization, umlauting, and compounding, had already started in the Old High German, Old Saxon and Middle High German periods and continued throughout the Early New High German Period. This period is mainly marked by the translations of the Bible by Martin Luther in the 16th century, which led to a long process of unification of German language. The Bible was available not only to nobles, but to each citizen of the German speaking realm and it was a strong encouragement for education, which can be seen through the works of several grammarians of that time, 4

In 2006 per capita spending on student education was below the national average in each of the states below the Mason-Dixon Line. (U.S. Department of Education 2008) 5 The Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands is a political party formed in the 1960’s and following a platform similar to that of the Nationalsozialistische Partei Deutschlands.

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such as Valentin Ickelsamer (16th century), Johannes Kolross (16th century), Hans Farbitius (15th-16th centuries). It seemed that the need to unify and make the German language more accessible to all citizens was the major task for many scholars. By the end of the 19th century the brothers Grimm expanded this research by tracing the roots of the German language and reconstructing them. They emphasized the identity of the ‘language’ and ‘people’ and stated that this identity is reflected not only in the current practice of the language, but also in the history of the language itself. The question is – what happened with Germany between 1945-1990 that led to a disunity of the German language as well as disunity of the state and the nation. Did the Wall separate the two Germanys politically and linguistically? Is it possible that after centuries of attempts to unite the German language, all of the work was undone in a mere 55 years? The rapid development of economic and cultural globalization during the 20th century contributed greatly to linguistic changes in many western European countries, including Germany. Since Germany was divided into two states, there was little or no communication between the two when decisions were being made as to which term to apply to certain objects. The terms originated independently in both states to designate the new objects, institutions, concepts, and processes. However, similar equivalents can be found in both states. Stevenson provides many examples, such as Ministerrat and Bundesregierung for ‘government’ in the GDR and the Federal Republic respectively6. However, there are more examples which indicate a specific term to one speech community or the other. Research for a sociolinguistic History of East and West in Germany performed by Patrick Stevenson indicates several interesting points. He starts by analyzing the divided Germany, between 1945-1990, and later continues with the effects of the Reunification of Germany between 19902000 on language and society. He designates several reasons why the German languages went different ways between 1945 and 1990. There were new words needed to indicate new things, institutions or terms in both states. However, due to the lack of communication many terms were specific to one speech community or the other. For example, in the GDR, the following terms were frequently used: Erweiterte Oberschule ‘secondary school’, Elternaktiv ‘parents’ work group’, Kombinat ‘combine’. In the Federal Republic, terms such as Gesamtschule 6

For more examples, see Stevenson, P. Language and German Disunity. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002.

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‘comprehensive school’, Arbeitsmarkt ‘job market’, Konzern ‘business, firm’ are found. In both states, old words acquired different meanings. For example, Brigade designated ‘a small group of people working together in a socialist enterprise’ and ‘unit in the army’ in GDR and the Federal Republic respectively. Another category indicates different words being used to indicate the same or similar meaning. For example, ‘retirement home’ was Feierabendheim and Seniorenheim in the GDR and Federal Republic respectively. Stevenson also indicates that the collision of two such diverse states in 1989-1990 brought immediate changes not only in politics, economy, and culture, but also into the language. For example, some ‘old’ (mostly eastern) words were removed from active usage; some ‘old’ (western) words (which also included anglicisms) were introduced to East German speakers. Words in use before both states were separated and treated as archaic in the GDR were re-introduced to East German speakers. Some taboo words and topics returned to official usage. Although most of these processes were automatic, not all of them were well received in the GDR or in the Federal Republic. East Germans were the ones, who had to undergo the biggest transformations. This whole process also boosted the question of correct spelling, punctuation, stylistic questions and so forth. All of these problems contributed to the Rechtschreibungreform ‘spelling reform’ and finally, 15 years after reunification of Germany, both former East and West Germans were united; not only politically, socially and culturally, but also linguistically. Other linguistic changes, which influenced the German language despite the previous division of Germany, took place after the reunification as well. Some of them began during the period after World War II and still continue to this day. For example the truncation of polysyllabic words in German. In most cases this creates bisyllabic abbreviations in which the first syllable varies meaning while the second functions as a derivative element, indicating an emotional or genderspecific characterization. Der Ostdeutsche ‚East German’ mutates into Ossi, Der Westdeutsche ‚West German’ into Wessi, Der Bundesbürger into Bundi. The use of these abbreviations is widespread and they are even to be found in the columns of serious newspapers. Ossi and Wessi appear in the 1991 Duden dictionary. Other words follow the same pattern and include Ziggi for Zigarette ‘cigarette’ and can even extend to proper names, such as the once popular Gorbi for Gorbachov. Bisyllabic words can also be abbreviated in this fashion: Putzi for Putzfrau ‘cleaning lady’ or Touri for Tourist ‘tourist’. However the –i has no positive emotions in

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such abbreviations. Other examples include Ami for Amerikaner ‘an American’ or Nazi for Nazionalsozialist ‘national socialist’.

Contributions It was out of this propensity for bi-syllabic abbreviations that the title of our conference and ultimately this collection derived its somewhat controversial title. By juxtaposing the Ossi and the Wessi we feel the title represents not only the post-Wall reality of the language, but also highlights the fact that issues of reunification are still felt strongly on both sides of the former divide. As the essays were selected for this volume it became clear that the topics to be covered would also not easily allow themselves to be placed into neat categories. As a result we have decided to allow the papers to flow into and between each other in a way that ultimately creates a chronicle of the Fall of the Wall that delves into art, literature, film, politics, linguistics and even education. The collection begins with an essay that explores the trope of marriage and marital breakdown through Monika Maron’s Animal Triste (1996) with special attention to the metaphor of marriage both political and literary. Alison Lewis’s reading of Animal Triste suggests that “...a marriage of such extreme opposites [would] make any lasting union an improbable, almost grotesque feat.” Commenting here on the literary marriage, her interpretation suggests that marital breakdown is used in the post-wall period as literary trope to comment on the possibilities of the future of a united Germany. Looking not to the future of Germany, but to the past of the GDR, John Griffith Urang demonstrates “the place of State Security in the collective imagination of the former GDR” through a discussion of Thomas Brussig’s Helden Wie Wir (1995). Urang argues that Brussig’s novel, which presents itself as one sexually deviant’s account of his work in the Stasi in it’s latter years, juxtaposes state surveillance with a gaze of sexual desire thus creating a retrospective revision of Stasi fantasies in postunification Germany. Philip Broadbent’s essay, “Literature and Reunificaiton: Berlin” discusses Günter Grass’s Ein weites Feld (1997) and Tanja Dücker’s Spielzone (1999) while arguing “that their portrayals of [Berlin] knowingly contribute to the revisionist debates that sought to redefine the memory of National Socialism in and for a reunified Germany.” The characters in these two novels, argues Broadbent, wander Berlin not in a topographic nature, but have moved beyond its topography, creating an epistemological shift allowing the city to be seen through time and space.

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Grass and Dücker raise the specter of National Socialism emphasizing Berlin as a city containing multiple sites that remind its citizens of their membership in a wider cultural and social framework. In Chapter four, Jennifer Bierich-Shahbazi takes up the media’s reception of recent novels by East German authors, in particular Jana Henzel’s Zonenkinder (2002) and Claudia Rusch’s Meine freie deutsche Jugend (2003). Bierich-Shahbazi, through analysis of the “Zonenkinder Debate” concludes that “the criticisms say more about the critics’ expectations of how East Germany should be reconstructed, a reinforcement of the negative images of the GDR, rather than their opinions about the novel. The hegemony of one country over another, such as West Germany over the former East, commonly leads to a critical interpretation of the subjugated government.” Moving away from literature into the media and finally into the fine arts, Beret Norman uses Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt as a starting point for teasing out the effects of Neo Rauch’s disorienting use of space and scale. Through his paintings and his color palette, Norman argues, Rauch offers the viewer a nostalgic (Ostalgic?) view of the GDR. She further argues that his use of a “faux Socialist Realism” is both ironic and disorienting, leaving the viewer unsure of the aim of the painting. Is the canvas in praise of or critical of the GDR? In “Screening the “old” West Germany? The Federal Republic of Germany from Foundation to Unification in Sönke Wortmann’s Das Wunder von Bern (2003) and Leander Haussmann’s Herr Lehmann (2003)” Andrew Plowman offers an interpretation of the two films by way of understanding the representation of the West German past in Germany today. Through Das Wunder von Bern and Herr Lehmann one sees “just how powerfully the history of the Federal Republic before 1990 is being reshaped according to the demands of the new normality of the so-called ‘Berlin Republic.’” He further argues that the films also present a construct that should remind the viewer that these presentations of the West German past are open to be challenged and contested. Similar to Plowman’s work on West German film, Susan Buzzelli then offers a discussion of the two “East German” films, Nikolaikirche (1995) and die Architekten (1990), proposing that recent trends in scholarship tend toward interpretations of late DEFA films as feeding into a notion that the fall of the wall was inevitable. She shows that the dis/connections between these films’ allow for alternate readings of East German films. Chapter Eight moves away from film and the arts into the realm of linguistics. Keith Kennetz analyzes the present day status of Saxon German in “Sächsisch als Verlierersprache?” Through interviews

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conducted with Germans Kennetz describes and analyzes the perceived linguistic “wall in the mind” that continues to exist. Interestingly, he found in his limited sampling of respondents that although Saxons are aware of the status of their accent as being refined, they themselves deem it as pleasant but uneducated, unrefined and incorrect. Anja Vogel presents research conducted in Berlin high school history classrooms conducted in both former East and former West Berlin. Through her analysis of classroom interactions, she finds and demonstrates the “Negotiation of German Identity” in present-day Berlin classrooms. In fact, her work points to an already disappearing wall among students who are too young to have experienced the fall of the Wall themselves. If the Wall and its conception are disappearing in the minds of the next generation, then Alexis Spry’s project, which details potential methods for presenting the GDR in American classrooms goes a long way toward keeping the memory of a divided Germany alive. By using Realia, she suggests, educators can engender interest in the minds of students now 20 years removed the history that was the GDR and the FRG. Next Rolf Goebel and Marion Gerlind discuss issues often left out of discussions about reunification: homosexuality and feminist equality. First, Rolf Goebel’s “Ossi-Wessi Queer” discusses notions of Queer identity presented in through Napoleon Seyfarth’s autobiography Schweine müssen nackt sein (1991), Joachim Helfer’s Cohn & König (1998) and Michael Sollorz’ Abel und Joe (1994). Through his analysis of these three works, Goebel demonstrates how “[q]ueering functions as a continuous and open-ended process of strategic transgression, questioning both the implicitly optimistic connotations of talk about normalization and the simplistically binary rhetoric of the Wessi/Ossi conflict.” Marion Gerlind’s “Unequal Sisters” questions this same rhetoric, while discussing the women’s rights movement before and after the fall of the Wall. Through discussion of interviews and media sources Gerlind demonstrates the hopes held by those in the women’s rights movement as the Wall fell. In the end their hopes of equality post 1989 turn out to have been unrealized as, in fact, the status of the women in East Germany, could be argued to have lost ground in the struggle for equality. Finally, the volume moves toward a more political discussion of the Wende. Nadine Zimmerli provides an interesting analysis of the appropriation of the June 17, 1953 uprising in service of German national identity during its 50th anniversary in 2003. She notes that the uprising was virtually ignored in 1993, when hopes were still high that reunification would work smoothly and that Germany would quickly regain its earlier

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glory. Although the appropriation of the uprising could be problematic, Zimmerli argues that, if done properly, observations of this anniversary could be an important step toward unifying the “hearts and minds” of the Germans. The concluding essay by Nitzan Shoshan takes an anthropological approach to discussing Right Extremists in contemporary East Germany. Through his lengthy discussion Shoshan details the rise of the Right Extremists, and most importantly, the difficulties that would be caused by silencing their controversial, if essential, voice. Ossi Wessi through its broad spectrum of essays seeks not to detail the state of the German nation, or to declare a problem begun or a problem solved. We hope that by discussing as many aspects of the culture as we could that a picture would evolve, and we feel we have accomplished this goal. Each essay stands alone as a contribution to current work in the field, while together the ideas blend from one to another demonstrating the continued complexity of the German nation, and the difficulties it has faced during this, its first 20 years since reunification.

Works Cited Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 2006. [REVISED EDITION] Painter, S. “The School Masters as a Source for the Pronunciation of Early New High German” in On Germanic Linguistics: Issues and Methods. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992. Sommerfeld, K.E., ed. Entwicklungstendenzen in der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1988. Stevenson, P. Language and German Disunity. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Toeche-Mittler, Theodor. “Die Kaiserproklamation in Versailles am 18. Januar 1871.” S. 1ff., Berlin, 1896. U.S. Department of Education. “Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education (School Year 2005-2006).” National Center for Educational Statistics, 2008. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/expenditures/tables/table_03.asp (accessed April 30, 2008).

CHAPTER ONE “A DIFFICULT MARRIAGE”: MARRIAGE AND MARITAL BREAKDOWN IN POST-UNIFICATION LITERATURE ALISON LEWIS In newspapers and cartoons of the time, it was customary to depict German unification in terms of a romance between East and West. The scenarios varied from a couple holding hands and a hopeful courtship, to a couple sleeping in a marital bed, a shot-gun wedding, a marriage and the image of unification as an uninterrupted sexual union. Invariably, the romance was between a dominant, masculine West Germany and a weak or weaker, femininized East Germany.1 This metaphorization of unification, which continued throughout the decade, invokes a supposedly natural gender hierarchy in a meta-narrative of romance that puts gender at the forefront of the project of unifying the nation.2 Willy Brandt’s now famous prediction that what belongs together will grow together likewise draws on an organic, seemingly natural order of things to lend legitimacy to the politics of German unity. A corollary to the meta-narrative of unification as heterosexual marriage can be found in a number of literary works in the first decade after unification that focus on romances, intimate relationships, families, love affairs, and marriages. This chapter explores the trope of marriage and marital breakdown through the example of one post-unification novel, Monika Maron’s Animal Triste (1996)3. Of particular interest here is the way in which the metaphorical “political marriage” of the two Germanys is mapped onto the “literary marriage.” 1

Morrison, “The Feminization of the German Democratic Republic in Political Cartoons, 35-51. 2 See esp. Morrison, “The Feminization of the German Democratic Republic,” 50 and Scharpe, “Male Privilege and Female Virtue: Gendered Representations of the Two Germanies, 97, 104. 3 Later in text AT for Maron, Monika. Animal Triste. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1996. and ATE for Maron, Monika. Animal Triste. Trans. by Brigitte Goldstein. Lincoln and London: U of Nebraska P, 2000.

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More specifically, this chapter is concerned with how the narrative syntagma of the end of a marriage is used by writers to explore the effects on intimacy of the transition from one social and political system to another. Do we see Brandt’s faith in the unification process reproduced in people’s private lives? Do literary accounts of unification affirm or refute the meta-narrative of unification as a romance and a happy marriage? Or do they suggest, instead, that the political union was from the start a difficult marriage between East and West that consisted of a grotesquely unequal union between an ill-matched coupleʊmuch less a marriage “made in heaven” than an ill-fated marriage “until death us do part?” In a number of post-unification novels, the surge in individualization that unification precipitated finds expression in the profound effects that the changes had on characters’ private lives, most prominently on intimate relationships and marriages. It is striking just how many East German couples break up or drift apart because of the stresses and strains of economic restructuring and job losses, which effectively drive a wedge between previously happily married couples. In Jens Sparschuh’s Der Zimmerspringbrunnen (The Room Fountain) (1995), for instance, the narrator’s wife, who has made the transition to capitalism effortlessly, moves out of the marital home in the East, leaving her hapless husband to struggle on alone with the brave new world of marketing and comsumer capitalism. In Brigitte Burmeister’s Unter dem Namen Norma (Under the Name of Norma) (1994) too, it is the demand for a more mobile and flexible work force, as well as the promise of a new beginning in the West, that causes husband and wife to part ways, with the husband going West and the wife staying behind in the East. But it is not just the demand for greater mobility in the workplace that drives this couple apart; the husband’s move West is symbolic of a far deeper ideological gulf emerging between the two, who now find that they disagree violently on virtually every aspect of the unification process. Infidelity and betrayal, especially betrayal with a West German, are also at the root of marital breakdown among East German couples, as can be seen in a short story by Bernhard Schlink. In the story “Der Seitensprung” (“The Affair”) in the collection of stories Liebesfluchten (Flights of Love) Schlink plays off two different types of betrayal against each other: on the one hand the betrayal of secrets by Stasi informers and, on the other hand, sexual betrayal of a husband by his wife. When the wife of a Stasi IM discovers her husband was an informant, she retaliates with her own form of betrayal, and has an affair with her husband’s best friend from the West. In Reinhard Jirgl’s Die atlantische Mauer (The Atlantic Wall) (2000) the sexual betrayal is of

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a different kind. Here the narrator’s parents’ marriage is destroyed when the mother leaves her husband for a West German lesbian lover. The most sustained and nuanced exploration of the theme of marital breakdown, love and infidelity in the wake of German unification can be found in Monika Maron’s critically acclaimed novel Animal Triste published in 1996. In this tale of obsessive, unconditional love between an East German paleontologist and a hymenopterologist, or researcher of insects, from Ulm there are no less than seven married or de facto couples mentioned, whose marriages are adversely affected by the “Wende” (“change”/”turning point”) or what the narrator prefers to refer to obliquely as “das Jahr der Freiheit” (AT 88) (“the year of liberation” (ATE 46)), or the year when the “seltsame Zeit” (AT 30, 45) (“peculiar time” (ATE 21)), “die Freiheitsbande” (AT 45) (“gang of liberationists” (ATE 21)) and the “Bandenherrschaft” (AT 86) (“gangster regime” (ATE 41)), came to an end. On the one hand the fairly brief anecdotes about these marriages provide a rare sense of social and historical context for the central narrative about the love affair between the nameless female narrator and her lover, whom she calls Franz. The narrative, which consists of recovered and possibly invented fragments of memory of the affair, interspersed with anecdotes from the past, has otherwise very few concrete references to the narrated time of the early nineteen-nineties, although the love affair obviously takes place in Berlin in the summer of 1990. The narrative present is set in the future, in an improbable and unspecified time in our future, some 40 or 50 years after the love affair ended, and hence after reunification. The stories of the narrator’s friends’ marriages may therefore be intended to give a sense of social and historical context to a narrative that otherwise, due to the timeless quality of the love affair sequences, appears to quite deliberately make sparing use of concrete historical references or signposts.4 On the other hand, as will be argued here, these stories serve an important function at the level of metafiction, appearing as an extended metafictional metaphor or conceit about the gloomy future of German unification. Maron’s narrator tells us that, unlike most of her friends, she welcomed German unification enthusiastically as a miraculous liberation from the repressive old order, which was dominated by “die Willkür des Absurden” (AT 32) (“arbitrary absurdities” (ATE 14)). As the name indicates, the “year of liberation” opened up for her a whole new world of 4

For a perceptive discussion of the relevance of the lack of referentiality in relation to the central topic of memory see Andrea Geier, “Paradoxien des Erinnerns: Biographisches Erzählen in Animal Triste,” in Monika Maron in Perspective, 103.

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opportunities and possibilities. Above all, it liberated years of repressed desires and pent-up longings, which she now channels into one end: the desire to live the rest of her life as a love story, “als eine nicht endende, ununterbrochene Liebesgeschichte” (AT 13).5 For the narrator, no break is radical enough, no upheaval cataclysmic enough to quench her thirst for change. While others sought refuge in the old and familiar, she unashamedly embraced the new. She cannot, for instance, understand her married friends, who instead of looking outward, turned back to one another for support: Ehepaare, von denen ich geglaubt hatte, daȕ sie kaum mehr Worte wechselten, als der Alltag ihnen abverlangte, hielten sich plötzlich bei den Händen, wenn sie die Neuheiten der Stadt besichtigten; in ihren Blicken füreinander lag statt dumpfen Spotts, wie noch ein Jahr zuvor, dankbare Verschworenheit, Scheidungen, die schon eingereicht waren, wurden massenhaft zurückgenommen. Jeder griff blind neben sich und hielt fest, was er bis dahin sein eigen genannt hatte, auch das längst Verworfene, von dem man schlieȕlich nicht wissen konnte, ob es sich unter den neuen Verhältnissen nicht doch als nicht unnützt erweisen würde. (AT 90)6

One example of couples reforming can be seen in the exceptional East German couple, Karin and Klausʊthe couple the narrator knew from childhoodʊwho epitomized the young love the narrator claims she never had. Idealized and envied by her for achieving the seemingly impossible feat of attaining true and lasting happiness in love, Karin and Klaus had, however, become estranged by the time the Wall has fallen. Klaus had been smitten by a younger woman and was seeking a divorce. This only goes to prove to the narrator that Karin and Klaus were in fact not the perfect couple, not the “Liebespaar auf Leben und Tod” (AT 93)7 everyone had thought them to be, but simply just another normal, fallible couple: “ein Ehepaar fürs Leben” (AT 93), as she had secretly suspected

5

“as a never-ending, unbroken love story” (ATE 3) “Married couples who, I had believed, barely spoke to each other beyond what their daily routine required, suddenly were seen hand in hand, sightseeing the new developments around town. The numb distain they had for each other the year before had been replaced by a flash of grateful complicity in their eyes. Divorce papers already filed were withdrawn in large numbers. Everybody groped blindly for what was near and held on to even long-discarded possessions. One could never tell, after all, what might prove still useful under the new circumstances.” (ATE 47) 7 “lovers in life and death” (ATE 48) 6

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all along.8 It is therefore one of the ironies of history that just as Klaus and Karin were about to succumb to the “normal chaos of love” in evidence everywhere else in the modern world, even in the East, history intervened to save them.9 Needless to say, Karin and Klaus are last seen after the Wall has fallen, standing hand in hand in front of a shop window on the Ku’damm. The upheavals of the times had revived their marriage and reinvigorated their relationship, if not with new eroticism, then at least with a new sense of companionship. Rather ironically then, the effect of the intrusion of the political marriage of East and West into the literary marriage appears to be, in the short term at least, stronger and reinvigorated marriages between easterners. It would indeed seem as if the political marriage between East and West serves, in the first instance at least, as a centripetal force driving easterners back together again. Unification acts in many ways as a temporary panacea to individuals’ personal problems, to the point of overcoming alienation and reimbuing tired emotional bonds with fresh meaning and purpose. The East-East marriage provides something like the “haven in a heartless world” that Christopher Lasch speaks about in relation to the family in the western world in the seventies, a welcome haven from the challenges and uncertainties of social and political change.10 Conceivably, marriage between easterners also serves, in the words of Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim, as an “anchor of inner identity,” possibly even an anchor of East German identity, in the face of the weakening of socialist bonds and the intrusion of the belated effects of modernization and individualization.11 The phenomenon illustrated by Karin and Klaus is one that sociologist Karl Otto Hondrich argues is one of the wide-spread effects of continued individualization in a global world. While many individuals enter into relationships determined by choice rather than tradition, others are forced to reaffirm traditional ties in response to the individualized actions of others.12 In other words, acts of choice often involve limiting the choice of others, and with the choices that people make about love, there are inevitably always wives and husbands that are left behind with very little choice, such as to stay with the children or to maintain the family. In short, the freedom of choice in love and interpersonal relationships—which encompasses the freedom to form relationships as well as to dissolve them 8

“married couple for life” (ATE 49) Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, Das ganz normale Chaos der Liebe. 10 Lasch, A Haven in a Heartless World. 11 Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, Das ganz normale Chaos der Liebe, 70. 12 Hondrich, Liebe in den Zeiten der Weltgesellschaft, 51ff. 9

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with partners of personal choice and in living arrangements of one’s own choiceʊalways produces unfreedom and a return to tradition in its wake. Unfreedom, too, as Ate, the narrator’s friend from the East, points out to her in another context, can for some also be a type of choice, a choice that is fuelled by the fear of freedom. The other predominant interpersonal power effect of unification mentioned in the novel is the break-up of East-West marriages. There are three marriages in the novel that disprove the narrator’s theory of unification as miraculously repairing marriages that are teetering on the rocks. These are, quite apart from the narrator’s own marriage, which will be dealt with later, the three East-West relationships of her friends. For these couples unification clearly represents an interpersonal crisis, for the main reason that the search for happiness and self-fulfilment of one partner, or the individualization strategies of one individual, have caused them to seek new partners in love. The political marriage of East and West, it seems, has rather ironically had the effect of weakening East-West interpersonal bonds. It has, it could be argued, caused an imperceptible shift in the semantics of love between East and West Germans and in codes of communication. Above all, it has altered what Niklas Luhmann calls the degree and conditions of “interpersonal interpenetration” between lovers, between alter and ego, or between different personal systems of organization, and this is nowhere more noticeable than in marriages between East and West Germans.13 In all three East-West relationships the end of the “peculiar time” serves as the catalyst for the break-up of the couple. Even the perfect couple, Emile and Sibylle, who are described as “das schönste Ehepaar, das ich im Leben gesehen habe” (AT 44),14 do not survive the collapse of the gang of liberationists. The roofer (“Dachdecker”) Emile, whose vitae bears an uncanny resemblance to the other roofer from the Sauerland who was head of the “liberationist gang,” namely Erich Honecker, falls in love with Sibylle, who runs a ballett boutique, during his permitted daily outings as a pensioner across the Wall to West Berlin. Their plans to move in together are rudely interrupted by the end of the reign of the liberation gang. Sibylle and he drift apart when Emile resumes his old habit of “hanging” around in the “Vorzimmer der Macht” (AT 45) (“antechambers of power” (ATE 21)), only this time he frequents the waiting rooms of one of the new democratically elected parties in the East. Needless to say,

13 14

Luhmann, Liebe als Passion: Zur Codierung von Intimität, 217. “the most beautiful couple I have ever seen in my life” (ATE 20)

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neither Emile nor his love for Sibylle survive the new world order for long. The relationship between Sibylle and Emile offers a good example of the difficulties of sustaining the degree of interpersonal interpenetration that is necessary after 1990 for love to be reproduced as a communications medium. The alliance between Emile and Sibylle, which was built around their entirely different but somehow complementary experiences of biographical rupture and foresaken dreams in their respective German states, was initially made possible and probable by an historical quirk of fate, namely the fact that East German pensioners like Emile were given special permission to travel to the West. With the removal of this historical condition, and the tearing down of the Wall, the relationship lost its basis in reality and its specific purpose and function. This can be seen in Sibylle’s remark that suddenly she cannot understand Emile’s passion for politics. Loss of understanding signals the breakdown of love as a communications medium, and a specifically East-West communications medium, since understanding forms an essential part of communicating with the other.15 The circumstances that had helped Emile and Sibylle cope with or manage complexity and contingency, particularly politial contingencies, and that had turned an improbability of them ever meeting into an everyday “normal improbability,” and even a likelihood, and made them fall in love, no longer existed. The imagined symmetries in their biographies, which the Wall had possibly brought more sharply into relief, began to count for less once the Wall had fallen. Instead, old asymmetries re-asserted themselves, asymmetries which were partly due to the distinct nature of their respective eastern and western biographies. Ironically, it is passion of a different sort that comes between them, namely Emile’s incomprehensible passion for the “antechambers of power.” The previous areas of commonality between them, such as a shared belief in “nicht mehr erwartetes Glück” (AT 45) in love late in life, along with the idea of a second chance in love, fade into insignificance in the face of the fatal attraction of politics.16 Even the shared bodily experience of rupture— Emile’s broken breast bone from a heart operation and Sibylle’s broken leg as a child which prevented her from becoming a ballerinaʊwhich mirror the breaks into their respective biographiesʊcannot provide enough commonality, and interpersonal interpenetration, to sustain their love after the historical “rupture” of the end of the freedom gang. Emile has no need for a mistress or lover like Sibylle to share his retirement 15 16

Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, 198. “happiness that neither had thought possible” (ATE 21)

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with, and he seeks instead a wife or companion to organise his life, linking up with an old East German friend. The effect is a curious East-West doubling of women in Emile’s life, which emerges only at his funeral: Er besann sich auf eine ehemalige Freudin, die ihn betreut hatte, als er todkrank war, und die nun während der schlaflosen Wochen des Wahlkampfes und der ersten Zeit nach der Amtsübernahme die Organisation seine physischen Lebens übernahm: Sie wusch Emiles Hemden, kochte ihm auch nachts noch eine Suppe und rief den Arzt, als er starb. So kam es, dass an Emiles offenem Grab zwei Witwen standen: die erstarrte Sibylle mit einem groȕen Strauȕ roter Rosen und die ehemalige Freundin, von den Rednern angesprochen “als liebe Frau Wagner,” während Sibylle unerwähnt blieb, mit einem Strauȕ weiȕer Rosen. (AT 48)17

There are two further East-West relationships mentioned in the novel that predate unification: the relationship between Ate and Ali and the marriage of Rainer and Anke. Curiously both of them suffer the same fate as the affair between Emile and Sibylle. Neither outlasts the reign of the repressive “liberation gang”; or rather, neither survives the transition to freedom. The political marriage between East and West has rather paradoxically dissolved all the existing East-West marriages in the novel. The reasons for this also have to do with the conditional, provisional nature of the relationships, which were dependent on the extraordinary historical and political circumstances of pre-unification times. The liaison between Ali and Ate was the product of geo-politics and West Berlin’s peculiar status as a hermetically sealed political “foreign body” or island within the GDR. Ali, who was dodging childcare payments in West Berlin, chose to live with Ate in the GDR rather than face charges in the West: Da im Stadtbezirk Charlottenburg gerade wieder ein Verfahren wegen nicht gezahlter Alimente gegen ihn anhängig war, beschloȕ er, lieber bei

17

“He remembered a former girlfriend who had taken care of him when he was in death’s throes before, and who assumed responsibility for the everyday practical organization of his life during the sleepless weeks of the election campaign and immediately after the mayor took office. She washed Emile’s shirts, cooked soup for him even at night, and called the doctor when he was dying. Thus it came about that two widows stood at Emile’s open grave: Sybille, numb and with a huge bouquet of red roses in her hands, and the former girlfriend, whom the speakers addressed as “dear Mrs. Wagner” while Sybille was left unmentioned.” (ATE 23)

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Ate hinter der Mauer zu blieben, als wieder einmal hinter den Gefängnismauern von Moabit (AT 134).18

The unique set of political and legal circumstances created its own range of choices in matters of the heart, its own form of “Selektionszwang” (“selection compulsion”) or the need to make meaningful selections in the face of overpowering choice.19 Ali had a choice between a life with prison walls but without love/Ate and a life with political walls with love/Ate. His decision to stay in the GDR with Ate was moreover most likely helped by a belief in the timeless power of love to transcend such hardships as living behind national walls. Love thus becomes a human effect of geopolitics. The East-West couple, Rainer and Anke, were also brought together by dint of historical and political circumstance. Anke had helped Rainer defect to the West, paying an organisation that smuggles defectors out of the East from an inheritance. The couple remained married in the West for fifteen years. It was only with the fall of the Wall that Rainer realises that Anke’s act of rescuing him had provided the primary and sole condition for their staying together. He realizes that he loved Anke above all “wegen ihres Rettungspotentials” (AT 169).20 Once he had admitted that there was possibly a correlation between “das Maȕ der Verliebtheit” and “die wenn zunächst nur vage Aussicht auf eine Flucht” (AT 169) there was no further rationale for their staying together.21 Before the Wall had fallen, for Rainer freedom was dependent on a West German woman, and the price he payed for his liberation was gratitude, love and faithfulness to his rescuer. After the Wall had fallen love, which had been a “political technology” of survival, now required new techniques for altogether different times. The only exemplar of an East-West relationship forming after unification in the novel is the central affair between Franz and the narrator. Although the relationship between Emile and Sibylle prefigures in some ways the affair between Franz and the narrator, the main affair of the 18 “Since new proceedings for failure to pay alimony were just in the works against him at the municipal court in Charlottenburg, he decided he’d rather stay with Ata behind the wall than face the prison walls of Moabit again.” (ATE 73) 19 According to Luhmann, the complexity of social systems can only be mastered via selection, that is, via the compulsion to make a selection, and hence reduce complexity. He describes this “Selektionszwang” however in terms of freedom. See Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, 291. 20 “because of her rescuing potential” (ATE 93) 21 “the degree of his falling in love” “the prospect of being able to flee, even if vague at first” (ATE 93)

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novel is unparalleled in the time after unification. The narrator’s previous marriage to an easterner is similarly without comparison. Rather curiously, the narrator’s marriage is the only exception to the rule established by the East German couples who rediscover companionship in the course of the transition to the new order. At the time of meeting Franz, the narrator tells us she had been married for twenty years and had a daughter. However, the narrator never discloses the real circumstances surrounding the end of her East German marriage, which simply seems to dissolve into thin air. Moreover, what makes the end of the narrator’s marriage even more puzzling is the fact that there is no mention made of external social factors (such as unemployment) or of psychological or emotional reasons for separating (such as loss of passion or betrayal). We are told initially that her husband must have simply disappeared out of her life: “mein Ehemann muȕ … unauffällig aus meinem Leben verschwunden sein” (AT 20), and later that the narrator most probably left him.22 In fact, the narrator surprises us when she assures the reader that her husband was, as far as she can remember, “ein sympathischer und friedlicher Mensch” (AT 20).23 We are led to believe that the reasons for the failure of her marriage have to do with choice and the discovery of the value of love, although the moment of first contact under the brachiosaurus is described, ironically, as a moment of divine intervention or fate, and as a random, unforeseen event: “Franz traf ich ein Jahr danach. Ich habe ihn nicht gesucht, und ich habe ihn nicht erwartet” (AT 23-24).24 And yet the meeting with Franz appears to be far from a random event. For instance, we learn that the Natural History Museum, where the narrator works, is in the process of being taken over, and that Franz is overseeing the transition. Of course what had altered were the political, economic and social co-ordinates underpinning the relationship, the possibilities and contingencies, which the code of love in both Germanys is designed to control and manage, had changed, and inevitably too, the coding or semantics of love had shifted. Since the rules governing marriage, like the rules of love, are a response to the problem of contingency, if contingencies alter, then so too must the code and, logically, also human actions and feelings. Love is, as Luhmann claims in Liebe als Passion (Love as Passion), first and foremost a communications medium and not a feeling. It functions according to a code that creates more or less invisible rules for forming, expressing and 22 “My husband must have discretely vanished from my life after I met Franz” (ATE 7) 23 “a personable and quiet man” (ATE 7) 24 “A year later I met Franz. I had not been searching for him, nor had I been waiting for him” (ATE 9)

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simulating feelings.25 It is the role of the code to make the improbable probable and possible: “Das Unwahrscheinliche dann doch zu ermöglichen, ist Funktion des Kommuikationsmediums Liebe.”26 What Maron is suggesting is that the fall of the Wall brought with it new possibilities and probabilities for love which involved a shift in its semantics and its rule of conduct. The crucial question in the novel is therefore which particular code will help the narrator in her quest to secure the love of her life: will it be the code that exists in the West, as practiced by Franz and his wife, or some other code? Is it purely the notion of physical love, that is, sex and extra-marital passion, that is dominant in the West, is it the idea of passion within marriage, or is there another secret code that she is yet to discover? The narrator would like us to believe that her marriage fell apart because she discovers, like Emile and Sibylle before her, the absolute power of love late in life. She has, quite simply, discovered “love as passion,” that is, the miracle of physical passion: “Das eigentliche Wunder waren unsere Körper” (AT 108).27 As if given a second chance in life, after a semi-mystical near-death experience, she resolves to give herself over unconditionally and completely to this kind of love according to her new motto: “Man [kann] im Leben nichts versäumen als die Liebe” (AT 29).28 This decision takes place some forty, fifty or sixty years prior to the narrative present (which makes the narrator around eighty to a hundred years old) and coincides with the end of the narrator’s will to live: “als ich beschloȕ, den Episoden meines Lebens keine mehr hinzufügen” (AT 10).29 It is as if the fall of the Wall had liberated passion and longing, not just her old passion for exotic foreign places and obscure objects of desire such as the archaeological findings of the footprints of ancient bird-like dinosaurs in South Hadley, Massachusetts, but for love as well. Rather than pursue this dream of prehistoric animals, which is now in the realm of the possible and contingent, she decides somewhat perversely to focus all her energies and all her desire on Franz. In doing so, Maron’s narrator is seeking to partake in one of the grand narratives and great promises of modernity. The utopian aspect of love is, as Henk Harbers reminds us, one of the defining features of literary modernism: “Sie ist Ausbruch aus einem leblos gewordenen Alltag, 25

“It is the function of the communications medium of love to enable the improbable to occur” (Luhmann, Liebe als Passion, 23). 26 Luhmann, Liebe als Passion, 28. 27 “The real wonder was our bodies” (ATE 58) 28 “The only think one can miss out on in life is love” (ATE 9) 29 “… I made up my mind not to add any more episodes to my life” (ATE 1)

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Ausbruch auch aus der Unfreiheit.”30 From the literary figures of tragic love, Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, Anna Karenina, Werther and Kleist’s Penthesilea, that she invokes, it is clear that her ideal of romantic love is not only modern, but that it has an archaic, barbaric and atavistic side. Modern love, when conceived as passion, has the function, according to Luhmann, of expressing the unconditional nature of the affliction, “… dass man etwas erleidet, woran man nicht ändern und wofür man keine Rechenschaft geben kann.”31 Above all, it can tolerate no compromise and is absolute. The ambivalence of love, and its corresponding death wish,32 is suggested by the narrator’s invocation of the older metaphorical tradition of love as sickness and its more modern incarnation of love as virus. She is therefore convinced that love must be a virus but is unsure if it invades the body like a foreign body or whether it lies instead imprisoned in the body awaiting its moment of liberation. In either case its hold is complete and total surrender is the only answer. In the absence of social and psychological reasons for the narrator’s change of heart and her personal “Wende” (“turning point”) we must look elsewhere for answers. One answer lies in the discovery, or invention, of Franz himself as an object of desire. The narrator cannot remember Franz’s real name and calls him for convenience sake Franz, a name whose sound she likes because of its long vowel and because it sounds like “Grab” (“tomb”) or “Sarg” (“coffin”) (AT 18). Apart from its association with death, the name suggests above all presence after absence, as can be seen in the allusion to Freud’s discussion of the “fort/da” (“gone/there”) principle in Jenseits des Lustprinzips (Beyond the Pleasure Principle) (1920). Freud thought that his grandchild’s game of uttering “fort” followed by “da” was a means of reminding him that his absent mother would soon return. The repetition of “da” was a way of comforting the child and shielding it from the potentially damaging effects of loss. Franz, then, is partly a retrospective invention of memory, a fantasy of perpetual presence and redemption that the narrator has created after his disappearance to ward off the devastating effects of losing him. If Franz represents presence, he also embodies life’s seemingly endless possibilities after communism, that is, he stands for freedom and choice but unfreedom and unhappiness as well: “Natürlich habe ich damals, vor 30

“It is an escape from stifling everyday life as well as an escape from unfreedom” (Harbers, “Gefährliche Freiheit. Zu einem Motivkomplex im Werk von Monika Maron,” in Monika Maron in Perspective, 137) 31 “… that one experiences something which one cannot change and for which one can not be held accountable“ (Luhmann, Liebe als Passion, 30) 32 Harbers, “Gefährliche Freiheit,” 137.

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fünfzig oder sechzig Jahren, geglaubt, all mein Glück und Unglück käme von Franz” (AT 30).33 With the new weight the narrator gives to the pursuit of true love, Franz also becomes the love of her life she now realizes she never had, the first love she envied Klaus and Karin for having. Eventually too this will become a tragic, fictionalized love, the type of love mythologized in classical German literature and in operas. So that her love for Franz appears unique, rather than the chance encounter it most probably was, she rearranges the teleology of her life. The arbitrariness of the past only makes sense if it can be construed in terms of a “waiting for Franz”: Nachträglich scheint es mir, als ergäbe mein ganzes Leben vom Tag meiner Geburt an nur einen Sinn, wenn ich es als ein einziges langes Warten auf Franz verstehe (AT 51).34

She imagines therefore that she never loved a man before Franz, although she knows that she did love men “aufrichtig und heftig” (AT 38).35 Love is also, as her friend Ate realises, “eine Glaubenssache, eine Art religiöser Wahn” (AT 175) and therefore a type of new religion.36 Indeed, love has become for her, as it is for many under the conditions of postmodernity, a new secular religion, “the fundamentalism of modernity” and “the religion after religion,” as Beck and Beck-Gernsheim argue.37 But religious faith is susceptible to fundamentalism, and so the narrator’s love for Franz becomes a morbid obsession, and the destructive force of Thanatos gradually gains the upper hand over the positive power of Eros. As the narrator realizes, she is striving for an impossible and possibly extinct ideal, and immediately contradicts herself by pronouncing the impossible, namely love, far more possible than commonly thought: Mit der Liebe ist es wie mit den Sauriern, alle Welt ergötzt sich an ihrem Tod: immer diese Wollust am Unmöglichen. Ich glaube einfach nicht, dass die Menschen so unfähig zur Liebe sind, wie sie vorgeben. Sie lassen es sich einreden von unglücklichen Seelen ohne Jugendliebe, die zu früh, als

33 “Of course I believed at the time, fifty of sixty years ago, that all my happiness and unhappiness came from Franz” (ATE 12) 34 “In retrospect it seems to me that my life, from the day I was born, only has meaning if I see it as one long period of waiting for Franz” (ATE 25) 35 “deeply and fervently” (ATE 17) 36 “a matter of blind faith, a kind of religious fanaticism” (ATE 96) 37 Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, Das ganz normale Chaos der Liebe, 21.

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“A DIFFICULT MARRIAGE” dass sie wissen können wann, sich in Todesangst ihre Liebe aus dem Leib geschrieben haben (AT 59).38

Above all, Franz holds out the promise of redemption after the shock or trauma of unification. As Andrea Geier remarks, the fiction of absolute love is a “screen memory” to avoid facing the truth about what the narrator has done to Franz and the void left by the collapse of communism: “Die Liebe erweist sich als functional im Hinblick auf die Lebenssituation der Protagonistin”.39 Rather than a substitute for communism,40 Franz becomes the principle by which the narrator deals with complexity in her life world and the overwhelming number of contingencies impinging on her daily life, the fall of the Wall, pending job losses and workplace restructure as well as the incalculable factors of a new social and economic system: Es gab neues Geld, neue Ausweise, neue Behörden, neue Gesetze, neue Uniformen für die Polizei, neue Briefmarken, neue Besitzer …. Straȕen und Städte wurden umbenannt, Denkmäler abgerissen und neue Militärbündnisse geschlossen (AT 89).41

Franz is possibly even a way of dealing with contingency in her marriage. There appears to have been no real necessity for her marriage break up, that is, it could have happened differently, like with Franz and his wife. Franz is, logically then, omnipresent in her life; Franz somehow “oversees” the end of her marriage and is involved—in a benevolent way—in the disappearance of her daughter and husband, just as he is 38

“Love is like the dinosaurs, the whole world is entertained by their death … always nothing but death, always this prurient glee over the impossible. I simply won’t believe that human beings should be as incapable of love as they pretend to be. They let themselves be talked into it by some wretches who had never experienced young love, who, too early in their lives to even know when and in fear of death, has screamed their love out of their body.” (ATE 29) 39 “Love proves to be a function of the life situation of the protagonist” (Geier, “Paradoxien des Erinnerns,” 97ff.) 40 I find there is little evidence to support Geier’s notion that love is a “Substitut des früheren Glaubenssystems,” and that the narrator had anything but a very ambivalent relationship to the ideology of her country and its political technologies of control such as the Wall. See Geier, “Paradoxien des Erinnerns,” 98. 41 “We had new money, new passports, new authorities, new laws, new police uniforms, new postage stamps, new property owners … the names of streets and towns changed, monuments were torn down and new military alliances were formed.” (ATE 76)

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involved in the restructuring of her workplace. She mistakenly sees in him a means of managing the new risks, in love, in work and in everyday life, of making good past lack, such as the lack of travel opportunities, lack of real happiness and true love and the lack of meaning in her life. Franz provides an opening onto a new order of things, not merely life as a negative response to negative contingencies, “als Reflex auf die Herrschaft des Absurden,” a minus that only becomes a plus in combination with another minus (AT 79).42 Franz is also the means by which she hopes to gain access to the hallowed values of the West, to the coveted trappings of good taste and bourgeois culture such as wine and cheese. Franz is, she mistakenly believes, a symbol of pan-German continuity and symmetry, and initially she delights in the fact that their early childhood experiences are so similar. While she clings to tokens of a common past such as the humiliating transgendered contraption of the “Leibchen” the corset-like undershirt that both sexes were made to wear as children, and the shoes made of “Igelit,” an early form of PVC, the few biographical parallels cannot compensate for the massive differences in experiences under their respective regimes. The narrative of a common past is a myth, and the experience of symmetry largely a subjective illusion, a projection or fantasy. It is above all this illusion of symmetry that is most under threat when the narrator announces that he is accompanying his wife on a holiday to Hadrian’s Wall in Scotland. In is only then that the fact that Franz is still married presents itself as a massive hurdle to her master plan to be not only Franz’s mistress but his wife as well. Franz’s announcement that he and his wife are going on holiday constitutes an overwhelming moment of contingency for which she is totally unprepared. The miracle of their love and aging bodies, for which both are thankful, may well be a symbolic expression of the special nature of their love, but, as Luhmann argues, metaphors of love as sickness, madness or as a miracle merely underscore the fact that these forms of love exist beyond normal forms of social control or sociality.43 While the narrator may well have abandoned her previous circle of friends, and her life was washed away “wie ein unverputztes Lehmhaus vom Wolkenbruch” (AT 79), for Franz life goes on much the same as before.44 He does not, it appears, share the narrator’s need for exclusivity in their relationship. Hence, marriage is, for Franz, simply not part of their ‘deal.’ 42

“in reaction to this regime of the absurd” (ATE 41) Luhmann, Liebe als Passion, 31. 44 “like a mud hut in a torrential downpour” (ATE 41) 43

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For Franz it does not go without saying that one must necessarily marry one’s lover and abandon willy-nilly a marriage that has been built up over time, as the narrator has abandoned hers. For him marriage is not the logical next step in their affair, or expressed another way, Franz’s code of love does not envisage marriage as the natural expression and fulfilment of sexual passion. Passion can flourish outside marriage and can coexist quite happily as an extra-marital affair alongside marriage. Hence, he sees no contradiction in his decision to go on annual vacation with his wife while leaving his mistress behind. Not only has Franz’s announcement of his holiday revealed fundamental differences in their respective understandings of the meaning of their affair, and hence, uncovered irreconcilable differences in their semantics of love, his actions also represent a contingency for which the narrator has no rational response. His actions rob her of her sense of freedom in the relationship, the freedom that comes, according to Luhmann with the “double contingency” of the semantics of love.45 The points of double contingency, which the code of love is designed to regulate, are those moments, for instance, when either lover is free to say yes or no to an offer, say, of a holiday, of love, or even of marriage. The aspect of double contingency introduces an element of insecurity into all systems which the code must attempt to manage. Hence, Franz’s announcement represents a turning point in the relationship, which forces the narrator to make some decisions of her own. The mention of a wife, who has a greater claim to Franz than herself, and as someone who must be treated with care and consideration because, as Franz says, “Seine Frau sei für ein Unglück nicht trainiert” (AT 205), fundamentally challenges the narrator’s exclusive claim to Franz as well as her own sense of uniqueness and individuality.46 Despite Ate’s warnings that a mistress has in fact the better part of a man, the narrator covets the legitimacy and stability of marriage and the exclusivity it brings. Once the code of love begins to break down, and provides no stable point of connectivity for one of the lovers, misunderstandings become magnified. The narrative shifts gear at this point into a compelling drama of jealousy, rage and revenge. The happy love story is derailed, the time of gratefulness is over, and the asymmetries in the relationship with regard to choice, experience and opportunity start to arouse feelings of suspicion, disappointment and paranoia in the narrator. Distrust is one strategy to deal with the possibility that the other may not act in accordance with 45 46

Luhmann, Liebe als Passion, 35. “His wife was not trained for misfortune” (ATE 114)

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one’s expectations. Distrust occurs when the double contingency of communication becomes too risky, and as a strategy it limits one’s actions and choice but gives greater security than blind trust.47 The narrator’s total distrust of Franz from this point on is a negative function of her complete and utter faith in him previously. As Luhmann argues: Kleine Anzeichen für einen Miȕbrauch des Vertrauens oder auch für bisher übersehene Eigenschaften genügen dann oft, um eine radikale Änderung der Beziehung auszulösen.48

Or, in the words of the narrator, love can transform the lover into someone else: Bis etwas geschieht; Kleines, Belangloses, aber genug, um uns zu erschrecken und uns unsere Schutzlosigkeit erkennen zu lassen. Eine unerklärliche Verspätung, ein ausgebliebener Telefonanruf, ein zufällig gefundenes Bild. Damit beginnt die Zeit der Angst (AT 181).49

Zygmunt Bauman has observed that the postmodern search for selffulfillment in love often leaves a “thick precipitate of misery in its wake” that shows no regard for the unhappiness of others.50 This is true not only with regard to Franz and the narrator, it also holds true for their parents’ generation. The East-West couple has an additional legacy from the past which must be reckoned with: the respective debts left by their parents’ unhappiness. This adds a further moment of unpredictability into the relationship with the narrator, which further restricts her freedom of choice. While she may well choose Franz, Franz, burdened down by the sins of his parents, does not feel equally free to pursue his dreams. The split between Franz’s parents’ after the war, when his father left his mother to be with another woman, who was the real love of his life, spread a very thick layer of unhappiness over Franz’s childhood. Because of this Franz is understandably reluctant to repeat what he sees as his father’s mistakes, by leaving his wife for his mistress. It is only at the end that 47

Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, 179-180. “Small signs of an abuse of trust or even of qualities previously overlooked can often be sufficient to trigger off a radical change in the relationship” (Luhmann, Soziale Systeme, 180). 49 “…until something happens, something petty, trivial, but enough to shock us and make us recognize our vulnerability. An inexplicable tardiness, a telephone call not received, a picture found by chance. This is how the time of fear begins” (ATE 100) 50 Bauman, Postmodern Ethics, 107. 48

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Franz realizes that there is perhaps no debt for him to pay at all and that he is free to follow his heart: Ich dachte immer, ich müsste die Rechnung meines Vaters bezahlen. Wenn er aber gar keine Rechung hinterlassen hat, weil er recht hatte, weil es sein Recht war, sich für Lucie Winkler zu entscheiden … (AT 234).51

The narrator’s wager on Franz is ultimately doomed to failure, less so due to Franz’s constant battle with the demons from his past, than because of her own destructive urges. Having freed itself from the prison-house of the body, the virus of love seeks revenge for its imprisonment, and leaves a trail of destruction in its wake. Even when Franz seems ready to sacrifice his marriage and move in with the narrator, she refuses to believe that the impossible has come true. Paranoia, distrust and rage have destroyed any faith in her project of living her love as a love story with a happy end. Instead, she embraces another age-old coding of love in the notion of love as a sickness and as a pre-rational, atavistic force. In fact, love reveals itself to be far worse than the virus that demands her total submission; it becomes “der letzte Rest Natur in uns” (AT 175), more in league with the untamed world of primates and dinosaurs than with humanity.52 Ich begriff, daȕ es das Sauerierhafte an mir war, etwas Uraltes, atavistisch Gewaltsames, jede zivilisatorische Norm miȕachtend, und nichts, was Sprache brauchte, konnte recht haben gegen meine Liebe zu Franz (AT 131).53

As Franz is about to catch a bus to tell his wife he is leaving her, the narrator cannot help herself and half pushes, half pulls him to his death under the bus.

51 “I always believed, said Franz, that I had to pay my father’s debt. But if he didn’t leave an unpaid debt because he was right, because it was his right to decide in favor of Lucie Winkler….” (ATE 130) 52 “the last remnant of nature in us” (ATE 96-97) 53 “I realized only much later that my indomitable feelings for Franz consisted in their saurian nature, or differently: I understood that it was the saurian nature in me that made me love the way I did, something primeval, atavistically violent, something disdainful of all civilizing norms, and nothing requiring language could prevail against my love for Franz” (ATE 71)

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The reasons for the destruction of the narrator’s “prehistorical”54 project of turning the affair with Franz into the love of her life, and marrying him, are presented as a complex mixture of chance, psychopathology and the cumulative effect of personal, family and collective history. The utopia of a felicitous, long East-West marriage with Franz cannot overcome the vast asymmetries in experience and socialization between the two lovers nor can it redress the obvious power imbalances of gender and origin that become painfully apparent. As a consequence, love becomes increasingly equated with submission, subordination and humiliation.55 The time in the story after Franz’s trip to Hadrian’s Wall, which functions to erect another wall between them—a “wall in the heads,” or even a “wall in the hearts”—as well as the time of narrating, are dominated by the narrator’s search for solutions and answers. For the most part, Maron’s narrator chases in vain the elusive code of love that will unite her and Franz in love, the code that encapsulates the world of commonality that demonstrates that both have internalized the world of the other. However, the joint experiences of the post-war era are not able to establish a more permanent basis for a shared code of love that can move the relationship beyond the physical and sexual. Nor is the ephemeral code of love—“der unergründliche Code der Liebe” (AT 38)—that was established at the first moment of physical contact under the brachiosaurus, through the touch of a finger, enough to sustain the relationship over time.56 If the mutual code of love, upon which the feeling of love is sustained and reproduced, cannot establish a firmer footing it too seems doomed. As the title of Maron’s novel indicates, reunification was individually and collectively also an occasion for unhappiness and mourning. The title of Animal Triste alludes to the Latin quotation “post coitum omne animal triste est,” sometimes attributed to Galen and Petronius, but possibly going back to classical sources including Aristotle. The “post coitus” that is included in the ellipsis in the title refers on one level to the sadness the narrator feels after each sexual encounter when Franz leaves her for his 54

There is another sense in which prehistory bears on the narrator’s story and that lies, according to Brigitte Rossbacher, in the narrator’s memories of Franz’, which becomes “a reconstructive paleontological project” similar to her previous work in the Natural History Museum. See Rossbacher, “The Status of State and Subject: Reading Monika Maron from Flugasche to Animal Triste,” in Wendezeiten – Zeitenwende: Positionsbestimmungen zur deutschsprachigen Literatur 1945-1995, 206. 55 Rossbacher, “The Status of State and Subject,” 208. 56 “the unfathomable code of love“ (ATE 17)

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wife, and the color of grey which dominates descriptions of Franz also marks him as a melancholic.57 The title can in addition be read at the level of the meta-narrative of reunification, and refers more specifically to the time after unification, that is, to the time after the metaphorical “post coitum”, that is, after the political act of unification, in which disappointment and disaffection in the population started to be felt. This disaffection with the outcomes of unification is reflected in the respective fates of the married couples in the novel. While unification appeared momentarily to open up new vistas of passion and love for the East German men and for some of the East German women in the novel, it undoubtedly also left a “thick precipitate of misery” for many other characters. Even though East German marriages were subject to similar sorts of pressures as marriages in the West, and were falling apart before the end of communism, for the most part the advent of German unity only served to exacerbate their instability and impermanence. This applies in particular to the marriages of the East German characters in the novel, irrespective of whether they had managed to marry into a West German relationship or an East German one. Significantly, it is the East German female characters who have suffered most from what appears to be, with the single exception of the female narrator, a predominantly male decision to experiment with new forms of love. It is the women in both the EastWest and East-East relationships who are the losers in love and marriage in the novel. The East German women such as Karin, Ate and Sieglinde, whose husband leaves her for Renate, his childhood sweetheart, who defected to the West, are all the victims of their partner’s desires to try their luck with new partners. The West German women in the novel have fared no better in the marriage stakes; Sibylle is left by Emile for “Frau Wagner,” as is Anke, the West German woman who once rescued Rainer from the East. For none of the other women in the novel does love, or passion, actually come to symbolize freedom of choice in any lasting manner. It is significant that no female character, for instance, seizes unification as a chance to rekindle past passion with a childhood sweetheart or to relive past opportunities lost through defections to the West or the building of the Wall, as do Rainer and Sieglinde’s husband. Only Karin is reunited with her East German husband, regaining what she had lost rather than gaining something new. And as for the narrator, regaining the childhood love she never had, might sound like a promising solution to the years of frustrated longing and lack and appear to offer a neat solution to the problems of complexity and contingency, but it never 57

See also Geier, “Paradoxien des Erinnerns,” 106ff.

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materializes. Love is destined instead to live in the shadows of the past, and to do heavy-duty compensation work for past disappointments and past unhappiness. Ultimately, none of the female characters in the EastWest marriages are successful in their individualization strategies in love. If love and marriage provided a refuge from the harshness of the Cold War prior to 1990, it was only ever a temporary respite, and for all of the couples who found an escape through marriage with a Westerner, the end of communism meant loss, suffering and unhappiness. For those who did not know they were unhappy before, like the narrator, the upheavals of the times sheeted home to them the fact that they must have been unhappy before, and hence, their marriages must have been imperfect. For those who took up the challenge of personal happiness in love in the new world order, the disappointment and disillusionment are perhaps greatest of all. If we extrapolate from the marriage metaphor, the message of Maron’s novel appears to be that the marriage of East and West Germany is not only a marriage of opposites that is doomed to failure because of the impossibly high and ill-matched expectations of the two partners. It would also appear to be a marriage of such extreme opposites as to make any lasting union an improbable, almost grotesque feat. This is suggested above all by the animal metaphors in the novel, in particular, by the images of the giant dinosaur and the honeypot ants, which in turn invoke the antithetical histories of the two German states. If the marriage of Franz and the narrator is a union between an admirer of the honeypot ant and a lover of dinosaurs, the political marriage between the two will have to reconcile “interests” of vastly diverging proportions. Maron’s narrator is in love with possibly the largest form of life known on the planet, a prehistoric species of animal, unable to survive evolution and now extinct. Franz is in love with one of the smallest forms of life, with the highly evolved species of the honeypot ant. Like the political marriage between the opposing ideological systems of communism and capitalism, the literary marriage between the narrator and Franz must also reconcile incommensurable systems, on the one hand, a much admired and impressive prehistoric life form that proves unwieldy and unworkable, on the other hand, a much maligned but highly organized and structured system of life that has perfected the art of surviving through selective sacrifice of its drones. While the narrator’s individualistic dinosaurs would normally have the weight to crush the entire collective of honeypot ants, her dinosaurs are, like the dream of European communism, already extinct and on the way to being forgotten. Franz’s insects on the other hand could not survive alone but continue to thrive, and evolve, collectively, as a species. In evolutionary terms, the dinosaurs are, by contrast, a

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“todgeweihte Mutation” (AT 31) (“doomed mutation” (ATE 13)), which cannot provide opportunities for further selection and connection. On this account, German unification is not only a grotesque marriage of opposites, it is a marriage of different temporalities, of different evolutionary stages, of different systems of organisation and of different principles of survival. Hence, despite Brandt’s optimism, it is truly an odd couple that neither really belongs together nor is ever likely to grow together.

Works Cited Primary Sources Burmeister, Brigitte. Unter dem Namen Norma. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1994. Jirgl, Reinhard. Die atlantische Mauer. Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 2000. Maron, Monika. Animal Triste. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1996. (AT) Maron, Monika. Animal Triste. Trans. by Brigitte Goldstein. Lincoln and London: U of Nebraska P, 2000. (ATE) Schlink, Bernhard. “Der Seitensprung.” In Liebesfluchten, Zürich: Diogenes, 2000: 55-95. Sparschuh, Jens. Der Zimmerspringbrunnen: Ein Heimatroman. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1995.

Secondary Sources Bauman, Zygmunt. Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993. Beck Ulrich, and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim. Das ganz normale Chaos der Liebe. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1990. Geier, Andrea. “Paradoxien des Erinnerns: Biographisches Erzählen in Animal Triste.” In Monika Maron in Perspective, edited by Elke Gilson. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002: 93-120. (German Monitor No. 55) Harbers, Henk. “Gefährliche Freiheit. Zu einem Motivkomplex im Werk von Monika Maron.” In Monika Maron in Perspective: ‚Dialogische’ Einblicke in zeitgeschichtliche, intertextuelle und rezeptionsbezogene Aspekte ihres Werkes, edited by Elke Gilson. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2002: 123-137. Hondrich, Karl Otto. Liebe in den Zeiten der Weltgesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004. Lasch, Christopher. A Haven in a Heartless World. New York: Basic Books, 1977.

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Luhmann, Niklas. Liebe als Passion: Zur Codierung von Intimität. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1982. Luhmann, Niklas. Soziale Systeme. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984. Morrison, Susan. “The Feminization of the German Democratic Republic in Political Cartoons.” Journal of Popular Culture 25: 4. 1992: 35-51. Rossbacher, Brigitte. “The Status of State and Subject: Reading Monika Maron from Flugasche to Animal Triste.” In Wendezeitenʊ Zeitenwende: Positionsbestimmungen zur deutschsprachigen Literatur 1945-1995, edited by Brigitte Rossbacher und Robert Weninger. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 1997: 192-212. Scharpe, Ingrid. “Male Privilege and Female Virtue: Gendered Representations of the Two Germanies.” New German Studies 18:1/2, 1994: 87-106.

CHAPTER TWO SURVEILLANCE, PERVERSION, AND THE LAST DAYS OF THE GDR: A READING OF THOMAS BRUSSIG’S HEROES LIKE US JOHN GRIFFITH URANG

Since the fall of the GDR, a great many scholarly and popular works have considered the psychological dimension of the notorious Ministry for State Security, or Stasi:1 what type of person became a Stasi agent? What motivated an IM, an “unofficial employee,” to betray his or her colleagues, friends, family? And more broadly, how did the Stasi achieve such widespread cooperation, such effective social penetration?2 In this paper, I want to approach this question from a slightly different angle. Instead of retracing the steps already taken by sociologists and historians of the MfS3, I will consider what might be called the phantasmagorical dimension of the Stasi, the place of State Security in the collective imagination of the former GDR. To do so, I will look at an unconventional portrayal of the Stasi and its workers: Thomas Brussig's popular 1995 novel Helden wie Wir (Heroes Like Us). In Heroes Like Us, the history of the Ministry for State Security 1

The GDR, or German Democratic Republic, was the official name of East Germany. 2 For more, see Gisela Karau, Stasiprotokolle: Gespräche mit ehemaligen Mitarbeitern des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit fer DDR (Frankfurt am Main: Dipa, 1992); Christina Wilkening, Staat im Staate: Auskünfte ehemaliger StasiMitarbeiter (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1990); Barbara Miller, Narratives of Guilt and Compliance in Unified Germany: Stasi Informers and Their Impact on Society (London, New York: Routledge, 1999); Mary Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR 1949-1989 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) 50–51. 3 The MfS was the official abbreviation of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry of State Security), or Stasi.

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is less a tragedy than a farce; Brussig’s Stasi is ineffective, incompetent, and inconsequential—here, the secret police become Keystone Kops. Heroes Like Us is framed as a monologue: the life story of Klaus Uhltzscht, as told to Mr. Kitzelstein, a reporter for the New York Times. The Times’ readers should be interested in his story, Klaus opines, on account of his key role in the events of November 9th, 1989. “The story of the Wall’s end,” he says, “is the story of my penis.”4 As we will see, this turns out to be true in more ways than one. What I am interested in tracing here (however briefly) is the investment of state security work with a distinct erotic charge—the sexualization, perhaps, of the Stasi. In Heroes Like Us, the juxtaposition of MfS work with various accounts of “deviant” sexuality reveals important aspects of the structural and structuring fantasies of state surveillance. What will emerge in the following analysis is not only an outline of the fantasy-life of the East German surveillancestate, but also an account of the retrospective revision of these fantasies in post-unification Germany. Klaus’s exposure to the erotics of surveillance begins in the stuffy and repressed atmosphere of his parental home. His mother is an uptight hygiene inspector who teaches young Klaus to be afraid of germs, public toilets, and—especially—sex. As one might predict, Klaus becomes obsessed with the latter, a process he outlines meticulously for Mr. Kitzelstein. From the eye-opening disquisitions of his more enlightened peers at summer-camp to his careful study of Siegfried Schnabl’s Sex-Ed standard Mann und Frau Intim, Klaus’s adolescence is a dogged quest to learn more about this mysterious, frightening, thrilling subject. The greater his ignorance, the more obsessive his fascination becomes. For instance: But Mann und Frau Intim afforded no clues to the G spot. Did it, or did it not, exist? Did it exist only in the West? Was the G spot peculiar to Western women? Would the solution of this mystery be rewarded with a Nobel Prize? Other people were always privy to information I knew nothing about (62).

One of the things Klaus knows nothing about is the Stasi, the headquarters of which is across the street from his childhood home. When Klaus learns that the Stasi had been involved in the dismissal of one of his favorite teachers, he puts the pieces together:

4

Thomas Brussig, Heroes Like Us, 5. Subsequent quotations from Brussig’s novel will be cited parenthetically.

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I suspected duress of some kind, presumably on the Stasi’s part. Such a great big building, and nobody knew what went on there. Everyone spoke of it in whispers. A teacher was fired and no one would tell me why. Ergo, there was something fishy about the Stasi (63).

Klaus makes the Stasi his “secret enemy,” staking out the building and writing down what he sees. When his father finds out about Klaus’s activities, he is extremely upset: “Writing in mental anguish, he told me that if my activities ever came out, he and my mother would be convicted of espionage and sent to prison” (64). And Mr. Uhltzscht should know. He is himself, as Klaus soon finds out, an employee of the Stasi. Later, Klaus will describe his father as every inch the man from the Stasi. He was probably an interrogator—the one who switches on the spotlight and shines it in your eyes, who roams the interview room in his shirtsleeves and expects you to earn your glass of water by confessing all (70).

As this description attests, Klaus’s father is not a very nice man. He is gruff and indifferent in turn, paranoid, misanthropic, and highly critical of young Klaus. Nonetheless, or perhaps all the more, Klaus looks up to his father with admiration and awe. And when his father suggests that Klaus join the Stasi as well, Klaus jumps at the chance. This career-move, however, does nothing to counter Klaus’s inferiority complex. On the contrary, his association with the Stasi will ultimately be added to his litany of failures—failures that also seem somehow responsible for his association with the Stasi: I had the most repulsive of all surnames, I was the most ill-informed person in the world, an inveterate toilet-blocker and loser of things, and the Last of the Dog-Paddlers. I couldn’t even jerk off, and I’d only got onto a magazine cover for the wrong reasons. Yes, that’s how it was. That’s how I came to join the Stasi (92-3).

Nor does Klaus’s new job lessen his sex-obsession. In fact, it offers vast new resources for the exploration of his number one hobby. At training camp, Klaus meets Raymund, a self-styled ladies’ man and chronic masturbator, who leads his fellow cadets on a moonlight cruise to pick up women. After an alcohol-soaked night aboard the Wilhelm Pieck, a young woman named Marina takes Klaus home with her, where he trades his virginity for a case of gonorrhea and a newfound appreciation for the mysteries and delights of the sexual act.

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Eventually, Klaus is assigned to his first post (literally): the “Periodicals Postal Subscription Service” in Berlin, in reality a Stasi front. Klaus is shocked and dismayed to find that his co-workers are neither suave, competent master spies, nor even grim bullies like his father, but rather eccentric, blundering buffoons. ‘Was I really in the genuine, legendary Stasi,’ Klaus asks himself, or in an outfit that only called itself by that name the better to disguise the genuine Stasi, which would one day send for me? The genuine Stasi wouldn’t expect me to memorize periodical subscription regulations or run a disastrous couple of laps. Whatever I was in, it couldn’t be the Stasi, which was omniscient, omnideceptive, and referred to only in whispers. My colleagues were simply men who munched pretzels and exercised once a week (123).

A “clue” dropped by one of his co-workers, “Owl,” gives Klaus an idea of what his task might be when he finally sheds his cover: ‘Well, imagine if, one day, you had a chance to get at the NATO Secretary-General’s microfish.’ Owl broke off. ‘No, that’s a stupid analogy,’ he amended swiftly, and produced another, but it was too late: Owl had let the cat out of the bag. I pricked up my ears. Had he inadvertently divulged some aspect of my real assignment? But what did he mean? What were microfish? Why didn’t I know the word? Was it yet another of the gaps in my knowledge? Were microfish very small fish? So small that one could see them only under a microscope? The microfish of the NATO Secretary-General… Great heavens! Had I been assigned to get hold of them one day? … Were microfish replete with DNA, genetic material from which they proposed to clone a second NATO Secretary-General (141-42)?

Here, a word misspoken by his colleague sends Klaus on an elaborate tangent, as he tries to fill in “yet another of the gaps in [his] knowledge.” What is telling, indeed paradigmatic, about this passage is the way Klaus invests this gap with sexual content: microfish, he concludes, are spermatozoa—and he will eventually be assigned to collect a vial of them from the NATO Secretary-General. Because of his tendency to assume that everything he doesn’t know must be a sexual secret, Klaus’s alwaysinscrutable work assignments become increasingly sexualized—just as his sex-life becomes more and more influenced by his Stasi work. A characteristic example of both occurs when Klaus goes home with a woman he meets outside a bar—in part, he suggests, to convince his superiors “that [he] could make it with any of the enemy’s secretary-

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receptionists” (153). There is little physical attraction on either side, and she eventually decides she’s had enough of his clumsy advances. Klaus, however, is determined to complete his mission. As he tries to undress her, he realizes the implications of his intentions: What were we doing? What was I doing? I was in the act of forcing a woman to have sexual intercourse against her will! She had said No! She had said Don’t want to! What would the State prosecutor call that? Rape! I was in the act of raping a woman! I a rapist! …. And my parents! What would they think of me? It was the thought of my parents that prompted me to stop short.... I snatched up my clothes, fled barefoot, and got dressed outside the door. (155-156)

This scene shows how confused Klaus’s sense of sexual ethics has become: he nearly rapes a woman without realizing that he is doing anything wrong, stopping only at the thought of his parents’ reprobation. Then, with this thought, Klaus is wracked with guilt. He runs through his arrest, trial, and imprisonment in his mind, and imagines the future psychology dissertations that will be written about his criminal abnormalities (156). To make matters worse (as he sees them), he promptly adds exhibitionism and masturbation to his list of misdeeds: I ran up the stairs, right to the very top. The door to the roof was locked, so I took up my position on the topmost step and—whack-whack-whack— whacked off. Mama, Papa, please! Before you scold me, remember I was only masturbating as an antidote to rape! (157).

Later, in accordance with the maxim that the criminal will always return to the scene of the crime, Klaus goes back to the stairwell to reenact his offense. Don’t ask me why I returned to the scene of my crime—how should I know? For one thing, it was a scientifically proven tendency; for another, I was on my way to becoming a sex offender, and a sex offender’s actions are unpredictable by definition. … I worked on the speech that would justify my actions…. Comrade Minister—whack-whack-whack—permit me to point out— whack-whack-whack—that it was, so to speak, my proletarian duty— whack-whack-whack—because my superiors had hinted—whack-whackwhack—that I might be assigned—whack-whack-whack—to steal the NATO Secretary-General’s microfish—whack-whack-whack—and to gain some idea of how long it would take—whack-whack-whack—given that I might have to drug him first—whack-whack-whack—you’ll understand,

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SURVEILLANCE, PERVERSION, AND THE LAST DAYS OF THE GDR Comrade Minister—whack-whack-whack—that I decided to time the operation in advance—whack-whack-whack—by producing some microfish of my own. (158-159)

With this justification, the story comes around full-circle: the whole incident, Klaus would have us believe, was the result of an order from his superiors. His libido is hard-wired to his work: Klaus can no more masturbate without invoking his “proletarian duty” than he can fulfill his presumed Stasi assignments without arousing cause to masturbate. Thus, for instance, his misinterpretation of his boss’s exhortation to “put ourselves in the enemy’s place so as to render his actions predictable”: I once found, on Grabs’s desk, the transcript of a bugged telephone conversation in which AE Individualist [the code-name of a dissident under Stasi surveillance] was referred to as “Chicken-fucker.” I was intrigued despite myself. Chicken-fucker? What did it mean? … Would it be easier for me to put myself in the enemy’s place and render his actions predictable if I myself became a chicken-fucker? With this in mind, I bought a whole broiler after work, took it home, and, without consulting higher authority, sexually abused it. (194)

When he checks Schnabl’s Mann und Frau Intim to see if it says anything about sex with a broiler, Klaus becomes aware of the full scope of his deed: I had done it with an animal! A dead animal! A dead young animal! A headless, i.e. mutilated, dead young animal! I had simultaneously indulged in four perversions (195).

Suddenly, Klaus realizes his mission and calling: to do his part towards improving the GDR’s balance of trade. “What an idea: the invention and exportation, in exchange for foreign currency, of patented perversions!” (199). No, Mr. Kitzelstein, fucking was for ordinary folk. I aspired to be a disciple of Part III, Chapter 9—to plumb the cavernous depths of Sexual Aberrations and illuminate them with the torch of scientific research. I knew what it meant to have a vocation. I would be a historic missionary instead of a Nobel laureate, become a Great Pervert instead of persisting in my potentially lethal, physically injurious, legally hazardous sex life. (245)

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Klaus works diligently on his project, inventing such perversions as “mass sodomy,” achieved by putting on a condom filled with tadpoles—one for each East German who had defected the previous day. Klaus’s decision to turn his back on what he considers a “normal” sexlife and become a “pervert” follows closely on the heels of a pivotal event in the novel: the beginning and abrupt end of the what he calls his life’s only love story, “a tale so ineffably sad that I wouldn’t recount it if I didn’t have to” (173). After losing his wallet in a telephone booth, Klaus gets a phone call from a young woman named Yvonne. She has found his wallet and wants to give it back in person. They get along immediately: Yvonne charms Klaus with her spontaneity and joie de vivre, and Klaus—to his surprise—manages to woo Yvonne with dignity, perhaps even panache: “Had I, the Stasi guy, the human scum and tormentor of children, succeeded in writing a letter that meant something to a butterfly princess?” (191). When their chaste courtship gives way to physical passion, however, things begin to go wrong: She lit some candles and settled herself in my lap, and we kissed. I found myself in a genuine ethicomoral predicament. Why? Because it became clear to me that I wanted—let’s not beat about the bush—to fuck her. Could my conscience permit me to fuck an angel? An angel, what was more, whom I loved (191)?

As usual, the prospect of sexual activity sends Klaus spiraling into guilt and self-recrimination. It seems impossible to him that love and sex could co-exist: in Klaus’s understanding, sex is more an act of violence than an act of love. Moreover, sex is always a potentially political act for Klaus, one that affects and is affected by his position as representative of the State: And the consequences! One could never tell who lived in these elegant houses on the outskirts of Berlin. What if her father were an artist critical of the regime—possibly even one with an international reputation? The West German tabloids always pounced on such stories: STASI THUG VIOLATES DISSIDENT’S DAUGHTER (191).

Whereupon something happens that derails him completely: And then she said something she shouldn’t have said: two fateful words. “Hurt me!” She whispered. That did it. … What did it mean, Hurt me? At that moment…my world disintegrated. Was I supposed to scratch her? Draw blood? Hit her? Bite her? Dislocate her arms and legs? I didn’t feel equal to anything of the kind.

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SURVEILLANCE, PERVERSION, AND THE LAST DAYS OF THE GDR I rose, got dressed, and left. (192)

Despite his careful studies of Mann und Frau Intim, Klaus has no idea what to make of Yvonne’s S-M play. Her mild transgression of the boundary between sex and violence magnifies Klaus’s confusion on the subject, causing his world to disintegrate. The problem, it seems, is that he has no sense of scale: When Yvonne says “hurt me,” he doesn’t know whether to scratch her or dislocate her arms. This lack of a sense of scale—one might say moral scale—represents a general characteristic of the Stasi in Brussig’s novel: never deliberately cruel, they seem to contemplate or perpetrate horrendous acts almost unwittingly. Klaus’s boss Wunderlich, for instance, suggests matter-offactly that injured hands were more effective than handcuffs. If only our dissidents could have their bones neatly broken in some way… People with both hands out of action couldn’t print leaflets or accompany subversive songs on the guitar, piano, or accordion—they couldn’t even pick up a phone (162).

To intimidate one suspected dissident, they kidnap her daughter—a task carried out blithely by Klaus, who seems to feel that his most reprehensible action that day was beating the little girl at Parcheesi and Old Maid. Much of the comedy in Heroes Like Us springs from these wild oscillations of moral standards, the sheer exuberance with which the narrative hurls Klaus back and forth between utter amorality and moral hair-splitting. Brussig’s comic Stasi is not entirely innocuous, however. Though the requirements of comedy keep Klaus and his colleagues from going too far (the kidnapped girl, for instance, is set free on the same evening), the reader can only imagine what effect their ridiculous capers have off-stage, on the owners of the apartments they ransack, for instance, or on the kidnapped girl’s mother. Thus the Stasi of Heroes Like Us, as embodied in Klaus Uhltzscht and his colleagues, is simultaneously harmless and brutal, naïve and perverse. Indeed, it is to the extent that they refuse to acknowledge how ineffectual they are that Brussig’s Stasi-men become genuinely dangerous: the harder they try to do their impossible job, the more disastrous the outcome. In the novel’s climactic scene, which takes place at the Bornholmer Strasse border checkpoint on the night of November 9th, the East German police-state’s combination of impotence and latent menace finds appropriate expression. On that night, thousands of GDR citizens gathered

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at the Wall all over Berlin, following a remark made by the SED Press Secretary suggesting that the border might be opened. “It was a pathetic sight,” Klaus says of the Bornholmer checkpoint: “thousands of them confronted by a few dozen border guards, and they didn’t dare to make a move” (256). Like the Stasi, the border guards are helpless to staunch the tide of history—though no one knows it yet. It is here that Klaus decides to intervene. He does so by showing them, in an idiom they are sure to understand, how inadequate they are: That was when I had an idea, a kind of inspiration: the border guards might also be sons of mothers of the Have-you-been-playing-with-it? type. It was an inspiration, there’s no other word for it. Slowly and deliberately, I unbuttoned my coat, undid my belt, and unzipped my trousers (258).

The guards, “as if mesmerized,” open the gate. The story of the Wall’s end, as Klaus had claimed at the beginning of the novel, does indeed seem to be the story of his penis. Here, some back-story is necessary. Five days earlier, while attending the famous November 4th demonstration at Alexanderplatz, Klaus had decided to respond to Christa Wolf’s speech with a speech of his own. As he descended the stairs of the underground passageway leading to the stage, he tripped and fell onto a broomstick, skewering himself in an agonizing, if improbable, manner. Klaus wakes up later in the hospital with a “squashed frog” for genitals. He does find one consolation in his misery, however: mysteriously, his “squashed frog” undergoes a radical transformation in the days following the accident: “Imagine waking up one day,” he says, “and finding that your familiar little dick had been replaced by the biggest membrum virile you’d ever seen” (244). This, then, is the irrefutable argument with which Klaus confronts the Bornholmer guards: For “sons of mothers of the Have-you-been-playing-with-it? type”—that is, for repressed, perverse, sex-obsessed men, precisely the men who fill the ranks of the East German police state—such a demonstration of penile superiority cannot fail to convince. What are we to make, then, of the story of Klaus’s penis, which happens also to be the story of the Wall’s end? Is it simply an elaborate adolescent joke? One interpretive clue can be found in the novel’s final passage: I’ve no illusions, Mr. Kitzelstein: no one will believe a social outcast and Stasi pervert, kidnapper and rapist manqué like me, but so what? No one who dismisses my story can possibly understand what’s wrong with

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SURVEILLANCE, PERVERSION, AND THE LAST DAYS OF THE GDR Germany. Why not? Because nothing makes sense without me—because I’m recent German history’s missing link. Was that what you wanted to know (262)?

Here, in this parting question, Brussig’s novel reveals the ultimate object of its satire. “Was that what you wanted to know?” Klaus asks Mr. Kitzelstein, the New York Times reporter. The whole novel, then, becomes the answer to an implied question: the demand of a Western audience for a “missing link,” a Rosetta Stone of recent German history. Klaus offers himself as this missing link. As he put it a few pages before: My own contribution to the debate is the story of my perversions, my little trumpet, my snooping and informing, my impotence, my abnormal masturbatory fantasies, my combination of megalomania and staggering naiveté (253).

Yet how does the story of Klaus’s screwball sex-life contribute to any debate? How does it provide the “missing link” required by Mr. Kitzelstein and his readers? One answer, I would argue, can be found in the trope of perversion, which performs two functions in Brussig’s novel. First, it satisfies—with manifest irony—the paradoxical demand of the triumphant West: that the history of the Stasi depict an institution that was depraved, corrupt, and decadent, but at the same time ultimately ineffectual. Although Klaus’s twisted libido usually lends itself more to light comedy than to moral reproof, it is also characterized by the distorted sense of scale mentioned above, an underlying amorality that makes possible a seamless drift from droll to cruel. The trope of perversion allows Brussig to give Mr. Kitzelstein and his readers the Stasi they “want to know”: one that is laughably hopeless and casually ruthless, paralyzed by neurotic guilt yet ignorant of the true nature of its crimes. The Stasi’s “inherent perversion” would also satisfy a related, more fundamental ideological demand of post-unification discourse: that the East German security state be identifiably, ontologically different from the new order. For the reader in 1995, anchored in post-unification reality, the practices of Brussig’s Stasi are safely “other,” products of a system conspicuously distinct from the present order. This reader is comfortably on the other side of this perverse, deviant state, a state that functions—and falls—according to the logic of “Have-you-been-playing-with-it?” What, then, would be the not-other order, the “normal” according to which Klaus and his coworkers seem “perverse”? This, I would argue, is the role played by “the only love story” in Klaus’s life, his brief

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relationship with Yvette. This truncated romantic sub-plot is the point at which things could have gone differently for Klaus. Here, with only a touch of the novel’s characteristic irony, heterosexual romantic love becomes the normative benchmark against which the distance of deviance is measured. Where love incorporates, assimilates, legitimates, perversion disavows, disowns, abjects. The vestigial traces of romantic love in Heroes Like Us lend potency to its machinery of disavowal, the disintegrative power of its scenario of perversion. By creating the Stasi that Kitzelstein’s readers—that is, Western readers—“want to know,” Brussig’s novel confronts us with a reality we would prefer to ignore: as much as Klaus and his colleagues represent the perverse over-presence of the East German surveillance state, they also stand in more generally for surveillance as an integral mechanism of social control. Foucault—and experience—have taught us that surveillance (demoscopy, perhaps) is a feature of any complex modern society.5 In this age of linked accounts, instant credit, EZ-Pass and eerily precise demographic marketing, being watched is nothing new. In retrospect, what seems disturbing—indeed, obscene—about the Stasi is not the inhumanity of its methods, but rather their humanity. MfS agents and informers were real people, tasked with collecting not data, but ideas and memories. The Stasi thrived on human weakness, on greed, betrayal and cowardice. It targeted one’s most intimate personal relationships, driving a wedge of mistrust between friends, family, lovers. Whereas most modern surveillance—what we see of it, anyway— seems indifferent to the way we live, to our beliefs and intentions. It just keeps track. Even—or perhaps especially—a comic account like Heroes Like Us reminds us that surveillance is not the operation of an impersonal system, indiscriminately sorting zeroes and ones like a fiber-optic Maxwell’s Demon, but rather a deliberate strategy of social domination. An ideology that would conceal such domination would disavow surveillance as the perversion of a bygone regime, the brutal tactics of a power-hungry dictatorship. And indeed, the new way seems more moral, or at least less ruthless. There are no secret agents—no human agents at all, in fact. In a 5

“Our society is one not of spectacle, but of surveillance,” Foucault writes in Discipline and Punish. “Behind the great abstraction of exchange, there continues the meticulous, concrete training of useful forces; the circuits of communication are the supports of an accumulation and a centralization of knowledge; the play of signs defines the anchorages of power.” Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 217.

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sense, though, this might be even more frightening. Perhaps at some level we prefer being watched to being ignored. This may help to explain the curious split in the reception of the recent NSA wiretapping incident. On the one hand, there was widespread outrage that such a thing could take place in the “free world.” The administration justified its actions according to the logic of the state of exception: that extreme measures were necessary to prevent attacks against American citizens. But a great many Americans, perhaps even the majority, seemed accepting, even approving, of the measures taken. This, I would suggest, does not simply attest to an endorsement or acknowledgement of the War on Terror’s perpetual state of emergency, but rather to an illicit desire: a desire to be watched, judged, protected by a no-longer-indifferent state power. For as ready as we are to mistake surveillance for perversion, for the obscene over-presence of a desperate, dying state, we are equally ready to mistake this ardent interest for love.

Works Cited Brussig, Thomas. Heroes Like Us. Translated by John Brownjohn. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Allen Lane. London: Penguin, 1977. Fulbrook, Mary. Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR 1949-1989. New York: Oxford UP, 1995. Karau, Gisela. Stasiprotokolle: Gespräche mit ehemaligen Mitarbeitern des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit der DDR. 1. Aufl. ed. Frankfurt am Main: Dipa, 1992. Miller, Barbara. Narratives of Guilt and Compliance in Unified Germany: Stasi Informers and Their Impact on Society. Routledge Studies in Memory and Narrative. London: Routledge, 1999. Riecker, Ariane, Annett Schwarz, and Dirk Schneider. Stasi intim: Gespräche mit ehemaligen MfS-Angehörigen. 1. Aufl. ed. Leipzig: Forum, 1990. Wilkening, Christina. Staat im Staate: Auskünfte ehemaliger StasiMitarbeiter. 1. Aufl. ed. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1990.

CHAPTER THREE LITERATURE AND REUNIFICATION: BERLIN PHILIP BROADBENT

The former editor and columnist of Harper’s, Lewis H. Lapham, lamented the short-term memory of the American electorate, concluding that “people are apt to forget that we have nothing else with which to build a future except the lumber of the past.”1 Although the context of this seemingly banal statement was the US’s support of President Bush’s war(s) in Iraq, I would like to let this statement hover as a precursor to the following discussion on memory and the problem of the representative relation of the present to the past in relation to literary representations of post-reunification Berlin.2 Berlin’s historically mottled topography, its empty spaces and loaded sites, its buildings present and absent, and the city’s mnemonic representative obligation to the divided and pre-divided pasts, have been the focus of a great deal of critical attention. Departing for a moment from purely topographical concerns such as memory-sites and architectural signifiers, I should like to address an epistemological shift in literary representations of Berlin that affects how the city is seen and, by extension, experienced. Comparing representations of post-reunification Berlin in Günter Grass’s novel Ein weites Feld (1997) and Tanja Dückers’ Spielzone (1999),3 I will argue that their portrayals of the city knowingly contribute to the revisionist debates that sought to redefine the memory of 1

Lapham, Harpers Magazine, April 2006. A much-extended and revised version of this chapter appeared as, “Generational Shifts: Representing Post-Wende Berlin.” New German Critique 104 (Forthcoming in 2008). 3 Günter Grass, Ein weites Feld (München: DTV, 1997). All German quotations are from this edition. Tanja Dückers, Spielzone (Berlin: Aufbau, 1999). Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own. 2

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National Socialism in and for a reunified Germany. As even a cursory glance at the flurry of articles in magazines and broadsheet feuilletons written in the wake of October 1990, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing reunification precipitated yet another attempt to historicize the past, namely, the myth of a second zero hour.4 Although the narrative of a new beginning was intended to finally close the chapter of German history, for many, this supposed new beginning or second zero hour, brought history once again to the fore. However, it was not only the media that renewed contemporary interest in the history and memory of National Socialism. Between 1990 and 2000 a not insignificant number of historical novels, memoirs and biographies saturated the German book market with long-forgotten recollections relating to the division and pre-division German pasts. Rather than the “move forward and forget” mantra of the second zero hour myth, it appeared as if a whole nation now suddenly needed to remember individual and collective, private and public histories. Only it was not a Madeleine that triggered this wave of memory narratives, but rather the momentously synaptic jolt in November 1989 that forced attention back to a Wall that for many years had no longer been registered as such. In what follows, I shall address how the reorganization of Berlin’s public spaces was explored in many so-called Berlin novels in the 1990s, and in how such topographical changes to sites of memory, for example, were seen as deliberate attempts to precisely reconfigure a public and collective memory of the past. I argue that the representations of post-1990 Berlin’s topography in Grass’s Ein weites Feld and Tanja Dückers’ Spielzone betray irreconcilable generational differences in their attitudes towards remembering Germany’s pasts and the place those pasts should have in contemporary Berlin/German literature. The centrality Günter Grass accords the memory of National Socialism in his Berlin exegesis, as well as the duty-cum-obligation for contemporary Germany to remember is in keeping with Grass’s literary and political engagement in this field. A life of writing on Germany, Auschwitz, National Socialism and post-war German society testify to the importance of Günter Grass the writer, critic and political citizen in postwar Germany. However, Grass’s position on history and memory narratives is anything but facile. As his recent autobiographical narrative testifies, remembering and articulating the past is always fraught with inconsistencies, lapses of memory and willed (or otherwise) amnesia. 4

Schirrmacher, “Hetze? Die zweite Stunde Null,” 1990. See Augstein, “Gnade der Stunde Nul,” 1990; Duve, “Böses Erwachen in der Stunde Null, “ 1990.

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Following the publication of the text, Beim häuten der Zwiebel, which revealed that even (sic) the nation’s symbolic critic was also painted with the same brown-brush, numerous critics and friends attacked Grass for keeping quiet for so long about his stint in the SS. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to either criticize or justify the chorus of Grass’s recent critics, but it might be argued that part of the anger voiced following the revelation about Grass’s past was directed less against the author and more toward an understanding that this particular chapter of German history is unavoidably historically present. Whether or not the angry criticisms of Grass’s silence on his past are justifiable, it is worthwhile remembering Paul Ricoeur’s reading of blocked memory in relation to the past. Namely, “memory does not only bear on time: it also requires time – a time of mourning.”5 Perhaps the silence is less the result of waiting for the right time, but rather the need to process this mourning not through fiction but the enhanced confessionality of autobiography.6 The protagonist of Grass’s Berlin novel, Ein weites Feld, is also “blocked” in relation to his own complex past, a complexity reflected in the narrative form, and it is only toward the end of the text that a more detailed “biography” is offered. However, it is the insistence on a working-through that underscores the protagonists (and authors) obligation to remember not only the who of Ricoeur’s objects of memory, but also the what in relation to actions and deeds in the past.7 Interestingly, in the reviews of Ein weites Feld a great deal of attention was given to the author’s role as a public intellectual and representative voice: the corollary 5

Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 74. In an interview published in the FAZ Grass remarked that it is not that there had not been an opportunity for him to make public his SS-membership, but that what he was lacking was the necessary narrative form to express it. “Es ist sicher so, daß ich glaubte, mit dem was ich schreibend tat, genug getan zu haben. Ich habe ja meinen Lernprozeß durchgemacht und daraus meine Konsequenzen gezogen. Aber es blieb dieser restliche Makel. Es war deshalb immer klar für mich, daß dieser Rest seinen Platz finden müßte, wenn ich mich jemals dazu entschließen sollte, etwas Autobiographisches zu schreiben,” Günter Grass “Warum ich nach sechzig Jahren mein Schweigen breche. Eine deutsche Jugend: Günter Grass spricht zum ersten Mal über sein Erinnerungsbuch und seine Mitgliedschaft in der Waffen-SS.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 12, 2006. 7 Ricoeur argues that a two-fold contract of justice and debt binds the present to an active remembering of the past. He observes that the “duty of memory is not restricted to preserving the material trace, whether scriptural or other, of past events, but maintains the feeling of being obligated with respect to these others, of whom we shall later say, not that they are no more, but that they were.” Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 89. 6

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was that Grass had taken advantage of his position as a public intellectual to attack reunification through his own much-expected “Berlin novel.” According to one critic, the reviews largely ignored the literary or aesthetic merits of the novel and focused instead on Grass the public intellectual “zugunsten einer blanken politischen Verurteilung.”8 In contrast to this historically obligated generation, of which Grass is perhaps the most vocal representative, Tanja Dückers belongs to a generation of writers with arguably less historical baggage and at times even less obliging to a distant past. Perhaps in consequence, Dückers’ Berlin portrayal (and she is not a singular example of this generation of Berlin writers9) is markedly different in emphasis to Grass’s or many other postwar generation representations.10 Underlying this “generational” shift is a tension between calls to remember the past(s) and those calls advocating a “normal” aesthetic quiescence. Florian Illies, the author of a very successful “generational” novel, claims that this break with the past is a response to the previous generation’s excessive preoccupation with the historic, and in particular, “die völlige Fixierung [des] Geschichtsunterrichts auf die Nazi-Zeit.”11 Such non-convergent perspectives, which I hope to highlight through a comparative approach to Ein weites Feld and Spielzone, are arguably themselves part of the very problems Berlin is facing as it moves into its new role as the representative capital of a unified Germany. Both the Grass and Dückers texts illustrate why the Berlin-novel genre is challenging for the contemporary writer by focusing their novels on the performance of experience, that is, on how the protagonists experience Berlin’s histories via topographical confrontation. A comparison of the two texts reveals an oscillation between a desire for meaning in Ein weites

8

Negt, Der Fall Fonty Oskar: Ein weites Feld von Günter Grass im Spiegel der Kritik, 10. 9 Broadbent, “Generational Shifts: Representing Post-Wende Berlin,” 104 (2008). 10 For an analysis of this new generation of Berlin writers and the German feuilleton see: Baßler, Der deutsche Pop-Roman: Die neuen Archivisten. Gustav Seibt summed up the new wave of literary interest in Berlin: “Die neuen BerlinBücher sind von Kindern der Provinz geschrieben, bei denen der Umzug in die große Stadt mit der Lösung vom Elternhaus zusammenfiel; sie sind selten mehr als drei hundert Seiten lang, meist erheblich kürzer; ihre besten Passagen betreffen nicht Berlin, sondern bestehen aus sentimentalen, bittersüßen Rückblicken auf die Kindheit in der westdeutschen oder ostdeutschen Provinz.” Gustav Siebt, “Berliner Leben,” 298. 11 Illies, Generation Golf. Eine Inspektion, 175.

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Feld and a desire for presence, in Spielzone.12 “Presence desire” might better be described as a temporary blurring of the subject and object binary by refuting the Descartian division of mind and body. “Meaning desire,” according to Gumbrecht, is that knowledge produced by a subject in an act of object interpretation, that is to say, the act of penetrating with the mind the material surface of the world in order to find truth behind it. For Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, the dominant self-reference in a meaning culture is the mind (Gumbrecht 2004, 4). By extension, in a presence culture it is the body-legitimate knowledge as revealed knowledge, or what Heidegger refers to as “events of unconcealment,” coming forth as it were fully (Gumbrecht 2004, 46-7). But this wholeness (oneness?) is only possible outside the networks of semantics and other cultural distinctions —to live momentarily as it were, in a blank urban space devoid of pointing signifiers and loaded symbols gesturing to something that is beyond the immediate. Borrowing from this dialectic of presence and meaning, it will be shown to what degree and in what way the two novels challenge us to rethink some of the conditions of knowledge production gleaned from urban experience—given that the concept of “experience” is commonly associated with interpretation and meaning attribution. I argue that Dückers’ novel makes possible a rethinking of “experience” in relation to self and city. Experience as Erleben (non-interpretative living it, as it were) in a blank urban space, rather than Erfahrung, experience as a phenomenological act or moments of interpretation. In contrast to Dückers’ position, Günter Grass’s novel asks us to experience (erfahren13) and interpret Berlin in relation to the broader cultural, historical and political framework of reunification. As readers, we are asked to actively read the city as a distinctly historical text. Through a singular engagement with Germany’s histories and the memories of those histories as they are revealed in Berlin’s topography, Grass’s novel suggests that at the heart of reunification is a desire to erase the memory of the city’s division and of the GDR more generally. Ein weites Feld portrays German reunification as an aggressive takeover that automatically prevents all reciprocity; the GDR must now fight um ihre Geschichte, den einige nach der Vereinigung in lauthalsrevanchistischem Geiste begonnen haben, in aller Öffentlichkeit austragen, 12 I refer here to Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s brilliant analysis of presence and meaning, in Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey, 2. 13 Gumbrecht uses the noun, Erfahrung, the verb Erfahren is applicable in this context.

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LITERATURE AND REUNIFICATION: BERLIN während die Geschichte der DDR mehr oder weniger lautlos beerdigt – und der nächsten Generation als Leiche im Keller vererbt wird.14

The changes forced on East Berlin’s city space, such as the demolition of the Palast der Republik, the changing of street names and the renaming of public sites textually signify deliberate attempts to erase the memory of the forty-year history of the GDR. The text positions itself against this tendency through its narrative focus on East Berlin that eine halbierte Geschichte und das kollektive Selbstverständnis von Siegern wären eine bruchige Grundlage für einen tragfähigen nationalen Konsens (Habermas 1993, 93-4).

Ein weites Feld portrays East and West Berlin as a symbolic site that urges the reader to remember the division and pre-division German pasts and insists on the continuing individual and collective significance of those pasts to East and West Germans alike. The text is a threnody of sorts for the East—an archival attempt to preserve individual as well as collective memories, which are seen as integral to the identity of a newly reunified Germany. Ignoring claims of a second zero hour the novel contextualizes the German Wende in a historical framework that is created through intertextual references and chronological character-doublings: the title of Grass’s text is a quotation borrowed from Theodor Fontane’s novel, Effi Briest; Fonty (the protagonist), imitates Fontane’s own life to such a degree that their biographies continually overlap. Hoftaller, Fonty’s dubious Stasi acquaintance, is a literary borrowing from Joachim Schädlich’s novel about a secret agent in nineteenth-century Germany. In addition to these historical doublings, the text also blurs the unifications of 1871 and 1990. It is a complex chronological structure, which Grass referred to as a temporal “Vergegenkunft”15 which comprises the past, the present and the future into a readable medium in the present. It is this synchronicity that always makes possible for the protagonists an “opportunity for digressions into the field of history” (Grass 1997, 20). In addition to such character and temporal doublings, the literary engagement with Berlin’s topography directly echoes Fontane’s own narrative 14

Habermas, Vergangenheit als Zukunft, 93. “Die Zukunft wirft ihren Schlagschatten auf zukünftiges Gelände. “Vergegenkunft” nannte ich später meinen Zeitbegriff,” Günter Grass, “Schreiben nach Auschwitz” in Grass, Werkausgabe in zehn Bänden, 251.

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concerns with Berlin in, among others, Schach von Wuthenow and Frau Jenny Treibel. The structure of the intertext and the temporally convergent periods of past and present demand of the reader not merely a perception of “then” or “now,” but a recognition that this fluidity of literary and historical awareness works for the text as a comparative backdrop to reunification. Ein weites Feld is littered with references to walks in the Wende city, but such walks from “Berlin to Berlin” (Grass 1997, 13), serve only to unsettle the otherwise homogenizing currency of reunification discourses. Nonetheless, it is in such perambulatory modes that Fonty and Hoftaller engage with East and West Berlin’s historically rich topography by reading the dual histories, the revolutions and upheavals and social/political identities through buildings and street names, and by revisiting memories anchored to specific sites in the city. Their walks, then, underline a circumstantial perception of Berlin, which registers the city’s physicality while it promotes an awareness of Berlin as a multilayered, historically situated, readable text. This trope of pedestrianism makes possible an interpretation of Ein weites Feld as a text that resists claims of an end of history by positing in its place the value of indirection, clutter and pedestrianism. In Grass’s novel, Berlin becomes, in the words of Paul Ricoeur, “ein Sammelbecken von Spuren […] die von den Ereignissen hinterlassen wurden.”16 Somewhat akin to a Benjaminian flâneur, the pedestrian protagonist on Ein weites Feld is the archaeologistarchivist bent on not forgetting. Fonty and Hoftaller wander across the city as if they are trying to uncover such hidden traces and thereby forestall their exclusion from the unified city while city-sites, buildings, and street names trigger individual and collective memories which reassert the city as a space uniquely “their” own (individual and plural). Their urban ramblings are then moments of interpretation and meaning attribution. Peering through a hole in the Wall, Fonty and Hoftaller create a literal portrait of themselves for the reader: Von drüben gesehen, schaute Fonty ab Brusthöhe durch den erweiterten Spalt. Neben ihm war Hoftaller von den Schultern aufwärts im Bild: zwei Männer mit Hüten (Grass 1997, 15).

Had a guard been present at that particular moment, “hätte [er]…von beiden ein erkennungsdienstliches Photo schießen können” (Grass 1997, 15). The pun on “shooting” (the most commonly used verb in this context is “machen/make” and not “schießen”) in the text returns the reader’s 16

Ricoeur, Das Rätsel der Vergangenheit: Erinnern - Vergessen - Verzeihen, 80.

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attention back to the associations of violence and death, which reference the Berlin Wall as an instrument of brutality. Although this is the case, the self-framing into the Berlin Wall makes a case for both the Wall and its historical baggage as something that is part of the identity of East Berlin. Photographs, Susan Sontag remarked, “help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure.”17 The Wall-framing and contextualization of the protagonists makes clear a desire to hold onto a past and a sense of identity, about which they are insecure, that the protagonists perceive to be in danger of being forgotten. Having removed himself from this frame, what follows is a lengthy commentary on the Wall-pickers, whom he watches chip away at the concrete façade of the Berlin Wall, which, he remarks, “[war] gestern noch aktuell gewesen” (Grass 1997, 14) is now reduced to souvenirfragments. The image conjured is that of a rummage sale in which the GDR is being metaphorically sold off piece by piece: Auf Tücher oder Zeitungen gebreitet, lagen gewichtige Batzen und winziger Bruch. Einige Händler boten drei bis fünf Fragmente, keins größer als ein Markstück, in Klarsichtbeuteln an […ein Stück] sollte dem Andenken dienen (Grass 1997, 14).

Forestalling any suggestions that the protagonist might somehow be perversely nostalgic for the Wall, the text makes clear that it is not the actual dismantling of the Wall, but that it is the West that is determining the historical memory of the GDR. Somewhat pointedly, Fonty refers to this “deconstruction” as “der von Westen her betriebenen Demontage” (Grass 1997, 7). There is no mourning the fall of the Berlin Wall, but there is a critical perception on how the reunification is proceeding. The text is critical of a pervasive reading of reunification as a new beginning from which references to the past sixty or so years of German history have been and can be easily removed. Ein weites Feld is pleading for a critical but sympathetic engagement with Berlin’s physical surface and with the memories attached to its fragmented topography. It is not only the protagonists who are critical pedestrians: The reader is invited to peruse the city and experience its patchwork of historical threads that are made visible, albeit only for the discerning reader, on almost every street corner, memories, it might be added, that are perceived as constitutive in the formation of individual and 17

Sontag, On Photography, 9.

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collective identities. The trope of pedestrianism in the novel illustrates for the reader the erasure of the city’s pasts and its memories through topographical re-signification. Even the Fonty’s family home-address was no longer guaranteed: ob es bei Kollwitzplatz und der gleichnamigen Straße bleiben würde, war zu Beginn der allerneuesten Wechsel- und Wendezeit nicht sicher (Grass 1997, 177).

Between 1990 and 1994 the Berlin Parliament ordered the removal of 71 street names commemorating Communist and/or Socialist heroes.18 For the text at least, this erasure of historical references from the city is a process that is actively undermining historical and social continuity, against which it positions itself through topographic referencing which again make clear that it is the common connections and involvements with the city that give us collective identities and shared orientations and values.19 It is commonly understood that to be part of a public or social collective always presupposes an “ability to experience things that happened to groups to which we belong long before we even joined them as if they were part of our own personal past.”20 The novel posits the paternoster lift (a lift that consists of a chain of open compartments that move slowly in a loop up and down inside a building without stopping) as a counter-position to the processes of historical erasure. As the structural centerpiece of the former National Socialist Air Ministry it functions in the text as a reminder of the past while also serving as a recognizable and integral presence in the day-today business of the people working in the building: “Im Paternoster geeint. Vom Reichsmarschall bis zum Chef der Treuhand” (Grass 1997, 568). The building in question was commissioned in 1938 by the then head of the German Air force, Reichsmarshall Göring, for whom Fonty also worked as a reporter. Following the collapse of Nazi Germany, the building was requisitioned by the East German State to house eleven government 18

“Whenever a system of rule dissolves or is overthrown, the justification for its monuments - at least those which served to legitimize and foster its rule - no longer exists.” Mitteilung des Abgeordnetenhauses von Berlin, Juni 1992. Abgeordnetenhaus von Berlin – 12. Wahlperiode: Drucksache 12/2743. 19 “Die Namen von Straßen, Statuen oder Denkmälern sind Bestandteil der individuellen und kollektiven Identität. […] Die Gesamtheit der Straßennamen bildet eine Geschichte, mit der man sich identifizieren soll.” Robin, Berlin: Gedächtnis einer Stadt, 169. 20 Zerubavel, Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past, 3.

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departments. However, in 1990, it was transferred to the so-called Handover Trust, a department created by the former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to oversee the re-appropriation of land and properties illegally requisitioned by the East German government in 1949. At the time of the text, Fonty is employed as a mail-messenger in the Handover Trust and thereby also serves to underline historical continuity. The metaphorical function of the paternoster outlines the protagonist’s own concept of time: “Er begriff die Mechanik der Wende in Gestalt eines rastlos dienstwilligen Personenaufzugs. Soviel Größe. Soviel Abstieg. Soviel Ende und Anfang” (Grass 1997, 568). Its grinding course through the building accords the text a visceral image of endlessly recycled time, while providing the narrative with a textual space to perform cyclical history through palimpsest-like images that simultaneously portray historical as well as contemporary events on one temporal plane “Neben Ulbricht saß Goebbels, der Kommunist neben dem Nazi, der Spitzbart neben dem Klumpfuß” (Grass 1997, 567). The turning point (Wende) refers to the point at which the lift quite literally turns to begin its downward journey, but is surely intended also as a pun on the German Wende, the term commonly used to describe the events following the fall of the Berlin Wall. According to the logic of the text, the Wende is not a unique moment, but just another moment of recycled time. Even (sic) in times of change, “[I]rgend etwas bleibt immer unversorgt liegen” (Grass 1997, 91). But as the numerous references to the past and to the memories of those pasts testify, history is always more than just recycled time and the Paternoster’s function as a metaphor for such cyclical processes is inevitably limited. As a machine it is destined to run its grinding course predictably and mechanically. In the end, the lift is set alight by a desperate arsonist hoping to destroy a number of Stasi files buried in the basement of the building—a desperate attempt to leave the past in the past. But both the lift and the building as with all of the other historical signifiers in the city are uncovered for the reader through what I shall call interpretative pedestrianism—the novel’s real counter to historical erasure. It is indirection, non-emphatic meanderings that are the hub for the portrayal of time in Grass’s text. The nerve centre of Ein weites Feld is the resonant and circumstantial historical perception of the East, namely its unique identity, as registered by the protagonists in their “experience” of the city. This singular perspective on Berlin in the mid 1990s is not one shared by other younger German writers on Berlin. Tanja Dückers narrative unfolding of Berlin’s topography is certainly less motivated by a desire to

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renegotiate the German-German pasts. This much less complex Berlin narrative, Spielzone, ambiguously rejects perceptions of Berlin as a historically saturated and inscribed site. In addition to this seemingly ahistoric focus, East Berlin is also not a site uniquely inscribed by the forty-plus years of the Berlin-Berlin division. In contrast to Grass’s grandfatherly walking archive, the protagonists in Spielzone reject outright any moral or aesthetic insistence to interpret and read the city’s histories topographically. The city-text is now an un-inscribed blank sheet—an illusionary “ground zero” inhabited by a generation that, for this text, will have no truck with the past, at least with the meta-narratives of twentiethcentury German history. Such, as it were, ahistorical portrayals reflect a literary development of a generation of young writers for whom the onset of the 90’s meant more than just the end of the 80’s.21 This new decade also suggested liberation from the corset-aesthetics of the post-war period, a Gesinnungsästhetik that prescribed (West) German literature’s obligation to a working-through and remembering the crimes of National Socialism. Indeed, it is tempting to claim that Frank Schirrmacher’s hope for a new German literature, apolitical and unshackled by a West German Gesinnungsästhetik has finally been answered. If West German literature had served as a production site of West German identity and as Stephen Brockmann claims, as “instrument and mirror of the collective consciousness,” this new reunification literature would indeed herald a new beginning and liberation from “[d]ie Vergangenheit, die nicht vergehen will.”22 Although the novel’s concern is with a specific younger generation, this non-engagement and refusal to experience Berlin’s pasts topographically does not mean that the novel is in any way ludic or rejects history absolutely. There indeed are references to Germany’s pre- and post division pasts and what finally emerges is not a narrative amnesia, but a narrative act of exploring a generation that believes itself to live in a condition of amnesia. A look at the German feuilletons between 1995 and 2000 reveals that a wave of younger German authors began to dominate Germany’s literary scene during this period: the themes in their Berlin portrayals are the recent fashions as well as an unremitting preoccupation and fascination with being young and hip in the city. The drive for writers of this new generation – Wladimir Kaminer, Frank Rothes, Tanja Dückers, and 21

Baßler, Der deutsche Pop-Roman, 9. Brockmann, Literature and German Reunification, 73. See also: Nolte, ‘Die Vergangenheit, die nicht vergehen will’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 6th, 1986. 22

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Florian Illies, to name but a few – appears to be in detailing the quotidian, urban experiences of a recent “immigrant population” of young Germans coming from Bavaria, Swabia, and the Ruhr-region to the new capital. Their literary focus is the day-to-day lives of the city’s younger inhabitants, what they eat, with whom they sleep and how often, what they wear, and how they move about the city. A great number of these “Berlin authors” are themselves recent arrivals to Germany’s new metropolis, attracted by the promise of an exciting and for those coming from the West, unexplored almost mythic East. There is an undeniable emphasis on a continuous present, which is also developed in Spielzone both thematically and linguistically: the novel is related throughout in the present tense underscoring that there is very little memory in evidence. Critics of this literary movement argue that this type of literature is not only apolitical, but does not appear to have any particular agenda whatsoever.23 Spielzone was savaged in the media for reworking the ambiguity of reference in her portrayal of Berlin. One critic maintained that this emphasis on the supposed “Generation X, the Party-Kids and the Love Parade”24 betrayed an unparalleled and tendentious self-interest in a superficial cultural phenomenon. But such criticisms largely ignored the issue of whether this focus on the so-called “Generation X” might have suggested an attempt to liberate literary perceptions of Berlin from the otherwise saturated historic optic of the post-war generation by making a re-appropriation possible for a postWende generation. In contrast to common media interpretations of Dückers’ text, it can be argued that Spielzone is, however, critical of the ahistorical perceptions of its protagonists, it insists nonetheless on a very different literary representation and awareness of Berlin than the one offered by Grass. The text is divided into two sections each composed of ten ministories: the first section concentrates largely on Thomasstraße in Neukölln, one of West Berlin’s working class district. The second half is set on 23

One critic accused Dückers of “eine radikale Verantwortungslosigkeit.” Mersch, “Art & Pop – Kein Thema mehr?” Ästhetik und Kommunikation, 29:101 (1998), 46. 24 Sabine Doering, “Das Leben, eine Kleiderfrage,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 14, 1999. Marcel Diel argued elsewhere that contemporary German pop-literature is indeed a-historical: “tatsächlich gebärdet sich der heutige Pop als geschichtslos, plötzliche Erscheinung: pop is now. Dementsprechend spielt Geschichte für und in ihm keinerlei Rolle, sie existiert nicht.” Diel, "Näherungsweise Pop." Kritische Ausgabe: Zeitschrift für Germanistik & Literatur 4.1 (2000), 3.

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Sonnenburgerstraße in East Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg. The two streets offer conflicting social, generational and cultural portrayals that affect how the city is registered, experienced (erfahren) and lived. Prenzlauer Berg in East Berlin, at least for the protagonists, appears to reflect this promise of a new beginning, unhindered by the historical concerns that burden the “parent” generation in the West—this shift from West to East then, is an epistemic shift. In the first ten stories the themes of paralysis, homelessness and despair in its various guises in Neukölln dominate. Both Thomasstraße and Hermanstraße in Neukölln serve as metaphors for the paralysis of a society strangely unable to let go of the past, which is thematized, for example, in the portrayal of the older generation’s repeated discussions on National Socialism.25 The pervading atmosphere of anger, loneliness and resignation in all of the Neukölln stories is captured in the portrayal of an alcoholic caretaker rubbing his Venus flytrap against passers-by in the hallway, admonishing it to grab them: “faß, Hasso, faß!” (Dückers 1999, 97), and later by an arsonist killed by his own fire in the attic of an apartment building – his naked charcoaled body closes the novel’s section on Neukölln. These vignettes function as sociogrammes of a specific group of people in an area of Berlin that appears to have remained problematically unchanged by the Wende. In keeping with this representation of Neukölln as a locus of historic paralysis, a significant number of the first ten stories take place in a cemetery. Two of the Neukölln stories develop metaphors of loneliness and paralysis through Rainer, a young man who walks across the city looking for his partner who left him. Wherever he goes during his walks he inscribes the city with his memories of Julia: “Dort ritzt er mit seinem Hausschlüssel an die Wand: ‘Julia, ruf mich doch an, 6213594 Dein R’” (Dückers 1999, 51). This act of inscribing the city transforms the topography into an architectural memento and has less to do with Julia (he later meets another woman, is abandoned, and pursues the same scriptural wanderings) and more to do with his own deracinated existence in the city and his ultimate desire to be localized within a social framework, “Rainer dachte immer, wenn er eine neue Freundin hätte, würde er wieder seßhaft, würde zu Hause CDs hören und Kerzen anzunden” (Dückers 1999, 52). His perambulations are the walks of someone hoping to find not so much

25

The 12 year old Laura is invited by her parents to spend and evening together: “willst du nicht mal einen Abend mit uns hier sein? Es gibt im Fernsehen gerade eine sehr gute Sendung über die Gedenkstätte Plötzensee” (Dückers 1999, 20). Her parents are portrayed in the text as stereotypical of the German ‘68 generation.

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Julia but himself, but he is constantly thwarted by his past memories.26 The act of inscribing his name might be understood as his need to belong. The cemetery underpins a longing for belonging paradoxically through a semiotic absence. The one important person in his life appears to have been his grandmother. She was buried in the cemetery: Meine Großmutter war auch hier auf dem Friedhof,…aber ich konnte das Familiengrab nicht mehr bezahlen… und jetzt gibt’s das Grab nicht mehr…war ein schönes Grab (Dückers 1999, 66).

The cemetery functions here on two levels: Rainer is drawn to it because of his grandmother who counterbalances the deracination that marks his life in Neukölln and his apparent non-connectedness to his own immediate family and as such is therefore a metaphor for longing, but the absence of his grandmother’s human remains further underscores his non-belonging. That which draws him to the cemetery is not there. It is this tug-of-war attraction and frustration that ultimately paralyzes Rainer because he is unable to leave a site to which he does not fully belong. Beyond the Rainer episode, the cemetery functions as a metaphor for historic paralysis and a mirroring of the social realities of the neighborhood, suggesting an inability to move forward. The cemetery is then not a neutral site as Corinna Heipcke argues, but resembles something akin to a pluralist space in which it is possible to juxtapose several conflicting sites as well as their meanings.27 In every culture, besides those “normal” and dominant spaces, other sites seem to exist in which the normal socio-cultural relationships are represented, put in doubt, and reversed. An understanding of the formation and working of such sites would permit an analysis of the social and cultural formation of identity. Spielzone portrays the cemetery as a site of juxtaposed realities that somehow co-exist within its walls and therefore justifies an interpretation of the graveyard as a Foucauldian heterotopic site.28 As a 26

“Hinter einem Fenster im ersten Stock sieht er ein bis zur Decke reichendes dunkles Holzregal, auf dem sich allerhand Fläschen und Dosen und ein Totenkopf befinden. Auf den Schädel ist mit großen roten Buchstaben “INRI” geschrieben, nein, “INGRID,” er hat sich verguckt” (Dückers 1999, 49). The reference to Christ, however mistaken, possibly underscores the absence for Rainer of even a metaphysical consolation – his longing is absolute and his search will offer no answers or way out. 27 Heipcke, ‘The new Berlin-Roman as paradoxical genre’, 53. 28 I refer here to Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, which attempts to understand the socio-cultural spaces of difference and heterogeneity. Such sites make it possible for society and the individual to exist ‘inside a set of relations that

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site of longing and unfulfilled desire, the interaction between the cemetery and the inhabitants of Neukölln also invites an interpretation of the social and cultural identity of the district, allowing for the function as a representative instance. The cemetery is a “real place,” but at the same time a “counter-site,” in which other possible uses “are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted” (Foucault 1986, 23). Depressed by such scenes of violence and hopelessness, Katharina, a student protagonist who appears in both sections, shifts the narrative from Neukölln in West Berlin to Prenzlauer Berg in the East. East Berlin embodies for her the promise of a new beginning: it is a perception of Berlin that will radically alter how the city is experienced and lived by this younger and historically indifferent generation: “terms such as ‘East’ and ‘West’ are really out-dated. Here something new, something different has emerged” (Dückers 1999, 156). This other thing is an illusion of Berlin – post-political, post-Wall, post-Cold War—an urban blank space semantically cleansed of the past. This shift in perception is an epistemic shift: knowledge gleaned from visual and importantly physical encounters with Berlin’s urban fabric is significantly altered when compared with the plethora of historical Berlin novels written after reunification, such as Grass’s Ein weites Feld. In contrast to Grass’s portrayal, the East is now the locus of tabula rasa—a new beginning for the historically mottled city. Es gefiel uns so gut, die weißen Wände, die Kisten, nichts außer meinem Bett und der Vorstellung, wie es hier mal sein könnte. Drinnen die Wohnung noch unfertig und draußen die neue Stadt (Dückers 1999, 107).

A reading of her new apartment as a metaphor for an unfinished East would not be mistaken: the analogy between the two sites lies in their state of newness and future promise. The white walls are similar to the blank urban spaces outside waiting to be reconstructed through an imaginative act—it is simply a matter of unpacking the boxes and beginning anew. For Katharina, East Berlin is “eine wunderbare Grauzone, nicht mehr Osten, noch nicht Westen, genau richtig, um sich selber auszutesten” (Dückers 1999, 108). The old East-West fears have dissipated and the attraction to delineates sites which are irreducible to one another and absolutely not superimposable on one another’. Foucault, “Of Other Spaces,” 23. I disagree with Foucault’s watertight subjects of heterotopia in which various realities seem to exist in a quasi block-like construction and argue instead that the boundaries between such realities, at least in the text discussed above, are more fluid and less clearly defined.

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this now as yet undefined zone is that it is “spannend, grotesk, extrem” (Dückers 1999, 60)—but it does not remind them of the past. The characters continually resist all historical complexities. Ada, a protagonist in the second section, claims that her disinterest is justified because there is already too much history in the city and elsewhere: ü-ber-all in der Stadt stehen Denkmäler rum…und in der Schule fünfmal den Zweiten Weltkrieg diskutiert…. Nee, is…alles noch ziemlich backward (Dückers 1999, 154).

In an echo of the revisionist debates in the 1990s, she historicizes the past: it has already been dealt with she will argue, and it is now time to move on. This rejection of historical engagement with the city is made clear again through her engagement with Berlin’s topography: Abends liefen wir über mehrere Hausdächer in der Tucholskystraße, sahen die goldene Kuppel der Synagoge ganz…unter uns donnerte eine TripHop-Party, blau leuchtete der Hamburger Bahnhof (Dückers 1999, 108).

Whereas Fonty would have given a detailed if not a laborious historical account of this once Jewish district, Ada and her friends are engaged by its immediate surface of blue lights and vibrating music, even if the associations of Tucholsky, the synagogue and the station evoke clear historical references. Further, this rebellion against such interpretative obligation is enacted through their engagement with the city, namely from above, insofar as they reject the notion of the cartographic nature of the city. Berlin is erratically perceived and randomly registered, as with the Grass text, but there are no further reflections on what is seen. It is an advocacy of an alternative way of negotiating the city that is extended to the people who live in it. Katharina’s hope of self-experimentation, for example, is linked to her perception and experience of East Berlin. The East is a grey-zone, something that can be constantly reconfigured, and by extension, identity and sexuality, are shown to be equally plural and malleable. The protagonists equate the changeability of the city, as witnessed by the massive restructuring, with seemingly infinite possibilities of self or being in the world. This awareness of identity as something that is unfixed and, beyond the immediate realm of interpretation, is pursued through two protagonists in their early 20s. Both embody the eponymous play-zone associated with Prenzlauer Berg and insist on playing with their gendered appearances. Bored with his present “self,” one male character remarks that “ich hatte

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mal wieder Lust, mich als Mann zu verkleiden” (Dückers 1999, 130). Felix and Kiki change their disguises and cross-dress frequently; they perform gender impermanence by making gender-play synonymous with current fashions and trends. According to Felix man [wird] die Frauen vollständig abschaffen. Die jetzige Mode macht aus Männern Jungen, aber aus Frauen keine Mädchen, sondern auch junge Männer, das ist gut so, sieht einfach besser aus (Dückers 1999, 134),

this is a clear nod to the dominance of the simulacra as well as a rejection of any professed stable identity. In a similar vein, Ada insistently forces confrontations of essentialized femininity and gender performance in all of her sexual and non-sexual encounters. The androgynous Ada is caught between gender games that allow boys to become girls or vice-versa and she finds a politicization of the female body as deeply alienating as she finds the reconstruction/ gentrification of the East.29 In defiance of this singular logic of sexual identity, she brutally mutilates her own body. In doing so, she attempts to redefine her own gendered body as a heterogeneous and strangely genderless site. At the moment in which her male friend arrives dressed as a woman, Ada removes a knife from her pocket, lifts up her t-shirt and cuts off the nipple of her left breast—this act re-appropriates her body and her gender-based identity and liberates it from the dominant performance: “Von links beinahe wie ein Junge, von rechts wie ein Mädchen, und in der Mitte bin ich” (Dückers 1999, 128). A physical middle point echoing Prenzlauer Berg’s undefined “Grauzone.” Her relationship to her body is problematized in the same way as her interaction with the city. In relation to the city she transforms open spaces into private/public ones (such as the transformation of a building courtyard into a private “internal” space).30 She “poaches” her body in the same way she poaches the city: she makes 29

In the many instances of Ada”s sex-games, the gender of the sexual partner becomes increasingly insignificant, or at least something that is not considered permanent and fixed. “Schließlich knien sich Ada und Nils nebeneinander auf den Boden, ihre Körper sehen fast gleich aus, ihre schmale Hüften, ihr haarloser Anus, ihre kindlichen Schultern. Moritz schließt die Augen und weiß nicht mehr, in wen er eigentlich eindringt” (Dückers 1999, 116). That their bodies are only almost the same underlines that rather than claiming to have become male or female, the gender performance permits a temporary blurring for the duration of the game. 30 de Certeau refers to this reappropriation of the city as “poaching,” which suggests that it is possible to “use” the city is unconventional ways. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 98.

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possibilities “exist as well as emerge,” namely, a non-definable but potentially rich middle (de Certeau 1984, 98). That is, she makes possible a space in the city in which if not an authentically, at least a semantically freer self can temporarily exist. The post-reunification generation in Spielzone celebrates East Berlin as a site promising a cultural and historical new beginning: it is a promise of a new beginning that extends to the historical city as well as the people living in it. The protagonists are part of a generation that longs to be free from a perceived (historical) paralysis of the parent generation. The textual performance of a (generational) rupture with the past and its metanarratives is clearly present, even if the novel at times maintains an ironic distance to the characters: The portrayal of Berlin in Dückers’ novel negates historical reckoning and thus refutes all absolute representative privileging, even the transitory and a/historical ones pursued by the protagonists. In contrast to this perhaps radical perception of the city, I have tried to demonstrate why Grass’s novel pleads for a form of historical consciousness in relation to the city: it convincingly argues why those traces of the past are contemporarily (if not ontologically and socially) significant, recalling Lapham’s remark, “we have nothing else with which to build the future except the lumber of the past.” It is however possible to take issue with Grass’s historicity insofar as it is profoundly intimate: it presupposes a learned familiarity with German and European history, not to mention a detailed knowledge of Berlin and its landmarks. This intellectual intimacy ultimately thwarts the claims that the only way to truly know a city is to critically and consciously engage with its complex layers. There is the danger, no matter how learned, of being simply off the mark. Further, even though Fonty’s historical perspective may be frustratingly limited, it is one that nonetheless makes clear that to ignore the past might possibly deny many East Germans their historical and collective identity. The comparative approach taken here has attempted to demonstrate that representations of post-reunification Berlin are still “ideologically” and artistically fraught. Almost 20 years after reunification there remains a tension between a perceived obligation to the past and the desire to “contextualize” it and move beyond this aesthetics of conscience that has marked largely West German literature since 1945. It remains for me to add that there are of course tensions within the generational groups I have brought together. If history for Grass is an ontological and national necessity, for Martin Walser (Grass’s contemporary) it has become a moral club that unfairly thunders down on the Germans to remind them of .

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a mythic collective guilt. Equally, there are younger post-wall writers for whom the past is a difficult but strangely necessary collective and intellectual burden. Nietzsche might be right that “it is characteristic of the Germans that they never stop asking ‘What is German?’”31, but this questioning and the ideological tensions they produce are fruitful: they make possible a re-cognition of Berlin as a site that is intimately linked to the people who live in it. In every city there are sites that remind us that we belong to a wider cultural and social framework, but there are also sites in which unique individuality is possible, if only momentarily.

Works Cited Primary Sources Grass, Günter. Ein weites Feld. München: DTV, 1997. —. “Schreiben nach Auschwitz” Werkausgabe in zehn Bänden, vol. XI. Hg. Volker Neuhaus. Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1987. Dückers, Tanja. Spielzone. Berlin: Aufbau, 1999. Illies, Florian. Generation Golf. Eine Inspektion. Berlin: Argon, 2000.

Secondary Sources Augstein, Rudolph. “Gnade der Stunde Null.” In Der Spiegel, April 16, 1990. Baßler, Moritz. Der deutsche Pop-Roman. München: DTV, 2003. Broadbent, Philip. “Generational Shifts: Representing Post-Wende Berlin.” In New German Critique. No.104, (forthcoming in 2008). Brockmann, Stephen. Literature and German Reunification. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. by Steven Rendell. Berkeley: U of Cal. Press, 1984. Diel, Marcel. "Näherungsweise Pop." In Kritische Ausgabe: Zeitschrift für Germanistik & Literatur. 4 No. 1, 2000: 3-7. Doering, Sabine. “Das Leben, eine Kleiderfrage,” In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 14, 1999. Duve, Freimut. “Böses Erwachen in der Stunde Null,” In Die Zeit, March 16, 1990. Freud, Sigmund. "Erinnern, Wiederholen und Durcharbeiten." Zur Dynamik Der Übertragung. Hg. Hermann Argelander, Frankfurt a/M: 31

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 138.

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Fischer, 2000. Grass, Günter, “Warum ich nach sechzig Jahren mein Schweigen breche. Eine deutsche Jugend: Günter Grass spricht zum ersten Mal über sein Erinnerungsbuch und seine Mitgliedschaft in der Waffen-SS.” In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 12, 2006. Habermas, Jürgen. Vergangenheit als Zukunft. Hg. Michael Haller, München: Piper, 1993. Habluetzec, Nikolows. “Proben für die Deutsche Stunde Null.” In Tageszeitung, March 16, 1990. Lapham, Lewis. Harpers Magazine, April 2006. Mannoni, Olivier. Günter Grass, L”honneur d”un homme. Paris: Bayard, 2000. Mersch, Dieter. “Art & Pop – Kein Thema mehr?” In Ästhetik und Kommunikation 29 No. 101, 1998: 37-47. Negt, Oskar. Der Fall Fonty: Ein weites Feld von Günter Grass im Spiegel der Kritik. Göttingen: Steidl, 1996. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. by Judith Norman. Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2001. Nolte, Ernst. ‘Die Vergangenheit, die nicht vergehen will’. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 6, 1986. Ricoeur, Paul. Memory History Forgetting. Chicago: U of Ch. Press, 2006. —. Das Rätsel der Vergangenheit: Erinnern - Vergessen - Verzeihen. Trans. by Andris Breitling. Essener Kulturwissenschaftliche Vorträge 2. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2002. Robin, Règine. Berlin: Gedächtnis einer Stadt. Trans. by Roland Voullié. Berlin: Transit, 2002. Schirrmacher, Frank. “Hetze? Die zweite Stunde Null,” In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 18, 1990. Siebt, Gustav. “Berliner Leben.” In Merkur 57 No. 4, 2003: 294-306. Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Picador, 1977. Zerubavel, Eviatar. Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past. Chicago: U of Ch. Press, 2003.

CHAPTER FOUR THE ZONENKINDER DEBATE: AN ANALYSIS OF MEDIA REACTION TO TWO POPULAR MEMOIRS WRITTEN BY EAST GERMANY’S YOUNGEST GENERATION OF AUTHORS1 JENNIFER BIERICH-SHAHBAZI

Die DDR war einfach noch nicht verschwunden. Sie hatte mit dem Fall der Mauer nicht, wie viele glaubten, ihren Hut genommen, sie war nicht weggegangen und hatte die Menschen an den nächsten, schon vor der Tür Wartenden abgegeben. Sie hatte sich nur verwandelt und war von einer Idee zu einem Raum geworden, einem kontaminierten Raum, in den freiwillig nur der einen Fuȕ setzte, der mit den Verseuchungen Geld verdienen oder sie studieren wollte. Wir aber sind hier erwachsen geworden. Wir nennen diesen Raum, fast liebevoll, die Zone. —Jana Henzel, Zonenkinder2

Friend or foe of the former East Germany, there are various ways to come to terms with its memory. Of course, most associations lean towards the negative. Some of the most pregnant memories of the former German Democratic Republic have been shown repeatedly in the western media in newscasts accessible to a vast majority of German citizens and around the world. Examples of such would be images of dilapidated housing, the uniform high-rises or the joyful masses of Germans dancing on a soon to be obsolete wall in the autumn of 1989. Those well-known East German 1

This article is a condensed version of a chapter in my dissertation East Skins/West Masks, which explores the way memories of East Germany have been reconstructed in memoirs, texts and newspaper articles post-1989. The version that appears in this collection has been edited to an appropriate length. 2 Hensel, Zonenkinder, 155.

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authors who practiced their talents despite oppressive controls on literature (Christa Wolf, Christoph Hein, etc.), and those who wanted to continue practicing their profession during the socialist rule, only truly attained the freedom to represent life behind the Wall after 1989. Like a sigh of pent up relief, in the years after 1989 there has been a flood of novels, accounts and memoirs of what life was really like in East Germany. In the past decade and a half individuals interested in life and experiences in the former GDR have had their suspicions confirmed again and again about a strict dictatorship associated with stereotypical markers such as Stasi spies, forced conformity to political ideals, inability to travel, and a multitude of other grim markers. The stories have been told and retold so they are cemented in our minds. As a result of these negative representations of the GDR in the media and literature, it is no surprise that there has been a huge debate in response to the apolitical memoirs and narratives about East Germany and its citizens published by that former country’s youngest generation. The recent stream of books on the literary market about daily life in East Germany by authors, born between roughly 1965 and 1975 and barely at an age of political consciousness when their country collapsed, are often dismissed by critics as a trend towards what is seen as the positive reconstruction of the GDR, or pejoratively called “Ostalgie,” which combines the German words for east and nostalgia. Particularly vulnerable to this criticism are narratives, which tend to avoid political themes, rather favoring subjects that deal simply with the daily life in East Germany and what it was like to be a citizen in that country. Examples of such books are (among others) Jakob Hein’s Mein erstes T-shirt (2001), Julia Schoch’s Der Körper des Salamanders (2001), Michael Tetzlaff’s Ostblöckchen (2004), Jana Hensel’s Zonenkinder (2002) or Claudia Rusch’s Meine Freie Deutsche Jugend (2003) that portray the ordinary experiences of East Germany’s last generation in the final years of the GDR. This paper will explore the reception of Zonenkinder and Meine Freie Deutsche Jugend in the media. While both memoirs retreat back to the experiences of each authors’ childhood and puberty, criticisms of Hensel’s Zonenkinder are much harsher than her peer Rusch. I contend that the harsher reaction to Zonenkinder is due to the less critical nature of her memoir. Hence, the criticisms say more about the critics’ expectations of how East Germany should be reconstructed, a reinforcement of the negative images of the GDR, rather than their opinions about the novel. The hegemony of one country over another, such as West Germany over the former East, commonly leads to a critical interpretation of the subjugated government. By avoiding political themes and traditional Western criticism of the

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communist government, Hensel disturbs the tradition of constructing the political loser in the negative. She consciously avoids this critical interpretation of the GDR in favor of a collection of memories, which support the idea that the members of her generation had common experiences that were not all necessarily negative. This is a position that many of the “Zonenkinder”, children who grew up in the former GDR, share. Before entering an in-depth discussion about Hensel’s and Rusch’s work, a discussion about the role of the youngest set of authors to emerge from the former East Germany is helpful in explaining their often apolitical interpretations of their birth country, which are different from their country’s more established authors. The number of young Germans to publish about their lives in the GDR suggests that the need to tell the story about their somewhat unremarkable childhoods is not a singular occurrence. Author Jakob Hein, born 1971, stands by his humorous representation of a childhood in East Germany by stating, “Mir ging es vor allem darum, das Normale zu illustrieren”3 And what was normal for Hein was not a feeling that he was continually spied upon by the Stasis or that he was repressed as a child. What emerges in his novel Mein erstes T-Shirt is a story about growing up in an interesting family within the framework of East Germany, but the story does not focus on the politics of the state. Rather, his is an entertaining coming-of-age novel that describes the anxieties and triumphs of childhood and adolescence common in Western literature. Michael Tetzlaff, a contemporary of Hein, shares a common topic with the author in his book Ostblöckchen. Other authors remind their audiences that the year of one’s birth is really important in the way that one conceives of the former East Germany. As Julia Schoch, born in 1974, stated in an interview in the newspaper Die Welt, “Es macht etwas extreme aus, ob man 1980, 75, 70 oder 1966 geboren ist. Das ist nicht in jedem Jahrzehnt so, aber in unserem Geburtsjahrzehnt ist das entscheidend.” 4 What she means is that the year one comes into the age of political consciousness as a youth is important to the way one conceives of East German society. That is, those born in 1970 experienced the GDR in a different way from those born a decade earlier or a decade later; individuals born a decade earlier had more experience with the political influence of a communist state on work, social relations and may have 3

Weidermann, “Zone Zeigen,” 23. “It was important for me to illustrate life as normal.” All translations are my own unless otherwise stated. 4 Schoch, “Generation Trabant,” 1. “It really makes a difference whether one was born in 1980, 75,70 or 1966. It is not like this in each decade, but it is signifigant in the decade we were born.”

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even benefited or suffered as a consequence to this relationship. From this it can be understood that well- known East German authors such as Christa Wolf or Herman Kant, both of whom lived their entire adult lives in the GDR, had thoroughly different experiences than those who were barely coming of age when East Germany collapsed. While authors of the youngest generation may not always share common experiences of life under the communist regime with older and more established authors, they do have one thing in common: many want to reinforce to their audience that their lives did not consist solely of negative experiences. Rather, their childhoods were made up of experiences that were worth remembering and sharing. Both Hensel’s Zonenkinder and Rusch’s Meine Freie Deutsche Jugend are thoroughly different attempts at recovering memories about their childhoods in East Germany. Hensel eagerly retrieves memories from her early days, which she enthusiastically describes as a “Märchenzeit” or like a fairy tale, while Rusch’s memoirs tend to suggest the narrowness of life in the GDR and reinforce stereotypes common to Eastern Block countries seen through the eyes of the West. And both books are first attempts for novice writers, each relatively successful, sending the young authors traveling around Germany on a full schedule of talk show circuits and book reading tours. The 26-year-old Jana Hensel decided to write Zonenkinder in response to the realization that she lacked the words to describe her former country; she was constantly trying to correct the negative stereotypes held by her foreign friends or even her friends from West Germany. In an interview published shortly after the debut of her book she reminds the audience that East Germany was more than a collection of negative stereotypes stating, “Auch an eine Diktatur gibt es private, unpolitische Erinnerungen—an Biographie, Herkunft, Heimat.”5 She recognized a gap in the written history of children and teenagers in the former East Germany. As a result, Hensel’s memoir records childhood experiences that had not previously been put into print. The springboard for Hensel’s book begins with the final days of the GDR. What she captures with her not so comprehending participation (she was only 13) in the Monday demonstrations in Leipzig is the drastic end to her youth, which she contends concluded with the unification of East and West Germany. What follows is a compilation of memories and activities in which Hensel and other East German youth participated. In Zonenkinder she reconstructs the 5 Hensel, “Fetisch DDR,” 154. “Even under a dictatorship there are private, unpolitical memories and there is biography, origin and a sense of country.”

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past that she and her peers willingly cast off after 1989 in an attempt to integrate into the unified Germany, thereby losing their collective identity as GDR children. She writes, Ich möchte wieder wissen, wo wir herkommen, und so werde ich mich auf die Suche nach den verlorenen Erinnerungen und unerkannten Erfahrungen machen, auch wenn ich fürchte, den Weg zurück nicht mehr zu finden.6

Out of this emerges the function of her book: an archive for lost or repressed memories, memories that Hensel retrieves in order to reconstruct a past. As an unspoken rule, this past, or history had been forbidden for East Germans in the years immediately following the Wende7 since they were made to feel that they should shed their backgrounds as GDR citizens, thus denying their shared experiences as soon as possible in order to integrate into the new unified and Western dominated Germany. What Hensel impresses on the reader throughout her book is that objects, rituals and activities, which people in the GDR associated with their childhood experiences, disappeared overnight. As an example of what was lost she writes, Ich erinnere mich nicht, wann es plötzlich keine Samstage mehr gab, an denen wir in die Schule gehen mussten. Nachdem die meisten Mitschüler es vorgezogen hatten, mit ihren Eltern in den Westen zu fahren, um das Begrüȕungsgeld abzuholen, und bestenfalls noch die halbe Klasse in die Schule kam, hatten irgendwann auch die Lehrer die Nase voll und wollten endlich ihre 100DM abholen. Da musste man die Samstage gar nicht mehr abschaffen; sie verschwanden einfach, ohne ein Wort zu sagen. Die Dienstagnachmittage bald danach, denn ohne AG Popgymnastik, Junge Historiker, Schach oder Künstlerisches Gestalten waren sie sowieso ein bisschen funktionslos geworden. Mittwochs um 16 Uhr ging ich auch nicht mehr mit Halstuch und Käppi zum Pioniersnachmittag, so wie die Groȕen nicht mehr zur FDJ-Versammlung gingen.8 6

Hensel, Zonenkinder, 14. “I would like to know again where we come from and will thus begin the search for lost memories and unrecognized experiences, even if, as I fear, I will not be able to find my way back.” 7 This term refers to the reunification process of East and West Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. 8 Ibid., 14-15. “I don’t remember when we stopped going to school on Saturdays. After most of my fellow classmates decided to go with their parents to the West in order to pick up their welcome money, and at best only half of the students made it to class, the teachers became fed up and wanted to pick up their 100DM too. Saturdays did not have to be officially abolished; they simply disappeared without a word. Tuesday afternoons disappeared soon after that too, as activities such as

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In this quote Hensel depicts a small number of the many activities which youths in the GDR were encouraged to take part. She emphasizes in the collection of memories, which she insists she shares with her peers, that their childhoods were filled with positive experiences rather than the stereotypically darker side of life associated with the GDR. The eight chapters in Hensel’s book reinforce that with the Wende came a radical caesura in the lives of all former GDR citizens, particularly for its youngest members. And Zonenkinder emphasizes this point by capturing memories of objects, events, clubs and groups that disappeared with the convergence of East and West Germany. The merit of Zonenkinder has been hotly debated in the media since it first was published in 2002. Every major newspaper and magazine in Germany, including the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Tageszeitung, Der Spiegel and Die Zeit reviewed Hensel’s memoir. In addition, there were reviews in the literary blogs of internet magazines and internet book retail sites. The debate centers around three main critiques. The first critique to emerge repeatedly is Hensel’s use of the “wir” or we pronoun in her memoir, which suggests a collective identity for her generation when referring to their experiences pre-Wende. The second investigation focuses on the wave of apolitical memoirs that have emerged about the lives of youth in the former GDR. Critics in the media complain that the young authors do not take the reality of life behind the Iron Curtain seriously. The third is the literary merit of her book overall; reviews of Zonenkinder were diverse. Critics were at odds with the quality of Hensel’s work and questioned the relevance of her memoir. Yet, the discord among the critics reveals something deeper than a disagreement about the quality: It exposes a discomfort with the positive childhood memories recalled in the memoir. The emergence of “wir” literature, the tendency of GDR authors to attribute their experiences to the experiences of the former citizens as a whole, sparked a contentious debate in the media. In an article about the wave of books published about East Germany, Volker Weidermann, editor of the FAZ and literature critic, tries to explain the phenomenon of the emergence of “wir” literature: Vor allem ist die Wir-Literatur eine Gemeinschaftsliteratur. Die DDRErinnerungsbücher, wie sie jetzt entstehen, sind auch Selbstvergewisserungsbücher, sind identitätsstiftende Gemeinschaftsbücher AG Pop Gymnastics, The Young Historians, chess or art class really had no point. Wednesdays at 4:00PM I stopped putting on my kerchief and cap and going to the Young Pioneers, just like older students stopped going to the FDJ meetings.”

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für eine Gesellschaft, die von einem Tag auf den anderen ersatzlos gestrichen wurde. Erinnerungsbücher an eine gute, eine schlechte, eine gemeinsame, eine verlorene Zeit. Gegen den Verlust.9

He attributes and seemingly defends the use of the “wir” pronoun by a generation of former East German citizens that lost its identity overnight and desperately tried to recover some of their commonality. Yet, in a generally negative article about Zonenkinder printed shortly after the book was published, Weidermann’s sympathetic tone, his tolerance for the unity of the members of a country who overnight ceased to exist, disappears. In the FAZ Sunday edition, Weidermann writes, “Ihr Buch ist erkennbar nach dem Vorbild-West, der Generation Golf von Florian Illies geschrieben, ein Generationsbuch, das beharrlich ‘wir’ sagt, wo ‘ich’ gemeint ist, und eine Gemeinschaft beschwört, die es in der Wirklichkeit nie gab.”10 His irritation at the suggestion that East German youth shared common experiences is apparent. In another FAZ article just weeks later, Peter Richter, among other negative comments, also expresses disapproval of the way Hensel forces the “we” pronoun and a feeling of unified experiences growing up in the GDR when he is convinced that she is in fact really talking about herself. He provocatively declares, “So schnell hat noch kein Hippie seinem Gegenüber das Du aufgedrängt, wie dieses Buch dem Leser Wir.”11 Similar to Weidermann, Richter makes it clear that he also objects to Hensel’s opportunistic use of the “we” pronoun. Kai Biermann, journalist for the Stuttgarter Zeitung, supports Richter’s critique, but takes his criticism even further. Entitled “Herzlich Wilkommen bei der Generation Wartburg,” Biermann’s article is dedicated completely to poking fun of Hensel’s repetitive use of the pronoun since the book, as he sees it, is a work of self-discovery with therapeutic means for the author rather than a collection of misplaced 9

Weidermann, “Zone Zeigen: In der Literatur ist die DDR wieder da – und so tot wie nie zuvor.” 23. “Above all, we-literature is the literature of the collective. The GDR memory books, as they have developed, are also self-assurance books. They are identity creating books for a community that found it had dissapeared overnight. Books of memory that recount a good, a bad, a collective and a lost time, which work against loss.” 10 Weidermann, “Glückskinder der späten Geburt.” 22. “Her book is similar to the book Generation Golf written by West German author Florian Illies, a generational book that persistently says ‘we’ where ‘I’ is actually meant and confirms a community that in reality never existed.” 11 Richter, “Die armen kleinen Gehirne: Was Kinder in der DDR so alles erdulden mußten, will Jana Hensel wissen.” L16. “No hippy has ever forced the du-form as fast as this book forces the ‘we’ on the reader.”

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memories dedicated to a lost generation. In Zonenkinder, Biermann finds countless errors, particularly in connection with Hensel’s use of the “we” pronoun. In response to a statement that she researched all her memories in order to make sure that she was not recalling experiences singular to her life, Biermann counters, “Und weil sie das so gründlich untersucht hat, wechselt sie in ihrem Buch immer wieder vom einsamen ‘ich’ zum allumfassenden ‘wir’ und beschreibt, was ein Zonenkind ist und wie es denkt. Entstanden ist eine Art gefühltes Lexikon der späten DDR und eine Beschreibung der Jana Hensel und ihresgleichen mit der Wende hatten.”12 What these comments have in common is an objection to the way Hensel takes the initiative to combine her experiences into those of a collective. There are a couple of explanations as to why there was such a negative reaction to Hensel’s decision to write a book that presumed a commonality of experiences for a generation. This is particularly curious because Florian Illies’ bestselling book Generation Golf, published in 2000, took the liberty of explaining the common experiences of West German youth born in the 1970s and liberally used the “we” pronoun; yet the publicity surrounding Illies’ book did not illicit the same uproar. In an article for Der Spiegel, Doja Hacker tries to explain why there has been such a negative reaction to Zonenkinder. She points out that while critics in the West often positively reviewed the book, East Germans critics launched an attack on the memoir and focuses on the debate that surrounded Hensel’s use of the ‘we’ pronoun in her book.13 The uproar about the use of the “we” pronoun became such an issue that Hensel and her publisher began to speculate on its impact. An interview by Hacker in the aforementioned Spiegel article with Hensel and Alexander Fest, director of the Rowohlt-Verlag, which published Zonenkinder, reveals that both were surprised with the strong reaction against the use of the “wir.” Fest suggests that the reaction to Hensel’s book by East Germans, in contrast to West Germans, is the following: in West Germany, where society is based on the interests of the individual, people are happy to find something that they have in common with each other, but in the East, which was based on the collective, the “we” idea has been branded as a negative thing. Thus the critical reaction of (former) East Germans to the 12 Biermann, “Herzlich Wilkommen bei der Generation Wartburg.” “And because she researched this so well, she constantly changes from the lonesome I to the allencompassing we, and describes what a Zonenkind is and how it thinks. What is created is a type of lexicon of the late GDR and a description of what Jana Hensel and her peers experienced with the fall of the Berlin Wall.” 13 Hacker, “Der umstrittener Bestseller-Erfolg der jungen Leipzigerin Jana Hensel.” 138.

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“wir” pronoun is its connection to the collective in the GDR. This is an example of one of the many negative stereotypes, which former citizens of East Germany tried desperately to shed in the 1990s. It is therefore interesting to note that some of Hensel’s harshest critics in the media, such as Peter Richter and Kai Bierman, are also peers of Hensel, both born around the same time in East Germany. An additional premise concerning the media’s negative reaction to the “wir” pronoun has to do with Ernesto Laclau’s theory of hegemony. In his contributions to the book Contingency, Hegemony and Universality he offers a model of how members of an oppressed group become complicit in their own oppression in a process of disidentification from their former country. Laclau’s interpretation of Marx’s notion of the notorious crime is a particularly useful way to understand this process of identification with a new identity by means of disidentification with the old. He relies on an assertion by Marx and states, “a particular estate must be looked upon as the notorious crime of the whole society, so that liberation from that sphere appears as general self liberation.”14 What he means is that a community that is identified with a crime must refuse to admit that it participated in the crime. In this way a community distances, or disidentifies, with its former self and takes on a new identity. Former East Germans were convinced that they needed to shed their identity as citizens of the communist GDR as quickly as possible and forget their own histories in order to fit into the capitalist dominated West German states. That is why the 1990s are often referred to as a time of assimilation for East Germans into western culture, which assumes in part that they have shed a part of their past in order to fit into the future. When the “wir” pronoun is used in Hensel’s book, it dredges up old associations that former East Germans worked so hard to forget, thus stirring up controversy where controversy was never intended. This would explain the negative reaction of journalists born in the “New Territories,” such as Richter and Biermann. Their successful assimilation into a unified Germany in the 1990s required a disidentification with the former system, however unconscious this process may have been. Journalists such as Weidermann who, born in the West in 1969, came from within a political system that acted as the antithesis of the East, teaching its citizens from the beginning that anything associated with the communist system could not be good. Therefore even positive accounts of East Germany are suspiciously viewed. 14 Laclau, ‘Identity and Hegemony: The Role of Universality in the Constitution of Political Logics’ 55.

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The second debate, which arose out of Zonenkinder, was the criticism that the book lacked a political perspective and tended to idealize a country that had so many negative attributes. However, idealization was clearly not Hensel’s intent. What the memoir does do is try to fill a gap in history for young former East Germans. For them there was no personal history because the 1990s were the years of forgetting, of suppression and years of trying to fit into West German society. One of the critiques that belong to this debate is the complaint that Hensel romanticizes her childhood. In a book review of Zonenkinder for Die Zeit, Nadja Geer writes, “Jana Hensel romantisiert im Nachhinein ihre Kindheit in der DDR und springt auf einen Zug auf, der mit der “Generation Golf” in der Westprovinz losgefahren ist – die einfallslose Tendenz von Jungautoren, das eigene Kinderleben und alles, was dazugehört zu stilisieren und zu konservieren.”15 This criticism suggests that Hensel has chosen to selectively represent certain more positive memories of her childhood, ignoring the darker elements of life in the GDR. Annette Ramelsberger, journalist for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, takes her argument further. In an article that degrades the Ostalgie movement altogether, she contends that those who are rediscovering East Germany in their books are those who were too young to experience it. Furthermore she asserts that they are looking for a cheerful past that never existed. To make her case she asserts: Wie im Kult-Film Matrix entwickelt die Erinnerungs-DDR ein Eigenleben. Die DDR in der Matrix wird ein aufregendes, revolutionäres Land, in dem sogar der Urlaub zugeteilt wurde und Parteikader entscheiden, ob jemand studieren durfte oder nicht. Jenes Land, in dem die Bürokratie als noch schlimmer empfunden wurde als die Stasi und in der die Farben zwischen mittelgrau und dunkelgrau changierten. Das allesfühlt sich nun nicht mehr bedrückend und begebend, sondern putzig, komisch, absurd. So schön fremd.16 14

Geer, “DDR-Safari; Jana Hensel schwarmt vom braven Osten.” “With hindsight, Jana Hensel romanticizes her childhood in the GDR and jumps on the bandwagon that was started with the Generation Golf book in the West – the unimaginative tendency of young authors to stylize and conserve their own childhoods and everything that goes along with these childhoods.” 16 Ramelsberger, “Warum junge Leute nicht nur im Osten die untergegangene DDR wieder toll finden.” “Like in the cult film the Matrix, memories of the GDR develop a life of their own. The GDR like the Matrix becomes an exciting, revolutionary country in which even vacation is distributed and the heads of the state decide who can go on to the university. This country, where bureaucracy often felt worse than the Stasi, and in which the colors changed from gray to dark

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What she essentially argues is that books like Zonenkinder, which seemingly ignore the dark realities of life in the former GDR, are written by young authors because they were too young to remember how terrible and mundane life in East Germany really was. This in turn reveals a conflict over reality; that is, whose memories should one rely on to reconstruct the past? In her resentment of such books she even goes so far as to accuse the authors of inventing a cheerful past in order to compensate for what is lacking in their own lives. Arguments such as Ramelsberger’s tend to ignore the fact that the age and the experiences of those born in the 1970s were extremely different from those born in earlier decades. The question that arises is the following: what would a 13 year old such as Hensel know about the unjustness of the East German government? One answer is that these young authors would have different memories of life in the GDR, such as childhood memories, which would not necessarily reflect the political awareness of East Germany’s older citizens. What one may consider is that Hensel reveals positive experiences particular to her age group. Yet why are these images of a happy childhood in East Germany so negatively received in the presses? To answer why positive memories of the GDR consistently receive negative reception, one can turn to Laclau’s theory of hegemony again. In what he describes as the dimension of power he states, “The ability of a group to assume a function of universal representation presupposes that it is in a better position than other groups to assume this role, so that power is unevenly distributed between various organisms and social sectors.”17 This means that members of a group, such as members of the former East Germany, can be convinced to accept the aims of a smaller group, such as the aims of West German politicians. The power that western politicians and their political parties assumed post-Wende gave them the advantage of being able to speak for the German people as a whole and their message was that everything associated with East Germany and its communist system was terrible. What was reaffirmed through political speeches, news reports and images of the media immediately after the fall of the Wall was that the GDR was, in fact, as bad as it was represented pre-1989. Rarely did the positive aspects of East German society surface in the media, such as the fact that children and young adults in East Germany were kept occupied by state sponsored after-school activities and groups, such as the Freie Deutsch Jugend, Junge Gemeinde or any sort of interest youth had

gray. All this no longer feels depressing, but rather cute, funny and absurd. So nicely strange.” 17 Laclau, 208.

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from music to math to theater clubs. As a result, the statistical number of youth delinquency, compared to West Germany, was significantly lower. Returning back to Laclau’s idea of the “dimension of power,” if the Western politicians in charge propagate their own agendas, which in part is to reinforce the idea that the Western capitalist system is the better system, there is little opportunity to offer that there were positive experiences in the GDR alongside the negative. When minority groups influence the beliefs of the majority, these principles are often reflected in dominant discourse. In this case capitalism, represented by Western politicians and the political system they support, becomes self-fulfilling because it demands relevance above any other system. Therefore, journalists in the popular and mainstream presses generally are forced by the owners of the media to conform to their standards of capitalism in order to maintain their positions. The work of critics, journalists and newspaper editors such Peter Richter, Kai Biermann or even Volker Weidermann reflect this cycle of capitalism. Since a positive portrayal of life in the GDR would come in direct contrast to the way capitalism functions, those voices that support capitalist ideals by rejecting any positive portrayals of communism and life in East Germany are the voices that are allowed to dominate the media. The third critique of Hensel’s Zonenkinder has to do with its significance as a voice of her generation by literary critics. There are dozens of reviews of Zonenkinder in the newspapers and magazines, but few actually tackle the literary relevance of the book in a meaningful manner. The reviews are often at odds with whether it has value as a work that finally puts the experiences of youth in East Germany into words and thus provokes conversation about a forgotten past, or if it is just a compilation of memories. Zonenkinder has also been criticized for its lack of sociological and historical perspective, although the book makes no claims that it is a scientific work. In the highly polarized debate there is much discussion about both the negative and positive aspects of the book. In an article for the Stuttgarter Zeitung, Eva Pfister writes about the advantages of Hensel’s book, noting that one of its strengths is that for the first time it describes the process of adaptation young people had to endure in order to fit into the new system.18 Journalist Reinhard Mohr points out that Hensel describes in a thoughtful manner the identity problems of citizens who from one day to another lost a way of life.19

18 19

Pfister, “Der Zukunft zugewandt.” Mohr, “Jenseits von Schkopau.” 196+.

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Yet many critics attack the lack of analysis of events represented in the Zonenkinder. For the newspaper Freitag published weekly in Berlin, Ingo Arndt writes, [..] für ein politisches-historisches Sachbuch, das Aufklärung … leisten könnte, erlaubt sich Jana Hensel einen erstaunlichen Verzicht auf Analyse. Schon mit dem Titel Zonenkinder steckt sie sich die im Westen gern benutzte Abwertungsvokabel demonstrativ als Müllbrosche ans Revers…Doch warum dieser Staat, der nachträglich zu einer Heimat mit schönem, warmen Wir-Gefühl romantisiert wird, gescheitert sein könnte, darauf verschwendet sie keinen Gedanken. Dissidenten, Grenze, Knäste und Wehrkunde kommen nicht vor. Unkommentiert findet sich ein Faksimilie ihrer Eintragung zum Tag der Volksarmee am 1. März im Schulheft. 20

The weakness Arndt sees is Hensel’s complete lack of interpretation of the events that she depicts. Peter Richter shares this criticism. In his article for the FAZ, he calls Zonenkinder a “launiges Retro-Mißverständnis” by an author who reveals memories she should rather forget.21 Furthermore he faults Hensel for creating good and bad lists of what she remembers from her childhood, which act as a sedative on the reader, rather than provoking curiosity about the era that could lead to further discussion. He ends his article by asserting that Hensel’s was a hastily put together work, published as quickly as possible in order to catch the wave of “Ostalgie” books so popular by readers. He contends, “Jana Hensel hat ein Buch über sich selbst geschrieben, das Zonenkinder heißt und jetzt den Platz versperrt für das Sachbuch, das zu diesem Thema, wenn man es ernst nimmt, dringend noch geschrieben werden müßte.” 22 The critique that commonly arises is that Zonenkinder’s material is too superficial in order to generate a discussion of the collective experiences and lost identity of East Germany’s last generation. 20

Arndt, “Der Setzkasten der Erinnerung.” “[...]for a political-historical specialized book, that could lend some explanation, Jana Hensel allows herself an amazing leeway to ignore any analysis. Already with the title Zonenkinder she tries to reverse the meaning of a negative term,...however, she wastes no time talking about why a country with such a warm we-feeling that is romanticised can collapse. Dissidents, barriers, prisons and military are not discussed. Without commentary a copy of an entry in her journal appears, which is about the Day of the Volksarmy on 1 March.” 21 Richer, “Die armen kleinen Gehirne: Was Kinder in der DDR so alles erdulden mußten, will Jana Hensel wissen.” “a temperamental retro-misunderstanding.” 22 Richter, 11.

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While Zonenkinder strikes a nerve among critics, its longevity on the bestseller lists in Germany attests to its popularity among readers. In a companion piece to Zonenkinder, entitled Die Zonenkinder und Wir, made up of a collection of articles about the book, the editor included a selection of letters to the author. Many of the fan letters thank Hensel for finally putting into words the childhood memories that had faded. One reader wrote, “Wir wollen die DDR weder verteidigen noch über Ost und West streiten. Wir wollen einfach unsere Kindheit nicht verstecken müssen, nur weil die Geschichte uns später gelehrt hat, dass der Staat, in dem sie stattfand, an sich nicht gut war. Wir wollen einfach nur zu uns finden und verstehen, wer wir sind.” 23 While critics often disapproved of Zonenkinder for a variety of reasons, it becomes clear that Hensel’s memoir provided a catalyst for a discussion about the GDR’s last generation, a generation whose existence had almost faded out of memory. One year later, among a flood of “Ostalgie” books, Claudia Rusch’s memoir Meine freie deutsch Jugend found its way onto the book market.24 While Rusch’s book, an account of her childhood in the GDR, is often compared to Hensel’s Zonenkinder due to its similarity in topics, no similar uproar in the media accompanied its publication. Meine freie deutsche Jugend describes Rusch’s experiences growing up in East Germany. In her book Rusch shares 25 short stories out of her life as a young citizen of the GDR. She describes her school years, summer camps and first loves. Yet there is one main difference in her memoir. In her book the reader is introduced to a world where Robert Havemann, a sharp critic of the East German government, is a close friend of the family and Stasi observation is a daily occurrence. She recounts a humorous story about how she thought that until her teens the German work for cockroaches (Kakerlaken) meant Stasi spies and reveals the difficulties she encountered when trying to attain her high school diploma because of the oppositional position of her parents to the government. Although Rusch comes from a family who was active in the oppositional political environment in East Germany, she is not sharply critical of the GDR. In fact, her refusal to include any critical introspection into her experiences is one of the only negative critiques of her memoir. In the Frankfurter 23

Kraushaar, ed., Die Zonenkinder und Wir, 91. “We don’t want to defend the GDR, nor do we want to argue over the East and the West. We simply don’t want to have to hide our childhoods, only because as we later found out the country, in which we lived, was bad. We simply want to find ourselves and understand who we are.” 24 Rusch Meine freie deutsche Jugend.

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Rundschau Erika Deiss writes, “Claudia Rusch hat eine Menge zu erzählen, auch wenn Reflexionen, die Problematisierung des Erlebten, ihre Sache nicht ist.”25 In Deiss’s review Rusch’s lack of critique of the GDR is lightly brushed aside, which is the exact opposite way that Hensel’s book was received. Rather, critics assert that Rusch understands the limitations of the GDR and writes that from childhood on that she felt the system would not allow her to reach her potential. The only time that she angrily speaks of East Germany is in a chapter where she narrates that she had long planned to marry a foreigner in order to be able to leave the country, yet reveals her misgivings about leaving her country and the possibility of never seeing her parents again. “Es gibt Dinge, die kann ich der DDR nicht verzeihen. Das Zerstören von Familien gehört dazu…Diese System brachte Eltern dazu, ihre Kinder für immer wegzugeben. Solche Wunden sind nicht zu heilen.”26 Here she refers to the relationships people had to give up if they decided to leave the GDR. In this way Rusch’s book recounts not only happy childhood memories of life in East Germany: its contents reveal the complexity and the contradictions with the politics of the country. The fact that Meine Freie Deutsche Jugend includes socio-political critical elements within its narrative, however few, appealed to literary critics. And an afterword by Wolfgang Hilbig, a well-known GDR author and an outspoken critic of the East German government, gives Rusch’s memoir validity as a critical work. Hilbig praises the book for its clarity and the author’s ability to represent the private lives of East German citizens. He admires her stories for the intimate perspective she gives the readers into the lives of individuals, whose stories he maintains are often misrepresented or not told at all. Yet Hilbig’s afterword also heavily references his contentious relationship with his former country, which suggests to the reader that the author identifies with the oppositional elements in Rusch’s memoir. Literary critics noticed this view in their reviews of the book after it was published. That is, rather than placing value on the perspective that Rusch gives readers into the everyday lives of youth in the GDR, the majority of reviews of Meine Freie Deutsche Jugend focus primarily on the fact that Rusch comes from a background that includes dissident parents and friends. One reviewer gets straight to 25

Deiss, “Ddädderähh? Non merci! Claudia Ruschs “Freie deutsche Jugend” war nicht frei.” 11. “Claudia Rusch has a lot to tell, even if reflection and problematization of what she experienced is not her thing.” 24 Rusch, 134. “There are things that I can not forgive the GDR. The destruction of families belongs to this. The system encouraged parents to give away their children. Such wound can not heal.”

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the point when he states, “Von Hensel, die die Spiegel-Bestsellerliste unter die Sachbuchautoren verwiesen hat, unterscheidet Rusch, dass sie besser…schreibt und ihrer familären background im DDR-Widerstand hat.”27 Few critics will dispute that Rusch’s book has more literary merit than Hensel’s, but central to this statement is that Rusch comes from an oppositional background. Reviews of the book, which were overwhelmingly positive, concentrate more on Rusch’s biography than on the actual content, as previously noted.28 And where content is referred to, reviewers focus primarily on sections that talk about stereotypical experiences in the former GDR such as Stasi spies and the bleak daily life in a communist country, although this is hardly the material that gives depth to Rusch’s work. These are stereotypical elements that have been portrayed repetitively in the media. Rather, what gives Meine freie deutsche Jugend its complexity is the view into the life of an (almost) ordinary youth in East Germany’s final decade. To summarize I contend that Rusch’s generally positive reception in the media of Meine freie deutsche Jugend, in contrast to Hensel’s Zonenkinder, is due to the way her book includes oppositional elements to the political structures of East Germany and often criticizes or pokes fun of the contradictions within the communist system. This is a result of her personal background as a child of dissidents in the GDR and Wolfgang Hilbig’s afterword in her memoir. In contrast, Zonenkinder, while widely read by the public, was also widely disparaged by the media. I would like to offer that Hensel’s apolitical memoir of East Germany disturbs the way that citizens of Western countries understand communist systems. By describing events from her childhood that suggest satisfaction and even nostalgia for what has passed, Zonenkinder threatens the hegemonic structures of capitalist West over the former communist East. In addition, the negative reaction in the presses to Zonenkinder is a result of the confrontation with the disidentification process that took place in the 1990s. This conclusion is apparent in the reviews by critics in well-known media sources who themselves were born in the East but assimilated with their lives and jobs into West Germany, after the unification in the 1990s. 27

Jacobsen, “Rusch-Hour: Oder Noch einmal über das wahres Leben im Falschen.” “Rusch differentiates herself from Hensel, the Spiegel best-seller author, because she can write better and has a familial background in the GDRopposition.” 28 Examples of reviews that focus on Rusch’s biography are the following: (1) Ostwald, “Bananenlust und Hummerfrust.” (2) Deiss, “DDädderähh? Non merci!” 11. (3) Walter, “Kein FDGB-Urlaub in Kühlungsborn” 9.

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Works Cited Arndt, Ingo. “Der Setzkasten der Erinnerung,” In Freitag, 08 November 8, 2002, http://www.freitag.de/2002/46/02461501.php (accessed September 21, 2007). Biermann, Kai. “Herzlich Wilkommen bei der Generation Wartburg.” In Stuttgarter Zeitung, January 13, 2003, http://www.stuttgarterzeitung.de/stz/index.php (accessed September 21, 2007). Deiss, Erika. “Ddädderähh? Non merci! Claudia Ruschs “Freie deutsche Jugend” war nicht frei” In Frankfurter Rundschau Aug 30, 2003. Geer, Nadja. “DDR-Safari; Jana Hensel schwarmt vom braven Osten.” In Die Zeit Electronic. Staatsbibliotek zu Berlin. Dec. 12, 2002. Hacker, Doja. “Der umstrittener Bestseller-Erfolg der jungen Leipzigerin Jana Hensel” Der Spiegel, January 6, 2003. Hensel, Jana. Zonenkinder. Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rororo, 2002. —. “Fetisch DDR.” In Der Spiegel, August 25, 2003. Jacobsen, Dietmar. “Rusch-Hour: Oder Noch einmal über das wahres Leben im Falschen.” http://www.tour-literatur.de/rezensionen/ rusch_jugend.htm (accessed September 21, 2007). Kraushaar, Tom, ed. Die Zonenkinder und Wir. Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rororo, 2004. Laclau, Ernesto. “Identity and Hegemony: The Role of Universality in the Constitution of Political Logics.” In Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues of the Left. London: Verso, 2000. Mohr, Reinhart. “Jenseits von Schkopau,” In Der Spiegel, October 7, 2002: 196+. Pfister, Eva. “Der Zukunft zugewandt,” In Stuttgarter Zeitung, October 7, 2002. Ramelsberger, Annette. “Warum junge Leute nicht nur im Osten die untergegangene DDR wieder toll finden.” In Süddeutsche Zeitung Electronic. GBI Contentmachine, August 12, 2003. Richter, Peter. “Die armen kleinen Gehirne: Was Kinder in der DDR so alles erdulden mußten, will Jana Hensel wissen.” In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 11, 2002. Rusch, Claudia. Meine freie deutsche Jugend. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 2003. Schoch, Julia. “Generation Trabant.” In Die Welt [Hamburg] 11 September 11, 2003.

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Weidermann, Volker. “Zone Zeigen: In der Literatur ist die DDR wieder da – und so tot wie nie zuvor,” In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung March 3, 2002. —. “Glückskinder der späten Geburt,” In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 9, 2002.

CHAPTER FIVE OSTALGIE AS VERFREMDUNGSEFFEKT IN NEO RAUCH’S PAINTINGS BERET NORMAN

The 47 year old Leipzig painter, Neo Rauch1, would not normally be considered next to such an obvious Ostalgie2 persona as the 1988 Olympic gold medalist, Katharina Witt, who in 2003 was a moderator of the RTL television program called the “DDR Show: von Ampelmännchen bis zum Zentralkommittee.”3 His paintings are not as assessable as Ostprodukte and consumer-Ostalgie mainstays, like tiny Trabant replicas, Vita Cola posters or Mitropa coffee cups. However, within his work lies an implicit connection to Ostalgie. One finds an underlying role of Ostalgie in Rauch’s paintings through a Brechtian Verfremdungs-Effekt. My use of the broad term Ostalgie utilizes several sources. I refer to Paul Cooke’s description, in his article about the 1997 film Sonnenallee, of the Ostalgie “phenomenon” in which sentiments of “nostalgic underpinnings” fuse citizens of the former German Democratic Republic (henceforth, GDR) together with a feeling of “being ‘specifically East German’” (2003, 156). Cooke portrays Ostalgie as the “ostensibly caring, community-minded nature of the GDR society […] [the loss of which is] often lamented” (158-9). The concept of an “Ost-Identität” figures prominently within a Bayerischer Rundfunk report from 2003 in which the reporter visits an “Olle DDR” exhibit in a Neubauwohnung in Apolda; here the common history of GDR citizens is relived through products, appliances and architecture, and one comment in the guestbook reads, “Als alte Ossis hatten wir hier ein wenig das Gefühl, nach Hause zu kommen” (Bondy, 2003, 5). On a larger spectrum, one can link Ostalgie to the “cultural nostalgia” that critic Ben Brantley claims “is about comfort not 1

Neo Rauch was born in 1960 in Leipzig. Nostalgia for East Germany. 3 GDR Show: From Crosswalk Men to the Central Committee 2

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confrontation, and encourages consumers to relive an illusory time when things seemed simpler, lighter, more fun” (1). One will not find such sentimental longings as Ostalgie in Neo Rauch’s paintings. I suggest, however, that Rauch’s use of Ostalgie diverges from Cooke’s definition, strays from any specific focus on GDR products and undermines Brantley’s idea of comfort. Rauch’s Ostalgie appears as an artificial Socialist Realism. I read this faux Socialist Realism to be an analytic use of Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt–appropriated from theater into painting, which rouses critically aware viewers. Propelled by discussion of physical and figurative walls, I look at representations of walls in four paintings by Neo Rauch from 1995 to 2002 from the Bonnenfanten Museum catalogue (2002) and focus on one architectural use of walls in the GDR, the standardized apartment complexes, or Plattenbausiedlungen. These apartment buildings provided “jedem eine Wohnung,”4 and typify much of the Ostalgie in my interpretations. James Throgmorton discusses the idea of the durability of walls in a social manner, as he compares the use of walls as spatial and ideological dividers in an article about walls in 1950s and 1960s Berlin. Throgmorton contends that “walls […] maintain and enforce an internal sense of similarity, community, identity and security” (2004, 350). In order to discuss what I interpret as a divergent Ostalgie in these paintings and how the walls in them invoke an alternate sense of Ostalgie, I first provide a brief background of the Socialist Unity Party’s (SED) desired form of art, Socialist Realism, and also of Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt, from his theory of Epic Theater. The founding of the GDR in 1949 was built on a basis of cultural—not military—renewal; thus the SED labored to define what kind of culture would best propel the young, anti-fascist country into the socialist future of peace and prosperity. The desired art was useful art in which both clear positions on socialism and the social process of working-class-people’s lives prevailed. The GDR’s cultural policy focused on the term “Socialist Realism.” According to Andrej Zhdanov’s formulation at the Soviet Writers Congress in 1934, the Socialist Realist artist should portray reality with revolutionary development in mind:

4 “Jedem eine Wohnung” (later “Jedem seine Wohnung“) was a comprehensive program for building apartments in the early growth period of the GDR, 19501970.

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the truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic portrayal should be combined with the ideological remolding and education of the toiling people in the spirit of socialism.5

Thus within the GDR’s goal to re-educate citizens through culture, Socialist Realist art was to provide an important lens through which one should see the real movement of history, and its progress and hope, from the significant perspective of the proletariat. The exiled German dramatist and writer, Bertolt Brecht, who returned to the GDR in 1949, was also interested in this real movement of history as he continued his work on Epic Theater at his Berliner Ensemble theater in East Berlin. In this paper I employ Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt as an analytic, not a historic, tool. An extremely brief summary of Epic Theater lies in the contrast with what Brecht called the dramatic form of theater: instead of creating illusions and inviting the audience into them, Brecht’s Epic Theater demands that the audience see something in a new light; instead of allowing the audience members to identify with the figures’ emotions on the stage, Brecht’s Epic Theater asks that the audience members observe the figures with intellectual objectivity. One vehicle to prevent the audience’s identification with the story or with the figures and to awaken this active, rational audience is the Verfremdungseffekt or VEffekt. Through V-Effekte such as captions that tell the audience what will happen in the next scene, or songs that interrupt the plot, the audience members of a Brecht play are to think, “This can’t be happening. Something must change.” This leads to the question of how both of these ideas—Socialist Realism and Brechtian V-Effekte—are present in several paintings by Neo Rauch. Turning to four paintings by Rauch from the last decade, I will point out the divergent elements of Socialist Realism, how they represent items of Ostalgie, and lastly, how these Ostalgie-images serve as VEffekte.

5

In German: “Dabei muß die wahrheitsgestreue und historisch konkrete künstlerische Darstellung mit der Aufgabe verbunden werden, die werktätigen Menschen im Geiste des Sozialismus ideologisch umzuformen und zu erziehen” (Emmerich, 1989: 100; Schnell, 1993: 116-17).

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The 1995 painting, aptly titled, “Arbeiter” (“Workers”),6 is the best representative of faux Socialist Realism among the paintings I will discuss, and it contains an initially unremarkable use of walls. There are two male figures in the center of the painting—both are looking at their hands as they are busy with work. There is a counter or table in front of these men and a white building behind them, in which seven floors with windows— in distinctly nostalgic muted colors of yellow, orange or black—can be seen. This building is the first wall one notices—an architectural precursor to the Plattenbau buildings in several of the following paintings. The man in the foreground faces the viewer at a forty-five degree angle, has his back to the building and works at the counter. He wears an orange apron, robin’s egg blue pants, and a white shirt—the appearance of which looks gray and orange, as if the light changes it. The other man behind him stands perpendicular to the viewer and reaches toward a fifth floor (of the seven that are visible) window of the building in the background; he wears a white shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a red kerchief, a robin’s egg blue apron, black pants, and he holds a hammer in his right and a nail in his left hand. Both men wear five-to-six-inch-tall hats that resemble chef’s hats and are the same color as their skin: yellow. There are cables— one red, one blue and one yellow—that float from the sixth and seventh floors of the building in the back, and there is a thick white arrow in the foreground of the painting. This painting demonstrates some of the goals of Socialist Realism: one sees for instance socialist production in these two workers’ activities, and one identifies with these two skilled employees as they “toil in the spirit of socialism,” as Zhdanov requires. One can even make a case for the “revolutionary development” of their task—they are advancing (socialist) society by providing more apartments or offices in this building. But when one questions the main aspect of the Socialist Realism definition, i.e., the “truthfulness and historical concreteness,” there are no clear-cut answers, just questions. It is this act of questioning the painting’s content that uncovers the V-Effekte or alienation effects therein. The Ostalgie in this painting remains vague. Yet a broad interpretation finds that this simple image of two men in the warm, muted and nostalgic 6

For excellent color images of all four of Neo Rauch’s paintings, please see the catalog for this Bonnefanten exhibit listed in the Works Cited under Birnbaum or on the painter’s website: http://www.eigen-art.com/Kuenstlerseiten/Neo_Rauch/ Neo_Rauch_ENKatalog.html. Click on Bonnefanten “gesamt/total 10.8 MB” to download the file. The first painting, “Arbeiter” (Workers), is on page 27; “Festplatz” (Fairground) is on page 97; “Scala” is on page 18; and “Harmlos” (Harmless) is on page 99.

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colors of yellow and orange—popular in the 1960s and 1970s and which appear in all of these paintings—elicits here a dormant longing for the purposefulness and practical applications of traditional skills, for a clearcut task, for a feeling of the satisfaction in one’s work, and for the conviction that there are successful projects on behalf of the people. Plus upon further viewing one rethinks just what these men are wearing. The chef’s hats and aprons create an image of these men as socialist chefs: they follow the collective recipe that starts with “an apartment for everyone,” like in the Plattenbausiedlungen. This yearning as Ostalgie is a form of artificial Socialist Realism here—based upon these goals of a socialist future, and the Ostalgie becomes a V-Effekt, as one stops to think about the loss of this co-operative formula. Yet the two main V-Effekte center upon the appearance and the actions of these male workers and the subtle demarcation of another wall in the painting. At first glance each man’s body appears to be proportional or sized-correctly, but upon closer observation one notices that their arms are longer than they should be for the size of their heads; and their less than trim mid-sections present them as obvious deviations from the athletically strong and narrow-waisted, ideal socialist workers. Also, their skin color matches the yellow in other parts of the painting, but it provides the men’s complexions an unhealthy hue here. In general these two men appear aberrant: they are giant-sized, as the man in the back easily reaches to the fifth floor of the building on which he is working; they are illproportioned; and they are not bothered by the ribbon-like cables floating threateningly behind them. Again, further observation leads one to question their specific, if negligible, exploits. Upon this observation one concludes that these male figures’ actions contradict a simplistic interpretation. The man in the back is preparing to drive an unsuitably large nail into an inappropriate space: an intact window frame in the building. The white arrow in the foreground of the painting acts as a rather obvious V-Effect and changes how we view the man’s actions in the front; this arrow directs the viewer’s attention elsewhere, and points to how the man in front is not unwrapping new construction material but rather wrapping an old piece into a finished, boxed-up orange product to lay next to the one that is already lying on the counter. Thus the arrow, along with the big nail, upends the initial interpretation that the men are building this structure: instead they demolish it and wrap its pieces. And there is also another wall in the painting—located to the left of the men—which a faint vertical line depicts; so the men work on the small building while they are within a larger building. Hence they are not necessarily giants, but rather the

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building on which they are working may not necessarily be for people; and as a result this building does not assist the socialist future. The ribbon-like cables also appear again—this time as a frame around the entire painting. The workers are in a painting within a painting; we, the viewers, are twice removed. While this frame around these men reinforces my interpretation of the men at work as images of Ostalgie, the two walls reduce the truthful, historically accurate representation of reality even further. And as evidence of artificial Socialist Realism and as V-Effekte, they cause the viewer to question the figures’ motivations and actions. The V-Effekt here arises from the recognition of the dismantling of an unsuccessful attempt at socialism; there is a disharmony in and alienation from these workers. One even wonders if this destruction and wrapping up does not parallel the selling of pieces of the Berlin Wall. Concrete walls as implicit symbols of a community’s planned stability materialize in a painting from 1999, “Festplatz” (“Fairground”). The walls are at first not as noticeable as are the nine people who form the main scene in the painting. And typical of Rauch’s paintings he mixes and matches five to six basic—and again, muted—colors to provide unity and consistency. Three men wear matching red jackets and pants—two also don small red caps like porters, or security personnel. Two of these three men in red attend to a futuristic train-like vehicle in the foreground; this vehicle has a blue roof, trunk and hood, yellow side windows, and a driver’s side gull-wing door. The entire bottom half of this vehicle is red and there are no wheels showing. Most of the title, “Festpla,” appears subtly on the front hood, giving the impression that this is the fairground cops’ or security personnel’s vehicle. To the left of this vehicle, there are three more men with rifles at a shooting gallery; two, with only their backs to the viewer, aim at their targets in the booth, and the third man watches them as he leans back—his right hand holds on to the booth, and his rifle hangs down in his extended left arm. The only oddities in these men are the blue hair on the man to the left and their size—they are much larger than the security cops. The fairgoers wear various colors within the main color scheme of the painting: the man to the left wears a short red jacket, light-colored pants, and red boots; the man in the middle has yellow hair, a green jacket, light-colored pants, and dark green boots; and the man to the right has dark brown hair and wears a red jacket, white shirt, green pants and dark boots. A woman stands inside this blue booth with its red awning, and we only see her yellow hair, red v-neck sweater and the top hem of her green skirt. In the middle of the painting and at a distance from this booth, there are three other figures near a red and blue trailer, which perhaps serves the propeller-shaped carnival ride that rises up next to the trailer: a

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man, one of the security personnel in the all red outfit and hat, stands facing the distanced viewer with his left arm against the trailer, as if closing a door, and two potential customers face the white window in the trailer—a man in a gray suit and a woman in a yellow dress with arms extended, her gesture questions the empty window. In the background, the sky is the same blue color as the vehicle, the booths and the one man’s hair; against this sky, centered in the back of the painting, stand three tall, thin, white poplar trees with green leaves that appear mostly on one side, giving the appearance of being blown in the wind. The direction of this wind is toward a white Plattenbau building with green balconies which stands in the back right corner of the field. This distant apartment building shapes my reading of walls as Ostalgie within the Socialist Realism in this painting. In “Festplatz” the walls that create the sense of community à la Throgmorton’s discussion are the walls in this lone apartment building that stands firm as the wind bends the tallest trees. Plattenbausiedlungen were, by definition, groupings of buildings that would have surrounded this planned section of nature with its fairground. As such this singular building serves as synecdoche for the entire planned community that remains unseen in this painting. Thus the backdrop for this fair is that of a planned socialist neighborhood, made up of Plattenbau buildings, with their “internal sense of similarity and security” (Throgmorton, 2004, 350); the socialist future is located in such planned communities, as the direction of the wind shows. In this painting, Socialist Realism is also located both in the ultramodern vehicle’s claim to a technologically-advanced future and in this defined space for workers’ relaxation, but both become artificial as one encounters the V-Effekte. As in the first painting, “Arbeiter,” one must step away from just the content of this “Festplatz,” to find representations of Ostalgie. Here the Ostalgie resides in this combination of a planned setting designed for recreation on the edge of the Plattenbausiedlung; the Ostalgie grows with the positive signs of the future based in technology; and Ostalgie appears in the men’s wholesome and skill-centered game-playing at the fair. This county fair image conjures up a mythical place, where classes mingle, children play, and sensory thrills are abundant but not destructive; it belongs in the workers’ positive future as the site of constructive relaxation. But once again, the painting’s details invite closer inspection, whereupon one finds V-Effekte present that complicate a simplistic viewing. The men with rifles shoot a game of skill; but they shoot at green vases from much too close range—hardly a difficult endeavor. Perhaps the nine vertical rows of these green vases are the eventual prizes; this

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sameness recalls the lack of differentiation of products in GDR consumer society. And more significantly, these nine rows of vases parallel the nine stories in the Plattenbau building—both display the limits of the socialist workers’ existence. Another puzzling item appears when one looks closer at the foreground of the painting: the disproportionately small security cop figure—one of the men in red—prepares to exit the futuristic vehicle, and in doing so, he grips a stick in his left hand, as if he must fend off a perpetrator. Perhaps the “internal sense of security” has been breached. Perhaps he is afraid of the much larger fairgoers who practice their sharpshooting at the next booth. One can only wonder. Such minor, yet unexplainable peculiarities are common in Rauch’s paintings, and they demand that a viewer take another critical look. Unlike Brecht’s Epic Theater, Rauch’s paintings are not based in reason; so even with an intellectual and objective scrutiny, the viewer may not come to a better understanding. In a recent New York Times Magazine article, Rauch’s paintings are described as having a “surrealist quirkiness and bizarreness. [There are] simultaneous scenes that are not connected—that you as a viewer cannot pin down or put a name on” (Lubow, 2006, 42). This confusion works to make the viewer stop, think and question—just as Brecht’s analytic tool of V-Effekt does. The theme of the future remains connected to a wall and is part of the Ostalgie present as a V-Effekt in the next painting titled “Scala” (Scale) from 2000. The color scheme here focuses mostly on light blue and brick red, with some yellow, dark green and white accents. The title stands in large brick red letters against a light blue backdrop along the bottom of the painting; two dark-haired boys, in dark boots, short pants—one brick red, the other teal—and in black, long-sleeved shirts, hold dark red bricks in their hands. On the right edge of the painting, a light-haired man in a black suit jacket and a dark-haired woman in a yellow dress, possibly the parents, lean contentedly from a window in a Plattenbau apartment building from where they watch the boys. Three white edges frame the aslant building, and here the wall resembles large gray bricks instead of glass windows. The man also holds a red brick, as if he is ready to pass this on to one of the boys. The boys are three times larger than the man and the woman, and the boy on the left faces the viewer, but his glance roams to the right side of the painting and toward the top floors of the building. The other boy, in the center of the painting, has his left arm to his side but his right arm, closest to the viewer, is raised to catch or to throw the brick in his hand—perhaps to throw it over the building that here resembles a wall. This boy’s left knee is bent—he appears to climb onto a pathway of red bricks—this path is outlined in white, stacked like dominos

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in the sky and forms the larger shape of a lasso—which leads over the building. Whether in the act of throwing the brick or climbing the path, the boy in the middle is in motion; he is the agent of change in this painting. The Ostalgie in this painting invites several interpretations, but overall it is linked to the unquestioning belief in a better future, as the size of the two boys shows. The Ostalgie arises from the fact that the GDR government provided quality day care and financial support to families with children. Thus family life was manageable and encouraged inside the walls of the GDR: children were safe; parents and the state nourished the children with socialist ideals; families were each given the same size apartment; married women were given one day a month off of work to clean; and the planned apartment communities included observable playgrounds, so mother’s could work in the home while the children played in the “yard”. The limits of this Plattenbau building—only one side is shown—serve as a marker of separation in the painting, although Throgmorton’s idea resurfaces with the question of this wall’s ability to “maintain and enforce an internal sense of similarity, community, identity and security” (350). The Plattenbau buildings provided spatial equality, and through this, each family had equal opportunities; yet these opportunities in the GDR remained within the secure notion of identity and of the future as defined by the state. Thus it is in the lines of the walls here that I find a connection to a Socialist Realism of state governance; the structure of the building evokes a visual parallel to the GDR government’s once prized parliamentary structure, the Palast der Republik. This structure in the center of Berlin was built for the legal guidance and security of its people. However the connection to Socialist Realism in this painting obviously remains outside of a historically accurate portrayal—as the size of the children suggests. But because the children are symbols for a positive, socialist future, they embody the elements of Socialist Realism—and specifically the artificiality of it in Rauch’s work. Yet the V-Effekte are prevalent too. The children are safe but instead of the hope for a future, their size indicates how they have grown out of proportion with the rest of their world. And the focus on movement over the building, over this wall, depicts the two boys’ desire for connections to the other side beyond their community, to something more than they know. Looking to Leander Hausmann’s film about East Berlin youth culture, Sonnenallee, for clues of Ostalgie, one finds that connections to the West come through music and clothing; Paul Cooke admits such sentiments in this popular film are “over-coded” and states “the audience notices the artificiality” (2003, 164). This painting similarly contains an artificiality of these boys’ pieces of wall, e.g., bricks, upon which they

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stand in a fantastic lasso-shaped floating trail, and which they toss over the wall. The parents’ extreme and perhaps artificially small size, along with their typically German stance of watching others while leaning from their window, create additional V-Effekte: they are stuck in the past, and they are not up to date in technology or other studies in the larger world beyond this patch of playground under their low-tech surveillance near their apartment building. The action of the taller boy (with his empty eyes) appears to show either that he is balancing himself, or that he is ready to throw the brick over the wall. His raised knee and forward-leaning posture depict his willingness to follow these floating bricks over the concrete walls of the Plattenbau building. These same bricks form the Brechtian caption below, which states the title “Scala.” The boy is ready to scale this wall of Ostalgie. And herein, in the boy’s act of climbing the wall, lies a conflicting representation of Ostalgie that works as a V-Effekt. An ideal childhood and family life exist, yet one from within will always wish to surpass it. The Ostalgie looks to a future that is already known. As if, like in the “Arbeiter” painting, the system was destined to fail. The prerequisites for Ostalgie appear in these two paintings, “Arbeiter” and “Scala;” yet the paintings respectively foreshadow the dismantling and ascension of the GDR’s walls, and herein act as V-Effekte making the viewer stop and take note. And in this manner, these paintings lead well into the next painting’s discussion of the new consumer choices in a post-wall GDR. In the fourth and last painting, “Harmlos” (“Harmless”7) from 2002, one finds Rauch’s take on Ostalgie found in consumer products. A storefront window displays some consumer products —here kept within and behind a orangey brick wall. Overall I find a sinister depiction of what could be seen as post-GDR consumer whimsy in this painting. And with only the perspective of the proletariat providing the fragment of Socialist Realism here, the more prevalent V-Effekte weaken the Ostalgie and its yearning for what once was, as this painting makes the viewer question the outcome of consumer desire. The so-called “Harmless” painting stirs up a disconcerting image, as the top third of the painting is black with the smoke from a small chimney. There are three figures who mostly face the viewer: a brown-haired woman in the front right side wears a short-sleeve blue shirt, on which there is a broad yellow horizontal stripe with a black collar, and an orange skirt—we only see three-fourths of her because she stands near the 7

“Harmlos” can also be viewed through the David Zwirner Gallery online, http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/12/work_557.htm.

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window at the blue counter and is ready to walk out of the viewed space, to the right. A disproportionately smaller fair-haired man to her left wears a similar blue and yellow short-sleeve shirt and orange pants holding a miniature, white tree. This small man appears to fall in a direction away from the larger, middle figure. This third figure—most likely a male customer, because he does not don the blue shirt and orange pants of the other two—wears a long-sleeve dark green shirt, light pants and dark boots, and instead of a head he has a house on his shoulders—two small white windows denote his eyes and a longer white awning his mouth. He also sports one orange and one blue balloon in place of each of his hands—similar to the four vertical rows of two and three balloons that hang in the store. These figures appear inside of a store with a yellow wall and a white and blue display counter or raised area in the back. Above this counter stripes of the nostalgic and muted colors—orange, blue, yellow and white—mix. The viewer looks through the storefront window to see these two store employees and one customer. And the ominous black cloud of smoke—a lighter strain of which comes out of the chimney on the man’s head—sweeps down over the hanging balloons and over the colorful backdrop; it threatens to cover the two small yellow houses and oddly white trees on the raised area. The scene behind the figures appears to be a small-scale model of a subdivision—thus it provides room for conjecture that real estate is for sale here. Such perplexing content is not uncommon in Rauch’s work, and as Lubow notes, Rauch’s paintings convey a mood, not a message (2006, 41). Here the mood is off-putting and causes viewers to think critically about what is in front of them. Viewers can be grateful that they are outside of this store, as here the questionable activities—in essence, the V-Effekte—confuse and disturb. The various V-Effekte overwhelm the Ostalgie in this painting and make the viewer question socialism and capitalism. The woman in the front, with her arm above her head and her hand flat, is ready to serve the consumer products—potential descriptors of land or property—displayed in this store window, which are labeled, from left to right, “Niederungen,” “Acker,” the abbreviation “WFID,” and “Quiz.” Her speech bubble restates the title, “harmlos,” but her closed mouth and downcast eyes, add no confidence to the phrase. Viewers question what is harmful. She also holds a blank sheet or notebook in her right hand, and thus she appears to point out to the viewers the emptiness of such dreams of ownership. The other two men touch upon marginal ideas of Ostalgie: the customer—with a house for a head—dreams of building a single-dwelling home—a topic which also occupies the eponymous figure’s thoughts in Christa Wolf’s famous novel from 1969, Nachdenken über Christa T. In this painting a

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house embodies the opposite of the socialist Plattenbau apartment buildings of the previous paintings, and this house remains extremely problematic, as the idea of a house has taken over the man’s actual head. Furthermore, with his colorful balloons for hands, this figure is a V-Effekt that represents the suddenly ineffective (i.e., can’t use his hands) former GDR worker who—in the frenzy of the 1990 currency reform—can only think about what he can not afford: a house of his own; this figure with a house on his head can also been seen as a composite of the items in the store. His present uselessness—without hands or a face with which to communicate—embodies the harmful nature of such extreme consumer desire. But yet there remains the dominating black smoke; it tarnishes the otherwise colorful GDR Ostalgie of consumerism. This smoke threatens to overwhelm the entire space. All memories of equal real estate, Jedem seine Wohnung, dissipate, and one is left to become a single-minded yet incapable proprietor, as the man with the house depicts. That is the critique of capitalism, and yet the Socialist Realism is also empty: there is no revolutionary development, and no spirit of socialism; consumerism has become the epitome of artificial Socialist Realism. Looking at all four paintings, one recognizes a certain humor in the images, yet Rauch’s use of GDR Socialist Realism as Ostalgie alienates the viewer. A Museum of Modern Art curator, Gary Garrels, provides this overall impression of Rauch’s paintings: “something is terribly wrong with Western society […] we’re all trapped in that moment where you’re halfasleep and feel like you can’t move” (Halle, 2005, 110). Offering a similar interpretation, that Rauch’s paintings display “provocative, even comically askew dream worlds […] on the verge of nightmare,” Eddie Silva casts Rauch’s figures as somnambulants (2004, 24). The main point becomes then this summation: instead of a direct critique, Rauch’s paintings provide viewers with an atypical and circuitous composition, from which deliberation should follow. The Ostalgie present in the paintings appeals to viewers, who remember the planned neighborhoods in and around Plattenbau buildings, who chuckle at the potential socialist-hero figures, and who grin knowingly at the retro-palette of oranges, maroons and yellows. Perhaps, as Victoria Gail-White recommends, the ambiguity of Rauch’s works suggests an examination of the dubious rationale for our very busy working world lives, … yet the real talent that Rauch possesses is that he can deftly paint life’s conundrums without poking the answers in your eyes (2005, 2-3).

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Rauch’s use of puzzling actions, irregular figures and recurring colors as V-Effekte encourages the viewers to ask timely questions: for instance, how can any society that incorporates all-encompassing surveillance or erects a “Schutzmauer”—as the Berlin Wall was called—presume its citizens will accept such complete denials of freedom? Through such positioning, these V-Effekte provoke viewers to examine uncertain ideals and to mistrust rhetoric—often represented in Rauch’s paintings as empty speech bubbles. With the current discussions of warrantless surveillance in the U.S., it is understandable that American curators and collectors continue to be interested in Rauch’s works. Lastly, a quote from Rauch affirms this interpretation. His website includes this statement: Bilder—so wie ich sie gern hätte—sind in der Lage, den Betrachter rechtwinklig vom Weg abzubringen. Sie bannen ihn in seinen Vernunftgebaren und schlagen ihm eine Ausstiegsmöglichkeit aus seiner Verstandeslaufbahn vor (Rauch, Bilder). 8

Thus the paintings move the viewer away from emotionally nostalgic underpinnings and toward other possibilities. Rauch has modified the use of Verfremdungseffekte from Brecht’s original intention, but still demands his viewers be awake and aware of the ideas presented in his art.

Works Cited Birnbaum, Daniel, Lynne Cooke and Harald Szeemann, eds. Neo Rauch. Maastricht: Hatje Cantz, 2002. Bondy, Gabriele. “Im Osten viel Neues: Ostalgie—Ist da was dran?“ 31 March and 2 April 2003. Bayerischer Rundfunk. http://www.bronline.de/wissenbildung/collegeradio/medien/sozialkunde/ostalgie/manuskript/manuskr ipt.pdf. (accessed May 21, 2006). Brantley, Ben. “The Day the Musical Died.” In New York Times, May 21, 2006. Cooke, Paul. „Performing Ostalgie: Leander Hausmann’s Sonnenallee.“ German Life and Letters. 56:2, 2003:156-167.

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“The viewer loses his way confronted with paintings like I would like them to be. They stop the viewer acting reasonably and suggest a possibility to leave the track of reason.” (This translation also appears on his website: http://www.eigenart.com/Kuenstlerseiten/Neo_Rauch/texte/rauch_en.pdf.)

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Deutsche Welle. “Berlin's Palace of the Republic Faces Wrecking Ball.“ http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1862424,00.html. (accessed September 20, 2007). Emmerich, Wolfgang. Kleine Literaturgeschichte der DDR. Frankfurt/M: Luchterhand, 1989. Gail-White, Victoria. “Concurrent Realities Battle for Prominence in Paintings.” http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com (accessed March 3, 2006). Halle, Howard. “The Neo Art Craze.” In GQ, 2005: 110. Hell, Julia. “Socialist Realism: An Impossible Aesthetic.” Rev. of Socialist Realism: An Impossible Aesthetic. Regine Robin. Translated by Catherine Porter. In Modernism/Modernity. 1.2, 1994:162- 164. Lubow, Arthur. “The New Leipzig School.” In New York Times Magazine, Jan 8, 2006: 39-43. Moore, Andrew. “Studying Bertolt Brecht.” Andrew Moore’s Teaching Resource Site. http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/drama/ brecht.htm#dictionary (accessed January 12, 2006). Rauch, Neo. “Bilder, wie ich sie gern hätte.“ http://www.eigen-art.com/ Kuenstlerseiten/Neo_Rauch/texte/rauch_de.pdf. (accessed March 3, 2006). Schjeldahl, Peter. „Realism and Rauch.“ In New Yorker. 81:17, June 2005: 28. Schnell, Ralf. Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Literatur seit 1945. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1993. Silva, Eddie. “Neo Rauch.“ In ArtUS, 2004(2): 24. Throgmorton, James. “Where Was the Wall Then? Where Is It Now?” In Planning Theory and Practice. 5:3, 2004:349-365. Zhdanov, A. A. “Soviet Literature - The Richest in Ideas, the Most Advanced Literature.” In Soviet Writers’ Congress 1934. Transcribed by Jose Braz and Andy Blunden, 2004. http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/lit_crit/sovietwritercongress/zdhan ov.htm. (accessed March 3, 2006).

CHAPTER SIX SCREENING THE “OLD” WEST GERMANY? THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY FROM FOUNDATION TO UNIFICATION IN SÖNKE WORTMANN’S DAS WUNDER VON BERN (2003) AND LEANDER HAUßMANN’S HERR LEHMANN (2003) ANDREW PLOWMAN

This essay offers an examination of the representation of the “old” preunification West Germany in two recent films: Sönke Wortmann’s Das Wunder von Bern (2003) and Leander Haußmann’s Herr Lehmann (2003). Almost twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a concern with the East German past has become a feature of cultural production in postunification Germany that is both well documented and comparatively well understood. In the popular imagination, films such as Haußmann’s Sonnenallee (1999) and Wolfgang Becker’s Good Bye, Lenin! (2003) have come to symbolize a preoccupation with everyday life in the German Democratic Republic widely known as “Ostalgie.” Meanwhile scholars have sought to offer more differentiated analyzes of the construction of “East Germanness” across a range of media and cultural practices.1 In the last years, however, it has become apparent that in the wake of the caesura of 1989/90 the West German past too has begun to emerge in a new light. Not least the celebration in 1999 of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Federal Republic has sparked a proliferation of novels and films devoted to the “old” West Germany and the exploration of the fabric of everyday life in it. Though it remains less fully researched, scholars have

1

Cooke, Representing East Germany since Unification.

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begun to ask whether it is also appropriate to speak about “Westalgie” in Germany today.2 This essay is a contribution to a small but growing body of literature devoted to understanding the representation of the West German past in Germany today.3 If notable literary treatments include novels like David Wagner’s Meine nachtblaue Hose (2000) and Gerhard Henschel’s Die Liebenden (2002) and Kindheitsroman (2004), the essay focuses on two memorable cinematic reconstructions. Wortmann’s Das Wunder von Bern deals with the founding years of the Federal Republic. It links the narrative of West Germany’s unexpected 1954 World Cup victory with the story of reconciliation between a son and the father he has never known, who is among the Prisoners of War returned late from Soviet captivity after World War II. Based on Sven Regener’s novel of the same name (2001), Haußmann’s Herr Lehmann plays out in West Berlin on the eve of the fall of the Wall in 1989, where it follows the exploits of its protagonist in the alternative scene in the Kreuzberg district of the city. On the face of it, the films offer politically and aesthetically contrasting images of the Federal Republic before unification. An examination of Das Wunder von Bern in the first part of the essay examines how Wortmann’s film constructs the founding years of the Republic as the basis, in terms of a central debate of the 1990s, of the post-unification ‘normalisation’ of the German state.4 The 1954 World Cup victory appears as a foundational myth in which various historical meanings are brought into play and universalized as the basis of an all-German identity construction. Significantly, however, a turn to West German film traditions and the values of Hollywood genre cinema serves to code this construction at the same time as a fantasy. A discussion of Herr Lehmann in the second part analyzes how, by contrast, Haußmann’s film appears to celebrate the distinctiveness of a peculiar West German subculture that is, rather, under threat from the fall of the Wall. Yet here too, it is argued, the prescriptive logic of normalisation comes into play as the Kreuzberg scene is revealed as an oddity to be consigned to history from the perspective of the Berlin Republic. Thus the film marks both an act of mourning for a culture lost after 1989 and a farewell to values out of date in a unified Germany. What 2

Dürr, “On ‘Westalgia’: Why West German Mentalities and Habits Persist in the Berlin Republic,” in The Spirit of the Berlin Republic, 37-47; Plowman, “Westalgie? Nostalgia for the ‘Old’ Federal Republic in Recent German Prose,” Seminar 40: 249-61. 3 Taberner, German Literature of the 1990s and Beyond. Normalization and the Berlin Republic, 68-106. 4 Taberner, German Literature of the 1990s, xiii-xviii.

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the films demonstrate, the essay concludes, is just how powerfully the history of the Federal Republic before 1990 is being reshaped according to the demands of the new normality of the so-called “Berlin Republic.” But they are also a powerful reminder that this normality is in turn a construct that is open to be challenged and contested.

Sönke Wortmann’s Das Wunder von Bern and the Re-foundation of the Federal Republic In Das Wunder von Bern, the well-known and public narrative of West Germany’s 1954 World Cup triumph is deftly interwoven with the fictional and private story of the Lubanski family.5 The public narrative of the film centres on the legendary German coach Sepp Herberger and his struggle to forge a winning team out of his squad of players. It reconstructs the well-known series of events which saw a West German team going into the finals as underdogs to come from behind to score a famous 3-2 victory over a Hungarian team which had previously beaten them in the qualifying rounds.6 At the heart of the private story of the Lubanski family is the difficult process of the development of a father-son bond between Matthias and Richard Lubanski, who returns to West Germany as a “Spätheimkehrer” traumatized by his experience as a soldier on the Eastern front and Prisoner of War in the Soviet Union. Other elements include the development of Richard’s relationship with his wife Christa, who has built the family business without him after 1945, and his conflict with his eldest son, Bruno, who leaves for the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In plot terms, the link between the two narratives is a forward in the local Ruhrgebiet team for whom Matthias is a lucky mascot. Initially, Richard Lubanski resents the role Helmut Rahn plays in the affections of his son, but at the close ordered relationships are restored after Richard takes Matthias to Berne to see the final and the boy throws Rahn the ball from the sidelines to score the winning goal. This moment of fantasy sets up the emotional climax when Matthias tells Richard he is the one who compares to his sporting idol. The final thus helps restore the father-son relationship, but in a reversal of the tradition whereby fathers induct sons 5 Cooke and Young, “Selling Sex or Dealing with History? German Football in Literature and Film and the Quest to Normalize the Nation,” in German Football Culture: History, Culture, Society, 181-203. 6 Schaffrath, “‘Wir sind wieder wer.’ Die wachsende Bedeutung der Sportkultur,” in Die Kultur der 50er Jahre, 145-6.

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into the sport, it is Matthias who returns to Richard his paternal role once he enters the spirit of 1954.7 In thematic terms, the interweaving of the two narratives serves the construction of a West German myth of origins that links an account of reconstruction in the Federal Republic in the 1950s to contemporary debates about the “normalisation” of German history. It is scarcely new that the 1954 World Cup victory appears in Wortmann’s film as an emblem of West German reconstruction and recovery after 1945. What is striking, however, is the wholly positive light in which the event appears. Historically the association of the event with recovery in the Federal Republic is a problematic one. Already at the time, the triumph was widely seized upon as an expression of (West) German resurgence after 1945.8 Controversy ensued even as the game was ending when radio transmission was cut as German supporters in the crowd in Berne started to sing the forbidden first verse of the national anthem (“Deutschland über alles”) alongside the approved third verse (“Einigkeit, Recht und Freiheit”).9 In the years that have followed, cultural representations have exploited the status of 1954 as symbol both of economic recovery and what critics on the left long viewed as the backward-looking ‘restoration’ of conservative-authoritarian tendencies in society.10 Most notably in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film Die Ehe der Maria Braun (1978) Herbert Zimmermann’s famous radio commentary to the game is the backdrop to the gas explosion which kills Maria and Hermann Braun and links West German recovery to the bomb-blast and the catastrophe of German fascism at the start of the film. Here Zimmermann’s exuberant exclamation “Deutschland ist Weltmeister!” is transformed into the sinister expression of a resurgent “Wir-sind-wiederwer” mentality. In Wortmann’s treatment the controversy surrounding the event is exercised as the World Cup victory is represented as a moment of social integration and national harmony. The final reconciliation of father and son, Richard and Matthias Lubanski, also marks reconciliation between generations with and without historical experience of fascism. In contrast to the accusatory tone in which the generation of “1968” confronted parents about their complicity with fascism, Matthias Lubanski proves sympathetic to Richard’s account of his suffering as a soldier and Prisoner 7

Cooke and Young, “Selling Sex or Dealing with History,” 190-1. Schaffrath, “‘Wir sind wieder wer,’” 145-46. 9 See Delius, Der Sonntag, an dem Ich Weltmeister wurde, 116. 10 Plowman, “Between ‘Restauration’ and ‘Nierentisch:’ The 1950s in Ludwig Harig, F.C. Delius and Thomas Hettche,” in German Memory Contests. Cultural Memory in German Literature, Film and Discourse since 1990, 254-5. 8

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of War in a scene in which he turns off the soccer commentary on the radio to listen to his father. The sporting event also bridges class divides. Here, the working-class Lubanskis are contrasted with the bourgeois Ackermanns.11 Where the Lubanskis’ functionally furnished home is shot through the grey filter used to characterize all scenes set in the industrial Ruhrgebiet, the house of sports journalist Ackermann in Munich is light and contains the latest consumer goods. The absence of social conflict as everyone gets behind the national team suggests that the Ackermanns are not so much the Lubanskis’ class antagonists as the promise of their future prosperity. By restoring his troubled father to his paternal role in the course of the film, Matthias also makes him fit as an industrial worker to ensure that the economic miracle will trickle down to those driving it. The film also presents a picture of regional integration in which the Federal Republic comes together as a nation. This is reflected in the regional origins of the Lubanskis and Ackermanns, and also the composition of the national team. (The often heavy-handed humour in the film largely revolves around the players’ regional accents.) An important sequence near the close shows groups from all walks of life and from all over Germany following the final on the television and on the radio. Crucially, these groups include Bruno Lubanski, now in the GDR, and his new East German comrades, wearing the characteristic uniform of the GDR socialist youth organisation the “Junge Pioniere.” Some twenty-five years after Fassbinder’s film, a number of factors account for Wortmann’s more positive treatment of the World Cup final of 1954. These include the ascendancy of a global soccer culture epitomized by the success—also in Germany—of a work like Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch (1993).12 Hornby’s narrative exemplifies the way the once workingclass sport has become a vehicle in popular culture today for the exploration of wider concerns including relationships and the construction of masculine identities. A more immediate, and German, literary source is F. C. Delius’s novella Der Sonntag, an dem ich Weltmeister wurde (1994). This work by an author associated with the generation of “1968” preserves a critical focus on the controversies surrounding the event, yet also identifies within the euphoria of victory a promise of liberation from the stifling provincialism of West Germany in the 1950s that looks forward to the student movement itself.13 11

Cooke and Young, “Selling Sex or Dealing with History,” 192-93. Cooke and Young, “Selling Sex or Dealing with History,” ibid. 13 Plowman, “Between ‘Restauration’ and ‘Nierentisch,’” 254. 12

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If the narratives by Hornby and Delius have paved the way for Wortmann, the discursive context in which Das Wunder von Bern makes sense is the current debate about the “normalization” of German history. The concept of “normalization” has entered the mainstream during the 1990s.14 It has a comparative dimension, describing the extent to which modern Germany has become a liberal state and pluralist society like its Western neighbours. It also implies a shift since unification of historiographical horizons within which it is possible, without diminishing an ongoing critical confrontation with National Socialism, it is claimed, to address German victimhood in World War II and celebrate the achievements of the liberal (West) German state. Indeed, not least since the fiftieth anniversary of the Federal Republic in 1999 there has emerged a degree of superficial consensus that its history marks a process of liberalisation and Westernisation without parallel for Germany.15 Normalisation is also concerned with the legacy of the GDR and the achievement of an elusive state of “inner unity,” a project claimed by many to be undermined by the persistence of “Ostalgie” and of West German mentalities.16 Das Wunder von Bern reflects many of the issues associated with the normalisation debate.17 Of particular interest here is the way in which it combines an affirmative construction of the origins of the Federal Republic with a projection of inner unity. In the film a celebratory account of West German history is projected, via the figure of Bruno Lubanski, as the basis of an all-German identity construction. Admittedly, this projection is at the same time coded, with reference to both West German film traditions and to Hollywood codes of representation, as fantasy. Wortmann’s film is well attuned to current views of the founding years as the start of a process that would westernize the FRG and see the adoption of more liberal values there. The image, invoked by critics from Wolfgang Koeppen to Fassbinder, of post-war reconstruction as the “restoration” of conservative and authoritarian tendencies has been replaced both in historical writing and popular culture by a more dynamic image of modernisation. In the film the representation of reconstruction serves to frame a whole conspectus of motifs relating to the history of the 14

Taberner, German Literature of the 1990s, xiii. Müller, Another Country: German Intellectuals, Unification and National Identity, 240. 16 Cooke, Representing East Germany since Unification, 7; Dürr, “On ‘Westalgia,’” 37-8. 17 On Germans as victims, for instance, see Cooke and Young, “Selling Sex or Dealing with History,” 193. 15

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FRG, which are given a contemporary focus. These include the motif of the rebuilding of Germany by its women (the “Trümmerfrauen”) after 1945 before the reestablishment of male authority with the soldiers’ return. In Das Wunder, the family pub has been built up by Christa Lubanski in Richard’s absence.18 But with present-day feistiness, she spells out to him that she will not let him overrule her and the family after his return. By the close, Richard learns to exercise softer masculine authority as the family discusses problems democratically at the table. Other commonplace motifs prominently connected with reconstruction are the birth of a modern consumer culture (the Ackermann’s flat) and the advent of travel culture (Richard and Matthias’s excursion through the Alps to Berne).19 Another is the birth of an Americanized youth culture. The real unease, which accompanied the arrival of rock ’n’ roll and the sexualisation of young women, shrinks to a rebuke from the still traumatized Richard Lubanski after he drags his eldest daughter from a dance at which Bruno plays in the band.20 Curiously this is one of the few scenes in which the daughter plays a role. The fact that her role is largely a passive one lends force to the suggestion that the film’s anachronistic attempts to portray the gender roles of the 1950s (for instance in the relationship that develops between Richard and Christa) as equal are tokenistic and limited. By combining well-known motifs about the history of the Federal Republic into a stylized narrative of social and national integration, the film presents itself as a West German foundation myth. Bruno Lubanski, Matthias’s elder brother, plays an important role in this regard. His presence not only casts forward to the student movement of “1968” and to the solidification of German division with the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, but also to unification. In age terms, it is Matthias, born in the mid-1940s, who might one day be expected to play a part in the student movement of “1968.” Yet the film marks the elder Bruno as a “68er” avant la lettre. The profile fits ideologically and culturally: while his communist sympathies stem from his youthful idealism, his rebellion is also nourished as a member of a rock ’n’ roll band and by a thoroughly Western popular culture. In contrast to the distinctly contemporary empathy Matthias brings to his father, Bruno’s 18 Heinemann, “The Hour of the Woman: Memories of Germany’s ‘Crisis’ Years and West German National Identity,” in The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949-1968, 21-56. 19 Karasek, Go West! Eine Biographie der fünfziger Jahre, 11. 20 Poiger, “Rock’n’roll, Female Sexuality, and the Cold War Battle over German Identities,” in West Germany under Construction: Politics, Society and Culture in the Adenauer Era, 373-412.

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confrontation in the scene that prompts his departure recalls the accusatory stance the “68er” famously adopted toward their parents’ complicity with fascism both in the student movement and in subsequent cultural production. With the words “Geh nach drüben!” conservative opponents famously told the student protesters of the 1960s to leave for the GDR. It is not without irony that in Wortmann’s film Bruno is easily dispatched there— this is before the Wall has been built. Within the framework of a narrative which affirms the founding of the Federal Republic, Bruno’s dream of a better, socialist Germany appears laden with dramatic irony. Where the West Germany celebrated in the film will prosper, Bruno’s GDR is doomed, though only long after German division has apparently been cemented with the building of the Wall. Thus the shot near the close in which Bruno and his new comrades in the GDR cheer the West German team to victory is crucial. Seen from a contemporary perspective, it projects back into 1954 the utopian promise of the achievement of an inner German unity. By making Bruno and his companions into participants in the event, the film seeks to give them a stake, however tenuous, in the West German foundation myth surrounding it. To the extent that in the GDR Bruno serves in the film to provide East German viewers with a point of identification with a history they may not regard as their own, the film attempts to offer them a purchase on the West German subject positions it constructs, a crash course in “West Germanness.” A West German construction of identity is universalized, in short, as the basis of an all-German identity after 1990. Thus the film is the antithesis of “ostalgic” works like Haußmann’s Sonnenallee or Wolfgang Becker’s Good Bye, Lenin!, which refuse to erase the East German past, but uphold its memory and meaning for contemporary Germany. Wortmann’s film projects the promise of inner unity, but wholly in and on the terms of the “old” Federal Republic. Yet in the end the many forms of reconciliation and unity inscribed into the film are also coded as wish fulfilment or fantasy. The film takes its cue here from the epithet which 1954 acquired in popular culture: the miracle of Berne. The element of fantasy is visible on various levels. These include plot (Matthias’s lucky appearance in the stadium), mise en scene (the Ackermann’s flat), and cinematography (the rich colour of the Swiss landscapes versus the grey Ruhrgebiet, which finally spills into Germany as the team train heads into the sunset). Here the film rejects the critical aesthetic of the New German Cinema of the 1970s exemplified by Fassbinder’s treatment of the event in Die Ehe der Maria Braun. Das Wunder turns back to the German genre of the Heimatfilm on the one hand

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and toward modern Hollywood genre cinema on the other. The defining German film genre of the 1950s, Heimatfilme such as Hans Deppe’s Schwarzwaldmädel (1951), which paint an idyllic picture of wholesome communities rooted in the German landscape, have been regarded by scholars as a flight from the troubling past. At best historical conflicts appear in displaced form and are resolved in the form of a cinematic wish fulfilment.21 Though Wortmann’s film wears its historical subject matter openly in an age of normalisation, the visible turn to the imagery of the Heimatfilm, for example in the colour of the Swiss landscape shots, underlines the element of fantasy in the resolution of conflict. This element also draws heavily on codes of representation associated with modern Hollywood genre cinema. Wortmann’s film has much in common with sports films from Jerry Maguire (1996) to Cinderella Man (2005) in its handling of themes of the underdog coming good, the transformative power of dreams, and in pairing the sporting finale with a cathartic emotional climax. Also striking is the shift of focus from the motherdaughter dyads which for some critics mark the New German cinema towards the father-son relationship of Richard and Matthias.22 Here the film reflects the male bias of what one critic dubs the contemporary Hollywood “family adventure movie” imbued with sentimentality, spectacle and a sense of wonder, telling stories about the pain and longing caused by incomplete families (usually with absent or dead fathers), about childish wishes […] coming true.23

The rejection of the ideological and aesthetic values of the New German Cinema toward a genre cinema that bears the imprint of Hollywood has been identified as a defining feature of the German film industry since the 1990s.24 The film can be linked in this regard too to debates about normalisation, which is associated in the cultural sphere with the ascendancy of a mainstream culture industry and of a globalized popular culture.25

21

Fehrenbach, Cinema in Democratizing German Film: Reconstructing National Identity after Hitler, 148-68. 22 Elsaesser, “American Friends: Hollywood echoes in the New German Cinema,” in Hollywood and Europe: Economics, Culture and National Identity: 1945-95, 147. 23 Krämer, “Would you take your child to see this film?,” in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, ed. Steve Neale and Murray Smith, 304. 24 Hake, German National Cinema, 183. 25 Taberner, German Literature of the 1990s, 14.

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Goodbye to Kreuzberg: Herr Lehmann and the Fall of the Wall Where Das Wunder von Bern universalizes West German history, Herr Lehmann by Leander Haußmann, the East German director of Sonnenallee, appears rather to stress the distinctiveness of a peculiar West German experience. Based on a 2001 novel by Sven Regener, singer of the cult band “Element of Crime,” the film is a humorous and poignant portrait of the alternative scene in West Berlin’s Kreuzberg district on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. That Herr Lehmann has not enjoyed the impact of Wortmann’s film reflects both its idiosyncratic subject matter and its more episodic narrative. Frank Lehmann is a bartender and barroom philosopher with a talent for talking himself into trouble whom friends have started, as his thirtieth birthday approaches, to address using an irritating combination of the formal “Herr” and the informal “du.” As the film progresses, comic scenes—a drunken encounter with a dog, the visit to Kreuzberg of his parents from West Germany— increasingly yield to sombre ones. Finally Lehmann’s carefree existence is plunged into crisis when his friend Karl, a bartender and aspiring artist, suffers delusions and his relationship with Katrin, a cook, disintegrates. The closing scenes against the background of the opening of the Berlin Wall are poignant. They mark both an end for the Kreuzberg scene which bathes it in a less favourable light and a new start for Frank Lehmann. Like many recent literary texts about the cosy Federal Republic of the 1980s by younger writers like David Wagner or Gerhard Henschel, Herr Lehmann has a nostalgic and valedictory quality. As in the texts by Wagner and Henschel, a striking feature of the representation of the “old” Federal Republic is that from the perspective of those living there the division of Germany is taken for granted and accepted as unremarkable.26 The Berlin Wall stands at the edge of Kreuzberg, but in Haußmann’s film it has become so much a fact of life that the presence of the GDR beyond it is of little interest to Lehmann and his friends. When Lehmann announces his intention to visit East Berlin because his parents have given him West German currency for a relative living there, Karl responds in disbelief: “Du gehst in den Osten?” (For Herr Lehmann and his friends, already the upmarket Charlottenburg district where he is planning to exhibit his art seems remote.) The attempted visit to the capital of the GDR becomes a source of comedy when Lehmann is sent home without the currency by an officious GDR border guard who is unimpressed by his 26

Plowman, “Westalgie?,” 254.

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argumentative skills. Significantly, the apathy of Lehmann and his friends toward East Berlin and the GDR has a counterpart in a comparable lack of awareness of the rest of a West Germany that seems equally remote. The visit of his parents from West Germany to Berlin is both a source of anxiety for Lehmann personally and likewise a source of humour as Lehmann and Karl unsuccessfully try to convince them that their son has achieved greater success than is the case. The irony of Lehmann’s indifference to German division and the geopolitical situation of the German nation on the frontier of the Cold War is that these were actually a precondition of the alternative Kreuzberg scene. West Berlin’s occupied status meant freedom from conscription (though Lehmann in the film has done military service in West Germany), making it a magnet for the young and leftwing West Germans who would give Kreuzberg its characteristic ambience. Yet if the distinctive scene was to a degree a product of the countercultural impulses which arose out of the student movement of the 1960s, these are reduced in Herr Lehmann to lifestyle impulses stripped of any political content. Indeed, Lehmann has as little curiosity in intellectual or political affairs as he does in the world beyond Kreuzberg. When he first meets Katrin, his formidable intellectual skills are deployed only in a circular justification of his existence as a bartender. What gives his life meaning is that he does not simply fill up his customers’ glasses, he claims, he fills up their lives with content. If the representation of the Kreuzberg scene as a world unto itself is generally comic and affectionate, such moments reveal a fundamental solipsism and narcissism at its heart. To the extent Herr Lehmann represents the experience of the Kreuzberg in West Berlin as distinctive, it notably refuses the Hollywood values embraced by Wortmann’s film. The largely closed world of Kreuzberg’s dingy bars and shabby flats in Haußmann’s film forecloses the binarisms favoured by Hollywood narrative, which in Das Wunder appears, say, in the contrast of the Ruhrgebiet and the Swiss idyll.27 Herr Lehmann also revels in the unprepossessing appearance of its leads—for instance, in a swimming pool scene in which the shot is dominated by Karl’s protruding gut. There is even a moment of send-up when a fantasy sequence in the film briefly dresses Lehmann, Katrin and Karl in Star Wars costumes during a screening of the George Lucas trilogy in an alternative Kreuzberg cinema. In the irreverent character of this event Haußmann’s film surely points forward to the intended manner of its own reception as a parody and rejection of mainstream cinematic values. 27

Krämer, “Would you take your child to see this film?,” 294.

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In the end, however, Haußmann’s film too reveals the imprint of postunification discourses about normalisation. With the fall of the Berlin Wall the distinctiveness of the alternative scene is unmasked as an anomaly that is set to be condemned to history. What gives this public event its force in the narrative, however, is a personal crisis, which, for Lehmann, finally calls into question the solipsism defining Kreuzberg. Initially, Lehmann’s experience of the opening of the Wall on 9 November 1989 is passive. He sees the event on a television in a Kreuzberg bar, before he and Silvio head for the open border themselves. The passive experience of the fall of the Wall as televisual spectacle is typical of recent literary representations from a detached West German perspective.28 Yet the scene in Haußmann’s film is imbued with the knowledge that the unfolding events spell the end for a Kreuzberg scene that is a world apart both from the GDR and the rest of West Germany. A woman who has entered the bar intones solemnly and with an air of inevitability: “Die kommen rüber zu uns.” “Zu uns:” not just to the West, but to Kreuzberg. An influx of people will arrive, the end of Berlin’s occupied status, the return of conscription and rising property prices will destroy the social microclimate. The scene is poignant, more so than in the novel on which the film is based. In Regener’s text, the absence of the woman who enters the bar makes for a more laconic disclosure that the Wall is open.29 However, it is crucial to the meaning of the scene that the opening of the Wall comes just as Lehmann has finally been confronted with the emptiness of his Kreuzberg existence. First, Katrin has left him for “Kristall Rainer,” who is nicknamed after his preference for the clear variety of wheat beer. Lehmann’s realization that Katrin has chosen Rainer over him comes in a remarkable encounter between the three figures in an “Imbiß” stall where the Turkish-German cooks withdraw in quiet alarm in the face of his petulant outburst. Further, his friend Karl has fallen victim to delusions and has destroyed the sculpture he has been working on for his exhibition. In the hospital the duty psychiatrist tells Lehmann that Karl’s breakdown may be a psychological flight from confronting, as his exhibition approaches, the reality that his artistic pretences are no more than a fiction. This is a damning diagnosis also for Lehmann, for it throws into relief his own squandered intellect, lack of ambition, his failure to take responsibility for himself, his narcissistic preoccupation with his

28 29

Plowman, “Westalgie?,” 256. Sven Regener, Herr Lehmann, 281.

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problems and the claim that his life content is filling up the life content of others. But just as Lehmann is confronted with his and Kreuzberg’s fundamental solipsism, the opening of the Wall on 9 November 1989 offers to consign it to the past. If it marks an ending, the opening of the Wall holds the promise of a new beginning too. As Lehmann and Silvio progress to the Wall, their experience of the event becomes less passive, though the scene is not what might be expected. In contrast to the realism which marks the representation the event, say, in von Trotta’s Das Versprechen (1995), Haußmann’s take on it is more reminiscent of a late 1990s “love parade.” A party atmosphere predominates after the initial euphoria has evaporated and groups stand talking in front of the Wall, which is now bathed in coloured light. The song on the soundtrack—a version of Gloria Gaynor’s “I will survive”—underlines the confrontation with and coming through crisis the moment represents. The encounters at the open border bring reconciliation, but they also cast Kreuzberg in a new light. Katrin and Rainer exchange kind words with Lehmann, asking about Karl and his own plans. A parting of ways occurs too as Katrin wishes Lehmann well for the future and Silvio makes for his gay friends, a gesture which perhaps points to the ascendancy of other subcultural formations in Berlin. The film ends with an encounter reminiscent of the comedy of East-West stereotypes in Haußmann’s earlier Sonnenallee. Asked for his name by a strangely attired “Ossi” who rushes through the Wall to greet him, Lehmann turns to the camera to reply: “Ich bin Herr Lehmann, du kannst mich aber trotzdem duzen.” This is a more affirmative conclusion than in Regener’s novel, which leaves Frank Lehmann standing in traffic and feeling “leer” as he resignedly reflects on what may come.30 Lehmann’s acceptance of the previously irritating combination of “Herr” and “du” that is articulated toward the viewer of the film suggests also a new awareness of his adult responsibility for his own life, an end to the self-absorption of the Kreuzberg scene and the opening of wider horizons. If Lehmann’s answer suggests a fresh start on a personal level, it also brings into play the prescriptive logic of normalization. For Lehmann’s realization of the need to grow up and move on projects back into the moment of the opening of the Wall the recognition that a distinctive Kreuzberg scene previously accepted as unremarkable was in the end a West German abnormality after all. Herr Lehmann is undeniably coloured with affection and nostalgia for Kreuzberg. But in the end the film embraces both the decline of an 30

Regener, Herr Lehmann, 284-5.

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alternative milieu which, like Karl’s precarious sculpture, was ripe for collapse and the opportunities and challenges that the new normality of the Berlin Republic will bring.

Conclusions Sönke Wortmann’s Das Wunder von Bern and Leander Haußmann’s Herr Lehmann offer memorable contemporary cinematic treatments of the West German past before 1990. If the preoccupation with the East German past popularly known as “Ostalgie” has been the object of considerable debate in the years following unification, the West German past has become an object of scrutiny only more recently. What the two films treated here illustrate is that not just the East German, but also the West German past has begun to emerge in a powerful new light since 1990, a significant factor here being the influence of debates about the normalization of German history. On the face of it, it has been argued, the films appear to offer different visions of the West German past. Set in the early years of the Federal Republic, Wortmann’s film more visibly embodies the imperatives of normalization. Das Wunder von Bern offers the narrative of the West German World Cup victory of 1954 as the basis of an all-German and post-unification foundation myth in which the figure of Bruno Lubanski is offered as a point of identification for viewers from the former GDR. Admittedly, the vision of inner German unity projected by the film appears at the same time as wish-fulfilment. By contrast, Haußmann’s Herr Lehmann recalls the distinctiveness of the alternative milieu of Kreuzberg in West Berlin on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But here in the end, the distinctive Kreuzberg scene is revealed as a limited West German anomaly to be consigned to the past, and the film embraces the new normality which the Berlin Republic will bring. But the discourse of normalization which underpins the films also reveals striking limits and blind spots. Das Wunder von Bern offers its East German spectators inclusion in the subject positions it constructs, yet arguably at the cost of the erasure of the East German past. Within the foundation myth it constructs, moreover, the film only in a tokenistic manner creates positions for the gendered identities of its female figures, most notably Matthias Lubanski’s passive sister. Likewise, Herr Lehmann suggest that there will be some for whom the new normality of the Berlin Republic may not offer such clear-cut beginnings as Frank Lehmann: Silvio, for example, who joins his gay friends at the end of the film, or the GermanTurkish “Imbiß” workers who appear indifferent to and alarmed at Lehmann’s crisis of West German identity. Here the films remind us that

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the new normality of the Berlin Republic should not finally be accepted as monolithic. It too is a construct that is open to be contested, challenged and reshaped in the future.

Works Cited Primary Sources Herr Lehmann, DVD, directed by Leander Haußmann. (2003; Munich: Universal/DVD, 2004). Das Wunder von Bern, DVD, directed by Sönke Wortmann. (2003; Munich: Universal/DVD, 2004).

Secondary Sources Cooke, Paul. Representing East Germany since Unification. Oxford: Berg, 2005. Cooke, Paul and Christopher Young. “Selling Sex or Dealing with History? German Football in Literature and Film and the Quest to Normalise the Nation.” In German Football Culture: History, Culture, Society, edited by Alan Tomlinson and Christopher Young. London: Routledge, 2005: 181-203. Delius, Friedrich Christian. Der Sonntag, an dem Ich Weltmeister wurde. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1994. Dürr, Tobias. “On ‘Westalgia’: Why West German Mentalities and Habits Persist in the Berlin Republic.” In The Spirit of the Berlin Republic, edited by Dieter Dettke. New York: Berghahn, 2003: 37-47. Elsaesser, Thomas. “American Friends: Hollywood Echoes in the New German Cinema.” In Hollywood and Europe: Economics, Culture and National Identity: 1945-95, edited Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Stephen Ricci. London: BFI, 1998: 142-55. Fehrenbach, Heide. Cinema in Democratizing German Film: Reconstructing National Identity after Hitler. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1995. Hake, Sabine. German National Cinema. London: Routledge, 2002. Heinemann, Elizabeth. “The Hour of the Woman: Memories of Germany’s ‘Crisis’ Years and West German National Identity.” In The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949-1968, edited by Hanna Schissler. Princeton: U of Princeton P, 2001: 21-56. Karasek, Hellmuth. Go West! Eine Biographie der fünfziger Jahre. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1996.

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Krämer, Peter. “Would you take your child to see this film?” In Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, edited by Steve Neale and Murray Smith.London: Routledge, 1998: 294-311. Müller, Jan-Werner. Another Country: German Intellectuals, Unification and National Identity. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000. Plowman, Andrew. “Westalgie? Nostalgia for the ‘Old’ Federal Republic in Recent German Prose.” Seminar 40 (2004): 249-61. Plowman, Andrew. “Between ‘Restauration’ and ‘Nierentisch:’ The 1950s in Ludwig Harig, F.C. Delius and Thomas Hettche.” In German Memory Contests. Cultural Memory in Literature, Film and Discourse since 1990, edited by Anne Fuchs and Georg Grote. Rochester: Camden House, 2006: 253-69. Poiger, Uta. “Rock’n’roll, Female Sexuality, and the Cold War Battle over German Identities.” In West Germany under Construction: Politics, Society and Culture in the Adenauer Era, edited by Robert Moeller. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1997: 373-412. Regener, Sven. Herr Lehmann. Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn, 2001. Schaffrath, Michael. “‘Wir sind wieder wer.’ Die wachsende Bedeutung der Sportkultur.” In Die Kultur der 50er Jahre, edited by Werner Faulstich. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2002: 145-57 Taberner, Stuart. German Literature of the 1990s and Beyond. Normalization and the Berlin Republic. Rochester: Camden House, 2005.

CHAPTER SEVEN FORGETTING DIE ARCHITEKTEN: TOWARDS A NEW APPROACH TO DEFA AND WENDE FILM SUSAN BUZZELLI

In a 1999 essay1 Barton Byg calls for an approach to East German cinema that finally breaks free from the “polarities”2 of Cold War discourse. “The challenge,” he writes, “is to look at the history of DEFA without forcing it into a narrative that merely leads to the outcome we now know since 1989.”3 He then draws arrows between GDR cinema and Expressionist, Weimar, Modernist and other filmic periods and genres to illustrate that DEFA films can be imagined “not primarily as an expression of GDR national culture, but as a space where film styles, movements or traditions were or could have been pursued.”4 The task of looking at GDR cinema then is “blocked by [both] ignorance about the films and access to them,”5 but most significantly by, “oversimplified and unproductive”6 readings of those films in circulation. Byg thus argues that discourse about GDR cinema is, in a Foucauldian sense, defined and therefore limited by the demarcations of that discourse itself. He suggests that in order to open up a new space for the exploration of DEFA film that does not assume a link between film and politics, scholars must fuse insights from Cultural Studies with traditional film studies. Looking at East German films through an interdisciplinary lens, he implies, would unearth evidence that they are not inextricably tethered to 1

Byg, “DEFA and the Traditions of International Cinema,” 22-41. Ibid., 26. 3 Ibid., 26. 4 Ibid., 26. 5 Ibid., 22. 6 Ibid., 38. 2

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the anxieties and desires of the regime that oversaw their production. Since writing his essay, however, Anglo-American scholars have not only continued to work within the confines of Cold War-era discourse when addressing DEFA film, but have furthermore shifted attention away from GDR films to their equally intriguing “successors,” the so-called Wendefilme.7 Scholarly interest in such films as Go Trabi Go!,8 Sonnenallee9 and, most of all, Good Bye Lenin! 10 that were made after the fall of the Wall about the East or eastern Germany has followed their critical and commercial success in Germany and, in the case of Lenin, around the world. Such recently published books as Joshua Feinstein’s Triumph of the Ordinary, Daniela Berghahn’s Hollywood Behind the Wall, Leonie Naughton’s That Was the Wild, Wild East and Paul Cooke’s Representing East Germany since Unification point to an emerging tendency in GDR/Wende scholarship to either emphasize the political dimensions of GDR filmmaking, include DEFA and Wende films under the same discursive umbrella,11 or to increasingly focus on Wendefilme instead of DEFA film. Against this backdrop, my goal is to apply the spirit of Bygs’ argument to the case of two films, a DEFA film and a Wendefilm, as a means to not only echo his call for a more imaginative reading of DEFA films, but to also call for a more careful analysis of the relationship between DEFA and post-Wende films. I will examine discourse about, then critically compare what I consider to be a ‘forgotten’ DEFA film, Die Architekten,12 and a better known, but increasingly harder to find television mini-series, Nikolaikirche,13 to show that the dis/connections between these films’ depictions of the final years of the GDR, despite the fact that they were both directed by East(ern) Germans, not only unearth alternate ways to read East German films, but also problematize any notion that DEFA and Wende films speak with the same voice. I will, in turn, conclude with

7

Wende is a term used to describe the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent re-unification process. Wendefilme are films made after the fall of the Wall that portray this moment in history. 8 Go Trabi Go!, dir. Peter Timm. Neue Constantin Film, 1991. 9 Sonnenallee, dir. Leander Haussman. Beta Film GmbH, 1999. 10 Goodbye Lenin!, dir. Wolfgang Becker. X Verleih AG, 2003. 11 Several of the syllabi posted on the University of Massachusetts DEFA website also reflect this trend. See http://www.umass.edu/defa/CourseMaterials/teachingaids.shtml. 12 Die Architekten, dir. Peter Kahane. Progress Film Verleih, 1990. 13 Nikolaikirche (Nicholas’ Church), dir. Frank Beyer. Progress Film Verleih, 1995.

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observations about the implications of current trends in DEFA and Wende film discourse.

‘Forgetting’ Die Architekten and Nikolaikirche Die Architekten and Nikolaikirche are two of the few productions created before or after the Wende that implicitly (Die Architekten) or explicitly (Nikolaikirche) depict the crumbling of the GDR. Yet recent accounts of either DEFA or post-Wende cinema are organized in such a way as to ignore, gloss over or relegate these films to secondary status. A survey of literature about East and eastern German film suggests that Kahane and Beyer’s works have been marginalized primarily because the works do not fit into the taxonomies used to organize these films.14 Scholars Sean Allan, Joshua Feinstein and Sabine Hake, for example, “close” Kahane’s film due to its conventional narration, its status as an Überlaüferfilme,15 “films begun as DEFA projects, but released in another, united Germany,”16 and its classification as a highly-critical Gegenwartsfilm17 produced during a time when escapist, historical epics prevailed. Sean Allan is one of the few DEFA scholars (Bärbel Dalichow and Klaus Finke are others) to discuss Die Architekten at length in his work. In an article about three, late DEFA depictions of the fall of the Wall—Die Architekten, Letztes aus der Da Da eR18 and Stein19,20—he offers a limited interpretation of the film that, in turn, enables him to deny the film’s importance due to its “conventionality”21 vis-à-vis the other two, more ‘artistic’ films. Allan first praises the film for its “vigorous attack 14

Other representations of the Wende include: the love story Das Versprechen (Margarethe von Trotta, 1995), the already-mentioned Goodbye Lenin! (Wolfgang Becker, 2003) and the documentary Die Mauer (Jürgen Böttcher, 1991). 15 GDR scholars present varying definitions of Überlaüferfilme. 16 Hake, German National Cinema, 143. 17 Gegenwart means present, as in contemporary. 18 Letztes aus der Da Da eR, dir. Jörg Forth. DEFA, 1990. 19 Stein, dir. Egon Günther. DEFA, 1990. 20 Whether or not these three films can be grouped together as late DEFA films is highly contestable. All three films did indeed carry the DEFA label, but Forth and Günther’s films were both made under an “autonomous production group” as Allan himself points out. Should Die Architekten, created when the GDR and DEFA still existed as full-fledged, if faltering institutions, be measured against two films created after the defacto dismantling of the GDR and DEFA? Scholars writing about DEFA films often operate with different periodizations of the late DEFA time period. 21 Allan, “1989 and the Wende in East German Cinema,” 234.

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against … party functionaries,” its insistence on addressing controversial issues and its “utterly bleak ending;”22 only to ultimately reject it for its “conventional narrative aesthetic that is characteristic of so many … DEFA films.”23 He furthermore suggests that if the film had been released before the Wende, in the East, it “might have made a considerable impact.”24 However, he implies, since the film’s later release subjected it to the standards of the West, it “strikes us as clichéd and, at times, almost sentimental.”25 Allan’s clear message is that beyond the DEFA and East German context, Kahane’s film carries no cultural currency in a unified Germany. Joshua Feinstein hinges his study Triumph of the Ordinary on the commonly held contention that DEFA production reached its peak in the late 1960s with the output of ten ‘new wave’ films (known as Kaninchenfilme after one of the films Das Kaninchen bin ich26) that were subsequently banned, only to decline into mediocrity. Feinstein thus must dismiss Die Architekten due to the constraints of his thesis. Not only does he mention Kahane’s film in the epilogue, thereby establishing its marginality, he further buries his discussion of the film in a sub-section entitled “Escape in History” that asserts that most late DEFA films were historical epics shot by directors weary of an increasingly uncertain political landscape. Though Feinstein points to Kahane’s Die Architekten as an exception and states that it “provides a devastating portrait of the GDR” and “breaks taboos,”27 he stops short of praising the film. He undermines its existence instead by asserting that by the time the Überläuferfilm 28 “appeared in theaters, it had already been bypassed by events.”29 He thus echoes Allan’s assertion that the film’s only relevance was its potential to impact East German viewers. Sabine Hake employs a subtler, but nonetheless effective means of ‘forgetting’ Die Architekten in German National Cinema. While the fact that she mentions Kahane’s “parable”30 in her selective account of German film points to its importance, she emphasizes its Überläufer status in a 22

Ibid., 234. Ibid., 234. 24 Ibid., 234. 25 Ibid., 234. 26 Das Kaninchen bin ich (A Rabbit, I am), dir. Kurt Maetzig. DEFA, 1965. 27 Feinstein, The Triumph of the Ordinary: Depictions of Daily Life in the East German Cinema, 1956-1966, 252. 28 Spill over film 29 Feinstein, 252. 30 Hake, German National Cinema, 138. 23

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section entitled the “Decline of Cinema as a Public Sphere.”31 She, therefore, like Allan and Feinstein, draws attention to Die Architekten, only to implicitly negate its significance in the larger scheme of DEFA and/or German film history. Nikolaikirche, in contrast to Die Architekten, is more frequently cited in Wendefilme discourse. The mini-series, however, receives less attention for the story itself, than for the fact that Frank Beyer sat in the director’s chair. As a former DEFA head and director of both Spur der Steine,32 one of the celebrated Kaninchenfilme33 and Jacob der Lügner,34 the only East German film to be nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar, Beyer enjoyed recognition and popularity in both Germanies throughout the GDR’s existence. Western German television producers, for example, who prized Beyer’s status as the dissident filmmaker of Spur der Steine, lured him from the East for a year to direct the made-for-television film Der König und sein Narr.35 Capitalizing on his relative fame in the West consequently enabled him to become one of the only members of the DEFA ‘old guard’ to survive the Wende with career prospects intact. Nikolaikirche is thus most frequently cited in this context as one of the films Beyer managed to direct in the post-Wende period within the framework of the Western-dominated audiovisual industry.36 Leonie Naughton, one of the only scholars to weave Nikolaikirche into her rich, if problematic, survey of Wendefilme, suggests that the miniseries’ status as a television production may be the main reason why it has been ‘overlooked’ beyond its associations with Beyer. Nikolaikirche, she writes, suffered from “meager print runs, and minimal or nonexisting promotional budgets”37 when shown in theaters and, furthermore, “was seen by a disappointing 3,167 paying customers”38 when shown on pay television. While Nikolaikirche and, for that matter Die Architekten, could attribute their ‘forgotten’ status in part to limited distribution, Byg suggests that is not the primary reason for their invisibility. “Many generally educated Americans,” he writes, “have never seen Citizen Kane 31

Ibid., 138. Spur der Steine, dir. Frank Beyer. DEFA, 1965. 33 This term refers to the above-mentioned new wave films banned by the SED in the late 1960s. 34 Jacob der Lügner, dir. Frank Beyer. DEFA, 1975. 35 Der König un sein Narr, dir. Frank Beyer. AUFA, 1980. 36 Nowell-Smith and Wollen, After the Wall: Broadcasting in Germany. 37 Naughton, That Was the Wild East: Film Culture, Unification, and the “New” Germany, 236. 38 Ibid., 238. 32

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(1940) or a John Ford or a Douglas Sirk melodrama.”39 One could similarly assume that many generally educated Germans haven’t seen such DEFA classics as Spur der Steine, Berlin um die Ecke40 or Solo Sunny;41 but they have more than likely heard or read about these films. How widely these films have been viewed does not necessarily determine their value; it is the discursive, as well as the institutional, constraints that have played major roles in the ‘forgetting’ of these films.

(Mis)representations of the Wende As Kahane and Beyer are both products of the DEFA studio system— Beyer even served as Kahane’s mentor between 1978 and 198042—their works are inevitably linked by more than just their ‘forgotten’ status and their depiction of the final years leading to the Wende. Both productions, for example, employ architects as main characters and architecture as a metaphor for the GDR’s condition, place family drama/melodrama in the center of the narrative, pay particular attention to the role of women in society, pit idealists against authoritarians and, ultimately, present sobering portrayals of the GDR in decline. The differing ways in which the film and mini-series portray the very elements that link them, however, reveals that they present alternate, sometimes vastly so, representations of the same moment in the GDR’s history. The following section aims to expose differences, but also the similarities, between these two works through a discussion of their use of architecture; the role of families, and specifically women, in their stories; and the inclusion – or lack thereof – of socialism in their tales of collectives battling the SED.

Aufbau, Rückbau DEFA filmmakers frequently used architecture and construction to represent and comment on the GDR state.43 In Beyer’s already-mentioned, 1967 film Spur der Steine, for example, a construction site serves as a backdrop for his multi-layered critique of the rigidities of GDR dogmatism. Kahane, and, once again, Beyer continue this DEFA tradition by placing architects and architecture at the center of their films. Whereas 39

Byg, 22. Berlin um die Ecke, dir. Gerhard Klein. DEFA, 1965. 41 Solo Sunny, dir. Konrad Wolf. DEFA, 1980. 42 http://www.filmmuseum-potsdam.de/beyer.html 43 Hake, 143. 40

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Kahane depicts the “cookie cutter” banality and the decay of GDR architecture while contemplating its potential for change, Beyer narrowly focuses on Leipzig’s decaying infrastructure. Furthermore, while the architects in Kahane’s film are hopeful that they can change the face of GDR architecture, the architect in Beyer’s mini-series uses her architectural expertise to assert that the GDR rests on a decaying foundation. Kahane and Beyer may both use architecture as themes, but Kahane presents the process and practice of designing a new building as a symbol of construction, while Beyer equates architecture with destruction. Allan suggests in his review of Die Architekten that the specific time period and type of architecture addressed in the film aligns it with “a series of films which focus on the GDR’s Wohnungsbauprogram44 of the late 1970s and early 1980s in order to launch a more general critique of GDR society.”45 He cites Unser kurzes Leben (Our Short Life, Lothar Warneke, 1981) and Insel der Schwäne (Island of Swans, Hermann Zschoche, 1983) as additional films that represent and thematize the government’s policy of building and relocating citizens to Plattenbau46 no-mans-lands in the outskirts of major cities. A careful re-reading of the film, however, reveals that Kahane is concerned with much more than criticizing the GDR’s planning policies. He is instead interested in using architecture as a metaphor for utopic longing and to ruminate on the universal role that structures play in modern society. Hake suggests in her brief analysis of Die Architekten that Kahane uses architecture not to critique society, as Allan asserts, but to offer a metaphor for utopia within the borders of the GDR.47 Daniel and his colleagues envision the construction of “pleasant places” with “human proportions” as an agent for solving—not just drawing attention to—the ills of East German society. They envision, for example, their community center as an answer to the need for diversity, entertainment and imagination in everyday GDR life. These architects, however, do not suggest that the entire GDR is in need of a renovation. Their blueprints for the future do not deny, but in fact rely on East Germany’s continued existence. Integral to their designs, for example, is the country’s factories, building materials, and transportation system. They also include sculptures of a soldier, a socialist family and a construction worker not only because they have to, but also because they want to offer new visions of these quintessential GDR images. Cynics on the fringes of the story, as well as 44

Apartment-building program Allan, 233. 46 Prefabricated building 47 Hake, 143. 45

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Daniel by the end of the film, suggest that East Germany is doomed to failure, but the spaces opened up by the process and practice of architecture as Daniel and his colleagues envision it in the film suggest that the country, if modified, not destroyed, could be made into an ideal Heimat. Kahane opens Die Architekten with sinister images of towering, prefabricated apartment complexes, but the film does not remain mired in the particularities of late 1970s and 80s GDR building policies. It instead offers a more general meditation on the way in which a city’s historical, political and economic trajectory is reified in architectural form. “Building is political,” Daniel’s architecture professor reminds him. “We project power. Each building reflects status, like it or not. Prosperity or austerity. Dreams or despair. Economics and technology.” Kahane reinforces this universal message by panning over the facades of an ornate turn-of-thecentury townhouse; setting a scene in a 19th century mansion in the midst of reconstruction; and providing a glimpse of the Berliner Dom. In this way, he presents Plattenbau as one stage in the continuum of dynamic East/German architectural history. Architecture-as-motif thus not only engages Die Architekten in a conversation with several DEFA films, including Spur der Steine, but also places it in a transnational category of films that use architecture as commentary on modern society. Whereas Berlin is still in the process of building, expanding and planning for the future in Die Architekten, Leipzig is stagnating, decaying and teetering on the brink of collapse in Nikolaikirche. While both works follow the DEFA/eastern German tradition of employing architecture as a theme, casting architects in central roles and featuring GDR structures, Beyer does not use this tactic to criticize the GDR, but to illustrate that the regime is so far along a path of destruction that it can no longer benefit from criticism. Astrid, the central protagonist, works as an architect in a city planning office. Though, unlike Daniel, who is an outsider, she is deeply enmeshed in the SED system as the daughter of a GDR general and a member of the Party, she distances herself from this position early in the film. In an important scene she refuses to co-sign a city planning project because it does not acknowledge malfunctioning sanitation systems in schools. “The students cover their mouths when they go to the bathroom or try to hold it until they go home,” she nearly cries. When her superiors suggest that she is under stress and needs time off, instead of accepting her appraisal of the school’s structural insufficiencies, she feels ill and starts to sweat profusely in an acute reaction to the state’s refusal to acknowledge its advanced state of degradation. This discovery leads to her decision to quit her position and to protest against the state. Astrid is not an architect-

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as-creator like Daniel; she is instead an architect-as-assessor. Her architectural expertise imbues her conclusion that “Leipzig is deteriorating into a provincial dump” with an air of authority. Astrid’s assertion that the GDR is in a state of decline is reinforced through the mini-series’ depiction of East German architecture as either rotten or, in some cases, sinister and otherworldly. Astrid bicycles past empty lots lined with decrepit, charred, houses; a street dedication ceremony in honor of Astrid’s father takes place in a crumbling alleyway lined with pockmarked homes; a group of young anti-war demonstrators squat in the cold, abandoned shell of a building. While these scenes accuse the GDR of neglect, additional scenes suggest that the GDR’s manifestation in architectural form proves that it is an illegitimate, even unnatural, State. One character, for example, holds up, against a bombastic socialist-realist façade, the picture of an elegant chapel that had been destroyed so that the new building could be built in its place. An environmentalist shoots footage of a mining facility carved out of the earth that looks like the setting of a science fiction film. A carbon plant spews smoke into the atmosphere as a group of environmentalists demands its removal. Beyer relies on architecture, as well as dark lighting, a polluted atmosphere and a sinister soundtrack, to present Leipzig as a rotting noman’s-land on the edge of the earth. The only building he treats with reverence is Nikolaikirche, the incubator and protector of the protest groups working desperately to topple the disintegrating SED.

Rejecting (and Embracing) the Double Burden Both Kahane and Beyer develop their stories around families-in-crisis as a means of demonstrating the profound effects a GDR-in-decline had on the family unit, as well as its individual members. Wives and mothers’ commitments to their families play particularly significant roles in each production. While Naughton’s assertion that Nikolaikirche “presents the family as a site of political conflict and dissention”48 applies to both Nikolaikirche and Die Architekten; juxtaposing these works reveal that they also offer fundamentally differing conclusions about the sanctity of families in modern society. Daniel, Wanda and Johanna start out as a close, harmonious unit, only to break apart by the end of Die Architekten due to the pressures and insufficiencies inherent in GDR society. Similarly, Astrid, her brother and her mother are divided by events leading to the fall of the Wall, but Astrid, her husband Harald and her daughter 48

Naughton, 212.

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Silke are brought closer together by these events. Though both films present the disintegration of these families as painful episodes, Die Architekten does not lament the loss of the family, while Nikolaikirche not only mourns the break up of the Bachers, but also celebrates the stability of the Potters. The following examination of the disintegration of the Brenners and, in contrast, the cohesion of the Potters, reveals that these films arrive at vastly different conclusions about the necessity and role of the nuclear family. When Die Architekten begins, Daniel and Wanda live harmoniously in their Plattenbau because of and not despite the undesirable living, working and leisure conditions circumscribing their new lives. When Daniel starts working on the “project of a lifetime,” however, and finally achieves the creative fulfillment that both he and Wanda desired, the subsequent asymmetries integrated into their marriage lead to, but are not the only reason for, its break. While Allan attributes their divorce to the “well known screen cliché of the husband who unwittingly sacrifices his private life and family to his work,”49 another reading of the film reveals that Wanda, not Daniel, is primarily to “blame” for the divorce and that her motivations for “exiting” the family and the GDR are more complex than displeasure with her husband’s work schedule. Wanda’s demand for immediate change, her displeasure with the double burden of work and housework, her (fleeting) refusal to remain integrated in a patriarchal arrangement, as well as an overall pessimistic worldview shaped by her role in society, lead her to form two grievances against the GDR: that she is trapped in a subservient position within a patriarchal arrangement and that she suffers from lack of “surprise and variety” in her life due to the limits of GDR society. It is these “conflicts”50 and disappointments that ultimately lead to her decision to divorce Daniel. Late DEFA filmmakers frequently used female protagonists to “allude to more general problems within society”51 and to, furthermore, represent the need for “change and challenge”52 in East Germany. As celebrated members of society called on to balance factory work and housework, party membership and motherhood, public emancipation and private submission, female characters were better positioned than men to convey the drama and shortcomings of “everyday” East German life. Kahane thus uses Wanda’s emotional struggle against her prescribed role in society to 49

Allan, 234. Andrea Rinke, “From Models to Misfits: Women in DEFA Films of the 1970’s and 1980’s,” 189. 51 Ibid., 189. 52 Ibid., 190. 50

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expose the fundamental flaws inherent in the GDR, as well as, arguably, modern industrial, society vis-à-vis women and families. Wanda made bitter sacrifices to move to the Berlin suburbs. She not only curtailed her medical schooling and left behind family and friends in Berlin, she also took on the “double burden” of work and housework without compensation from a satisfying job, entertainment or creative outlet. Kahane depicts her life as consisting of nothing more than working, waiting in long lines at the grocery store, preparing dinner, then folding laundry in front of the television. She feels so insignificant that she cries, “I am a nobody. Just a little housewife.” In a society that so highly values work and public life (and, in fact, openly disdains those who do not work outside the home) feeling like a housewife is indeed synonymous with being a “nobody.” Though her stressful job provides no satisfaction and Daniel offers at one point to support her with his salary, she does not consider quitting. She is trapped, on the one hand, by patriarchy, and on the other, by the “right but also the duty to work.”53 Wanda, jealous of Daniel’s job and co-workers, but also tired of her double burden, announces one night, “from now on I am only looking after myself.” She thus decides to unload one of the burdens from her shoulders to insist on “independence” from her husband and from “society’s norms and expectations.”54 She follows through with her threat by leaving Daniel to care for Johanna in the evenings while she spends time out of the house. She seems, at first, to have succeeded in emancipating herself from the constraints of the “endless everyday routine” of her miserable life, but when it becomes clear that she had been meeting with a Swiss lover, instead of attending the theater and visiting with friends, her actual motivations become clear. She had not attempted to integrate creativity, surprise or entertainment into her life, but had instead taken advantage of an affair with Claude, the Swissman, in order to leave the GDR. “I need to get out of here,” she tells Daniel as they discuss her demand for a divorce. “I am now thirty-five, I have lived half of my life already; what have I experienced? Nothing.” She doesn’t dream of living in West Germany or Switzerland; she only dreams of not living in the GDR.55 She chooses to continue living in a patriarchal arrangement in exchange for the possibility of surprise beyond the GDR’s border. Kahane thus suggests that the flaws inherent in GDR society are both particular (lack of variety) but also universal (the limits of patriarchy). While Wanda is hopeful that leaving 53

Ibid., 176. Ibid., 189. 55 She acknowledges this when Daniel asks, “Is life of bowl of cherries in Switzerland?” “Of course not,” she replies. 54

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the GDR will solve her problems, Kahane suggests that she will never escape the double burden weighing her down. Astrid’s family is more directly and profoundly torn apart, only to be brought back together, by the political events reverberating through Leipzig in the late 1980s. Beyer sets Nikolaikirche’s family melodrama in motion with the collapse and death of Astrid’s decorated general father Albert Bacher. The remaining members of the family, his son, Sasha, his daughter Astrid, and his wife Frau Bacher, are then left to work through the de-centering and destabilizing effect that his death, as well as the protest movements building up in Leipzig, has on both their family dynamics and personal lives. As a result of the fact that the Bachers are divided by their divergent reactions to the revolutionary rumblings in Leipzig,56 one of Astrid’s primary tasks in the story is to change her role in society to ensure that she, her husband and her daughter maintain their cohesiveness. Once the “bad” patriarchy, the State, symbolized by Albert Bacher, falls apart, attention turns to ensuring that the “good” patriarchy, the family unit that protests against the State, ushers the GDR into its future. The very patriarchal arrangement questioned in Die Architeketen is thus viewed as something to protect against all odds in Nikolaikirche. When Nikolaikirche opens, Astrid’s family is in the midst of falling apart. Astrid, on leave from her job, is physically and emotionally unstable,57 Harald, her husband, “reaches for the bottle” and Silke, their daughter, is secretly staying out all night with an anti-arms protestor. As Astrid’s personal crisis deepens, culminating in her near death and a stay in a psychiatric ward, her family grows even further apart. While Astrid is in the hospital, for example, Harald does not notice that Silke ran away to live with her boyfriend. “Are we even a family anymore?” Astrid laments. Once Astrid awakens from her emotional and psychological coma, she is able to immediately focuses on what is most important – her family – as if it was her fate to do so. She quits her job (just as Daniel did) and then accepts financial support from her husband (unlike Wanda). This traditional “Western” arrangement, in turn, enables her to work as an active protester against the GDR. Beyer thus suggests that Astrid’s transformation from model party architect to model matriarch is essential 56

Astrid evolves from member of the party, to societal outcast, to protestor; Alexander, a Stasi agent, remains faithful to his family and the State even though he learns that both are frauds; and Frau Bacher, though she is presented with information that undermines her memories of the past, denies them to remain faithful to the GDR. 57 In one scene, as a sign of the familial crisis, she is unable to have sex with her husband.

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for her to preserve her nuclear family and to protest against the State. Strong patriarchal family arrangements, those very arrangements that GDR (tried to) challenge, are presented as key to the future of Astrid’s family and the GDR according to Nikolaikirche’s interpretation of events.

The Spirit(lessness) of the Collective Both Die Architekten and Nikolaikirche present brave individuals who work against authoritarianism, bureaucracy, convention and coercion. Daniel uses his passion and youthfulness to successfully navigate the obstacles that bureaucracy lays in his path; Astrid refuses to compromise her ideals despite pressure from her superiors to comply with their demands. Both productions, however, also pit groups—collectives—that are not officially sanctioned by the GDR against the State. Daniel leads a collective of young architects who work from within the system to not only re-imagine, but also make possible, radical changes in GDR architecture and society. Astrid joins a group of civic rights protestors who gather in the sanctity of Nikolaikirche in the hope of changing the State. Whereas Daniel’s collective is clearly devoted to the ideals of socialism (not real existing socialism, but socialism with a human face), Astrid’s collective is motivated by environmental and anti-war considerations, religious beliefs, and most especially, the guilt of living complacently under the SED. Socialism only plays a minor role. One of the most fundamental differences, therefore, between Die Architekten and Nikolaikirche is the fact that Kahane’s film is seeped with a vision of socialism, while Beyer’s story only obliquely acknowledges that socialism ever played a role in the “people’s revolution.”58 Both stories conclude with disconcerting ambivalence; Daniel and Wanda are desperate, anxious and troubled when each story closes. However, the methods used in how these productions reach these conclusions and create the ambivalent characters are vastly different. Daniel dreams, because of his fundamental devotion to the socialist project, contrary to Wanda, of changing the GDR. He does not, however, support socialism as it is interpreted and practiced by the Party and the State, but rather as it is represented in the collective of architects he assembles to design the community center. He and his colleagues, a group of young men and women disappointed with their lives in the GDR, but 58 This paper agrees with Jonathan Grix that “people’s revolution” is an appropriate, “neutral … term to describe the events of 1989.” See Grix, The Role of the Masses in the Collapse of East Germany, 17.

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nonetheless still eager to change the system, prove that socialism-as-acollective works, but that socialism-as-bureaucracy does not. Kahane suggests through his celebration of this particular brand of socialism that the GDR died, not because of the flaws of socialism, but because an older, unimaginative group of bureaucrats buried its potential under a stack of arbitrary rules and regulations. Die Architekten could thus be categorized as the last attempt by a filmmaker to imagine how a real form of socialism could have been reintroduced into the GDR or, more universally, as a tale of intergenerational strife, idealism versus authoritarianism and imagination battling dogmatism. Daniel, the collective and, ultimately, socialism are defeated by the end of the film, but the reason the ending is so “bleak” is its contrast to the promise Daniel’s collective demonstrated. The collective consists of a group of self-entitled “late bloomers,” seven talented architects who have either been out of work or are overqualified for their positions, that band together in their public and private lives to not only achieve their architectural goals, but also fill social voids in their lives. They ultimately provide a hybrid working and living arrangement that is depicted in the film as superior to both bureaucratic and nuclear family arrangements. Though the collective is contained within the state bureaucracy, Daniel and his colleagues are able to use their pent-up ingenuity to operate autonomously from, and successfully work against, the rigidities of the system. The collective functions therefore as one of the few “sites of resistance” in the GDR that claimed a right to “intractable moments of … solidarity …that did not square with the market or the plan.”59 Told repeatedly by their superiors that their ideas are too radical, that their innovations are too expensive, that GDR factories can not produce their designs, they nonetheless win the architecture competition with their radical designs, persuade even the most miserly budget officer to accept their expensive plans and convince the factory to produce the particular style of glass that they need. The collective is furthermore successful in integrating the incompetent Stasi60 informant assigned to keep watch over them into their fold. Menacing symbols of the State—authorities, Stasi, inflexibility, dogmatism—melt away under the influence of the collective. Group members pool their talents in an open, airy office, share meals, help each other with household chores, and throw parties together creating a communal family arrangement officially valued by GDR discourse, but rarely, if ever actually practiced by GDR citizens. Though members of the 59 60

Charity Scribner, Requiem for Communism, 6. GDR secret police

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group occasionally disagree, the film presents the collective as a site of progress and harmony, while the private sphere is depicted as a site of friction and discord. The inclusion of a single mother, for example, suggests that the collective is an ideal alternative to the patriarchical arrangements. Wanda, as the symbol of double burden, is tellingly jealous of the single mother because Daniel and the mother are attracted to one another, and because the mother has the “creativity” in her life that Wanda so desperately desires. Kahane thus suggests that membership in a collective may have ameliorated Wanda’s life just as it did Daniel’s. Just as the Brenners’ relationship falls apart, so too does the collective. Mounting demand for uniformity from the bureaucracy leads to a bleak ending in which the collective disbands, the project loses all innovations and Daniel suspends his faith in the potential for change. In a final scene, Daniel, divorced, drunk and disillusioned laughs at a (former) colleague for suggesting that “people are getting bolder” and may soon take to the streets. “They are either cowards or contenders. No one will ever march on the streets,” he replies. The wall divides Daniel and his daughter, but he is not necessarily devastated by the fact that he Wall and, in turn, the GDR still stand. Praising Kahane, as Allan does, for hinting that the Wall is about to fall with “uncanny accuracy”61 is to misread the film’s primary message. Daniel is devastated because the utopian project he had been so deeply invested in and had sacrificed so much for failed. He is thus crying for the loss of utopia, socialism-as-collective and the power of individuals to change the system-at-large. His journey from idealist to pessimist could have been repeated in any system that privileges bureaucracy over adaptation, seniority over talent and inflexibility over innovation. Kahane thus celebrates, one last time, the joys of socialism, or more generally, utopia, but these joys are hardly limited to the confines of the East. Nikolaikirche provides a vastly different conception of civic protestors’ motivations and group dynamics. Beyer, as suggested above, brushes past any suggestion that a desire to hold on to socialism played a role in protesters demands. Instead, he suggests environmental concerns, antiarms sentiments, and the desire to stop “living a lie,”62 and most of all, the dream of toppling the GDR inspired Leipzigers to risk the danger of the “China Solution.” Protestors, including Pastor Ohlbaum, leader of the Monday meetings in Nikolaikirche; Reverend Reichenbork and Martin Vockert, heads of an environmental group, Jörg, an anti-arms protestor; and Astrid deliver vague, soulless speeches that fail to express convincing 61 62

Allan, 234. Grix, 23.

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reasons for either their displeasure with the GDR state or their vision for the future. The overall effect is a film about a dramatic protest that lacks drama, ideas and, in fact imposes a “narrative that merely leads to the outcome we now know since 1989”63 onto the depiction of a complex historical event. During one of the Monday protest meetings, early in the mini-series, Pastor Ohlbaum asks the State, “Don’t you see the people who have struggled to make changes?” The film never answers exactly who these “people” are (all citizens? protestors?) or which changes they desire (new laws? capitulation?). Throughout the film, Beyer provides only a series of vague reasons—structural insufficiencies, pollution, “peace”—why civic groups have chosen to protest against an authoritarian regime and what they hope to get out of their protests. It is only in the second half of the production that he reveals that most Monday meeting attendees are driven to protest by the lie of GDR life. “We have, like all, hidden our convictions, and didn’t even stop lying within our own families. We have a Datsche64, a job and a bank account.” The act of protesting is thus akin to a last-minute confession that absolves these characters of the sin of having lived under the SED. The film furthermore asserts that “dreamers…who think and who still believe it is possible to change this materially and morally depraved country” should be pitied. This comment and a short speech by Kurt Maser that plays in the background of one scene provide the only references to socialism in the entire film. Thus one of the messages in the film is that “dreamers” and their belief in the “future of socialism in the country” should be disregarded.

Dis/connections Re-reading Die Architekten, then juxtaposing this reading with an analysis of Nikolaikirche, reveals that these films offer different conclusions about the reasons for, and consequences of, the decline of the GDR. Kahane suggests that Daniel and his collective, if given the chance, could have prevented the country’s demise through the defeat of bureaucracy and the implementation of socialism with a human face. Beyer, in turn, asserts that there was nothing salvageable in the GDR’s remains and that the only possible action was to “abandon the sinking ship.” Exploring the way in which these filmmakers construct their conclusions, however, reveals that the films do not have to be relegated to 63 64

Byg, 89. Small vacation homes

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discussions about the GDR, in particular, or socialist or authoritarian regimes, in general, but can instead contribute to more general filmic discussions about the limits of modern industrial societies in the case of Die Architekten and the role of memory in film in the case of Nikolaikirche. In Requiem for Communism, Charity Scribner suggests that Daniel’s sadness over the loss of the collective is shared with all contemporary Europeans. “State socialism’s ruin,” she writes, “signaled that industrial modernity had exhausted its utopian potential.”65 Kahane’s film is thus not accurately described as an Überläuferfilm—a cultural object “bypassed by events,”66 that represents a “socialist alternative that seemed to have past”67—but as an interpretation of late 1980s GDR full of themes both particular and universal that still have currency in the 21st century. While Nikolaikirche is, as the analysis above suggests, bereft of novel ideas, its status as a “nostalgia film”68 that reads the past through the prism of the present makes its interpretations of the Wende worthy of study. Paul Cooke’s discussion of representations of East Germany suggest, for example, that the film is less about the East and more about a united Germany. The east, and particularly the set of values with which East Germanness is often imbued, ultimately provide a discursive space for people in both the east and the west to explore their relationship to the unified state.69

While he stresses “values,” Nikolaikirche suggests that interpretations of the east’s history could also play a similar, discursive role. Fundamental differences between these two films thus supports this paper’s argument that Die Architeken and Nikolaikirche, despite their similarities, do not speak with the same voice, do not play the same role in post-Wende discourse and thus should not be included under the same discursive umbrella. Scholarship by Allan and Feinstein, on the one hand, and Berghahn and Laughton, on the other, is therefore not equipped to account for the complex interrelationships between Kahane and Beyer’s works. Allan asserts that Die Architekten can only be read within the narrow confines of 65

Scribner, 1. Feinstein, 252. 67 Scribner, 22. 68 Not in the negative, Frederic Jameson sense, but in the more positive sense put forth by such scholars as Pam Cook in Screening the Past: Memory and Nostalgia in Cinema. 69 Cooke, Representing East Germany since Unification, 47. 66

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its political and temporal context. Feinstein does not even consider Die Architekten worthy of consideration beyond its Überläuferfilm status. The inadequacies of these limited readings of DEFA films reinforce Byg’s call for a less “hermetic definition”70 of East German cinema. Berghahn and Naughton, however, go one step further to suggest that ‘eastern’ German films carry the torch of the DEFA legacy and, in turn, their work unnecessarily drags “Cold War discourse” into the 21st century. Berghahn, for example, asserts that such post-Wende films as Nachtsgestalten (Andreas Dressen 1999) and Sonnenallee (Leander Haußmann, 1999) “are indebted to DEFA’s tradition of socialist realism.”71 In this version of the story, then, Nikolaikirche would be viewed as Die Architekten’s successor. The dis/connections between the two productions prove, however, that they can not be linked based on their ‘eastness.’ Their dis/connections reveal that post-Wende film is not one and the same as studying DEFA cinema. The limits and assumptions driving and informing studies of both DEFA and post-Wende filmmaking could thus benefit from ‘remembering’ Die Architekten.

Works Cited Primary Sources Die Architekten. Dir. Peter Kahane. Perf. Kurt Naumann and Rita Feldmeier. Progress Film-Verleih, 1990. Nikolaikirche. Dir. Frank Beyer. Perf. Barbara Auer and Ulrich Matthes, Progress Film Verleih, 1995.

Secondary Sources Allan, Seán, “1989 and the Wende in East German Cinema,” In 1949/1989 Cultural Perspectives on Division and Unity in East and West. Edited by Clare Flanagan and Stuart Taberner. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000: 230-243. Berghahn, Daniela. Hollywood Behind the Wall. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2005. Byg, Barton, “DEFA and the Traditions of International Cinema.” In DEFA: East German Cinema, 1946-1992. Edited by Seán Allan and John Sandford. New York: Berghahn, 1999: 22-41. 70 71

Byg, 36. Berghahn, Hollywood Behind the Wall, 182.

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Cooke, Paul. Representing East Germany since Unification. Oxford: Berg, 2005. Feinstein, Joshua Isaac. The Triumph of the Ordinary: Depictions of Daily Life in the East German Cinema, 1956-1966. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2002. Jonathan Grix, The Role of the Masses in the Collapse of East Germany. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000: 17. Hake, Sabine. German National Cinema. New York: Routledge, 2002. Naughton, Leonie. That Was the Wild East: Film Culture, Unification, and the “New” Germany. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2002. Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey and Tana Wollen, eds., After the Wall: Broadcasting in Germany. London: British Film Institute, 1991. Rinke, Andrea. “From Models to Misfits: Women in DEFA Films of the 1970's and 1980's.” In DEFA: East German Cinema, 1946-1992. Edited by Seán Allan and John Sandford. New York: Berghahn, 1999. Scribner, Charity. Requiem for Communism. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.

CHAPTER EIGHT SÄCHSISCH ALS VERLIERERSPRACHE?: AN EXAMINATION OF THE “MAUER IN DEN KÖPFEN” FROM A LINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE 15 YEARS AFTER REUNIFICATION KEITH KENNETZ

Ich glaube, wer kein Sachse ist, muss sich bemühen, so sprechen zu lernen, dass man wenigstens seine Landmannschaft nicht errate. —Hermes, 1782 Sächsisch sei kein Dialekt, sondern eine Maulfaulheit. —Thomas Rosenlöcher, 1997, Ostgezeter

After the initial euphoria had passed and the economic realities of reunification started to take hold, many German magazines, journals and newspapers used the term “Mauer in den Köpfen”1 to describe the emerging social conflict between the reunified East and West Germany. For years linguists have hotly debated whether two distinct varieties of German emerged as a product of a divided Germany. Although Kühn et al. (2001) reported that there was little empirical evidence for it in the lexicon of Standard German, other studies (Bausinger, 1972, Hundt 1996, Stickel & Volz 1999, Dailey O’Cain 1999, Stevenson 2002) have clearly demonstrated that there is a perceived linguistic “wall in the mind” manifest through the evaluations of regional dialects. Dailey O’Cain (1999) concludes:

1

Wall in the mind

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SÄCHSISCH ALS VERLIERERSPRACHE? It is obvious from this study that the much discussed German “wall in the mind” is still evident not only in terms of economic and social differences but also in terms of perceived language differences.

This study further examines, along an East/West axis, the validity and existence of a linguistic “wall of the mind” by comparing speech perceptions of two communities in Germany. Informants from Dresden, Saxony and Bamberg, Bavaria evaluated their own local speech as well as the other community’s speech. The results, when compared to similar studies, suggest a weakening of perceived divisions and provide an additional perspective on the prestige and maintenance of regional German vernaculars. My decision to focus my investigation on these two communities is threefold: first, pervious studies have identified Saxon2 and Bavarian German as two of the most salient dialects in the minds of Germans (Kennetz, 1999, Stickel & Volz, 1999). Secondly, they represent distinct eastern and western speech communities respectively that can be used to measure perceptions of the Mauer in den Köpfen from a linguistic perspective. Despite being a historically prestigious accent of the upper classes of German-speaking Europe, Saxon German has been identified in various studies as one of the least popular dialects in Germany (Bausinger 1972, Hundt 1996, Kennetz 1999, Stickel & Volz 1999 among others). Indeed its reputation is so far-reaching as to be exclusively mentioned in international travel guides such as Fodor’s Germany (2003). Although its unpopularity is not a new phenomenon, it is only in recent times that it has had greater significance and attention in a reunified Germany. The dialect today is a strong index of “eastern-ness” that many Germans often associate with the SED, the economic and social failures of reunification, and even right wing extremism (Rosenlöcher 1997, Stevenson 2002, 175). For West Germans, Saxon is the dialect of the east, and, it also evokes a certain level of resentment for non-Saxon east Germans due to Saxon domination in many state organizations in the former GDR (Dittmar et al., 1986). The region never recovered from the widespread destruction of WWII and is today plagued by lingering after-effects of Communism, high unemployment, and depopulation. Up until now there have been few linguistic studies that have focused exclusively on the prestige of the Saxon dialects (with the exception of Hundt 1996, Barden & Grosskopf 1998, and Anders 2004). Dailey O’Cain 2

I am referring specifically here to the Central German dialect spoken in the modern German States of Saxony and Thuringia (German: Obersächsisch or colloquially, Sächsisch).

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(1999) cited in her study of national perceptions of German dialects limited contact between East and West Germans as one possible source of the Westerners’ negative evaluation of eastern varieties of German, including Saxon. With the time and increased contact after reunification is Saxon German gaining some acceptance in western speech communities or is it still being used as a proxy by westerners in their social critiques of the east? Is the linguistic “wall in the mind” intact along East/West divisions? Before I address these questions, I would like to briefly outline the dialect situation/status in German-speaking areas of Europe: One of the most striking characteristics of spoken German in Europe is the enduring strength of its regional dialects. As Stevenson (1997) points out, speech differences are still considered an important mark of regional identity and there is a high level of public awareness of the distinctive characteristics of local and regional speech forms. The state of the German language is often described as a dichotomy consisting of dialect and standard. Most speakers have a competence in both varieties, but few are fully proficient in either. While the terms dialect and standard are convenient, the situation is often much more complicated with often several intermediate forms between the two extremes that form a continuum with no clear break. Nonetheless, the linguistic situation is diglossic in nature as varieties are assigned functions or “domains” within society by their speakers that may or may not overlap. German dialect evaluation studies have uncovered three general trends (among others Mihm 1985, Hundt 1992 & 1996, Mossmüller 1995, Dailey O’Cain 1999) that are summarized below: x Informants are aware of two systems “correct” vs. “incorrect,” with stigmatized varieties almost always seen as “incorrect.” x The spoken varieties that are often perceived as the most “correct” are associated with Northern Germany, specifically with the city of Hanover, although not everyone would hold such a view; more specifically the standard is identified with the middle/upper-middle classes, despite the fact that the language of these speakers often includes dialect features. x Dialects are almost always evaluated negatively, regardless of whether they are rural or urban varieties, as they are associated with the language behavior of the lower classes. However, although dialects are a source of both internal and external ridicule, they are also an effective means by which a regional culture can maintain local identity and solidarity, and in certain

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contexts or domains they therefore often enjoy a covert prestige in local circles.

Methodology Work in German dialectology and sociolinguistics has, in contrast to Anglo-American linguistics, largely confined itself to describing the lexicon, syntax, and phonology of traditional dialects. One relatively new direction in studying dialects has been the creation of the field of perceptual dialectology pioneered by Dennis Preston. This research explores the attitudes and perceptions that non-linguists have about language variation and analyzes how this knowledge is cognitively organized. This field of linguistics has developed into a large body of work in recent years with studies conducted in Holland, USA, Japan, France, Turkey and Germany. This discipline has addressed a broad range of topics including language maintenance/change, linguistic (in)security, language-based discrimination, and folk views of language and dialect regions. Below I will briefly outline my methodology and then present the preliminary results of one portion of my study that demonstrates a weakening of the “wall of the mind.” Employing methods of perceptual dialectology, I conducted interviews in the cities of Bamberg and Dresden in the spring of 2005 twenty-nine residents from Dresden and twenty-two residents from the greater Bamberg area participated in a series of tasks designed to illicit their perceptions of variation in German. Respondents ranged in age from 18-85 and included twenty-eight women and twenty-three men. Dresden represented a Saxon-speaking community and Bamberg was chosen as a western speech community, located closer to Saxony and also a member of the Mitteldeutsch family of dialects. The entire interview consisted of several parts: a pile sorting task, a dialect recognition and evaluation task, and a series of short-answer questions. Only the results of the dialect evaluation task are reported on here. Informants were given a copy of the survey and a pen and with the aid of a cd-player and headphones, they listened to six one minute voice samples of regionally-accented German from three different locations in Germany (both male and female from each area were used, and they were recorded and edited by myself). Answering a series of questions (see Appendix 8.1) using a list of twelve pairs of adjectives3 they described 3

The descriptor pairs in German were: Freundlich-Unfreundlich, AngenehmUnangenehm, Schnell-Langsam, Gemütlich-Hektisch, Gebildet-Ungebildet, Sauber-

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these speech samples geographically, socially, and linguistically. Each complete interview lasted approximately one hour. Informant answers were recorded and totals and means were calculated for each group.

Results

Dresden Informants Evaluating Dresdener Saxon (Female)

än rs t ve

un fr e

dl ic h sc hm ut zig un ge bil de t sc hn el l m el od is c un h an ge ne hm

ic h

25 20 15 10 5 0

dl

N u m b er o f T o ken s (n =29)

Table 8.1: Combined Dresdeners’ Evaluation of Female Dresden Voice

Most Frequently Marked Attributes

freundlich verständlich schmutzig ungebildet Schnell melodisch unangenehm gemütlich

18 14 13 12 12 11 10 10

Schmutzig, Verständlich-Unverständlich, Hart-Weich, Melodisch-Unmelodisch, Schüchtern-Arrogant, Fleissig-Faul, Fein-Grob-Rough. These correspond in English respectively as: Friendly-Unfriendly, Pleasant-Unpleasant, Fast-Slow, Cozy-Rushed, Educated-Uneducated, Clean-Dirty, Understandable-Unintelligible, Hard-Soft, Melodic-Non-melodic, Shy-Arrogant, Industrious-Lazy, and RefinedRough.

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First, Table 8.1 shows how Dresdeners evaluated their own local speech; perhaps unexpectedly eighteen out of twenty-nine rated the speaker as freundlich, but it is interesting to note that a little less than half also found it schmutzig and ungebildet. Two other attributes commented on the intonation and perceived speed of the speaker, melodisch and schnell. The male speaker also evoked both positive and negative reactions as seen in the scores for unangenehm and gemütlich. Table 8.2: Combined Dresdeners’ Evaluation of Male Dresden Voice

NUmber of Tokens (n=29) ge m üt li c h ve rs tä nd l ic h an ge ne hm fre un dl ich

Dresden Informants Evaluating Dresdener Saxon (Male)

m el od s ic h

we i ch

sc hn el

l

25 20 15 10 5 0

Most Frequently Marked Attributes

gemütlich verständlich angenehm freundlich schnell weich melodsich

15 15 13 13 10 9 8

Next the results for the evaluations for the male Saxon voice are shown in Table 8.2. The male speaker used less features of Dresden speech than the female speaker and his speech was evaluated more positively; the four most frequently marked attributes were all positive. This speech was also rated by a third of the sample group as schnell and weich and melodisch.

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Table 8.3: Combined Bambergers’ Evaluation of Female Dresden Voice

20 15 10 5

hm

ob

ne ge

un

dl

gr

ic h

l el

un

an

fr e

he

sc hn

is c h

0 kt

Nu m b er o f T o ken s (n =22)

Bamberger Informants Evaluating Dresdener Saxon (Female)

Most Frequently Marked Attributes

hektisch schnell1 freundlich grob unangenehm

14 3 9 7 7

Table 8.3 illustrates how the Bamberger respondents evaluated male Saxon speech. It is important to remember there were a smaller number of respondents (only 22). Again informants responded to the perceived tempo of the speaker; a little less than half also deemed the voice freundlich, although a smaller number found it both grob and unangenehm. Once more there is a strong contrast in opposites between freundlich and unangenehm. One possible interpretation for this is that informants were rating the speaker as “friendly” but the language as “unpleasant.” Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that unangenehm scores for the female Saxon were at relatively the same levels for both groups of respondents, revealing Saxons rated the Saxon female voice more negatively than did the Bambergers.

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Table 8.4: Combined Bambergers’ Evaluation of Male Dresden Voice

20 15 10 5 0 fr e un dl

ich sc hn el un l ge bil de t we i s c ch hm ut un zig m el od s ic h ge m ü un tli c an h ge ne hm

Number of Tokens (n=22)

Bamberg Informants Evaluating Dresdener Saxon (Male)

Most Frequently Marked Attributes

freundlich schnell ungebildet weich schmutzig unmelodsich gemütlich unangenehm

9 7 6 6 5 5 5 5

Table 8.4 shows the results for Bambergers responding to the male Saxon voice. It was also marked as freundlich nine times, but there seems to be little consensus among the Bambergers in terms of comprehensive evaluation. A minority found the speech mildly “unpleasant” and “uneducated” yet still “cozy.” In any case, in light of other studies, one might expect a stronger negative reaction by a western speech community and these results are clearly not overwhelmingly negative.

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Table 8.5: Perceptions of Local Speech, Dresden & Bamberg Informants

5 4 Dresden

3

Bamberg 2 1

Outsiders

Locals

Self

Outsiders

Locals

Self

Dresden

2

3.6

2.8

Bamberg

2.9

4

3.5

Lastly, Table 8.5 displays the perceptions of local speech by the respondents from three different perspectives. These are the mean scores based on a five point scale: 5 - sehr schön, 4 - okay , 3 - gleichgültig, 2 nicht so schön, 1 - furchtbar.4 Dresdeners feel that their speech is evaluated negatively by outsiders (nicht so schön); while the Bamberg community score is slightly negative almost reaching a neutral score of 3 (gleichgültig). Both communities felt that locals have a positive view of their community’s speech, Bamberg somewhat more so. Bambergers had a positive self-evaluation of their dialect, whereas the Dresden community had a slightly negative one. Although the Franconian dialect of Bamberg is by no means a prestigious dialect outside its area, Bambergers rate their speech higher than Dresdeners in all categories, displaying a stronger sense of local linguistic pride.

4

The scale in English: 5- very nice, 4- good, 3- indifferent, 2- not so nice, 1horrible.

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Discussion There seems to be little consensus in the evaluation of speech by the respondents either within or across the communities. Instead there appears to be a variety of perceptions and attitudes present in the minds of respondents. These include both negative and positive reactions as well as a variety of comment on the linguistic characteristics of the speech featured in the dialect samples. However, from these limited results there do seem to be three recurring patterns: the first is that Dresden informants display a certain degree of linguistic insecurity; i.e. Saxon speakers believe that a more correct and superior variety of German exists outside their area. Although being well aware of how Sächsisch is evaluated by outsiders, many Saxons deem their accent to be more pleasant than other varieties but as uneducated, unrefined and incorrect. This is seen for example in the Saxon evaluations of the female Saxon speaker – freundlich yet schmutzig. These results might be explained by at least the partial internalization of negative national stereotypes of Saxony and its dialect by Saxons coupled with regional pride. This pattern of insecurity also emerges in perceptions of local speech as seen in Table 8.5, especially in the categories of “self” and “outsiders.” This phenomenon has also been reported in previous studies of eastern German speech communities (Dailey O’Cain 1999, Anders 2004) and it seems that the stigma attached to the Saxon accent still outweighs even local standing. Rosenlöcher (1997), a Saxon writer from Dresden, verifies such attitudes when he writes: Selbst wenn Schwäbischen, Bayrisch, oder Platt als Zeichen für die Beschränkheit des jeweiligen Sprecher genommen wird, gilt es doch wenigstens dem jeweiligen Sprecher als Ausdruck seines Stolzes und seines Beharrungsvermoegens. Allein die Sachsen schämen sich vor sich selber, wenn sie den Mund aufmachen. Allein sie verbieten sich ihren Dialekt von vornherein...5

On the other hand, Westerners in Bamberg seem to be much more tolerant of Saxon accents than reported in earlier studies. There are several possible reasons for this. A more hopeful answer is that West Germans are becoming more accustomed to hearing eastern accents. This was a 5

Even if Swabian, Bavarian, or Low German is taken as a sign of the limited intellect of the respective speaker, it can still be seen as an expression of the speaker’s pride and local identity. Only the Saxons are ashamed whenever they open their mouth. Only they forbid themselves on principle to speak their dialect…

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frequent ‘excuse’ why respondents rated eastern varieties so negatively in Dailey O’Cain’s study (1999)—they reported that they simply weren’t used to them. Bamberg is relatively close to the former borders of the GDR and certainly the population there has had opportunity for more contact with Easterners. Perhaps increased language contact has made them more tolerant of Saxon German. There may be a “wall in the mind” for some of the speakers – but it doesn’t seem to be as strong as it might have been in the years before and after reunification. Another possible answer for tolerance lies in the fact that authentic prompts (speech samples) were used to trigger the dialect’s evaluation, hence the informants might have been hesitant to judge the people behind the voices negatively. In her study, Dailey O’Cain did not use a speech prompt to elicit perceptions but instead employed maps. It may be that when confronted with real people; i.e. authentic speech prompts, respondents felt less prone to evaluate the samples so negatively. The third pattern that emerges in the results is that the evaluations of Saxon German by either Dresdeners or Bambergers are in no way consistent. The differences and contradictions between positive and negative attributes (sometimes given by the same informant) illustrate that one cannot assume either a decisive stigmatization or preference for the home dialect or outsider’s dialect. Statistical analysis may reveal further patterns, but it seems clear that the dialects used for speech samples have the effect of polarizing the perceptions of informants. Saxon and Franconian German both carry an inherent potential that leads to negative and positive evaluations. This study’s results mirror those found in a more extensive nation-wide study conducted by Stickel & Volz (1999). In their survey many of the positively rated dialects were also the most stigmatized. This same pattern seems to have occurred in my study, albeit on a smaller scale. One possible explanation for such wide discrepancy is that attitudes are conditioned by socio-cultural factors and cannot be truly assessed by the current methods used by sociolinguists. Furthermore, the data in Tables 8.1-8.4 point to an extensive array of attitudes and beliefs present in the informants’ speech communities; more accurate perceptions or certain types of perceptions may only really be accessed or realized through interaction and may depend on a number of factors, such as setting, situation, body language and appearance of the interlocutor.

Conclusions Although the real social differences between the East and West persist (in terms of wages, opportunity for jobs, etc.), perhaps perceptions of

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linguistic divisions are not as extreme as they once were. This study reveals three significant patterns. First, Saxon Germans show a strong sense of linguistic insecurity. However, western informants from Bamberg rate Saxon varieties less negatively than reported previously. Finally, the results replicate earlier findings that point to the inherent qualities of dialects to polarize informants’ perceptions (Stickel & Volz, 1999). Further analysis of data collected from the present study’s other tasks (i.e. pile sorting task, short-answer questions) is needed to strengthen the interpretations presented here and determine further patterns. Moreover, surveying of other speech communities in eastern and western regions would be useful and provide additional data. If these results do show a diminished “wall in the mind” they should also be viewed with some caution: Bamberg lies relatively close to the former border that once divided the two Germanys. Therefore, the populations living closer to eastern states have had more opportunity for contact than other western communities. Attitudes toward Saxon German and its speakers may vary greatly in other western communities like Hamburg or Stuttgart. Although the political opposition GDR versus FRG no longer exists, the social opposition East versus West has remained. Büscher (2005) observes: So ostig wie heute war der Osten lange nicht mehr ... und es ist klar: Besonders fest halten diejenigen an ihrer beleidigten und erniedrigten OstIndentität, die sonst nicht viel haben, woran sie festhalten könnten.6

What began as simple generic labels for a one-dimensional contrast, Ossi and Wessi have developed into complex social categories. As social disparity re-emerged soon after reunification, easily identifiable measures of difference were sought and language seemed one of the most readily available. Therefore, it seems likely that as long as these social categories are valid in German society, language will continue to invoke strong emotions and play a role in the “wall in the mind.” The ways “us” and “them” are used in speech affect our sense of who we are in reference to others by constructing a sense of constantly renegotiated membership. In a historical account on the prestige of Saxon German, Zimmerman pointed guardedly to a possible future reversal of the stigmatization of the dialect:

6

The East has never been more eastern than it is today … and one thing is clear: Those who have little to hold on to, hold on tightly to their degraded Eastern identity.

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Hoffnung liegt in der menschlichen, charakterlichen, kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Bewährung der Sachsen, die in der post-Ulbrichtschen und – Honeckerschen Ära gefordert ist. Die allgemeine Anerkennung der wirklichen Leistung lässt selbst sprachliche Unvollkommenheiten im milderern Licht erscheinen.7 (Zimmermann, 1992)

In this passage he confirms what linguists have known for quite some time: it is not the differences in language varieties that are correct or incorrect, more comfortable or less pleasant, more familiar or less annoying – it is how people evaluate the speakers of these varieties and their cultural baggage that really counts. In this context, a poll conducted by Stern last year may provide evidence of a change of current perceptions, at least among Saxons: in a nationwide survey that measured regional optimism and happiness of its inhabitants, Leipzig placed 24th from 117 regions (Wintzenburg, 2005). This newfound confidence may carry over into the linguistic realm if Saxony’s economic fortunes recover. If political, economic, social conditions continue to improve in the East, it could be that the Verlierersprache at the end of the 20th century might at least win some tolerance in the 21st and the “wall in the mind” might take on new dimensions and/or directions in German society.

Works Cited Anders, C. A.“Dialektbewertung innerhalb und außerhalb des obersächsischen Sprachraums.” M.A. thesis. Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden Germany, 2004. Bailey, Guy and Jan Tillery. “The persistence of southern American English.” Journal of English Linguistics, 24, 1996: 308-321. Barden, Birgit and Beate Großkopf. Sprachliche Akkomodation und soziale Integration. Sächsische Übersiedler und Übersiedlerinnen im rhein-/ mosel-fränkischen und alemannischen Sprachraum. Tübingen, 1998. Bendixen, Eva-Marie and Klaus Werner. Sächsisch: das wahre Deutsch. Kauderwelschband 74. Bielefeld: Reise-Know-How Verlag, 1999. Büscher, Walter. “Nichts wie weg—nichts wie hin.” In Die Zeit, 2 August 2005: 13. Dailey-O’Cain, Jennifer. “The perception of post-unification German regional speech.” In The Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology. Vol.1.

7

Hope lies in the humanistic, cultural, and economic traditions of the Saxons, which is exactly what is needed in the post-Ulbricht-Honecker [GDR political leaders] eras. Real achievements allow “shabby” language to be forgiven.

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Edited by D.R. Preston. Philadelphia: John Benjamin Publishing Company, 1999. Dittmar, Norbert, Peter Schlobinski, and Inge Wachs. Berlinerisch. Studien zum Lexikon, zur Spracheinstellung und zum Stillrepertoire. Berlin: Arno Spitz, 1986. Fodors. Fodor's Germany. 2003. Hundt, Markus. Einstellungen gegenüber dialektal gefärbter Standardsprache. Eine empirische Untersuchung zum Bairischen, Hamburgischen, Pfälzischen und Schwäbischen. Stuttgart, 1992. —. “Zum Prestige gesprochener Alltagssprache: Sächsisch und Schwäbisch.” Deutsche Sprache 24, 1996: 224-249. Kennetz, Keith. “Meet me in Hanover.” M.A. Thesis, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, 1999. Kühn, Ingmar, ed. Ost-West-Sprachgebrauch – zehn Jahren nach der Wende. Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 2001. Mihm, Ahrendt. “Prestige und Stigma des Substandards. Zur Bewertung des Ruhrdeutschen im Ruhrgebiet.” Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 50, 1985. Moosmüller, Sylvia. “Language attitudes in Austria.” In The German Language in the Real World, edited by P. Stevenson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Mufwene, Salikoko. “Language endangerment: What have pride and prestige got to do with it?” In When languages Collide: Perspectives on Language Conflict, Language Competition, and Language Coexistence, edited by B. Joseph et al. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2002. Preston, Dennis. Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: John Benjamin Publishing Company, 1999. Rosenlöcher, Thomas. Ostgezeter. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997. Stevenson, Patrick. Language and German Disunity: A Sociolinguistic History of East and West in Germany, 1945-2000. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. Stevenson, Patrick. The German-speaking World. New York: Routledge, 1997. Stickel, Gehard, and Norbert Volz. Meinungen und Einstellungen zur deutschen Sprache: Ergebnisse einer bundesweiten Repräsentivbefragung. Mannheim: Amades 2, 1999. Wintzenburg, Johann.“Wo Deutschland Zukunft hat.” In Stern 19, 2005: 151-159.

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Zimmermann, Gehard. “Das Sächsische: sprachliche und auȕersprachliche Einschätzungen der sächsische Umgangsprache.” Muttersprache 102. 1992: 97-113.

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Appendix 8.1 – Examples of Survey Questions (abridged) Hinweis: Sprachliche Merkmale sind: Laute, Wörter, Wendungen, Satzbau, Betonung, usw. (Sie können die Beispielwörter genau so hinschreiben, wie Sie sie hören, z.B.: Boom, ik, Fescht usw.) x

Sprecher #1: Das ist ........................................................ Dialekt, weil____________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ freundlich fein angenehm arrogant fleissig gebildet x

unfreundlich grob unangenehm schüchtern faul ungebildet

schmutzig hektisch langsam unmelodisch weich unverständlich

Sauber Gemütlich Schnell Melodisch Hart verständlich

Wie glauben Sie, wird Ihr Dialekt insgesamt von anderen Leuten außerhalb Ihrer Gegend bewertet? (bitte nur eins ankreuzen)

Menschen, die nicht aus meiner Gegend kommen, finden meinen Dialekt: sehr schön x

okay

gleichgültig

nicht so schön

Furchtbar

Wie glauben Sie, wird Ihr Dialekt von Einheimischen Ihrer Gegend bewertet? (bitte nur eins ankreuzen)

Einheimsiche, die aus meiner Gegend kommen, finden den Dialekt: sehr schön x

okay

gleichgültig

nicht so schön

Furchtbar

Was halten Sie selbst von dem Dialekt, der hier gesprochen wird? (bitte nur eins ankreuzen)

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Ich finde den Dialekt, der in meiner Heimat gesprochen wird: sehr schön

okay

gleichgültig

nicht so schön

Furchtbar

CHAPTER NINE NEGOTIATING GERMAN IDENTITIES IN CLASSROOM INTERACTION – AN ANALYSIS OF PRONOUN USE ANJA VOGEL

Language is the armory of the human mind, At once it contains the trophies of its past And the weapons of its future conquests. —Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Despite political unification, Germans continue to question the cohesion of their nation. Highlighting supposed differences between the peoples of the formerly divided Germany this sentiment has popularly been described as “the wall in people’s heads”1 (e.g. Klein 2001; Simon et al. 2000; Probst 1999; Dittmar and Bredel 1999). By analyzing communicative practices of inter-generational (studentteacher) and cross-German (East and West) interactions during classes of Contemporary German History in four Berlin high schools, I address the question of national identity formation among Berlin youth. Specifically, I focus my analysis on how students and teachers employ pronouns as referents in order to understand the ways in which these Germans express their identification with and their feelings of belonging to a particular group of Germans, that are either East, West or united. As the unification process is barely 18 years on, student-teacher interactions at the high school level present a welcome opportunity to investigate concepts of German identity and the process of its formation. The high school teachers of this study are citizens of former East and West Germany and have, as such, experienced the divided nation, with their different ideologies, territorial boundaries and even separate histories. 1

Die Mauer in den Köpfen.

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By sharing their opinions and experiences with their students, born after reunification, these teachers influence and shape their students’ imagination of a national self (Anderson [1983] 1991). Through language socialization, novices learn socially and culturally specific worldviews (Hymes 1972; Ochs and Schieffelin 1984; Garrett 2006). In this regard, German students are introduced to the worldviews of their teachers through their language use. While Bourdieu (1991: 62) and Althusser (2006) emphasize students’ receptive side of ideology promotion in state institutions, depicting them as novices who rather passively acquire knowledge in the classroom, I focus on the contested nature of such inculcation and the multi-directionality of these communicative practices (Ochs and Schieffelin 1984; Schieffelin and Ochs 1986). Given this multidirectionality, the students equally express their opinions and understandings of self within their society and are as such no less able to influence the teachers’ views of themselves as well as the teachers’ views of their students.

Classrooms as Research Sites Elias (1978) has argued that European national distinctions and allegiance grew out of routinized everyday behaviors, such as those practiced in schools, and Borneman (1992: 31) adds, “everyday relationships become the criteria for national identifications, for a sense of nationness.” As such, the German classroom is a site par excellence for a study on national identity formation processes because it is a social environment where repetitive and ritual-like behaviors occur on a daily basis. The research for this project was conducted in 2004 in four Berlin high schools, two of which were located in districts of former East and two in former West Berlin. I filmed and audio recorded seven 10th grade cohorts and their teachers during their history lectures over a five-month period. The data examined for this analysis comprises 70 lectures, i.e. approximately ten hours per cohort. In this analysis, I refer to the two high schools located in former East Berlin as High School A and B. In High School A, two East Berlin-born teachers, one male one female, instructed the students, while in High School B, two West-German born teachers (also male and female) instructed the students of East German descent. High Schools C and D are located in former West Berlin. In each of these schools a female, West German-born teacher instructed the students who were mainly of West

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German descent. The seven 10th grade cohorts had an average of 25 students per cohort (see Table 9.2). The 15 to 16-year old students of these cohorts were born around the time of fall of the Berlin wall and thus are members of the first postunification generation while the teachers (late 40s – early 50s) experienced, lived and taught in pre-unification Germany for an extensive period of their lives. For reasons of comparability, I chose schools situated in peripheral districts of Berlin that have historically been inhabited by the middle and upper-middle classes (for discussion on demographics see Schönfeld et al. 2001: 46). Given that 10th grade Contemporary German History lectures are mandated to explore the time between World War II through Germany’s reunification, I chose these classes for the relevance of their content to this study. During such lectures, remarks regarding national identity are likely to occur more often than in 10th grade lectures on any other subject. Table 9.1: Participants East Berlin School School A

West Berlin School School B

School C

School D

East Berlin

East Berlin

East Berlin

West West German German

West Berlin

West German

female teacher

male teacher

male teacher

male teacher

female teacher

female teacher

female teacher

Cohort E1

Cohort E2

Cohort E3

Cohort E4

Cohort E5

Cohort W6

Cohort W7

Language Socialization through Pronoun Use According to Mühlhäuser and Harré (1990: 13), “to use pronouns grammatically correctly, one must deploy one’s philosophical theories of what one is as well as one’s knowledge of the social relations in which one stands to those with whom” – or about whom, I might add – “one converses.” Consequently, of importance here are the participants’ theories about their social standing with regard to an inclusive or exclusive position to those about whom they speak and their ways of alignment to those with whom they speak. I pinpoint these theories by analyzing

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teachers’ and students’ use of pronouns in a discussion about recent German history. The German personal pronoun man highlights a speaker’s disengaged and as such objective point of view. It can be translated in various ways as ‘one’, ‘you’ or ‘they’ in English. The range of possible translations indicates the vague referential function of this pronoun whose purpose is precisely to be non-specific. The pronoun man thus indexes a speaker’s distance to a talked about subject as it often conceals the referent to subject and actor. In contrast, as Urban (1986) has pointed out, the use of the personal pronouns ‘you’, ‘I’ and ‘we’ (du, ich, und wir respectively), immediately signal a personal connection and/or inclusive relationship to the now specifically denoted person. While Berlin students and teachers unguardedly use personal pronouns to inclusively co-construct their or their interlocutor’s national membership, divergent identities that still distinguish between ‘East’ and ‘West’ and such that do not, are accentuated through pronominal choice. As students and teachers interact on a daily basis in German classrooms, they construct social roles and identities of self that are not limited to the classroom but expand into their larger life worlds. As interlocutors and active participants, through their discourse (van Dijk 1997) and experience of shared language- and socialization practices, the students come to understand themselves as members of the cultural and national group ‘German.’

Identifying the National Self in the Classroom: Teacher Identification Pronoun use is only relevant to this analysis with regard to the context in which it is done. Pronouns are referents: they refer to a particular subject or a group of subjects, they signal a speaker’s desire to engage or disengage and in doing this, define social identities (Íñigo-Mora 2004; Rymes 2001; Urban 1986; Duranti 1984: 278). The teachers’ use of pronouns is thus examined with regard to particular expressions of a national group membership. The analysis of the data reveals that with regard to expressing national group membership, three out of six of the participating teachers switch from the impersonal pronoun man to the 1st person personal pronoun ich (‘I’) in order to demarcate a particular, non-shared (or unified) German identity. These switches occurred when the teachers talked about their

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experiences in the formerly divided country. The following two excerpts are examples of the East German teachers’ switches. In the first example (Table 9.2), the East German, male teacher talks about past East German consumer conditions, when he inserts the personal pronoun ich (‘I’), to emphasize the validity of the statement through his own experience. In doing this, he marks himself as East German, since only an East German could have gotten a driver license for 60 Marks, whereas the average cost in West Germany was above 1000 D-Marks. He has thus signaled his inclusive position in and identification with the group ‘East German’. Table 9.2: East Berlin teacher (male): inclusive ich German 1

Auch die Fahrerlaubnis,

2 3

die in der DDR nicht so teuer war.

4

Ich hab sie für 60 Mark gemacht.

5 6

Ja, das ist der Vergleich dazu.

7

Soviel kostet heute

8

vielleicht eine Stunde.

English Also, the driver license, Which in the GDR2 wasn’t very expensive. I got it for 60 Marks.

Pronoun

1st pers. sing. nom.

Yes, that is the comparison. Today, that’s how much an hour costs maybe.

Likewise, in Table 9.3, the female, East Berlin teacher sarcastically critiques the rapid shift in the economic conditions and the resulting changes in East German consumer behavior. Immediately after unification, East German products were discarded very quickly to make room for a multitude of West German products. Here, the female teacher switches from the impersonal and thus distancing, pronoun man (Line 1) to the personal pronoun ich (Line 7) and back again to man (Line 10), indicating that she is part of the group who knew the eastern products well, which had so suddenly disappeared.

2

GDR = German Democratic Republic = East Germany

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Table 9.3: East Berlin teacher (female) – inclusive ich

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

German Man hatte nun endlich die Möglichkeit aus zwanzig verschiedenen Magarinensorten zu wählen. Gott sei Dank! Jetzt hab ich sie ja endlich! Und damit sind natürlich einige Produkte, German die man kannte, also DDR Produkte erstmal Ladenhüter geworden.

English One finally had the possibility to choose out of twenty different kinds of margarine. Thank God, Now I’ve finally got them! And of course, now a few products, English which one knew, Well GDR products, for the time being turned into shelf warmers.

Pronoun impersonal

1st pers. sing. nom.

Pronoun impersonal

The female West German teacher (Table 9.4) teaching in an East Berlin high school marks her identity in a similar fashion: by referencing herself as belonging to a particular group of West Germans who protested a political matter by signing a contract. This teacher, analogous to her East German colleagues, turns to using the 1st person pronoun in order to validate the historical event she describes by emphasizing her personal relation to the event (Line 9 and 10). In marking the contrast between the two German states and her knowledge about only one of them, she highlights her status as a native expert on a West German matter and rejects expertise on the other.

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Table 9.4: West German Teacher (female) – inclusive ich

1 2 3 4 4 5

German Diesen Vertrag haben ganz viele Staaten unterschrieben unter anderem auch die Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

6

Wie das mit der DDR war

7

Damals

English This contract, many states have signed it, among them also the Federal Republic of Germany. How it worked in the GDR back then

8

das weiss ich nicht.

That, I don’t know.

9

Aber ich weiss,

But I do know,

10

erinnere mich

I do remember

11 12

an eine heftige Debate in der Bundesrepublik.

13

Und das war völlig klar,

A heated debate in the Federal Republic. And it was absolutely clear

14

dass man das unterschreibt.

that one signs it.

Pronoun

1st pers. sing. nom. 1st pers. sing. nom. 1st pers. sing. acc.

impersonal

By mentioning the GDR, the teacher further insinuates that the students, who are children of East German parents, might possibly have an interest in finding out what East Germany’s role was, while she does not. In her concluding sentence, she uses the pronoun man again, thus returning to create a more distant relationship to the group ‘West German’, but it is now clear that she considers herself to be part of this group. These three teachers marked their inclusive position within a particular national group of Germans, either East or West, and as such showed that individuals can and do maintain these different national memberships. Occasions like these however, are rather rare. In the course of five months, I only witnessed a handful of such identifications. After having spent most of their lives in separate German states, these teachers continue to hold on to outdated concepts of national identity.

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The remaining three teachers never once made such allusions during the course of my observations. Two of these teachers were West German, teaching in West Berlin high schools. During the recording of their classroom lectures, one of the teachers covered only the historical time of World War II, while the other teacher discussed topics only peripherally related to German identity, e.g. the Vietnam War, and European Union elections. Therefore, these classroom discussions offered fewer options that allowed for an expression of a post-unification German identity. In addition, the cohorts of these teachers had a higher percentage of nonGerman students, which can further inhibit expressions of national German identity. The third teacher, a West German, teaching in East Berlin, was the only teacher who took great care to align himself with his students. He did not identify himself differently from his students and appeared to actively build a shared national identity with his cohort. Among the generation of pre-unification born teachers, selfidentification emphasizing a divided instead of a united German identity continues to happen. The rather limited occurrences of such identification, however suggests a trend away from the expression of a distinctive East– West dichotomy.

Identifying the Other in the Classroom: Teacher Identification of Students The fact that some teachers continue to mark their identity as either East or West German through pronoun use cannot, in itself, be interpreted as promoting an out-dated concept. Indeed, the students might view their teachers as they may view their parents: as contemporary Zeitzeugen (witnesses of time) of a time past, not much relevant to them or their present lives. Nevertheless, the occasional emphasis on an East or West German identity does function as a signal to the students that there might be defining differences prompting the teachers to express their particular group identities. One may argue that since these references regard the teacher’s identification, they do not directly affect the students and therefore have a limited impact on their identity construction in the classroom. Bourdieu (1991), however, points out that “struggles over identity” are largely influenced by the perception and recognition of the other of oneself. He continues, “the almost magical power of words comes from the fact that the objectification and de facto officialization brought about by the public act of naming, in front of everyone, has the effect of

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freeing the particularity (which lies at the source of all sense of identity) from the unthought”(1991: 224). As such, in referencing the students’ identity, the teachers’ may present them with the ‘unthought’, with a possibility of how to identify as a German citizen. As representatives of the state and therefore authoritative educators, teachers have the power to “officialize” the students’ group identity and, as such, contribute to their struggle over identity. Thus, I now turn to an analysis of the teachers’ indexical pronoun use in referencing the students.

Marking the Other in East Berlin: East Berlin Cohorts & East German Teachers In classrooms E1, E2, and E3, which are located in former East Berlin, over 90% of the students have parents who were born and raised in former East Germany. The remaining students are children of Eastern European immigrants. The two history teachers, Herr Schmidt3 and Frau Schulze are in their late 40s, grew up, were educated, and also taught history in the GDR. Despite the macro-level socio-historical changes, the teachers are moving about in a familiar world. They are of the same generation as the students’ parents and share an experiential past with them. As such, it is not unlikely that they will view the students as East German parents’ offshoots and less as individuals who are part of a generation that was born after Germany was unified. The following examples explore this hypothesis. In the first segment, the topic of discussion is East Germany’s State Security Police, well known as the STASI, which employed thousands of people, and whose tactics lead to spying and treason among neighbors and friends.

3

All names have been changed.

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Table 9.5: East German teacher identification of students German

English

1

Nun habt ihr das

Now, you haven’t

2 3

nicht mehr ganz konkret erlebt.

experienced it quite so concretely.

4

Also könnt ihr das auch -

So you can also, -

5

in this regard, only

7 8

in dieser Hinsicht auch nur widerum aus den Mitteilungen die ihr hier zur Verfügung habt nehmen.

which you have available here.

9

Ich kann euch aber sagen,

But I can tell you,

nun war man nicht jeden Tag Permanent bedroht. Oder jeden Tag fühlte man sich nun nicht immer eingeengt.

that one wasn’t threatened every day, consistently. Or it wasn’t every day that one felt constantly trapped.

6

10 11 12 13 14

Pronoun 2nd pers. pl. nom.

2nd pers. pl. nom.

get it from the reports

1st pers. sing. nom. impersonal

impersonal

In this example, the teacher begins by pointing out that the students, ihr (Line 1), have not experienced the STASI past “quite so concretely.” This is a telling choice of words, since the students have no recollection of such a past at all. In doing this, the teacher identifies the students as East Germans who may not share “concrete” East German experiences, but suggests that they have partial memories that can be supplemented through the textbook information. In addition, similar to the female West German colleague, he adds his personal Zeitzeugen account about the particular undertakings of the STASI, thus underscoring any reports they may have previously heard or read about. After establishing his position as expert in line 9 (‘But I can tell you’), the teacher returns to using the impersonal man. Man thus references former GDR citizens who did not feel constantly threatened or trapped, and he was one of them. In this short excerpt, the teacher has personally linked the postunification born students and himself to a particular historical East

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German event and as such, suggests their common, but not experientially identical, East German identity. Frau Schulze also engages in such allusions with her students. During one of the classroom lectures, she attempts to engage her students in a discussion of Ostalgie. This is a social phenomenon widely debated in the German media, in popular as well as academic writings (Vogel 2006; Cooke 2005; Goll and Leuerer 2004). Ostalgie describes feelings of nostalgia that some East Germans share for East German products and social practices. Based on consumer demand, some of these products have recently gone back into production and are once again available in stores. Table 9.6: East German teacher-student identification

11

German English Also man kann nicht So, one cannot von speak of Der Ostalgiewelle als the Ostalgie wave solches sprechen? as such? Hmm? Hmm? (3 sec. pause) How is it with Wie ist’s bei dir? you? [unintelligible] To you personally Dir persönlich ist’s it eigentlich egal? doesn’t matter? Ich kenn die I don’t know the Ostprodukte Eastnicht, da products, since

12

ich schon

I am already used

13

dran gewöhnt bin.

to them.

Ahm also ich kann

Ahm, well, I can’t

mich da nicht so dran erinnern.

really remember it.

1

T:

2 3 4 5 6 7

S1:

8

T:

9 10

14 15

S2:

S3:

Pronoun impersonal

2nd pers. sing. dat. 2nd pers. sing. dat. 1st pers. sing. nom. 1st pers. sing. nom. 1st pers. sing. nom. 1st pers. sing. acc.

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Frau Schulze starts out by using the impersonal pronoun man in her inquiry about the legitimate existence of Ostalgie, questioning if it can truly be called a ‘wave’ or movement and aiming to find out if people are in fact longing for a past East German life and lifestyle. The students are very slow to respond (marked by the 3-second pause in Line 5) and the question and answer session drags along. It appears that the teacher personalizes her inquiry, marked by the personal pronoun dir (Line 6), in hopes of getting the students to be more engaged. In doing this, she shifts the discussion from an abstract, debatable question to an inquiry about the students’ personal lives. Suddenly, they have become the target of inquiry and need to explain why they may or may not be ostalgisch4. The teacher has thus created a direct link between her students and East Germans who can be nostalgic for things East German. While she asks the students about their own experiences with Ostalgie, she disregards the fact that they cannot be nostalgic for an East German past that they never experienced. Hence, the students’ replies to her inquiries are negative. As student S2 points out (Lines 9 and 10), “Ich kenn die Ostprodukte nicht (I don’t know the eastern products)”. He cannot tell the West from the East German products because to him, they all blend together into simply German products. It thus appears that the East German teachers identify the students as ‘one of them’ – as East Germans. The matter in which these identifications take place suggests that the teachers have difficulties accepting the fact that the students do not share their experiential past. The sources of such ‘misguided’ labeling are the students’ parents. The teachers often equate their students’ with the parents’ East German heritage, and expect them to have an awareness of such a cultural heritage. The following example further illustrates this point.

4

Nostalgic for the old East Germany.

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Table 9.7: East German teacher-student identification

5 6

German Oder eine ganz grosse Demonstration hier auch in Berlin. Ja? Ihr habt natürlich sicherlich die Möglichkeit Sicherlich

English Or a very big demonstration here in Berlin. Yes? You will naturally, surely have the possibility Certainly

7

eure Eltern mal zu befragen

to question your parents

8 9 10

oder eben in dieser Hinsicht wie haben die das damals grade gesehen.

or just in this regard how did they happen to see it, back then.

1 2 3 4

Pronoun

2nd pers. pl. nom.

2nd pers. pl. gen.

In this instance, the teacher talks about the mass demonstrations that took place all over East Germany, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The students are personally encouraged, by his use of ihr (Line 3), to find out about these events from their parents. Through this ‘first-hand’ relation, the students are unquestionably, natürlich, sicherlich (Lines 3 and 4), linked to an East German identity. Similarly, in Table 9.8, Frau Schulze uses pronominal forms to encourage the students to identify remnants of an East German past in their own homes (Line 1), and thus inescapably links this particular East German phenomenon of Ostalgie to the students. Table 9.8: East German teacher-student identification: your home German

English

1

Bei euch zu Hause,

In your home,

2

merkt ihr da selber, dass

Do you yourself feel, that

3 4

da ein bisschen Ostalgie mitschwingt?

there is a bit of Ostalgie in the air?

Pronoun 2nd pers. pl. dat. 2nd pers. pl. nom.

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East Berlin Cohorts & West German Teachers These kinds of pronominal student identifications occur much more rarely in classrooms taught by the West German teachers in the schools located in East Berlin. However, the West German teachers are not entirely free of such labeling as the following instance shows. Frau Hinz, the female West German teacher, narrates the events of the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1948 during which all land and water access to West Berlin was blocked. In order to ensure the survival of the West Berliners, the American allies, in an unprecedented airlift, flew into West Berlin, providing the population with food, water and coal for almost an entire year. Table 9.9: West German teacher: exclusive identification German

9

zweiundneunzig hier geblieben und haben immer

English And after the Berlin crisis the western allies also decided, ‘We’ll defend West Berlin to the knife. We are staying here.’ They didn’t stay here for no reason until ninetytwo, and have always

10

uns beschützt

protected us.

11

Euch nicht

Not you!

1

Und nach der Berlin Krise

2 3

5 6

haben sich ja auch die Westaliierten entschieden, ‘Wir verteidigen West Berlin bis auf’s Messer. Wir bleiben hier.’

7

Nicht umsonst sind sie bis

4

8

12 13 14 15

Pronoun

1st pers. pl. acc. 2nd pers. pl. acc.

[points at students] – uns!

- us!

[ points at herself] [laughs and looks sheepishly up at camera]

1st pers. pl. acc.

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As the teacher recounts the events, she marks her inclusive position within the group of West Germans (that were protected and saved) and the exclusive position of the students (that were not saved), not only by using the contrastive personal pronoun uns (us) and euch (you), but also by enforcing it through pointing gestures. As such, Frau Hinz imposes a national East German identity on the students in much the same way as her East German colleagues. This is particularly striking, because neither the students nor the teacher were alive during this time. However, it suggests that the 1948 Berlin blockade was an event of strong symbolic character that became a source of identification with a new, liberal-democratic system for generations of West Berliners. Unlike her East German colleagues, this teacher displays a clear awareness of her communicative breach that led her to drastically contrast her own West German identity with the students’. At the end, she looks up sheepishly at the camera as if caught making a mistake and laughs. Whereas the East Berlin teachers, who teach cohorts of students in former East Berlin, comfortably identify their students as being East German, the West German teacher expresses a kind of self-critique. Of the two West German teachers teaching in East Berlin, the male teacher, Herr Kunze, appears to go to great lengths in order not to fall into this referential practice. In the following excerpt of a discussion on GDR voting practices, the question arises if the people of the GDR were partially forced to vote. Since the teacher does not know such particular facts of East German life and practices, he simply could have referred the students to their parents, as his East Berlin colleagues have done. Yet, unlike the other teachers, he says, “Lasst euch das erzählen” (Line 7), not specifying who might be able to ‘tell’ more. Instead of referring the students to their parents and thus indexically linking them to an East German past, the teacher formulates an unusual passive construction (‘Let yourselves be told’) and maintains an objective narrator’s voice. Thus, the Leute (Line 5) who have resisted East German political pressures are abstract, historical figures and it remains the students’ decision to personalize these ‘people’ by questioning their parents or anyone else about these events. In addition, Herr Kunze explicitly emphasizes a shared national identity through his use of personal pronouns on another occasion.

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Table 9.10: West German teacher: impersonal identification

1 2 3 4

German Also solche, sagen wir mal Indirekte Dinge, das spielte da schon eine Rolle.

5

Es gab aber auch Leute,

6 7

die sich da nicht haben Erpressen lassen.

English Such, let’s say indirect things, they surely did play a role there. But there were also people there who refused to be repressed.

8

Lasst euch das erzählen.

Let yourselves be told.

9

Es gibt auch Leute, die haben dem standgehalten gar keine Frage.

There are also people,

10 11

Pronoun

2nd pers. pl. acc.

who stood up to them, no question.

The impersonal pronoun man, used in Table 9.11, indexes a historically distant East German population, which could not elect their own representatives. In explaining the matter to the students by relating it to something that they are familiar with, Herr Kunze, gives an example of the present-day electoral system. He uses the inclusive, first person plural pronoun uns (Line 3) in highlighting the fact that the present system is one that they share. Furthermore, this West German teacher continues to create a shared German identity by locating the matter not only temporarily in the present, but also geographically in unserem Wahlkreis (Line 6). As such, Herr Kunze has actively identified himself with the students as Germans who not only have a common electoral district, but who follow the same voting procedures. This is particularly remarkable since the teacher lives in a former West Berlin district, whereas the students live in the former East. Herr Kunze, has therefore in all probability not elected the candidate Herr Meier, but nevertheless aligns himself with the students, further identifying himself and the cohort as Germans who share a similar culture and similar voting practices.

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Table 9.11: West German teacher: inclusive identity

1 2 3

German Man konnte nicht direkt die Abgeordneten wählen wie das

English One could not directly elect the representatives as it is, for example,

4

bei uns zum Beispiel ist.

the case with us.

5 6

Ihr wisst, dass hier in Friedau,

You know, that here in Friedau,

7

in unserem Wahlkreis

in our electoral district,

ist der gewählte Abgeordnete Meier. Der hat hier im Wahlkreis die Mehrheit gehabt. Das ging damals nicht. Das war ‘ne Liste und man hat damals was war denn auf der Liste? Was war denn zu wählen?

the elected representative is Meier. He received the majority here in this district. That didn’t happen back then. There was a list and back then one had what was on the list? What was to be elected?

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Pronoun impersonal

1st pers. pl. dat.

1st pers. pl. gen.

impersonal

As Zupnik (1994: 340) explains, “first person plural deictic pronouns may fulfill a powerful persuasive function since they have the potential to encode group memberships and identifications: speakers may index different groups as included in the scope of the pronoun ‘we’ while excluding others.” Here, Herr Kunze has been successful in highlighting a common German identity, across generations and East–West Berlin boundaries, on the basis of a shared group membership. After the shared student-teacher identity has been established, the teacher continues to return to using the impersonal pronoun man in ending his narrative by asking what East Germans, referenced by the use of man, were able to vote for. Of the six participating teachers, Herr Kunze is the only one who uses pronouns to reference a common, cross-generational, German identity. He has as such not only identified with the students, but

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he "falsely" identifies with them, by taking on the persona of citizen of their electorate, in order to emphasize their similarities.

Marking the other in West Berlin: West Berlin Cohorts & West German Teachers Finally, the two female teachers teaching in former West Berlin neither reference a shared West German nor a united German identity in their referential pronoun use. Two primary factors may inform their practice, their students’ cultural background and their lecture topics. Both West Berlin cohorts have a higher percentage of foreign-born students (16%, 22%) than the East Berlin cohorts and both West Berlin cohorts include students who are children of East German parents (3%, 15%). An identification of the students as ‘West German’ or even ‘German’ is therefore more problematic. Furthermore, as indicated above, the lectures do not discuss topics that lend themselves well to expressions relevant to national identity.

Identifying the National Self in the Classroom: Student Identification As previously mentioned, in the ongoing reunification process, educators, as representatives of the authority of the state, can have a profound influence on the students’ young minds (Bourdieu 1991). Identifying the students as members of particular German groups through pronominal use or other referencing techniques, teachers can influence students’ identity formation processes. As presented, students are still occasionally encouraged to assume an East German identity, instead of a unified German identity. While the East German teachers do this more frequently, the West German teachers are not entirely free from making such distinctions. Nevertheless, metaphorically speaking, the students themselves are not empty buckets that can be filled with knowledge and identity. Language socialization is inherently co-constructive and always multi-directional (Schieffelin and Ochs 1986; Garrett 2006). It is therefore not only the teachers who have an impact on the students’ understanding of self as they socialize them to use linguistic references in particular ways, but also the students who communicate in their own ways and thus affect the ways in which the teachers come to view the students as they undergo their complex identity formation process. As a result, the final part of this analysis turns to a discussion on the students’ use of indexical pronouns.

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Between the students going to schools in former East and West Berlin, there appears to be no difference in the way they employ referential pronouns in the classroom. The analysis reveals that all students almost always employ the impersonal pronoun man and other generic referents during debates and discussions of German contemporary history. The following segment exemplifies the repeated and extensive use of the pronoun man. Immediately prior to the students’ answer, the East Berlin female teacher had asked why East Germans might be nostalgic for life in the GDR. As the student lists several reasons, he extensively uses the distancing and objective pronoun man, referencing the people who lived in East Germany. Table 9.12: Student pronoun use

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

German English Man hatte weniger, One had less, aber das was man hatte but what one had (war nicht schlecht)... (wasn’t bad)... aber dass sich die Leute but that the people wieder daran erinnern remembered this again, dass man mehr oder that one more or less weniger [unintelligible] Oder dass man jetzt wieder Or that one could now find Schokolade findet die’s halt choclate again that damals (gab), was around back then, dass man sich an die that reminded one Kindheit erinnert. of childhood. Die kleinen Dinge, The little things die das Leben geprägt that had defined life. hatten.

Pronoun impersonal impersonal

impersonal impersonal

impersonal

Despite the fact that the student’s parents are native East Germans, he does not personalize his narrative in reference to them, but remains at an etic ‘observer level’. Connor-Linton has argued that a speaker’s use of pronouns is representative of that person’s world-view (1989:213). In this regard, once a speaker is “faced with a responding interlocutor who does not share that perspective and pronominally constructs a competing worldview, the first speaker is likely to feel that communication has been unsuccessful” (ibid. 214). Given that the majority of the students’

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responses to their East German teachers’ probing remain at this etic observer level, the teachers are bound to feel that their communication with the students has been unsuccessful as the next example also demonstrates. Table 9.13: Student resistance to East German identity German 1 2 3

T:

Weiter.

T:

Na gut.

4

English Continue! (3 sec. pause) Alright.

Bei euch zu Hause,

In your home,

7

merkt ihr da selber, dass da ein bisschen Ostalgie mitschwingt?

Do you yourself notice that there is a bit of Ostalgie in the air?

8

Oder ist das bei euch

Or is this less the case

5 6

9 10

S:

weniger? (Eigentlich nicht.)

with you? (Not really.)

11

T:

Ihr seid nicht so?

You are not like this.

12 13

T:

Aha, ok.

2nd pers. pl. dat. 2nd pers. pl. nom.

2nd pers. pl. dat.

2nd pers. pl. nom.

[students shrug shoulders] Aha, okay.

14

Also man kann nicht

So, one cannot speak

15

von der Ostalgiewelle als solches sprechen, hm?

of the Ostalgie wave

16

Pronoun

impersonal

as such, hm?

In this excerpt, after a longer pause, Frau Schulze appears dissatisfied with the students’ reluctance to answer and proceeds to ask if and how Ostalgie is present in their homes (Line 3), thus personalizing the discussion on this topic. The students demonstrate a hesitance to respond (Line 12) and reply with denial (Line 10), forcing the teacher to tentatively summarize, that the students do not believe in the Ostalgie phenomenon (Line 13-16).

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There is one profound difference between the cohorts of the various high schools. The East Berlin teachers in East Berlin high schools regularly encourage their students to identify with an East German past. This does not happen in any of the other schools. As such, the East Berlin students of East Berlin teachers more often than the others are asked to reexamine their understanding of self within society. Nevertheless, as the last two examples illustrate (Table 9.13), the students largely oppose these efforts and this in return affects the teachers’ stance towards these issues. As one teacher remarked, “I don’t even know why I am still talking about this, they don’t seem to care at all.” As Garrett and Baquedano-Lopez (2001: 340) have pointed out, “novices actively use their developing knowledge not just to co-construct but sometimes to resist and reframe their participation in socializing interactions.” The students’ unwillingness to admit any kind of familiarity with the East German Ostalgie phenomenon is an excellent example of this. Markedly, only East German teachers asked for such personalization and in such a persistent manner. So pressured, the students do at times reluctantly acknowledge their possible inclusive position within the national group ‘East German’. Notwithstanding, the fact that the students, when encouraged, do not deny their East German heritage, nor do they accept their parents’ identity as their own, often pointing out that they cannot identify with a time during which they were not alive.

Multidirectional Language Socialization The last example illustrated the students’ communicative resistance to assuming an East German identity. Since no such attempts – of identifying the students in the West Berlin classroom as ‘West German’– occur in former West Berlin, it is not clear what their reactions might be. Since, however being West German is associated with positive stereotypes while being East German is associated with negative stereotypes, less resistance would be expected (Dittmar and Bredel 1999: 120-125). In the classrooms of former East Berlin, the students’ verbal distancing from a personal East German identity does not go unnoticed by the teachers. On one occasion, I was able to observe two versions of the same lectures given by Herr Schmidt to his two 10th grade classes (E2 and E3). In the first lecture (Table 9.14), Herr Schmidt asks if the students know of a contemporary prominent political figure, who used to be active in the GDR oppositional leadership in the 1980s. The students, who may know of the politician, do not appear to know of his East German roots. There is a very drawn out eleven-second pause (Line 13) while the teacher waits

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for the students to come up with the politician’s name. In the video recording, the students’ blank faces are visible as the teacher gives them further hints. Finally, a student hesitantly identifies the politician (Line 18). He does this however, not because he knows the politician to be a former East German, but because he has deciphered the teachers hints. He knows who the present German president is, “the third most important person in the country”. The teacher ends his search for the East German by underlining this final result through the use of the emphatic marker, doch. The word doch has a range of purposes (see van Valin, Jr. 1975). For example, if used as an adverb in a declarative sentence, this emphatic marker functions to enforce a statement. As van Valin points out, “there are certain principles common to all of the manifestations of unstressed doch, which expresses the attitude of the speaker that the information he is communicating should have already been known to the hearer” (van Valin, Jr. 1975: 633). When the teacher thus uses doch twice (Lines 21 and 23), he expresses that the information he was looking for, should have been known to the students, further indicated by his use of natürlich – ‘of course’ in line twenty. The teacher appears to assume that the students should know who the politician is and that he is a former East German. He further uses the vernacular denotation for East German, Ossi, expressing familiarity. The term Ossi, if used by an East German, in this case the teacher, connotes a shared group membership that can be seen as a term of endearment. Thus, the teacher insinuates that the politician, the teacher, and the students all belong to the familiar, social group ‘East German.’ The students, however, do not show any recognition with regard to this supposed connection, indicating that they do not particularly care and/or know about such a group connection. Only one hour later, Herr Schmidt poses the same question to the second 10th grade cohort he lectures. “Who was in the opposition movement in the GDR and who is in our parliament today?” In this second lecture (Table 9.15), the teacher begins by inserting a ‘quick’ question (Lines 5-8), about the East German who is now ‘the third most important man in the Federal Republic of Germany.’ The fact that the teacher chooses to quickly insert this question, thus digressing from the original topic on the GDR’s opposition movement, indicates a level of pride (it is important enough to mention). However, in this lecture, the teacher avoids the use of the emphatic marker doch, suggesting that he has just learned that the “information he is communicating” is not necessarily “known to the hearer” (van Valin 1975: 633). And, as in the previous lecture, the

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Table 9.14: Example 16. Teacher Socialization Part I

1 2 3

T:

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

T:

12

T:

13 14

T:

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

5

S: T:

German Kennt jemand vielleicht noch heute bekannte Oppositionsführer

English Does someone perhaps know opposition leaders from GDR times, who are still well aus der Zeit der DDR? known? Es gibt sogar heute noch Even today there are welche die im Bundestag a few that have seats Sitzen in the Parliament Sogar in führender even in leading Spitze! positions! (2 sec. pause) Schröder ist es nicht. It’s not Schröder. (4 sec. pause) Schröder ist ein alter Schröder is an old ‘68er. ‘68er.5 (11 sec. pause) Keine Leute die ihr No one that you know? kennt? Vom Namen her? Just by name? [students have blank faces] Der dritt wichtigste The third most important Mann man in der Bundesrepublik? in the Federal Republic? Wolfgang Thierse? Wolfang Thierse? Ja, natürlich! Ja? Yes, of course!Yes? Der kommt doch aus He is of course from dem Osten! the East! That one is surely an Das ist doch ein Ossi! Ossi!

Pronoun

1st pers. pl. nom.

Refers to people who participated in the West German/Berlin 1968 student revolts.

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students show no sign of knowledge about any politician’s East German past. They also respond with pauses despite the teacher’s more extensive hints. Furthermore, this time, he only uses the official terminology, ‘DDR’, instead of the vernacular terms, Osten and Ossi (Lines 9, 11, 34). Thus, the link he establishes is less personal, but is made nonetheless. Table: 9.15: Teacher Socialization Part II German 1

T:

Und Leute, die teilweise

English And people, some of whom

3 4 5 6 7

auch heute im Bundestag sitzen, die heute leitende Funktionen haben Vielleicht mal ganz kurz eine Person, die dritt wichtigeste Person

8

bei uns im Bundestag?

9 10 11 12 13

Ja? Die kommt aus Yes? Who is from der DDR the GDR aus der Widerstandsfrom the opposition bewegung der DDR movement in the GDR, aus diesen Bereichen. from these areas. Die mit dem The one with the full Rauschebart. beard. (3 sec. pause) [student whispers] I wonder what his Wie heisst er wohl? name is? (3 sec. pause) Oh oh oh oh oh. Oh oh oh oh oh! (5 sec. pause) Der im Bundestag die The one who opens the Veranstaltungen parliamentary eröffnet? meetings?

2

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Pronoun

sit in parliament today, who inhabit leading positions. Maybe real quick, A person, the third most important person in our parliament?

1st pers. pl. dat.

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Wie gesagt, der dritt-

24 25 26

wichtigeste Mann. Was ist der erste? Johannes,

English Like I said, the third most important man. What’s the first? Johannes,

27

unser Bruder Johannes.

our brother Johannes.

28 29

Der zweite ist Herr Schröder.

30 31 32

S:

33

T:

34 35 36 37

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Pronoun

1st pers. pl. gen.

The second is Mr. Schröder, The third most Der dritt-wichtigste? important? (20 sec. pause) Wolfgang Thierse. Wolfgang Thierse Right, exactly. This Richtig, genau. Dieser man Mann kommt aus dieser comes out of the opposition Oppositionsbewegung movement der 80ger Jahre in der of the 80s in the DDR. GDR.

In the teacher’s search for the East German who made it from being a GDR opposition leader to being the president of the united Germany, he changes from using emphatic and personal language to more generic and thus objective language, e.g. official terminology (DDR instead of Osten). Further, the teacher avoids posing a direct question to this second cohort. In the first lecture, Herr Schmidt used the word kennen twice (Segment 16, Line 1, 14), which means ‘to know, to be familiar with a person’, indicating that he does expect them to know the former East German. Instead of asking the students if they ‘know’ (Table 9.15, Line 1) of such a person, he refrains from such personalization strategies with reference to the GDR past, but uses the inclusive pronoun uns (Line 8) in order to reference the present-day parliament. He thus focuses on an issue the students are likely to be more familiar with. Furthermore, instead of concluding the exchange with an emphasis on the presidents’ East German origin, he now highlights his actions (opposition movement), which only indirectly reference his East German heritage.

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Conclusion: Towards a Shared National Identity As the teachers of this study have spent most of their lives in two separate Germanys, a continued identification with one German nation over another is comprehensible. The publicly proclaimed hope of politicians and the people themselves, that all Germans are ein Volk6, has proven to be a more complicated reality. The analysis of these teachers’ pronoun use has shown that primarily East Berlin teachers continue to foreground their particular East German identity while West German teachers do this less frequently. One might infer that, since the East Berlin teachers experienced great ruptures in their personal and professional lives with the rapid change of their country’s socio-political and economic system, they are more intent in a desire to maintain and pass on their particular cultural capital (Bourdieu 1991) and its attached identity. The West German teachers, on the other hand, having undergone fewer and rather minimal changes over the last twenty years, are not faced with the same dilemma. While the students of this inter-generational and cross-German study are introduced to the socially and culturally specific worldviews of their teachers, in this case through their pronominal choice, this analysis has shown that students’, while influenced by the teachers, do not automatically adopt their stance on national identity. The students, further, equally express their views and understandings of self within their society and are—as demonstrated in the last section of this article—able to influence the teachers’ views and their understanding of the shifting nature of a national German identity. The post-unification-born students of this study exhibit a growing disinterest in personalizing and identifying with a divided German past—East or West. Their primary focus and identification is increasingly with a unified German nation.

Works Cited Althusser, Lois 2006 Lois Althusser. Routledge Critical Thinkers. L. Ferretter ed., Oxford: Routledge. Anderson, Benedict [1983] 1991 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. 2nd edition London: Verso. Baquedano-Lopez, Patricia. 2001 Creating Social Identities through doctrina

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One People.

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Narratives. In Alessandro Duranti, ed., Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader. pp. 343-358. Malden: Blackwell Publishers. Borneman, John 1992 Belonging in the Two Berlins: Kin, State, Nation. Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre [1980] 1991 Language and Symbolic Power. John B. Thompson, ed., Cambridge: Harvard Press. Connor-Linton, Jeffrey 1989 Crosstalk: A Multi-feature Analysis of SovietAmerican Spacebridges. Dissertation. University of California Los Angeles. Cooke, Paul 2005 Representing East Germany Since Unification: From Colonization to Nostalgia. Oxford: Berg Publishers. Dittmar, Norbert and Ursula Bredel 1999 Die Sprachmauer. Berlin: Weidler Buchverlag. Duranti, Alessandro 1984 The Social Meaning of Subject Pronouns in Italian Conversation. In Teun A. Van Dijk, ed., TEXT: an interdisciplinary journal for the study of Discourse. Vol.4-4. pp.277311. Mouton Publishers. Elias, Norbert 1978 The civilizing process. New York: Urizen Books. Garrett, Paul 2006 Language Socialization. Elsevier Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Vol. 6, pp. 604-613. Goll, Thomas and Thomas Leuerer 2004 Ostalgie als Erinnerungskultur?: Symposium zu Lied und Politik in der DDR, In Thomas Goll and Thomas Leuerer, eds., Würzburg Universitätschriften zu Geschichte und Politik. Vol.6. Nomos Verlag. Hymes, Dell 1972 On communicative competence. In J.B. Pride and J. Holme, eds., Sociolinguistics. pp. 269 – 285. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Isabel Íñigo-Mora 2004 On the use of the personal pronoun ‘we’ in communities. In Journal of Language and Politics 3:1, pp. 27–52. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Klein, O. Georg 2001 Ihr könnt uns einfach nicht verstehen: Warum Ostund Westdeutsche aneinander vorbeireden. Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn Verlag. Mühlhäuser, Peter and Rom Harré 1990 Pronouns and People: The linguistic construction Of social and personal identity. Oxford: Blackwell Ltd. Ochs, Elinor and Bambi Schieffelin 1984 Language Acquisition and Socialization: Three Developmental Stories. In R.A. Shweder and R.A. LeVine, eds., Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. pp. 27 – 320. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Probst, Lothar 1999 Differenz in der Einheit: Über die kulturellen Unterschiede der Deutschen in Ost und West. Berlin: Links Druck GmbH. Rymes, Betsy 2001 Conversational Borderlands: Language and Identity in an Alternativ Urban High School. New York: Teachers College Press. Schieffelin, Bambi and Elinor Ochs 1986 Language Socialization Across Cultures. Annual Review of Anthropology, 15:163 – 191. Schönfeld, Helmut. 2001. Berlinisch heute: Kompetenz - Verwendung – Bewertung. In Band 36. Sprache, System und Tätigkeit.Frankfurt: Peter Lang Verlag. Simon, Jana, Frank Rothe and Wiete Andrasch 2000 Das Buch der Unterschiede: Warum die Einheit keine ist. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag. Urban, Greg 1986 The “I” of Discourse. In Benjamin Lee and Greg Urban, eds., Semiotics, Self and Society. pp. 27-52. Berlin: Mouton de Gryter. van Dijk, Teun A.1997 Discourse as Social Interaction. In Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. London: Sage Publication Ltd. van Valin, R.D. Jr. 1975 German Doch: The Basic Phenomena. In R.E. Grossman, L. James San, T. Vance, eds., Papers from the Eleventh Regional Meeting Chicago Linguistic Society. pp. 625-637. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Vogel, Anja. 2006 OSTALGIE – desiring a communist past? Anthropology News. Vol. 47 (3), March. Zupnik, Yael-Janette 1994 A Pragmatic Analysis of the Use of Person Deixis. In Political Discourse. Journal of Pragmatics. 21: 339-383.

CHAPTER TEN WAS IST DIE DDR?: SUGGESTIONS FOR PRESENTING THE GDR TO THE AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT ALEXIS SPRY

Several years after reunification tales of the times behind the Wall slowly began to trickle out of German publishing houses. By 2000, the trickle had become a flood. “Ostalgie” books – those containing themes laden with nostalgia for the East – comprised a large portion of the literature that focused on East Germany. Even American publishers, usually reticent about publishing translated books, began to take notice. In 2004, Jana Hensel’s best-selling Zonenkinder was published in the U.S. under the title After the Wall: Confessions from an East German Childhood and the Life that Came Next. The book was naïve, one-sided and very nostalgic; as one reviewer succinctly put it, After the Wall was an “idiotic ode to [Hensel’s] imaginary youth.”1 But the least praiseworthy aspect of the book was its potential effect on readers who lacked an adequate background in GDR history. It was easy to see how under-informed readers could interpret this story as the story of the GDR, especially since the specifics of East German history are generally not an integral part of American high school curricula. During my own education I learned very little about Soviet Bloc countries and the Cold War. My high school German courses only briefly alluded to German history; cultural lessons seldom extended beyond Oktoberfest, Fasching, World War II, or Hermann Hesse. That so little was taught about East Germany might have reflected the prejudices of earlier generations, whose thoughts of East Germany might evoke memories of the Cold War, duck-and-cover drills, and the once1

Garvin “Totalitarian Busybodies,” 66.

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omnipresent fear of communism; those born later might have less intense feelings about East Germany, but the name might still paint a portrait of poor, oppressed communists living in gray concrete housing developments. East Germany is often relegated to a brief mention in history books, reinforcing the notion that a country that existed for such a short time barely merits serious study. But the GDR is still an important subject; its story affects modern Germany and reveals much about a significant era in world history. Those educators wanting to incorporate lessons about East Germany into their traditional curriculum find few online resources. While German Resources on the Web—a service of the American Association of Teachers of German—provides links to a variety of GDR-related websites, none are comprehensive, non-commercial, and interactive.2 Some present specific topics (e.g., consumer goods in the GDR); others present information about German history as a whole, with a small portion devoted to the GDR. A single website addressing the broad scope of cultural and historical topics related to East Germany could enable teachers and students to more easily find connections between concepts. For example, a website discussing both East German television and history could more easily show the relationship between changing political views and what was broadcast on television. The lack of information available to Americans was my inspiration to create accessible and comprehensible teaching resources about East Germany during a fellowship year in Berlin. I researched the materials available to American high school teachers and created new resources – a website and an exhibit – to fill the gaps I found. The project focuses on the GDR’s history, culture, literature, people, economics, and daily life. The online and traveling exhibit use new resources and technology to grab students’ attentions. Although much of the material used was originally in German, all material was translated into English, making the resources (which include lessons plans, everyday objects, anecdotes and interviews) appropriate not just for German courses but also for history, ethics, and philosophy courses. The website (www.gdr-wunderkammer.org) was advertised on listservs and the exhibit (a collection of everyday objects and consumer goods) can be borrowed to supplement traditional lesson plans. But like many topics in modern history, teaching about the GDR can be complex and controversial. Those persecuted in the GDR might criticize descriptions of the GDR as incomplete and ameliorative of the 2

AATG GRoW Committee, “German Resources on the Web.”

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institutions that persecuted them. At the same time, nostalgic memoirs like the aforementioned Zonenkinder continue to inhabit the bestseller shelves in Germany, and Good Bye Lenin! is undoubtedly shown to many a high school German class. But are these brief forays into the GDR adequate? If teachers do decide to teach more thoroughly about the GDR, what should they teach? What sort of material is appropriate? This paper will highlight the pedagogical issues involved in teaching about the GDR, it will discuss some materials ideal for the high school classroom, and it will demonstrate how educators can conscientiously and accurately teach about the GDR. The first issue to address is that of teaching modern history even as scholars debate it. The instability of current historical surveys and polarizing valuations of the GDR as good or evil are important pedagogical issues implicit in this matter. To tackle the first subject within this issue, teachers need to acknowledge the fluidity of historical information. GDR history is recent history – it is still being researched and there is much disagreement over its facts. Historians are still investigating archives and more first-hand accounts are written each year. According to Dr. Stefan Bollinger, professor of politics at Berlin's Free University, the shifting assessment of GDR history over time shows how Germans have struggled to understand their own story: At first, after the fall of the Wall in 1989, there was a tendency for people to detach themselves from their own past by rejecting everything to do with the GDR. This reached a high point between 1991 and 1993. Then in the mid 1990s, because of the economic crisis in eastern Germany, the capitalist hierarchy was seen to be more flawed and people started looking at what they had lost with the fall of East Germany. This was a particularly tough time for East Germans because they were the hardest hit by the loss of heavy industry and high unemployment. Now we are seeing a certain process of normalization, where the GDR is being looked at in a more nuanced way.3

It would be wise to show students that what is taught today might not be accepted fifteen, or even five, years from now. Teaching about the GDR is an opportunity for teachers to show the relationship between history and current events, by making students aware that GDR history, like many other histories, is still being debated. The second subject related to teaching the GDR is the polarization of viewpoints and its effect on historical study. Teachers would do well to 3

McGuinness, “Goodbye Ostalgia!”

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avoid dichotomy: categorizing the GDR as “Good” or “Evil” is too simplified. The GDR should be neither glorified nor demonized, but presented in all of its inconsistencies. In Unsere Erbschaft, was war die DDR Peter Bender sums up the complexity of GDR history: The GDR was not just a Stasi-state, it was also a country in which—in many areas at least—people simply tried to lead normal lives…It was not a gigantic education- and stultification-machine, but also a country in which culture thrived. The GDR destroyed many people and drove almost five million out of the country, but it also, for a time at least, aroused people’s enthusiasm.4

According to Christoph Klessman, in his essay “Rethinking the Second German Dictatorship,” It has proven quite difficult for scholars to settle on one single term for the GDR…An examination of GDR development reveals the picture of a contradiction-ridden socialist experiment…[it is] difficult to develop a single overarching concept to characterize the entire course of the GDR dictatorship.5

Teachers need to address the contradictions of GDR history without apologetics, without defending one viewpoint against another. They don’t need to defend a capitalist viewpoint (no advantages were worth the suffering of East Germans) nor do they need to defend East Germany (the limitations of freedom are necessary for the functioning of the state). Introducing important events in East German history is an easy way to begin. Selecting the most important and memorable events is an easy way to start. Students’ knowledge of German history will be expanded and they can compare their new knowledge to what they might have learned in previous history classes. For example, many world or European history classes cover the erection of the Berlin Wall, but German teachers can expand on this cursory knowledge with images, news broadcasts, and excerpts from first-hand accounts. Basic events to include while planning curricula include the creation of East Germany, the uprising of June 17, 1953, the erection of the Berlin Wall, Erich Honecker’s rise to power and eventual instatement as the East German head of state, the fall of the Wall in 1989 and reunification in 1990. Topics that span the decades are more difficult to quantify. The influence and notoriety of the Stasi, for example, 4

Bender, Unsere Erbschaft. Was war die DDR—was bleibt von ihr?, 11. Klessmann, “Rethinking the Second German Dictatorship,” in Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR, ed. Jarausch, 363.

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cannot be attached to a specific date. The importance of athletics in East Germany, the types and availability of consumer products, and the continual efforts of everyday citizens attempting to flee are useful to discuss on several occasions, reinforcing the importance and pervasiveness of these subjects. An abundance of online German-language resources exist (see resources at the end of the chapter), and English-language information is also available. Deutsche Welle, Germany’s multi-media public information service, devotes an entire section of its Englishlanguage page to articles dissecting the cultural, historical and political difficulties faced by the former East German states.6 The website “GDR Wunderkammer”—the result of my research in Germany during 20052006—is also a useful and interactive online tool, a virtual curiosity cabinet devoted to exploring East Germany.7 It answers basic questions (“where was East Germany?”) and discusses more in-depth topics (“what was life like?” and “why was Germany divided into two countries?”) using images, sound and movie clips, and text. Setting aside the discussion of pedagogical issues, the next topic focuses on materials available for teaching about the GDR. The dry, objective facts of history are essential, to be sure, but by themselves they are often too dull for the average student. More dynamic resources should be utilized in conjunction with textbook lessons to hold the students’ interests. Narratives of life within East Germany and artifacts from that life (physical objects like stamp collections, children’s playthings, and clothing) make the experience of life in the GDR real for the student. Just as museum trips can be used to supplement lessons in history or science, artifacts of the GDR can be brought into the lecture to supplement a study of GDR history; they allow students to identify with life in the GDR, to feel it as a tangible and sympathetic experience. They deepen the students’ understandings of GDR history. Which “narratives of life within East Germany” are best? In my opinion Claudia Rusch’s book Meine freie deutsche Jugend is the most appropriate text for orienting students. Although sadly it has not yet been translated into English, a simple translation of one or two chapters would not be difficult. It is universal in its account of adolescence, making it identifiable for students regardless of background. It is not an account of extremes: the author is not imprisoned, nor is she a functionary. This book is most appropriate because Rusch’s stories provide readers with a sense of everyday life in East Germany during the late 70s and early 80s: a 6 7

Deutsche Welle, “Focus on East Germany.” Spry, “GDR Wunderkammer.”

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comfortable existence encumbered with political apathy yet frustrated by a lack of freedom. Its division into short chapters is suitable for classroom use; even a few chapters would help fill in the reality of life in the GDR for students. This is not to say that teachers should ignore other accounts. Whereas Meine freie deutsche Jugend includes experiences with the Stasi and GDR dissidents, Jana Hensel’s Zonenkinder is almost childlike in its lack of political memories, but it provides an overview of the GDR educational system and its accoutrements, which are not present in Rusch’s book. Joel Agee’s Twelve Years tells the story of his childhood in the GDR from 1948 to 1960, a time ignored by the previous two memoirs. Despite the age of Agee’s text (it was originally published in 1980), it is still a valid source in the classroom. Twelve Years takes place before the Wall was erected in 1961, during the first years of the Stasi (created in 1950), and during the years of economically damaging agricultural reforms. The most interesting sections of the book describe Agee’s difficulties with the East German educational system, his stepfather’s activities as a high-ranking member of the Communist party, or the political lessons he was forced to learn when his younger brother was prevented from starting a school magazine. Artifacts can be presented independently or in conjunction with the aforementioned narratives, which make frequent references to GDR products. But artifacts can do more than clarify unfamiliar objects in these narratives. The GDR timeline, for example, could be supplemented by the presentation of a postage stamp collection highlighting the key ideas for each period of GDR history. Mary Fulbrook divides GDR history into five periods for her book The Two Germanies, 1945-1990: 1945-1949 (Occupation and Division); 1949-1961 (Crystallization); 1961-1972 (The Decade of Transition); 1972-1988 (The Established Phase); 1989-1990 (The end of the Two Germanies).8 Stamp sets from each of these periods highlight important themes in East German society and provide vibrant visual evidence of the past. Stamps lend themselves to memorization because of their simplicity; their images are easily brought to mind after even a single viewing. Facts connected to easily recalled pictures are themselves more easily recalled, especially by students, who already have many facts to remember. For example, when learning about the “Crystallization” period of the GDR, 1949-1961, the students could be shown the “Fünfjahresplan”

8

Fulbrook, The Two Germanies, 1945-1990, 11.

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stamps, which were originally printed in 1953 and were reprinted and in circulation until 1960 (Figure 10.1). This set of eighteen stamps features images of the typical socialist industries (e.g., textiles, mining, and farming) as well as general socialist values like family, education, and peace. These stamps exemplify the ideal of transforming the GDR from a postwar state to a model, post-fascist functioning democratic socialist society. Figure 10.1: “Fünfjahresplan” Stamps

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“The Decade of Transition,” the period after the erection of the Berlin Wall and before Honecker’s ascent to power, can also be illustrated using stamps. The Berlin Wall forced the GDR to compare itself with its western neighbor; it made real the division between East and West. The push to establish the GDR as a prosperous society on par with the West is highlighted by the twelve-stamp, four-color “20th Anniversary” set (Figure 10.2). The stamps feature views of architecture in several “model” GDR cities, each accompanied by the official state seal and the words “20 Jahre Deutsche Demokratische Republik.” Figure 10.2: “20 Jahre Deutsche Demokratische Republik” Stamps

The creation and use of these stamps legitimize the GDR’s existence as a separate nation. By commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Republic, a short history by modern standards, the stamps engage in the process of historicizing the GDR and affirm the realization of Marxism’s utopian goals, through model communities and modern building techniques. The third period of GDR history, “The Established Phase,” was financially assured and culturally diverse; this too is reflected in the stamps (Figure 10.3). Stamps no longer promoted state ideologies or legitimize the GDR; instead they focused on standard and less-controversial subjects, like

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nature, technology, and athletics. These sets reflected politically neutral topics that championed the security and comfort of life in the GDR. Figure 10.3: The Established Phase Stamps

The collection can also reveal by omission; the absence of stamps addressing the June 17 uprisings or the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit can be pointed out to question which parts of GDR history the state itself was uncomfortable commemorating. Other artifacts can also be used to give sensory reality to the GDR. Clothing from the GDR, like an FDJ uniform shirt, allows students to learn about youth organizations in the GDR; students can see the film posters of the state-supported DEFA studio; recordings of GDR comedians can illustrate the frustrations and foibles of GDR life. What is most important, these teaching aids make the study of the GDR less abstract for students. Artifactual resources are available through a variety of organizations. Replicas (and in certain cases, originals) of the items displayed in the “GDR Wunderkammer”9 circulate for free, the borrower is only required to cover shipping expenses. The BStU (Bundesbehörde für die Stasi-Unterlagen) supports educators teaching about the structure, methods, and modes of operation of the Stasi by providing lesson plans and facsimiles of real case files. The Bonn-based museum Haus der 9

Spry, “GDR Wunderkammer”

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Geschichte also offers access to large parts of their collection through a straightforward website; photographs, images of artifacts, and audio-visual resources are available along with German-language description. The final topic to address is how educators can conscientiously and accurately teach about the GDR. Educators need to consider how they refer to the GDR, what it means that the GDR had victims and collaborators, and how to address the topic of reunification. Totalitarian, dictatorship, communist, welfare state, socialist experiment, Marxist-Leninist, Stalinist—there are many ways to refer to the GDR, and valid cases can be made for nearly all of them. Validity, however, is not free from bias, and many of the terms carry baggage of older political agendas. The extremes of the Cold War era are especially precarious; labeling the GDR as totalitarian might not be any more accurate than labeling the FRG fascist. Jürgen Kocka has made a good case for the title “modern dictatorship,” as Corey Ross summarizes in his book The East German Dictatorship: The term is intended to refer only to certain kinds of dictatorships of the twentieth century characterized by bureaucratic administration, modern means of control and mobilization (propaganda, surveillance by a state security system), a mass party with claims to absolute political power as both ruler and means of rule, and a binding, all-encompassing ideology. At the heart of the concept is the ‘modern’ form of dictatorial authority in the age of the ‘masses’, above all its pseudo-plebiscitary nature which distinguishes it from both previous forms of ‘dictatorial’ rule as well as other twentieth-century military dictatorships or more traditional monarchical systems…According to Kocka, the advantage of the term ‘modern dictatorship’ lies above all in the avoidance of confusion and questionable associations of unbridled terror and violence that plague the term ‘totalitarianism.’ Moreover, unlike totalitarianism, with its association of brutality and radicalism, ‘modern dictatorship’ can more or less be appropriately used for the GDR over the whole if its history.10

Although some teachers might find the term modern dictatorship appropriate for the high school classroom, others might prefer a different term. The purpose of clarifying labels of the GDR is to create a responsible and precise political nomenclature, which is sensitive to the people behind the GDR but also accurate in depicting the reality of the GDR’s existence. By carefully choosing our vocabulary we are acknowledging that the GDR had a human face; we are also trying to 10

Ross, The East German Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of the GDR, 28.

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objectively evaluate the effectiveness and justness of its government. What is most important is that teachers engage themselves and students in critical analyses of the meaning behind political terminology and the effect it has on our interpretation of history. “Victim” is also a term inherent in the discussion of the GDR, but there can be no discussion of victims without a discussion of victimizers. Sensationalizing the victims and their stories and ignoring the victimizers prevents the students from having to critically examine who the victimizers were and how and why they acted in the ways they did. Stories of victims need to be told without equivocation because victims are real people and their stories really did happen. However, students should also examine the reasoning of the victimizers. Teachers can show students how victimizers were created through paranoia, by a highly unstable government that was desperate to justify its existence; they were not simply sadistic comic villains. Not all victimizers were officials working for the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (the Stasi), and students should consider the many people who collaborated as Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (Unofficial Collaborators) or party members. Their involvement was less concrete, perhaps, but it extended the influence of the Stasi. Students need to consider why people participated in the mechanisms of oppression, in any capacity. Accurately teaching about the GDR also includes discussing the end of the GDR and the reunification. Discussing the aspects of the GDR that improved after reunification and parts that deteriorated will again highlight the contradictions inherent in the GDR, but it will avoid pitting West Germany against East Germany. In talking about the reunification, students will also understand that the GDR did not simply vanish after reunification; it was absorbed into the FRG, much like the Confederacy was absorbed into the United States after the American Civil War. Lessons about the GDR can be incorporated into courses in German as they help fulfill national education standards for foreign language, particularly, “knowing significant political, military, intellectual, and cultural figures and how they shaped historical events and the target culture's perspectives.”11 They can also fulfill standards for history courses, encouraging students in “understanding the shift in political and

11

Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning, “Foreign Language Standards.”

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economic conditions after World War II”12 and “evaluating the validity and credibility of different historical interpretations.”13 In conclusion, teaching students about the GDR can be a key part of today’s German-language education and it can also be incorporated into history, ethics and philosophy courses. The contradictions inherent in the study and teaching of the GDR must be exposed and challenged so that students are able to form more intelligent and stronger arguments, not just about the story of the GDR but about different forms of government and their worth, the meaning of civic duty, the relationship between personal freedoms and responsibilities to one’s government, oppressive societies and why such societies continue to exist, and about why governments rise and fall. But this lesson need not, and should not, be simply philosophical. Students should learn through exposure to the personal experience of GDR citizens, using a combination of personal accounts and artifacts. It is possible for teachers to implement these in their lessons without reducing them to Ostalgie, through the careful and methodical analysis of their usage, as this paper has outlined.

12

Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning, “World History Standards.” 13 Ibid.

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Appendix 10.1: Further Resources GDR Wunderkammer www.gdr-wunderkammer.org Designed as a playful exhibition about the German Democratic Republic, the website is divided into two main sections: text and artifacts, displayed in a modern curiosity cabinet. The website simulates research and critical thinking as it encourages users to look at the same information several times and discover information in a non-linear way. Many of the items featured on the website can be borrowed by contacting the website administrator. The Berlin Airlift Harry S. Truman Library and Museum http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/berlin_airlift/l arge/docs.php This addition to the Harry S. Truman Library's online resources commemorates the Berlin Airlift with primary documents, photos, and text. The site features CIA files, press conference transcripts, meeting minutes and State Department materials. The blend of primary and secondary sources makes it an appropriate supplement high school course. Transnational Poster Art: Easy Germany and Latin America Stanford University http://www.sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/german/exhibit/GDRposters/proje ct.html This site features 25 posters commissioned by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) government during the 1970s and 80s, while also featuring similar posters from Latin America. German History in Documents and Images German Historical Institute http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/ This is a comprehensive collection of primary source materials documenting Germany's political and cultural history. Texts are accompanied with English translations and the site features and a wide

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range of visual resources. Materials and curricula can be downloaded for teaching and related purposes. Visual Archive of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/webgate_cms/ More than 12 million images document German history; the site is especially valuable for photographs of famous German figures. The Berlin Tunnel Operation, 1952-1956 U.S. Central Intelligence Agency https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csipublications/books-and-monographs/on-the-front-lines-of-the-cold-wardocuments-on-the-intelligence-war-in-berlin-1946-to-1961/art-7.html This government website describes in detail – often providing primary documents as evidence - the history of the Berlin Tunnel and the CIA’s involvement. The text is often lengthy, but the story is the epitome of classic Cold War espionage. Lebendigen virtuellen Museum Online http://www.hdg.de/lemo/home.html This online exhibition, part of the Haus der Geschichte, allows virtual access to hundreds of historical artifacts and images. The website divides German History into several sections for ease of access. Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen http://en.stiftung-hsh.de/ The Stasi administered several secret prisons throughout East Germany, yet none are as infamous as Hohenschönhausen, the prison established in the middle of a typical Berlin neighborhood. Despite efforts by historians, politicians, and former prisoners, the prison’s details – who was interned and why – remain a mystery. Although the website is incomplete and access to the prison and its collection are only available through tours, the site features an important often overlooked chapter in East German history.

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Die Bundebeauftragte fuer die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik www.bstu.de The website of the official government organization dedicated to coping with East Germany’s Stasi past. Includes teacher resources and german-language curricula about the Stasi. Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv http://www.dra.de/index.html Experience Germany through historical radio and television broadcasts. The small online exhibit features a new clip and explanatory text each month. DDR Fotos http://www.ddr-fotos.de/ A private collection of mostly black and white photographs of East Germany. John Rodden. “Of Sport, State, and Stasi: Socialism with an Un-Beautiful Face.” Midwest Quarterly, 40 (1999): 134-152. A contemporary English-language interview with Ute, a German athlete who grew up in East Germany.

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Works Cited Agee, Joel. Twelve Years. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Bender, Peter. Unsere Erbschaft. Was war die DDR – was bleibt von ihr? München: Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 1992. Cooke, Paul. Representing East Germany Since Reunification. New York: Berg Publishers, 2005. Fulbrook, Mary. The Two Germanies, 1945-1990. London: The Macmillan Press, 1992. Garvin, Glenn. “Totalitarian Busybodies.” In Reason 37 (2006): 61-66. Hensel, Jana. Zonenkinder. Hamburg: Rowohlt Verlag, 2002. Hohendahl, Peter Uwe, ed. German Studies in the United States: A Historical Handbook. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2003. Jarausch, Konrad H., ed. Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a SocioCultural History of the GDR. New York: Berghahn Books, 2004. McGuinness, Damien. “Goodbye Ostalgia! A New Willingness to Criticize East Germany.” In Spiegel Online. (accessed 2 March 2006), http:/www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,403978,00.html. Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning. “Foreign Language Standards.” Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning Online Standards. http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/SubjectTopics.asp?SubjectID=16 (accessed November 2005). Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning. “World History Standards.” Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning Online Standards. http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/SubjectTopics.asp? SubjectID=6 (accessed November 2005). Ross, Corey. The East German Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of the GDR. London: Arnold Publishers, 2002. Rusch, Claudia. Meine freie deutsche Jugend. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 2003. Sacirbey, Omar. “Nostalgia Revives East German Rock.” In Christian Science Monitor, February 10, 1990. Spry, Alexis. “GDR Wunderkammer.” http://www.gdr-wunderkammer.org.

CHAPTER ELEVEN OSSI-WESSI QUEER: LITERARY CONSTRUCTIONS OF GAY SENSIBILITIES AND GERMAN REUNIFICATION ROLF GOEBEL

As the subject of an increasing body of fiction, poetry, film, and popular media, the “Ossi-Wessi” conflict has been at the center of a complex discourse negotiating post-reunification Germany’s national selfunderstanding.1 The political and social changes after the fall of the Berlin Wall were not merely a chain of tumultuous facts but produced a discursive process pitting a victorious Western capitalist consumer democracy against the demise of an anachronistic socialist society, whose citizens often saw themselves as victims of an arrogantly colonizing West even while welcoming their new political freedom and economic opportunities. These differences pertained to urban planning (e.g., the debate over preserving the GDR Palast der Republik vs. rebuilding the Hohenzollern Stadtschloss); economic problems (such as discrepancies in salaries, industrial productivity, and unemployment in East and West); or ideological issues (especially, the stress on regional difference and emotional Heimat sentiments in Eastern Germany vs. the homogenizing pressures of the Berlin Republic and global society).2 Today, however, the funny—but starkly binary and curiously infantile—rhetoric of Jammerossis vs. Besserwessis (whiny Easterners vs. smart-ass Westerners), perpetuating rather than demolishing the proverbial 1

For a discussion of the use of this term, as opposed to that of German national identity, see Brunssen, “The New Self-Understanding of the Berlin Republic,” 1935. 2 For the last of these aspects, see Thompson, “The PDS: ‘CSU des Ostens’? – Heimat and the Left,” 123-40, and Szejnmann, “‘An Helligkeit ragt in Europa vor allem mei’ Sachsenland vor,’” 141-55.

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Wall in the Heads, has itself become a historical phenomenon challenged by the official notion of normalization. As Stuart Taberner explains, this term was originally associated with Martin Walser’s charge that the instrumentalization of the Holocaust for political ends prevented a “normal” post-reunification self-understanding in Germany, which conservatives hoped to attain through values such as patriotic pride, a dominant German culture based on past achievements (Leitkultur), and ethnic homogeneity. However, since the mid-1990s, the term has been employed in a wider sense, now advocating the achievements of West German history (liberal democracy, human rights, multiculturalism, etc.) as the guiding standards by which the Berlin Republic, i.e., Germany after reunification with Berlin as the new capital, may forge its selfunderstanding in the multilateral context of the EU and global politics. This role includes the difficult task of interrogating the legacies of the Holocaust and World War II with genuine contrition without succumbing to paralyzing self-debasement.3 The discourse of normalization, of course, also carries problematic implications, as it may suggest a falsely optimistic ideology of progress and harmony not necessarily warranted by the realities of continuing conflicts and differences between Eastern and Western Germany. Thus, the Ossi-Wessi rhetoric and the discourse of normalization, although partial and insufficient by themselves, are useful to delineate the very insecurities, provisional terms, and uncertain direction of Germany’s quest for a new self-conception as a nation in the decades after the fall of the Wall. While it is obvious that these competing discourses are historically conditioned by specific economic, social, and ethnic factors, their genderspecific aspects and rhetorical tropes are less commonly acknowledged. Sabine Lang has recently analyzed the role of women in post-1989 Germany and their struggle against continuing male hegemonic practices,4 but queer views of reunification and East-West differences have not been discussed sufficiently.5 This is all the more surprising since Berlin, the new/old capital, with its “gay” legacy of the Weimar Republic, is featured prominently in several recent novels, often centered on the interplay between queer lifestyle performances and post-industrial consumer capitalism.6 In the following pages, I explore the possibility of queer 3

Taberner, “Introduction,” 1-2. Lang, “Unifying a Gendered State.” See also Gerstenberger. “Difficult Stories.” 5 Thus, an appropriate treatment of queer issues is absent from Taberner, Finlay, Recasting German Identity, as well as from Costabile-Heming, Halverson, Foell, Berlin. The Symphony Continues. 6 See Goebel, “Queer Berlin.” 4

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literary perspectives on East-West relations before and after the fall of the Wall that are often different from other subject positions. I am not suggesting, of course, that gay-themed writing possesses any kind of privileged knowledge not available to other subject positions; nor do I wish to posit anything like a unified queer sensibility—a shared political ideology, aesthetic perception, or discursive practice—that could be neatly distinguished from the hetero-centrist ideologies it seeks to challenge. To do so would be irreconcilable with queer theory’s anti-essentialist and pluralistic assumptions, and it would not do justice to the wide range of literary constructions of queer perspectives, whose diversity and contradictions defy any homogenizing definitions.7 Nonetheless, by focusing on the inherently subversive and culturally contingent scope of queer literary voices, we may gain alternative insights into postreunification Germany and its history insufficiently represented by the hetero-normal biases of mainstream literature. Mixing tragedy with absurd comedy, Napoleon Seyfarth’s autobiography Schweine müssen nackt sein (1991) chronicles the author’s life amidst sexual promiscuity, self-discovery, and gay activism. Born in 1953, Seyfarth moves from Mannheim to Berlin in 1980 to experience the city as an “Insel der schwulen Glückseligkeit” ‘island of gay bliss’ (134). On 27 September 1988 he is diagnosed as HIV-positive (193). For him, AIDS figures as the devastating illness that consumes the writer’s body while fully liberating his sexual identity; having already lived a selfconfident and natural gay life, he now decides to do the same as an openly HIV-positive person (231).8 Seyfarth decides to engage in AIDS activism to inspire those infected with the virus to revolt against rejection, ignorance, and discrimination while promoting their self-confidence and giving them practical information about the disease (234). Beyond its deadly effects as a politicized disease, AIDS also serves as the ironic master trope capturing the East Berliners’ introduction to Western capitalist consumer culture after the opening of Wall. Preoccupied with preparing for World AIDS Day on 1 December 1989, Seyfarth is caught by surprise when the Berlin Wall falls on 9 November. Almost incidentally, he witnesses the arrival of strangely clad East Berliners in the 7

See Sullivan, A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory, for a recent critical discussion of queer theory’s anti-essentialist and pluralistic questioning of heterocentrist hegemonies. 8 For a discussion of Seyfarth’s attitude toward his disease, which includes the self-ironic, camp-like theatricalization of his own “art of dying,” in the wider context of literary representations of AIDS, especially in coming-out discourses, see Woltersdorff, Coming Out, 73-83.

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Western part of the city. Noting the Easterners’ frantic rush towards the oases of capitalist consumerism (Bilka, Aldi, Woolworth), the author’s queer eye captures especially the scenes where seemingly suppressed but eager GDR homosexuals discover the pubs of the gay subculture. These venues appear to the newcomers as something that was previously known to them only as a kind of video mirage reflecting their unlived dreams and desires in the “desert” of their own State. Through a provocative strategy of metaphoric shifting, Seyfarth associates political reunification with homosexual union. His buzzword “Wiedervereinigungsorgie,” ‘reunification orgy,’ which seeks to capture the collective social euphoria after the fall of the Wall as well as the mad sexual encounters between gays from the East and the West, and the joyful induction of Easterners into the Western affluence of a reunited Germany, is projected onto the pleasures of gay promiscuity: “Schweinigkeit und Sex und Geilheit. Aufgerichtet zum Bedienen. Deutschland, einig Schwulenland” ‘Promiscuity and sex and horniness. Erected for pleasurable service. Germany, united gayland’ (241-43). Here, gay solidarity across the former border is recruited for a linguistic subversion of looming patriotic sentiments, expressed in the mischievous queering of Germany’s national anthem and its key phrase “Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit” ‘unity and right and freedom.’ But together with the hedonistic lifestyle performances evoked by these puns, the AIDS crisis also produces a heightened sense of moral responsibility and political activism. Seyfarth and his friends enlighten the Easterners about the disease and safe sex through another catchy word play that associates political reunification with disease prevention: “Für grenzenlose Lust. Wider Vereinigung ohne Kondom” ‘For unlimited lust. Against unification without condom’ (244). But he and his friends soon have to realize that AIDS activism is no match for the mightier lures of capitalist consumer pleasures, as the East Germans turn away from their street booth dispensing free condoms to receive the more attractive samples of Camel cigarettes offered nearby. Even the charges that West Germany is now colonizing the former GDR are given a queer twist, when Seyfarth’s AIDS activist group fights the claims by a U.S. film director that all West German gays are suicidal hedonists luring the innocent Easterners into the deadly morass of their darkrooms, while the official AIDS organizations supposedly witness such evil practices without trying to interfere. The director’s ideological smugness serves to forge new prospects for solidarity among AIDS groups that until then had been divided by vanity and jealousy (246-47). Michael Sollorz’s novel Abel und Joe (1994), set shortly after the events of 1989, also explores the superimposition of gay liberation

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discourse onto the political realities before and after the opening of the Wall. The East Berliner Abel spends a frenzied day and night in the streets, bars, and gay sauna scene of the city while desperately looking for his partner Joe, who had left his petty-bourgeois origins in West Germany’s small-town life in (the fictional and satirically named) Bad Beichte ‘Confession Bath’ to join his lover, even though he may now have deserted him for good. From the streetcar Abel rediscovers the Prenzlauer Berg district, in East Berlin, with its crumbling balconies and cozy corners, through Joe’s eyes, as he had already done before his friend’s move to the city (27). This double perspective, comparing what he sees in the streets with his reminiscences about his troubled relationship with Joe, gives Abel renewed insights into what it means to be a gay man from the former GDR. He remembers that for Joe’s parents, he was just an alien good-for-nothing from the East who had sex with their son, while Joe felt immediately at home in the East, appreciating its old houses, serious conversations, and the smell of burnt coals in winter (33-34). Whereas Joe cultivates a kind of temporary and touristic Ostalgie, nostalgically idealizing his lover’s surroundings from a Western perspective, Abel is aware of the ex-GDR’s colonization by the hypocritical denizens of the very provinces that Joe had escaped from: “Dachten die anderen auch an das kleine Land hinter den Dornen, wie es gewesen war, bis gefönte Feldforscher herbeiströmten aus Bad Beichte, Nippesstadt und anderen Postkarten-Orten—Raubritter hinterm Harnisch Heiterkeit, Missionare mit billiger Botschaft?” ‘Did all the others also think of the small country behind the thorns, how it has once been, until blow-dried ethnologists arrived from Bad Beichte, Knick-Knack Town. And other picture-postcard places—robber knights behind their armor of cheerfulness, missionaries with a cheap message?’ (43). But Abel himself is not immune to postreunification Ostalgie; “Griesgram! Poststalinistischer Nostalgiker, Mummel-Unke!” ‘Grouch! Post-Stalinist nostalgia freak, provincial old fart’ complains Joe, despite his own ostalgic sentiments, when his lover daydreams about buying one of the mossy apartment buildings in East Berlin, which he wants to keep from being restored as a reminder of how the city once looked like before the arrival of hordes of curious Japanese tourists and their video cameras (52). A long flashback provides insights into Abel’s GDR past. He regards his State as a socialist reincarnation of the enchanted castle of the Brothers Grimm’s fairytale “Dornröschen” (Sleeping Beauty), apparently frozen in time. Feeling a kind of loyalty to the system for being needed there as an intellectual, he is rather surprised when people like him tear down the “Hecke,” i.e., the Berlin Wall, here metaphorically named in allusion to

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the impenetrable “hedge of thorns” surrounding Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Later, Abel, who had witnessed the events of 9 November 1989 as a passive bystander rather than as an active participant, will remember these turbulent changes merely as fabricated images from school textbooks (76). Shortly before the fall of the Wall, Abel, who works as a film critic, receives permission to attend a film festival in a German town near the French border. His trip affords him the opportunity to encounter first-hand the rampant consumer society of West Germany, its department stores, restaurants, and opulent bookstores. While he is rather disillusioned politically by this spectacle, he is moved to tears when watching his first gay film (77). It is in the West that Abel also experiences his sexual liberation through a rather crazy affair with Gustav, a gorgeous film critic from Stockholm: “Nimm mich: Lass mich ankommen in der fremden Stadt” ‘Take me: Let me arrive at/come in the strange city’ (79). Here again, homoerotic vocabulary serves as a metaphor for negotiating EastWest German relations; for the East Berliner, sexual self-discovery coincides with acquiring new cultural perspectives. But, paradoxically, the happiness Abel feels thanks to Gustav’s easygoing sensuality also strengthens his awareness of the temporality of his social freedom, his sense of himself as a marginalized outsider from the East, who knows he must go back when his travel permit expires. Therefore, he cannot reconcile the sexual and emotional gratification he receives from Gustav and his cosmopolitan attitude, his raving about Kreuzberg pubs and the Kurfürstendamm, all of which Abel recognizes as foreign territory. Its attractions remain inaccessible to him even though at the end of his trip, the dreadful atmosphere at Bahnhof Friedrichstraȕe (Abel’s checkpoint back to East Berlin) makes him more painfully aware than ever before of the “thorny hedges,” the barbed wire that cordons the GDR off from the West (100-01). The encounter with Gustav remains memorable for its very fleetingness, both sexually and politically, an exhilarating and disturbing vision of a different, liberated life that is supplanted by the realities of the demise of the GDR and his new, albeit uncertain relationship with the elusive Joe (91). Even more explicitly than Sollorz’s text, Joachim Helfer’s novel Cohn & König (1998) employs the conventions of the traditional Bildungsroman and travel narrative for depicting the self-exploration of queer sensibility in the context of interrogating the German situation.9 Helfer’s novel 9

For an exemplary analysis of Helfer’s text as a metacommentary on homoerotic writing sharing features of the postmodern gender novel while continuing the modernist exploration of alienation and the authentic self, see Schmidt, “Between Venice and West Hollywood.”

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transforms the generational difference usually reserved for a heteronormative father-son relation into the homosexual liaison between the twenty-five year old Florian König, born in West Germany, and his much older lover, the art dealer Pierre Cohn. While Florian plays the role of the young, willingly submissive narcissist in need of experienced love and aesthetic education, Pierre, whose mission it is to rescue the world of classical art and beauty from oblivion in the present era of popular mass culture, assumes the part of the sophisticated cosmopolite whom Florian is able to give erotic pleasure as well as intellectual admiration. Linking mutual physical attraction with elitist cultural values and a class-conscious disdain for what Cohn considers the trivialities of gay community ideology and domestic partnership arrangements, Pierre and Florian cultivate a self-consciously aestheticist view of the world, only to realize that present events and the memory of the past can not always be treated as a mere spectacle or artifact. After being stopped by cops for speeding on a California highway, where the two are attending the funeral of Florian’s father, Cohn, who had fled Nazi Germany with his parent, is reminded of his arrest during the McCarthy era for possession of pictures of nude males. In desperate panic, he seeks to escape from this traumatic memory by traveling with Florian back to Europe (126-28). On the day before the united German currency goes into effect (1 July 1990), Pierre and Florian are sitting in a café on Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm, where the two lovers witness the fall of the Wall as a phantasmagoric spectacle. In the imagination of the visitors, series of digital images intermingle with unexpected politics, confounding reality and its sensationalized representation in the age of “Erleben-SieGeschichte-live-Tourism” ‘experience-history-live tourism.’ The phantasmagoric appearance of Germany’s reunification is metonymically represented by the GDR Trabant cars, which not only on satellite television but also “in einer noch weniger glaubhaften Wirklichkeit” ‘in an even less credible reality’ intrude into the consumer society of the West (111). This, however, is not Pierre’s and Florian’s first visit to this “schizophrene Alte mit der bestialischen Vergangenheit,” which Pierre praises mainly for the excellent acoustics of its Symphony Hall and Florian finds remarkable as a secluded asylum for art dealers, retirees and students. Before the fall of the Wall, the couple enjoyed adventurous trips to East Berlin, where, after the entry procedure separated them by nationality at the Bahnhof Friedrichstraȕe checkpoint, they customarily reunited at the Pergamon Museum (111-12). Cohn has never stopped loving the Berlin of his childhood, even though he had barely succeeded

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escaping Nazi persecution. What he likes to remember is neither the functionalist architectural modernism around the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, dreadfully symbolizing historical amnesia, nor the postwar neglect of the formerly elegant district of Wilmersdorf. Instead, he prefers to recall the stale stench of Wannsee and Grunewald in November or the smell of brown coal firing in an art studio in Pankow. Thus, his childhood memories afford Pierre a nostalgic place of origins long since lost, an imaginary Heimat now supplanted by his rootless cosmopolitanism. As Florian remembers, once Cohn had even managed to mix an unexpected dose of local, petty bourgeois patriotism with his eagerness to evoke the myth of the Nazi barbarity behind the city’s rubble fields that still seemed to exude the stench of burning human flesh. Although his Parisian friends had been satisfied with gazing at the Wall as the symbol of the city’s division into a historically rich but ruined East and a sanitized but faceless West, Cohn had confessed to Florian that Berlin was the only place where he felt somewhat at home. This nostalgia stands out in contrast to the city’s present breathing of exciting newness, of departure, and of change (112-13). Although Florian never explicitly acknowledges the connection, it seems that his aestheticism, nurtured by his homosexual liaison with Cohn, contributes significantly to his stylization of East Berlin and the former GDR as a nostalgic spectacle, whereas his sexual orientation also evokes the very real memories of homophobic discrimination and Nazi racism for the older Cohn. The lovers travel to the district of Hellersdorf, where, as Florian muses, the bay windows and brick facades added to the East German functionalist Plattenbauten (mass apartment buildings made from prefabricated elements) may appear as reactionary kitsch to anyone who judges them by the outdated standards of West German architects of the 1970s. But for Florian, these run-down “Wohnmaschinen” (residential machines) of socialist city planning are to be admired for their lack of the triumphant inhumanity typical of West German “Ghettos des sozialen Wohnungsbaus” (ghettos of social democratic housing policy) He becomes aware of his typically Western perspective when, not without self-irony, he attributes the cleanliness of the apartment complexes, without graffiti, burning garbage cans, vomit-covered corners and youthful revolt, to the discipline and order preserved by these post-socialist housing projects (129-30). Florian even goes so far as to mix gay desire with his playful adoration of a socialist past that he, being from West Germany, never really experienced firsthand; discovering that the local boys watch them with curiosity but no resentment, he feels that a bit of social oppression really redoubles their beautiful appearance (130).

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Although the famous Stalinallee in East Berlin is in bad shape and in danger of being renamed Ludwig-Erhard-Mittelweg, or something else equally awful, its monumental splendor nonetheless appears as perhaps the only testimony to the vision for a better future arising from the German post-War pathos, a reminder of the fact that one can indeed build with ideals of human dignity in mind (133). For Pierre and Florian, even Alexanderplatz, the desolate showcase of socialist megalomania, signifies not the country’s collapse after the defeat of the Third Reich but liberation and the mission to erect a paradise on earth (134). The couple also visits the Prenzlauer Berg apartment building that the Nazis had taken away from Cohn’s grandfather after Kristallnacht. This building becomes the symbol of international restitution debates and the need to pump Western capital into picturesque districts endangered by decades of socialist neglect. Still, Prenzlauer Berg, having been spared by World War II bombs as well as socialist reconstruction, has managed to preserve much of its original topography. This helps Cohn to revive his childhood memories, which include the little boy’s courageous confrontation with the apartment building’s abusive superintendent—for Florian an early sign of his lover’s decisive ability to master his own fate (134-38). In the eyes of these veritable Ostalgie flâneurs, Prenzlauer Berg appears as an exotic yet strangely familiar space of derelict streets and deserted stores. Florian questions the romantic aspirations of this typical Berlin Kiez (local neighborhood)—a life without bathtub, patronizing attitudes, and work— foreseeing that the area will soon be colonized by the Western consumer culture of organic wine, unprocessed cheese, and postindustrial yuppie lifestyles. For the older Cohn, however, Prenzlauer Berg, despite its gentrification, still evokes the specters of the past that continue to linger everywhere in Berlin: a neo-romantic house of worship with a Hebrew inscription suddenly reawakens his memories of anti-Semitic horrors, although Cohn’s uneasiness could just as easily be that of the uncomfortable homosexual who feels stared at all the time even in this haven of liberal counterculture (138-40). Whereas for Cohn, then, East Berlin stands for a historical past that is tantamount to a personal burden, Florian experiences an entirely new aspect of his sexuality when the couple makes a trip to the Baltic Sea resort town of Binz, on the island of Rügen. Here the lovers have to endure the post-socialist rudeness of the local hotel porter, who is almost ludicrously resentful of these two Western capitalists insisting to share a room (140-41). Later, Florian encounters a family from Saxony on the beach and, to his utter surprise, finds himself irresistibly attracted to the rather common-looking teenage son, whose naked body and sexual

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provocations reduce Florian to a helpless bundle of quivering desire, fear, and shame. Again, the connection is never made explicit but it seems that Florian may not only be attracted by the boy’s body but also, subconsciously, by the youth’s affiliation with an exotic East now subject to his Western gaze. Florian suddenly realizes that for the first time in his life he does not prefer to be mastered by someone stronger and more mature (like Cohn) but wants to possess a person seemingly weaker than himself. Florian’s homoerotic fantasy replicates the power structure of Western Germany’s political appropriation of the former GDR’s territory. Although Florian follows the boy secretly to the family’s accommodation, a drab vacation hostel built by the GDR’s Free German Trade Union Federation, he shies away from making any explicit contact with the boy, satisfied with the fleeting nature of the encounter (143-50). This event can be read as a reversal of the relationship between Florian and Cohn, in turn a postmodern revision of the Aschenbach-Tadzio constellation in Thomas Mann’s novella “Der Tod in Venedig.” Mann’s text explores homoerotic desire as an irresistible force celebrating a male body’s aesthetic perfection, as executed in an unattainable boy. This desire, which cannot be fulfilled and which Aschenbach experiences simultaneously as exhilarating and disastrous, ruins an artistic life seemingly controlled by intellect and discipline, but it also leads to new creative impulses consumed by the writer’s death. In sharp contrast to Mann’s novella, Cohn and Florian’s mutual attraction is allowed sexual fulfillment and a life together by the post-gay-liberationist climate of Western cosmopolitan culture. Through yet another doubling and reversal, the transitional situation of the ex-GDR, still entrenched in its socialist customs but already affected by the ways of the West, serves as the topography where Florian temporarily ceases to play Cohn’s (now attainable) Tadzio. Instead, Florian finds his own Tadzio in the unattainable boy from Saxony, thus replicating Aschenbach’s experience in a rejuvenated, indeed juvenile manner, but one which for him ends with a feeling of strangely liberating relief, rather than death.10 Thus, the strangely enticing and flirtatious but utterly ordinary and evasive Saxon youth metonymically represents Florian’s own ostalgic sentiments for a GDR that he never knew through direct experience. The fleeting, inconclusive nature of Florian’s erotic adventure coincides with the transitory stage of East Germany, which for Florian, historically less 10

See Schmidt’s more extensive comments on Helfer’s rewriting of Thomas Mann’s Aschenbach-Tadzio relationship, “Between Venice and West Hollywood.” 198-201.

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burdened than Cohn, has always been little more than a fairytale country, a slightly ludicrous “Dornröschenstaat” (Sleeping Beauty State) perennially slumbering in an oppressively hermetic state of mental lethargy, which never really affected the young Westerner as a political actuality (158). Hence Florian is not even bothered when, now alone making his way back to the West, he is offered a ride by a snooty automobilist from the Rheinland, who mistakes Florian as an East German and lectures him about the wonderful victories of capitalist progress over the virtues of the enforced service to the Socialist Fatherland (159). As I have suggested, the three narratives discussed here explore a complicated and multifaceted interplay between queer sensibilities and German reunification. At a time when German Studies is increasingly questioning its theoretical assumptions and thematic perspectives to account for the rapid changes in the textual or visual representations of post-reunification culture, the field must contribute to the broadening of the established literary canon by focusing its attention on queer writing, promoting its visibility while maintaining its subversive effects.11 Seen from such a methodological perspective, Seyfarth’s, Sollorz’s and Helfer’s texts depict homoerotic desires and their rhetorical tropes as providing readers with a radically new, transformative perception of Germany’s reunification, its pre-history and quest for a new national identity. Various ramifications of this huge theme have, of course, been depicted widely in novels predominantly centered in heterosexual relationships, most notably, the work of Peter Schneider. As Stephen Brockmann has argued, the important political issues surrounding the divided Berlin that figured prominently in Schneider’s Der Mauerspringer (1982) have largely been displaced by rather uninteresting displays of male self-absorption and (hetero)sexual relationships in Paarungen (1992) and Eduards Heimkehr (1999).12 By contrast, the queer perspectives employed by Seyfarth, Sollorz, and Helfer reinstate the political dimension of the quest for gendered self-identity, legitimating sexual minority positions for representing urban space and its cultural memories that tend to be marginalized or forgotten by the hetero-normative assumptions of mainstream fiction. In this sense, gay-themed texts perform a kind of queering of the events before and after the fall of the Wall. Queering functions as a 11 On the methodologies, historical changes, and thematic scope of such canon revision, see Lorey and Plews, Queering the Canon. 12 Brockmann, “Divided and Reunited Berlin in Peter Schneider’s Fiction” in Costabile-Heming, Halverson, Foell, Berlin. The Symphony Continues. See also Lützeler, “‘Postmetropolis’: Peter Schneiders Berlin-Trilogie.”

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continuous and open-ended process of strategic transgression, questioning both the implicitly optimistic connotations of the talk about normalization and the simplistically binary rhetoric of the Wessi/Ossi conflict. Hovering ambiguously between gay identity politics and postmodern gender trouble, queering destabilizes conventional notions of German reunification, homoeroticizing its seemingly gender-transcendent politics. Queering articulates matters of desire, discrimination, the quest for self-liberation and solidarity, and the facing of death as irrepressible issues that emerge in the heart of national preoccupations like the longing of East Germans for a cosmopolitan West, the cultural colonization of the ex-GDR by hegemonic consumer capitalism, and the nostalgic idealization of the East. Needless to say, the narratives discussed here do not necessarily expect readers to agree with their often deliberately provocative and controversial positions; rather, queering as process of advocacy, subversion, and disturbance wants to demonstrate that there is and should not be a facile agreement about anything related to things German past and present. Queering shows that there cannot be a unified consensus on German reunification.

Works Cited Primary Sources Helfer, Joachim. Cohn & König. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1998. Seyfarth, Napoleon. Schweine müssen nackt sein. München: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, 1991. Sollorz, Michael. Abel und Joe. Berlin: Verlag Rosa Winkel, 1994.

Secondary Sources Brockmann, Stephen. “Divided and Reunited Berlin in Peter Schneider’s Fiction.” In Costabile-Heming, Halverson, Foell, Berlin. The Symphony Continues: Orchestrating Architectural, Social, and Artistic Change in Germany’s New Capital. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2004: 223-243. Brunssen, Frank. “The New Self-Understanding of the Berlin Republic: Readings of Contemporary German History.” In Taberner and Finley, ed. Recasting German Identity: Culture, Politics, and Literature in the Berlin Republic, Rochester: Boydell & Brewer-Camden House, 2002: 19-35. Costabile-Heming, Carol Anne, Rachel J. Halverson, and Kristie A. Foell. Berlin. The Symphony Continues: Orchestrating Architectural, Social,

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and Artistic Change in Germany’s New Capital. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2004. Gerstenberger, Katharina. “Difficult Stories: Generation, Genealogy, Gender in Zafer ùenocak’s Gefährliche Verwandtschaft and Monika Maron’s Pawel’s Briefe,” In Taberner and Finley, ed. Recasting German Identity: Culture, Politics, and Literature in the Berlin Republic. Rochester: Boydell & Brewer-Camden House, 2002: 235-49. Goebel, Rolf J. “Queer Berlin: Lifestyles, Performances, and Capitalist Consumer Society.” In The German Quarterly 79: 4, (Fall 2006): 484504. Lang, Sabine. “Unifying a Gendered State: Women in Post-1989 Germany,” In Taberner and Finley, ed. Recasting German Identity: Culture, Politics, and Literature in the Berlin Republic. Rochester: Boydell & Brewer-Camden House, 2002: 157-70. Lorey, Christoph and John L. Plews. Queering the Canon: Defying Sights in German Literature and Culture. Rochester: Boydell & BrewerColumbia: Camden House, 1998. Lützeler, Paul Michael. “‘Postmetropolis’: Peter Schneiders BerlinTrilogie.” In Gegenwartsliteratur: Ein germanistisches Jahrbuch/A German Studies Yearbook 4 (2005), ed. Paul Michael Lützeler and Stephan K. Schindler. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 2005: 91-110. Schmidt, Gary. “Between Venice and West Hollywood: The Homosexual Text in Joachim Helfer’s Cohn und König.” In Gegenwartsliteratur: Ein germanistisches Jahrbuch/A German Studies Yearbook 4 (2005), ed. Paul Michael Lützeler and Stephan K. Schindler. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 2005: 185-210. Sullivan, Nikki. A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory. New York: New York UP, 2003. Szejnmann, Chris. “‘An Helligkeit ragt in Europa vor allem mei’ Sachsenland vor’: Prime Minister Biedenkopf and the Myth of Saxon Identity,” In Taberner and Finley, ed. Recasting German Identity: Culture, Politics, and Literature in the Berlin Republic. Rochester: Boydell & Brewer-Camden House, 2002: 141-55. Taberner, Stuart. “Introduction,” In Taberner and Finley, ed. Recasting German Identity: Culture, Politics, and Literature in the Berlin Republic. Rochester: Boydell & Brewer-Camden House, 2002: 1-15. Taberner, Stuart and Frank Finlay, ed. Recasting German Identity: Culture, Politics, and Literature in the Berlin Republic. Rochester: Boydell & Brewer-Camden House, 2002. Thompson, Peter. “The PDS: ‘CSU des Ostens’? – Heimat and the Left,” In Taberner and Finley, ed. Recasting German Identity: Culture,

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Politics, and Literature in the Berlin Republic. Rochester: Boydell & Brewer-Camden House, 2002: 123-40. Woltersdorff, Volker. Coming Out: Die Inszenierung schwuler Identitäten zwischen Auflehnung und Anpassung. Frankfurt, New York: Campus Verlag, 2005.

CHAPTER TWELVE UNEQUAL SISTERS: THE WALL FELL BUT (LANGUAGE-)BARRIERS REMAINED MARION GERLIND

Biological sisters are often dissimilar, but were the symbolic sisters in East and West Germany especially different? What divided them besides the Wall? What differences in life and language existed among women in the East and West? Given the complexity of these and other questions, this essay is a generalized outline and reflection as part of ongoing discussions. I come from and lived in Hamburg until 1992 and, while there, experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall. My analysis here is based on my own social location as a West German lesbian feminist writer as well as other West and East German intellectuals’ perceptions of Germany’s unification. Their work has, for the most part, not been translated into English, and I turn to it as it represents significant voices in the assessment of events, spanning the years from 1989 to 2003. My original interests in this conference were the under-researched linguistic differences in East and West Germany prevalent before and after the “Wende”.1 However, politico-linguistic developments cannot be analyzed without sociopolitical context. Therefore, both discourses are inseparably linked. In the following, I briefly interpret the socio-historical context of women in former East and West Germany and highlight a few significant differences.2 I present some examples of the political and 1

“Wende,” literally “turn,” refers to the time of drastic change in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) which culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. 2 To avoid confusion with acronyms in German and English, I refer to the “Deutsche Demokratische Republik” (DDR), the German Democratic Republic

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linguistic work of feminists from East and West Germany to discuss complementary dimensions of women’s oppression. I argue that the EastWest question must be coupled with that of the North-South, as both are interwoven at local and global levels.

Difficult East-West Dialogue The West German theorist Birgit Rommelspacher talks about a “schwierigen Dialog”3 between women in East and West Germany, caused by the different ideological systems, in which women were socialized, on the one hand, and the ways in which unification was carried out, on the other. The new Germany was dominated by the West, which gained the upper hand, and placed German-German commonalties above the acknowledgement of two different societies which faced each other and had to negotiate common positions.4 Promising negotiations of participants at the “Runden Tische,”5 representing a spectrum of parties and activist groups discussing the political structure of the new East Germany, took place directly after the “Wende.” However, these forums were quickly followed by elections in March 1990 and the new conservative government dismissed propositions of the “Runden Tische.” This development shattered the hopes of many East Germans—as they discovered that their submission to the West German society was expected. Ulrike Poppe, who was actively involved in the women’s and peace movements in East Germany, describes the euphoria of East German women at the “Runden Tische.” Women had high hopes for equal rights in the unified Germany and that they would bring positive change to the West with them. These hopes have not been fulfilled and have, furthermore, been replaced by the painful insight, says Poppe, that even the slightest changes require ”unendlich zähes Ringen.”6

(GDR), as East Germany and to the “Bundesrepublik Deutschland” (BRD), the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), as West Germany. 3 difficult dialogue 4 Rommelspacher, "Ost-West Frauenbilder," 186, hereafter cited in the text. 5 These were Round Table discussions held centrally and locally throughout East Germany. 6 endless persistent struggle. Poppe, "Frauen in Ostdeutschland," 40, hereafter cited in the text.

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Christina Schenk, the first open lesbian Socialist, who represented the “Unabhängigen Frauenverband (UFV)”7 in the German “Bundestag,”8 comments on the overwhelming victory for the conservatives in the 1990 elections in an interview with Connexions, an international women’s journal: That was such a shock, really a shock, a downright trauma. Nobody, at least nobody among us, the politically active women, had predicted this. And then it was clear, that everything had been in vain, well not in vain, but that everything would be over now. The victory of the conservatives meant that we would now have the Anschluss [annexation of East Germany]. About the Anschluss we did not have any illusions. We did not believe that it would be a unification, equal to equal, looking at both sides and seeing what is good and what is bad, and what to keep and what to throw away. We expected that it would come the way it did; that we would be getting the West German conditions.9

“West German conditions” were, for example, discussions about abortions, about women in the workforce, and about the compatibility of employment and motherhood. These struggles were considered ”cold coffee”10 by East German women and consequently “incredibly depressing,” according to Schenk.11 Both Schenk and Poppe saw in the inequality of women a major reason many East German women decided to withdraw from politics at the national level after unification:12 “Fremdheit und die Erfahrung, daß 7

Independent Women’s Association parliament 9 Schenk in Gerlind and Schaab, "A Lesbian Leftist," 29. By using the historically charged term “Anschluss,” Schenk may, or may not, allude to March 13, 1938 when the Third Reich annexed Austria and thus making an analogy between Nazi Germany and West Germany. 10 In the original German interview, Schenk uses here the German idiom “kalter Kaffee” referring to old problems that East German women had overcome and did not want to discuss anymore. Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 The term “German unification” itself is problematic and contested. For example, Edler places it in the context of the “historical legacy of racialized notions of Germanness” and writes: “In 1989/90, it [German unification] was in its hegemonic meaning first and foremost a festive and cheerful idiom: East Germans were hailed as the ‘brothers and sisters’ of West Germans, or were they? Who exactly was and who was not considered a member of this national family about to 8

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Besser-Sein als andere, daß Können allein noch keineswegs die besseren Chancen eröffnet, hat viele zum Rückzug veranlaßt.“13 East German women have often been frustrated with the West and capitalism and have considered themselves as “Einheitsverliererinnen.”14 Women in their midlife years disproportionately lost their jobs.15 Before the unification, these workers in East Germany were especially sought after, because their children had grown up and these women could fully engage in the production process. In the 1990s many had to learn to cope with unemployment and, because their friendships were often tied to their workplaces, social isolation. The fundamental changes brought by the “Wende” have placed new demands on women in the new federal states because women have had to prioritize their needs for existential security.16 Poppe, therefore, proposes a general rethinking of gender roles. She suggests holding public discussions on emancipation, which must involve women from all socioeconomic backgrounds, including farmers and saleswomen. These forums could decrease resignation and bring women back to more active participation in politics, aiming for the long-term goal of creating a family-friendly workforce.17 In general, the relationship between East and West Germany was very complex and the assumption of commonalties based on white German ethnicity is problematic.18 Despite the historically and politically divergent developments in both countries after World War II, there was little recognition or dialogue of differences. Most Germans in East and West considered themselves part of the same people, however, at the same time,

be reunited?” Edler’s italics. “Towards a Historical Materialist Approach,” 28, hereafter cited in the text. 13 “Feeling foreign, and experiencing that being better than others, and seeing that ability alone does not open better chances at all, led many to withdraw.” Poppe, 40-41. 14 losers in the unification process. Ibid., 41. 15 Edler cites a study by Welsh, Pickel, and Rosenberg, showing that by the end of 1994, 66 percent of the unemployed and 75 percent of long-term unemployed (for more than a year) were women, 41. 16 Former East Germany, renamed as the “new federal states” after German unification are Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), Brandenburg, Sachsen-Anhalt (Saxony-Anhalt), Sachsen (Saxony), and Thüringen (Thuringia). 17 Poppe, 42. 18 See Edler, 27-43.

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both societies regarded the other as a “Gegengesellschaft.”19 West Germany saw in East Germany’s socialist society the ideological enemy, and East Germany saw in West Germany the class enemy, a capitalist foreign country. Each accused the other of repressing the National Socialist past and continuing its legacy, whereas they themselves had supposedly learned the lessons from history. East Germany understood itself as an anti-fascist society and accused West Germany of failed denazification. West Germany understood itself as a democratic society and found East Germany’s society militaristic and authoritative, accusing East Germany of succeeding the totalitarian Nazi State. What repercussions did these tensions between both societies, relating to Germany’s fascist past, have on gender questions? These are the issues I want to address next.

“Gleichstellungsmythos”20 In fact, the Wall symbolized and constituted the border between the hegemonic powers the Soviet Union and the United States of America. The oppositional political systems expressed their ideologies in social politics as well as in gender politics. For instance, more than ninety percent of East German women were in the workforce, whereas West German women had a much lower employment rate. In Europe, West Germany scored at the bottom for providing childcare.21 Women in the West often sought to fulfill the traditional middle-class role of homemaker and mother. While the West propagated politics of gender difference, the East propagated politics of gender equality. East Germany promised women full emancipation and “die Frauenfrage wurde sogar zum Maßstab für For[t]schritt und Sozialismus.”22 East German women worked in socalled men’s professions, and women reached financial independence and unhindered access to abortions. However, despite their full-time employment, the imbalance of gender roles changed little, and female workers were still tied to traditional women’s roles. Family and childcare remained, to a large extent, a women’s domain, in spite of childcare centers and medical and social care networks. The gender roles of men 19

counter society, Rommelspacher, 186. myth of equality 21 Rommelspacher, 187. 22 “The woman question even became the yardstick for progress and Socialism.“ Ibid. 20

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were generally not questioned; men were considered the norm. This double standard meant that women in East Germany often carried a triple burden as breadwinner, homemaker, and mother. In contrast, the West German government did not provide much funding for childcare centers. It left the care and responsibilities for children largely to women. Married middle-class women could either focus on their family role or choose the double or triple burden. The choice of solely working as homemaker and/or mother was usually not available for women in East Germany. Not surprisingly, the different politics in East and West had consequences for how women saw themselves and their relationships with men and the State. In East Germany, the relationship between women and the State was ambivalent because of the State’s welfare, on the one hand, and its shortcomings and constraints, on the other hand. In their critical attitude toward the State, the family was often a safe haven and women and men were dependent on one another.23 The majority of East Germans experienced the collapse of the socialist State as liberation. They were liberated from the constraints of a State system, which had suppressed lifestyles deviating from the norm. The opposition against the authority of the State and citizens’ longing for self-determination applied to women and men in the same way, says Poppe.24 Consequently, the relationship of East German women in the independent women’s movement toward men was rather conciliatory. Though, at the same time, women experienced and reflected on male dominance and competition in oppositional social contexts. Therefore, the independent East Berliner women’s group decided to exclude men.25 However, the fight for self-determination was not directed against men in general, because many men were also struggling for it. Women tried to develop a counterculture together with men. Poppe says that East German women felt alienated by what they perceived as the “Fixierung auf den Geschlechterstreit” by West German feminists.26 For East German feminists the gender struggle was eclipsed by the emancipation struggle against the dominant system, although they also recognized “die patriarchalische Prägung der Machtstrukturen”27 and articulated their criticism of gender inequality: “Wir widersprachen dem in der DDR propagierten Frauenbild und dem Gleichstellungsmythos, indem 23

Rommelspacher, 188. Poppe, 36. 25 Poppe, 37. 26 fixation on the gender fight; ibid. 27 the patriarchal character of the power structures; ibid. 24

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wir darauf verwiesen, daß sich trotz Berufstätigkeit der Frauen viel zu wenig in der Asymmetrie der Rollen- und Machtverteilung geändert hatte.”28 This critique led to the founding of the “Unabhängiger Frauenverband” in 1989.29 East German women’s struggles for emancipation grew out of a different post-war history than that of West German women.

“We don’t speak the same language” In West Germany, women were told they embodied the so-called weaker sex. Nevertheless, the West German women’s movement in the 1970s and ‘80s was not mainly concerned with the discrimination against women in the workforce but rather with the abolition of “Paragraph 218,” the law against abortion, with violence against women, including fatherdaughter rape, and with the development of autonomous women’s spaces. Feminists analyzed images of women in the media and in textbooks, the behavior between women and men in everyday life, and the significance of verbal and non-verbal communication; areas, in which power differentials are visible.30 For women in East Germany, the role of language in the struggle for gender equality was generally not so important. They did not see much value in the effort of making women visible in language and accused West German women to be mainly concerned with the capital “I.” The capital “I” refers to the use of the suffix “–Innen,” for instance as in “TeilnehmerInnen,” female and male participants, for nouns in which both genders are included instead of using the splitting or double form, e.g. as in “Teilnehmer und Teilnehmerinnen,” male and female participants. Before western feminists pointed out gender disparity in language use, nouns like “Teilnehmer,” participant/s, could apply to a single male (and/or even female) referent, and as a so-called generic plural referred to a mixed group, even though female persons are usually differentiated by the suffix “-in” (singular) or “-innen” (plural). The masculine forms are therefore ambiguous and can include or exclude females. The use of the so-called generic forms contributes to the 28 “We dissented from the image of women, as propagated in the GDR, and from the myth of equality by referring to the fact that despite women’s professional lives much too little had changed in the asymmetry of the distribution of roles and power,” ibid. 29 It was dissolved in 1998. 30 Rommelspacher, 189.

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invisibility of women and women’s work. West German feminists have argued that the inclusion of women can be expressed linguistically by the capital “I,” indicating a mixed group consisting of women and men.31 However, in West Germany itself there have been many (power) struggles among women and between women and men inside and outside the women’s movement over gender-inclusive language; positions are changing very slowly and arduously, if at all. Referring to the example above, the innovative capital “I” has only partially been successful in common language use, even in West Germany, but it represents a significant change in politico-linguistic consciousness. At the same time, East German women have asserted that there are more important issues than linguistic change.32 In an interview with the San Francisco Bay Times, Schenk talks about the (communication) problems between women in the East and West after the fall of the Wall: [T]he fact is that we no longer speak the same language. The meanings of what we say are different. Now, we have to recognize that we don’t speak the same language, and try to understand what the women from the other side mean.33

Many East German women could not and/or cannot relate to West German terminology with regard to gender politics, such as “feminist” or “queer.” To overcome barriers for joint political action, East and West German women must find terms with which East German women can also identify, such as “emanzipatorische Geschlechterpolitik.”34 Rommelspacher claims that the conflict between women in East and West Germany refers in its polarity to “unterschiedliche Dimensionen der Frauendiskriminierung.”35 She differentiates two dimensions: the “materielle Ebene”36 and the “symbolische Ebene.”37 The “materielle Ebene” refers to the particular exploitability of women in the public arena. For instance, women are generally paid less than men in comparable positions and have fewer opportunities in terms of professions and promotion. Moreover, in the private sphere women also contribute more 31

See Fig. 12.2, Sample letter to the “Amt,” (Housing) Office. Rommelspacher, 189. 33 Schenk in Ridgway "A Lesbian Socialist," 47. 34 emancipatory gender politics, Schäfer, http://www.rosalux.de/cms/?id=10571 35 different dimensions of discrimination against women, Rommelspacher, 189. 36 material level 37 symbolic level 32

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unpaid work and often work disproportionately more than men. The “symbolische Ebene” concerns questions about the differences between women and men’s roles and how these have been socially constructed.38 The term gender, developed in the United States, was useful in conceptualizing “Geschlecht,” gender/sex, as socio-cultural structure, which did not lock women and men in opposing biological positions. Rommelspacher argues convincingly that both the redistribution of societal resources and symbolic power are at stake, i.e. the acknowledgment and the social equality of different living conditions of women and men. Both strategies, the East German strategy of material equality and the West German strategy of symbolic equality, are necessary to complement and correct each other in the struggle for emancipation.39

“Frauensprache”40 To question symbolic power means to politicize everything and to include all life in critical reflection. This politicization affects not only the area of employment but also raises the question of which images of women and men are (re-)produced in the media, politics, art, science, and everyday life. Women across Germany recognize that the gender binary pervades all areas.41 Since the 1980s, the feminist linguist Luise F. Pusch has had significant influence in the West German women’s movement. In her books, Das Deutsche als Männersprache42 and Alle Menschen werden Schwestern,43 and lectures, Pusch analyzes West German language and society in terms of gender inequality. She comes to the conclusion that “Den Ungerechtigkeiten patriarchaler Sprachen ist praktisch und theoretisch mit systemlinguistischen Mitteln nicht beizukommen, sondern nur mit sprachpolitischen.”44 With ironic-playful as well as serious arguments Pusch proposes the consistent usage of the suffixes “-in” and “38

Rommelspacher, 190. Ibid. 40 women’s language 41 Rommelspacher, 193. 42 German as Men’s Language; Pusch, Das Deutsche als Männersprache. 43 All Mankind Become/Will Be Sisters; Pusch, Alle Menschen werden Schwestern. 44 “The injustices of patriarchal languages cannot be dealt with, practically and theoretically, by system-linguistic means, but rather only by politico-linguistic means.” Pusch, Alle Menschen, 90. 39

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innen” for both genders, the “totale Feminisierung,”45 which can be seen, according to her, as a political measure to compensate women for centuries’ old inequities in language and life.46 Sprachgewaltige Frauen,47 a hand- and workbook, published in 1992, takes a practical approach in analyzing aspects of sexism, racism, heterosexism, and homophobia in the West German language and society. Written as a collaborative feminist project, it is influenced by Pusch’s work and also significantly by the U.S. American poets and theorists Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich. Sprachgewaltige Frauen makes an effort to go beyond a critique of existing language use, develops political resistance against different forms of discrimination, and creates a space for discussion and transformation. The book is divided into three complementary sections. The first part is called “Wahrnehmen und Benennen,”48 and comments on a wide range of sexist representations of women and girls in advertisements and articles in the print media as well as points to the absence of gender inclusiveness in administrative forms (See Figure 12.1). The second part, “Praktischer Widerstand,”49 provides examples for gender-inclusive language use, such as guidelines, innovative teaching material, creative writing, and sample letters (See Figure 12.2). It also proposes changes in the discussion of the German “Grundgesetz”50 concerning women’s rights for abortion and refugees’ rights for asylum in Germany. A critique of the German unification as a nationalistic event is expressed in the poems entitled “DeutschlandSchock.”51 In the third part, “Aktive und Kreative FreiRäume,”52 the authors present practical strategies to empower women in everyday life, facilitate women’s networks, and introduce models to heightened visibility in language and society (See Figure 12.3). During the later 1990s the interest in a playful-radical “Frauensprache” was put on the back burner as existential insecurities in both parts of Germany increased. Moreover, West German feminists became estranged 45

total feminization Pusch, Alle Menschen, 93-101. 47 Speak Out Powerful Women. Veit et. al., Sprachgewaltige Frauen. 48 Perceiving and Naming 49 Practical Resistance 50 Constitution 51 Germany Shock;.Veit et al. Sprachgewaltige Frauen, 115-119. 52 Active and Creative FreeSpaces 46

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among themselves in discussions on patriarchy, racism, and antisemitism. White feminists could no longer claim their victim status but had to face their participation in oppression, their “Mittäterschaft.”53

Power disparities The danger of language politics is that it remains on the symbolic level and does not change the level of material conditions. That was the central critique of East German women toward West German women, namely that the latter concern themselves with such so-called “Nebensächlichkeiten” as language instead of with more important matters like material security.54 Social and political inequalities exacerbated difficulties in communication, which certainly also had to do with the ideological superiority complex of many West Germans.55 They had the reputation of “Besserwessis,” a pun conflating know-it-all and better Westerners. East Germans have expressed that “Wessis”56 acted patronizing toward East Germans when West Germans corrected their language use. On the other side, West Germans experienced the eastern “Männerdeutsch,”57 out of women’s mouths as cacophony. For both sides it has been difficult to overcome linguistic dissonances and practice women’s solidarity beyond their differences. Toward the end of the 1990s Poppe writes that there are still “Vorbehalte, Fremdheit und Mißverständnisse zwischen den ‘Schwestern’ in Ost und West” and not much “Schwesterlichkeit” can be discerned.58 Speaking of her experiences with West German women, Poppe says that although there is mutual interest, both sides know very little of one another: “Vorurteile blockieren manchmal das aufmerksame Zuhören und Verstehen, auch wenn der gute Wille allgemein da ist.”59 Poppe finds the discussion among East German women about the assessment of the East German system even more difficult. Women’s social locations in East 53

complicity, Thürmer-Rohr, Vagabundinnen. trivialities, Rommelspacher, 193. 55 Edler, 38-39. 56 Colloquial for Westerners 57 Men’s German, i.e. using male or generic forms for women. 58 “…reservations, foreignness/strangeness, and misunderstandings between the ‘sisters’ in East and West”;“ sisterliness, Poppe, 33. 59 “Prejudices sometimes block attentive listening and understanding, even though generally there is good will,” Poppe, 34. 54

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Germany varied widely, from participation in and collaboration with party politics to critical distance. In general, support and welfare of the State depended on the conforming behavior of its citizens. Women (and men) who deviated from the prescribed norm fell out of the safety net. Despite their divergent positions, women in the new federal states are united in their insistence on equal access to employment without having to give up a family. At stake is, according to Poppe, not only existential security but also women’s independence.60 The power disparity between West and East has largely prevented productive debate until the present, Rommelspacher writes in 2003.61 Discussions on difference are difficult and require time and self-reflection. A problematic topic in the western women’s movement was the question of authority, i.e. who was the “right“ feminist and held the power to define. Female migrants, Black women, and Jewish women refused to be subsumed by the predominantly white, Christian socialized, women’s movement, which rendered them invisible. Certain differences among women had been discussed in the 1980s, for example, differences between heterosexual and lesbian women, and women who were mothers and women without children. However, there was little dialogue between white women and women of color, between women of different socioeconomic backgrounds, between German and immigrant women, and between Christian and Islamic women. Mainly white middle-class West German women had claimed the power to set standards in the women’s movement, similar to the predominantly white U.S. American women’s movement in the 1970s.

North-South Divide Black Germans in both the East and West have in common that they have been perceived as “foreigners” and faced daily racism. In contradiction to the official policy of “international solidarity,” the East German state prevented private contact between foreigners and East German citizens and enforced travel restrictions. Consequently, Black East Germans suffered even greater social isolation and exclusion from public life than Black West Germans.62 May Ayim writes: “When the Wall between the two German states came down, black Germans, even as GDR 60

Poppe, 35. Rommelspacher, 194. 62 Ayim, Blues in Black and White, 86-87. 61

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citizens, still remained largely invisible, unheard, and unasked, when it came to experiences before, during, and after the so-called reunification.”63 The joy over the fall of the Wall was ambiguous. While Schenk, as a white East German lesbian, remembers this time as the happiest in her life, Ayim, as a Black West German heterosexual, experienced it as ambivalent. In the days after November 9, 1989, she hardly saw any immigrants with dark skin color and Black Germans in the streets of Berlin. Instead of being included in the euphoric atmosphere following the fall of the Wall, Ayim found herself being attacked: For the first time I had been living in Berlin I now had to protect myself almost daily against undisguised insults, hostile looks and/or openly racist offenses. As in earlier times I started again, when shopping and on public transportation, to look out for dark faces. A friend of mine, holding her Afro-German daughter in her lap in the S-Bahn [elevated train] was told “We don’t need your kind anymore. There are already more than enough of us!” A ten-year-old African boy was thrown out of a crowded U-Bahn train to make room for a white German.64

Black women and men were even more stigmatized as “foreign” and as not belonging in Germany by the white majority after the official German unification took place. Ayim criticized the German women’s movement, where German-German matters were discussed and celebrated, as though Germany was exclusively white and the center of the world. Conferences and seminars were held, with travel support for women from the GDR, without also considering asylum-seekers, who, whether in East or West 65 Germany, have to squeeze out a minimal existence.

Ayim noticed that only a few white Germans participated in protests against tightening immigration and asylum laws.66 She criticized that the East-West question largely replaced the North-South debate and that there were solidarity campaigns and privileges for East German citizens but 63

Ibid., 87. Ibid., 48. 65 Ibid., 50. 66 Ibid. Also Edler on the “conflation of ‘Germanness and ‘whiteness,’” 30, and her discussion of citizenship based on a “[r]acialized [i]dea of (‘[w]hite’) Germanness,” 34-38. 64

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none for people applying for asylum. In 1990, Ayim characterized the silence and denial of racism in the German Left and in the women’s movement as “unsettling and shocking,“ but it did not surprise her.67 Black women did not experience much solidarity from white women in either the old or new federal states. One year later, in 1991, Ayim wrote that the unification of East and West Germany “has thus far not had much of a positive impact on immigrants, exiles, Jews and Black Germans, but rather has evidenced much more open and growing racism and anti-Semitism.”68 For instance, in her poem “deutschland im herbst,” translated as “autumn in germany,” Ayim compares the November pogrom of 1938 with striking examples of the increased neo-fascist violence after the “Wende.”69

Global Connections The arguments above, mapping power disparities and myths of equality between women and men as well as between women in the East and West analogously apply to women in the North and South. One may well examine similar patterns of difference by replacing East-West by North-South. Material and symbolic dimensions of women’s discrimination and inequities are even more complex when comparing women (and men) from the North and South. Oppression based on racism necessarily complicates the discourse on gender and class in all directions. The “difficult dialogues” about differences between women in the East and West are only a part of dialogues with all women (and men) and must include women from the North and South in local and global contexts. Women are unequal sisters in a metaphorical and sociopolitical sense. The acknowledgment of inequality between women (and men) holds an opportunity to reconsider and to redistribute material and symbolic power. Public discussions and political activism can transform South-East-WestNorth tensions, the legacy of European colonialism, and white hegemony. When women of diverse backgrounds participate in inter-cultural dialogue and political action they can possibly remove barriers between them and work together toward more solidarity, justice, and sisterhood on equal terms.

67

Ibid., 54. Ibid., 105. 69 Ayim, blues in schwarz weiss, 68-70; Blues in Black and White, 109-111. 68

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Figure 12.1: Advertisement

Wenn sich Europäer treffen… gehen Sexismus und Rassismus Hand in Hand. Die Welt ist klar aufgeteilt – 4:1 Frauen, 4:1 Schwarze. Die Mehrheit ist männlich und weiß, und läßt sich gern von Minderheiten” bedienen.70 70 Sprachgewaltige Frauen, 27. The advertisement reads: When (male) Europeans Meet. With Canon’s W•O•R•D•T•A•N•K displaying up to five languages simultaneously, you always have something to talk about. Sprachgewaltige Frauen comments: When (male) Europeans meet… sexism and racism go hand in hand. The world is clearly divided: 4:1 women, 4:1 Blacks. The majority is male and white and likes to be served by “minorities.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Figure 12.2: Sample letter71

71

Sprachgewaltige Frauen, 105. The sample letter reads: To the (Housing) Office Registered mail (return receipt) Dear women and men, I am requesting a change of your application forms because women are made invisible through your language use. I am nowhere addressed as female applicant and female recipient of housing subsidy. Terms such as male “applicant” and male “recipient of housing subsidy” do not refer to me, but rather represent a discrimination of myself as a person. Therefore, I demand that you change your forms and explicitly name and make women as female applicants and female recipients of housing subsidy visible. I propose the wording “fe/male applicant” and “fe/male recipient of housing subsidy” with the capital “I”. This wording includes women and men equally and is a positive example of changed written expression, replacing misogynist language use. With attentive greetings

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Figure 12.3: Heighten Women’s Visibility72

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Sprachgewaltige Frauen, 139-140. Figure 12.4 consists of my partial translation.

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Figure 12.4: Translation of “Namenwahl” CHOOSE YOUR NAME We demand free choice of name for EVERY WOMAN! Millions of women in the world and especially in Germany have to carry the names of their husbands, fathers, and grandfathers. They are called Ms. Paulsen (son of Paul), Ms. Peter (male first name), Ms. Müller (masculine form of a profession), and -man ending, (for example, Ms. Lindermann, Ms. Baurmann…) … Take your destiny in your own hands! Men’s first names can be conveniently feminized by replacing them with female first names: Erika Walter – Erika Wiebke Petra Otto – Petra Olga … Noble titles can also be attractive: Gaby de Coeur Britta de Demain … Instead of fathers’ sons we prefer mothers’ daughters: Katrin Niels-so(h)n becomes Katrin Elkesdaughter … Angelika of Hertha Rita of Eliska … EVERYTHING is possible: …

Ossi Wessi

Works Cited Ayim, May. blues in schwarz weiss: gedichte. Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1995. —. Blues in Black and White: A Collection of Essays, Poetry, and Conversations. Trans. Anne Adams. Trenton: Africa World Press, 2003. —. Grenzenlos und unverschämt. Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1997. Edler, Juliane.“Towards a Historical Materialist Approach to Racism in Post-‘Unification’ Germany.” Socialist Studies 3.1. Spring 2007: 2748. Gerlind, Marion, and Claudia Schaab. “A Lesbian Leftist Takes a Turn in Politics.” Connexions 45, 1994: 28-29, 36-37. Poppe, Ulrike. “Frauen in Ostdeutschland nach 1989/90.” Ungleiche Schwestern? Frauen in Ost-und Westdeutschland, edited by Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Bonn: Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1998. 33-42. Pusch, Luise F. Das Deutsche als Männersprache. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1984. —. Alle Menschen werden Schwestern. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1990. Ridgway, Mindy. “A Lesbian Socialist in a Capitalist Bastion.” San Francisco Bay Times, June 2, 1994: 8, 10, 47. Rommelspacher, Birgit. “Ost-West Frauenbilder: Über einen schwierigen Dialog.” Verständigung in finsteren Zeiten, edited by Leah Carola Czollek and Gudrun Perko. Köln: PapyRossa, 2003. 186-195. Schenk, Christina. See Gerlind and Schaab, Ridgway. Schäfer, Eva. http://www.rosalux.de/cms/?id=10571. 26 Feb 2006. Thürmer-Rohr, Christina. Vagabundinnen: Feministische Essays. Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1987. Veit, Marion Gerlind, Antje Kurz, Maren Reiche, Rita Hanaková. Sprachgewaltige Frauen: Hand- und Arbeitsbuch zur Sprache. Hamburg: Self-published, 1992.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN HISTORY IN THE SERVICE OF POLITICS: THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE EAST GERMAN UPRISING OF JUNE 17, 1953, AND GERMAN NATIONAL IDENTITY NADINE ZIMMERLI

On June 17, 1953, workers across the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and especially in the eastern sector of Berlin, rose up against the East German regime and demonstrated for better treatment and a better society. What started as a strike against increased work quotas soon escalated into demonstrations calling for more democracy and free elections. However, Soviet tanks called upon by the increasingly besieged East German government quickly subdued the demonstrators.1 According to the latest research, close to one million people—ten percent of the adult work force—participated in the uprising in about 700 communities throughout East Germany.2 Although the movement collapsed rapidly, the 1953 uprising was the first rebellion against an authoritarian socialist regime in the Soviet-dominated eastern bloc during the Cold War era and has garnered an enduring legacy.

1

For a decent, though older, treatment of the uprising in English translation see Baring, Uprising in East Germany: June 17, 1953. Baring interprets the uprising as an “Arbeiteraufstand” as opposed to a “Volksaufstand,” a thesis which has sparked controversy, but was widely accepted until 1989. In scholarship post 1989 most German historians have reverted to regarding June 17 as a “Volksaufstand.” Christian Ostermann published an English-language book on the uprising, but his work is a collection of primary documents rather than a monograph. See Ostermann, Uprising in East Germany, 1953. 2 See Harpprecht, “Overtüre einer europäschen Revolution” Die Zeit, June 12, 2003.

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This paper is not concerned with the historical facts of the uprising per se,3 but will rather explore the relationship between memory and political exigencies using the 1953 uprising as a case study. This project is a history of memory and an investigation of the use of memory as a political tool to forge a specific national identity in particular. In my view, German politicians across party lines as well as German media outlets utilized the fiftieth anniversary of the June 17, 1953 uprising to contribute to a new and unified national German identity that would bridge both the East-West divide as well as provide Germans with a positive historical marker for identification. I am not proposing that the memory of the 17th of June was designed to serve as the marker for a new national German identity, but that German cultural and political elites used the 2003 anniversary to highlight one aspect of a desirable new identity. First, a clarification of the terms collective memory and national identity is necessary. Using memory as a subject of historical investigation poses numerous challenges since each and every witness to a specific event will remember this event differently. Societies also possess a collective memory of any given event, which constitutes a predominant memory and an agreed upon meaning with which a majority of the members of a society concur. To understand the process of how divergent individual memories can become inscribed as a collective memory, “emblematic memory” is a useful term put forth by Steve Stern in his Remembering Pinochet’s Chile. As Stern explains, Memory is the meaning we attach to experience . . . . Emblematic memory refers not to a single remembrance of a specific event, not to a concrete or substantive “thing,” but to a framework that organizes meaning, selectivity, and counter-memory.4

Emblematic memory, which, according to Stern, circulates in the public or semi-public domain such as government speeches, commemorations and media reports,5 is a constructed framework that imparts credibility to 3

See Kowalczuk, “Die gescheiterte Revolution – ‘17. Juni 1953.’ Forschungsstand, Forschungskontroversen und Forschungsperspektiven,” 606-664. Also, see Wettig, “Der 17. Juni im Lichte der neuesten Literatur,” 881-893; as well as Funke, “Flammen des Aufruhrs,” 45-48. 4 Stern, Remembering Pinochet’s Chile, 105. Although Stern devised and applied his theory to Chilean society and the memory of the 1973 putsch, I would argue that the concept of emblematic memory functions just as well when applied to the 1953 East German uprising. 5 Ibid., 106.

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individual memories because their memories find an echo in society at large. The concept of emblematic memory allows for the coexistence of competing frameworks of divergent memories and thus is not a rigid concept but rather acknowledges that memory making is a dynamic process. As Stern emphasizes, The most dynamic forms of cultural and political debate about memory often take place as a contest over the primacy of “truth” of rival emblematic memories, in a competitive process to establish which frameworks will displace others and approach a hegemonic cultural influence.6

This paper will show that the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of 2003 gave rise to an integrative emblematic memory framework that displaced older East and West German frameworks and served the needs of a unified Germany. It will trace the construction of the dominant and politically promoted emblematic memory by concentrating on elite rhetorical employment and governmentally promoted memory schemes of the 1953 uprising in 2003. As the Rheinischer Merkur aptly characterized the German situation, “When it comes to strategies of memory, Germany is the playground of politicians, not the citizens.”7 Contrary to assertions that the term “national identity” has spent its analytical usefulness because it “either tends to mean too much, too little or nothing at all,”8 I still find the term useful because it holds political capital. Although adopting a term used by politicians for purposes of analysis carries with it the inherent danger of reifying the concept, it is still important to work with one’s sources on their own terms. If German politicians and the media believed they could forge a new national identity through stressing certain commemorative themes, and called it such, then it would be useful to investigate what these entities thought this new identity would look like. David Laitin delineates the term “identity projects,” meaning that social identities are constructed and that societies have “cultural

6

Ibid., 107. “Erinnerungsstrategisch gesehen, ist Deutschland ein Revier der Politiker, nicht der Bürger” in Rheinischer Merkur, June 12, 2003, 8. All translations from the German are my own. I supply the original German quote when it contains specific political language usage. 8 Ibid. 7

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entrepreneurs who offer new identity categories . . . hoping to find buyers.”9 For Laitin, social identities are labels that people assign to themselves when they claim membership in a social category that they see as plausibly connected to their history and present set of behaviors.10

In 2003, German political and cultural elites used the fiftieth anniversary of the 1953 uprising to offer the populace, both East and West, a new category of social identity, that of courageous civilian standing up for democracy, which many East German eyewitnesses, and by extension most Germans, could buy into. However, in terms of how identity shifts occur and how national identities become dominant, Laitin’s invocation of game theory does not apply to the German case. Rather, I find Alon Confino helpful to explain how identities shift.11 As he explains, while national identity “yearns for the past, it simultaneously rejects the past by seeking to construct an improved version of it.”12 Hence Confino recognizes that memory is a malleable concept that can be used to forge a specific identity. He cautions, however, that the study of collective memory explores the experiential history of people’s perceptions of the past, where social action and symbolic representation commingle . . . Every society sets up imagined pasts. But to make a difference in a society, it is not enough for a certain past to be selected. It must stir emotions, motivate people to act, be received; in short, it must become a socio-cultural mode of action.13

In 2003 political and cultural elites fashioned the 1953 uprising as just such an emotionally stirring event to anchor this particular “imagined past” within the national consciousness. Before delving too deeply into this process, it is necessary to explain why political and cultural elites perceived the need to imbue the 1953 uprising with a nationally unifying spirit at that point in time. Between the tumultuous events of the fall of 1989 and October 3, 1990, when Germany became a unified country, many Germans in both East and West had held high hopes for unification. Soon after, however, 9

Laitin, Identity in Formation, 11. Ibid., 16. 11 Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor, 7. 12 Ibid., 3. 13 Ibid., 11. 10

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disillusionment set in on both sides of the former wall, giving rise to jokes like the following: Wessi [West German] excitedly says to the Ossi [East German]: “Over there, there is the house where our partnership began. You really should put up a commemorative plague.” The Ossi responds, “No, rather a warning sign.”14

After unification the Berlin wall was replaced by a “wall in the heads” of many Germans. As anthropologist Daphne Berdahl observed, The “wall in our heads” is the product of a process through which the former political boundary that once divided East and West Germany has been replaced by the maintenance—indeed, invention—of a cultural one.15

Many scholars like Berdahl or historian Corey Ross report that East Germans felt alienated and colonized by the West Germans and their institutions, and that many felt the “Wende”16 to have been an annexation by the West rather than a merging of two equal societies.17 A 1994 study on East-West divisions concluded, The annexation of the GDR by the FRG . . . and the devaluation of the GDR – especially of the individual histories of its people – as well as the reduction of integrative processes to the demands of the free-market economy will guarantee the division of the country well into the next generation.18

Other studies confirmed this conclusion and showed the country to be even less united. In 1999, Hendrik Berth and Elmar Brähler summarized 14

Serwuschok and Dölle, Der Besser Wessi, 23. In the original German: “Wessi überschwenglich zum Ossi: ‘Da drüben ist das Haus, in welchem unsere Partnerschaft begann. Sie sollten wirklich eine Gedenktafel anbringen.’ ‘Nee, lieber ein Warnschild.’” 15 Berdahl, Where the World Ended, 167. 16 Wende means change in German and is a term often used for the events of 1989 and unification in 1990. 17 Berdahl, Where the World Ended, 164. Corey Ross reports that many East Germans feel as if West Germans have not only colonized their former country but their memory as well. As stated in Ross, The East German Dictatorship, 178. 18 Manfred Stassen, “Ost-west-deutsche Befindlichkeiten – Die abgewickelte Nation und die Zukunft der deutschen Teilung,” in Zwischen Traum und Trauma – Die Nation, ed. Claudia Mayer-Iswandy, (Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 1994), 220.

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their research into the identity of Germans as follows: “Of the oft-invoked ‘inner unity’ one cannot speak yet. It might take years, decades, and maybe generations until a truly unified common German identity is forged.”19 Statistics compiled by Berth and Brähler showed that 51 percent of West and 71 percent of East Germans believed that they would drift farther apart from one another in the future.20 The study found that East Germans still resented the devaluation accorded them after unification and that East Germans did not get the feeling of having made a positive contribution to the unified Germany.21 It is exactly this misgiving that the commemorative attempts of the fiftieth anniversary of the 17th of June 1953 tried to alleviate. Politician Angela Merkel’s22 speech in honor of the uprising, given in 2002, already revolved around the theme of using the uprising’s anniversary to muse about what good East Germans could contribute to a unified identity. She starts her speech with an anecdote recounting how her Hamburg cousins were sad that Germany had not yet won any gold medals at the Olympic Games, to which Merkel replied that she thought Germany had won at least ten. However, her cousins dismissed these medals as East German and therefore not truly German accomplishments. Merkel concludes that a lot of Germans believe that history since 1945 is West German history without even acknowledging the GDR. She tries to remedy this fact and names positive East German contributions to an allGerman identity, which include the ability to read between the lines, to improvise, to honor competition, and the courage to embrace change.23 Merkel’s musings foreshadow some of the turns the themes of commemoration of the uprising would take one year later. In 2003, politicians and the media picked up on Merkel’s strategy and used the anniversary of the 1953 uprising to highlight a positive East German contribution to German history and in addition reinterpreted the uprising as an all-German event. By this time the division of the country seemed obvious enough to warrant such action and the 1953 uprising proved the

19

Berth and Brähler, eds., Deutsch-deutsche Vergleiche, 8. Ibid., 23. 21 Ibid., 25. 22 Angela Merkel is currently the head of the Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) and an East German woman. She became the chancellor of the German Federal Republic in 2005. 23 Merkel, “Die DDR im Geschichtsbewusstsein der Deutschen,” speech given on the occasion of the “Wendgräbener Gespräch anlässlich des Gedenktages 17. Juni 1953,” June 13, 2002. 20

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perfect event for fashioning a new memory culture and new national identity, because the event had been all but forgotten by then. Celebrated as the “Day of National Unity” in West Germany, where it was used as self-legitimization of the Federal Republic, June 17 had lost its meaning over the decades until the “Tag (der Einheit) in Freiheit” (Day [of unity] in freedom) had become the “Tag (der Einheit) in Freizeit” (Day [of unity] in free time).24 This transformation from meaningful holiday to meaningless day of relaxation came about because the division of Germany seemed increasingly permanent as the decades passed. No one seemed to mind when then chancellor Helmut Kohl replaced June 17 with October 3 as the “Day of National Unity” in 1990. In East German memory, the uprising had been a taboo topic and was rationalized by the Socialist Unity Party (SED) as a western-instigated fascist putsch. With unification, the SED interpretation was officially discredited and the West German commemoration abolished, so that during the 1990s, the 17th of June 1953 fell off the memory radar. In 1993, on the occasion of its fortieth anniversary, Der Spiegel ran but one article on the whole event whereas the other big German weekly news magazine, Der Stern, did not even mention the 1953 uprising in any article in 1993. This memory loss was a political act in and of itself, since unceremoniously replacing June 17 with October 3 as the “Day of German Unity” signaled that, as the Rheinischer Merkur observed, “the common identity of the nation should not be based upon those moments of civil disobedience and resistance in German history, but on a state-political act.”25 German politicians in the 1990s made sure that German collective memory honored the actions of statesmen more than the actions of the “little people.” Indeed, historian Peter Steinbach was relatively skeptical in 1997 if the 17th of June 1953 would ever enter German collective consciousness as a powerful demonstration of the people against the state.26 Overall, official actions accelerated the trend of forgetting the 1953 uprising in the 1990s. Data from opinion polls confirm this trend. As the Allgemeine Zeitung reported in 2003, only 47 percent of Germans knew what had happened on 24

This is a German pun that transforms the word for freedom into the word for leisure. This pun was first published in 1960 by Der Spiegel as quoted in Wolfrum, Geschichtspolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 205. 25 “Das Gemeinschaftgefühl der vereinten Nation sollte sich nicht auf jene Momente zivilen Ungehorsams und Widerstands in der deutschen Geschichte gründen, sondern auf einen staatspolitischen Akt,” Rheinischer Merkur, June 12, 2003. 26 Steinbach, “Ein Denkmal zum 17. Juni 1953?,” 73.

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June 17, 34 percent could not place the date at all, seven percent thought of it as the day the wall was erected, and one percent thought it was the day of the soccer world championship finale.27 Similarly, an Emnid poll revealed that only 44 percent of those asked could historically date June 17, and that 82 percent of those 29 years of age and younger did not even know of the event.28 A Forsa Institute poll showed that 65 percent of former East Germans knew what had happened on June 17, 1953 as opposed to only 48 percent of former West Germans. This last poll is also significant because it reveals that almost 75 percent of those asked believed it was a protest of East Germans against their government, whereas eleven percent still adhered to the SED version of a western-instigated fascist putsch. Only adherents of the SED successor party PDS differed markedly from these results with 27 percent of its ranks believing that it had been a revolt orchestrated by western agents.29 This shows that the two versions of memory propagated by the respective German states before unification still lived on over a decade later. Yet the year 2003 saw the end of those West and East German memories. Then president Johannes Rau openly stated that the West German “Day of German Unity” had ignored the actual goals of the uprising and complicated commemoration while helping the process of forgetting.30 The PDS, for its part, published a “Declaration of the Historical Commission to the Party Elite of the PDS,” which apologized for the SED’s reading of the uprising as a “fascist putsch” and acknowledged that it had been a spontaneous rising of workers against their government due to widespread discontent among the population.31 With these renunciations of Cold War memories, the groundwork had been laid for a reconstruction of the memory of the 1953 uprising. I will now turn to how and why politicians and the media used the fiftieth anniversary of the 1953 uprising to forge a new national memory and identity. The 2003 anniversary unleashed what the Frankfurter

27

Hennemann and Schuster, “Schon vergessen oder ein Zeichen der Freiheit,” Allgemeine Zeitung, June 17, 2003. 28 As cited by Dombrowski, “17. Juni als Feiertag,” Berliner Zeitung, June 12, 2003. 29 “Der unbekannte 17. Juni,” Berliner Zeitung, June 14, 2003. 30 “Rau mahnt Gerechtigkeit für Opfer des 17. Juni an,” dpa Deutsche PresseAgentur GmbH, June 17, 2003. 31 “Der 17. Juni 1953 - eine spontane Arbeitererhebung,” Dokumente zur Geschichte, April 1, 2003.

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Allgemeine Zeitung called a “memory marathon”32 that included up to 600 commemorative events, 75 exhibitions, and about 30 new published books, which make the uprising one of the most thoroughly researched events of German post-war history.33 Yet this memory marathon was not just due to the fiftieth anniversary. As Die Tageszeitung (Taz) put it, “the attention of today is not only due to the even-numbered anniversary ritual. Rather, the question is how 1953 and 1989/90 enter the fragile German historical consciousness.”34 Indeed, this memory marathon did not just come about because of the important half-century anniversary, but rather because the event could be utilized to support the important political project of forging a unified German identity. As explored before, this project involved highlighting both the contributions East Germans made to national German history so as to tear down the “wall in the heads” of East and West Germans while also seizing upon an event that highlighted a “good” chapter of German history in the twentieth century. Succinctly, Der Spiegel argued, Thirteen years after unification the Germans are searching for a history that meets the demand of the enlarged Federal Republic. And since civil courage has become the dominant virtue of citizens, next-door heroes are in demand like never before.35

This demand for “next-door heroes” explains why 2003 saw the increased interest in first-person narratives of actors present during the uprising, who, much like David Laitin theorizes, constitute the buyers of this new national identity.36 What Peter Steinbach had thought politically 32

As reported by Freies Wort, June 20, 2003. “Ein deutscher Aufstand,” Der Spiegel 24 (2003): 39. 34 “Die heutige Aufmerksamkeit ist nicht nur dem runden Jahreszahlen-Ritual geschuldet. In Frage steht vielmehr, wie 1953 und 1989/90 ins brüchige deutsche Geschichtsbewusstsein eingehen,” in Semler, “Wer zu früh kommt...: 17. Juni 1953: Ein veränderter Blick auf den Aufstand,” Die Tageszeitung, June 14, 2003. 35 “13 Jahre nach der Einheit ringen die Deutschen um ein Geschichtsbild, das zu der erweiterten Bundesrepublik passt. Und seitdem im Land der Lichterketten Zivilcourage zur Bürgertugend schlechthin ausgerufen wurde, stehen Helden von nebenan so hoch im Kurs wie nie zuvor,” as reported in Der Spiegel, 24 (2003): 39. 36 Indeed, the fiftieth anniversary celebrations seem a mutually symbiotic event between eyewitnesses and politicians since both could approve and benefit from fashioning participants as (East) German heroes. 2003 saw the publication of many eyewitness accounts underscoring the official memory culture, most notably SuperIllu’s Jochen Wolff, ed., Der Aufstand, Juni ’53 – Augenzeugen berichten, 33

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impossible in 1997 became a reality six years later, namely a German national identity based upon civil disobedience—refashioned as civil courage—that was thought vitally necessary for a functioning free democracy. What did this new emblematic memory look like in detail? It highlighted the positive contributions of East Germans to an all-German history. The year 2003 was the “Year of Ostalgie,” and as an article in the Berliner Zeitung reveals, “The view back to June 17, 1953 opens the eyes of many: Not everything was just gray in the East.”37 The article revolves around a planned TV show by the private network RTL that utilized the fiftieth anniversary of the 17th of June as a springboard to show the good things East Germans had contributed to German history.38 The link to the peaceful revolution of 1989 was utilized as well. As Marianne Birthler, Bundesbeauftragte für die Stasi-Unterlagen,39 proudly points out in an interview with Die Welt, I think it’s great that the Germans can point to dates that they can be proud of with good reason. Especially in East Germany. Here we had two movements for freedom, one in 1953 and one in 1989. That’s not an easy feat to repeat.40

Secondly, the memory marathon of 1953 refashioned the uprising as an all-German event designed to bridge the East-West divide and forge a common German emblematic memory and, on that basis, a more unified collective identity. In 1990, then president of the Bundestag, Rita Süssmuth, had said that in order to truly commemorate June 17th both East and West Germans had to identify with the event. When this is pointed out to Marianne Birthler, she couldn’t agree more. As she emphatically states, “This is right. This is an all-German and not just an East German event, even if it took place there.” She is quick to add, “Today the eye-witnesses

and Regine Möbius, ed., Panzer gegen die Freiheit – Zeitzeugen des 17. Juni 1953 berichten. 37 “Die Rückblende auf den 17. Juni 1953 öffnet manchem die Augen: War doch nicht alles grau bei den Brüdern und Schwestern im Osten,” Berliner Zeitung, June 16, 2003. 38 Ibid. 39 The federal government representative for the Stasi-files. 40 “Ich finde es gut, dass die Deutschen auf Daten verweisen können, auf die sie mit gutem Grund stolz sein können. Besonders in Ostdeutschland. Hier gab es 1953 und 1989 zwei Freiheitsbewegungen. Das muss uns erst einmal einer nachmachen,” as quoted in Die Welt, May 19, 2003.

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of the 17th of June and their descendants live all across the federal territory.”41 In addition, on June 17, 2003, both the liberal president of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Thierse (SPD) and the conservative president of the Bundesrat, Wolfgang Böhmer, (CDU) emphasized that the uprising had to be understood as an all-German historic event.42 The Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb) also organized a workshop for journalists between February 12 and 14, 2003 on how to cover the anniversary and one of the seminars, “17. Juni 1953 – Thema in Ost und West,” (June 17, 1953 – Topic in East and West) advised West German journalists on how to stir interest in the events in the West through, for example, town partnerships with the East. Aside from overcoming “the wall in the heads,” the substance of this new all-German emblematic memory was also designed to “express the character of the Volk in its yearning for freedom” as the mayor of Braunschweig, Dr. Gert Hoffmann, declared.43 To this effect, Johannes Rau dedicated the 2003 Gustav-Heinemann-Preis für die Schuljugend zum Verständnis deutscher Freiheitsbewegungen (Gustav-Heinemann price for pupils for the understanding of German freedom movements) to the topic of June 17, 1953. The first such competition had honored the revolution of 1848/49 and the 2003 competition, thus, not only bridged the East-West divide, but also put the 1953 uprising in the lineage of 1848. In the end, 170 students, 56 percent of whom came from West Germany, handed in their projects which dealt mainly with the fate of individuals, again showing the strong link between eyewitnesses and politically forged memory culture.44 The theme of June 17 as expressing the German people’s desire for freedom and democracy and constituting a date of which Germans can be proud surfaces in the media as well. The BPB tried to set the tone for this 41

“(Die Welt) 1990, im Jahr der Einheit, sagte die damalige Bundestagspräsidentin Rita Süssmuth auf der Gedenkfeier zum 17. Juni: Damit an den Tag wirklich gedacht werden kann, müssten sich möglichst viele Menschen damit identifizieren - in Ost wie West. - (Birthler) Das ist richtig. Es handelt sich um ein gesamtdeutsches, nicht um ein ostdeutsches Ereignis, auch wenn es da stattgefunden hat . . . Die Zeitzeugen des 17. Juni und ihre Nachfahren leben heute verteilt auf das gesamte Bundesgebiet,” as quoted in Die Welt, May 19, 2003. 42 “Aufstand am 17. Juni 1953,” dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH, June 17, 2003. 43 Quoted in Braunschweiger Zeitung, June 18, 2003. 44 As reported by Wolfrum, “Neue Erinerungskultur? Die Massenmedialisierung des 17. Juni 1953,” 36.

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new memory with its president, Thomas Krüger, stating that the uprising was a historical example of civil courage and political protest: “The core value of freedom is invaluable and not attainable without civil courage and engagement.”45 Following this lead, the Berliner Zeitung quotes Berlin’s school senator Klaus Böger (SPD) as saying that June 17 represents an important day for German history and one of the few moments where Germans fought for freedom and democracy. In the same article, former chancellor Kohl, calls June 17 a “Day of German Patriots.”46 Former East German civil rights advocate Rainer Eppelmann is quoted in the same paper two days later as declaring that there are “few events in Germany’s contemporary history that we can truly proud of,” but that June 17, 1953 is one of them.47 In the same vein, Die Welt calls the 1953 uprising part of a German freedomtradition and states, “The uprising against the second German dictatorship is something we can be proud of. But we have to learn that again.”48 Here the political agenda of the 2003 commemoration marathon reveals itself most obviously: The uprising constitutes an event in history that Germans can be proud of, yet they have to learn to be patriotic again. The commemoration of the uprising is therefore not only a signal to form a new emblematic memory of June 17, 1953 as an all-German event that expresses a tradition of the German people fighting for freedom, but it is also used to dispel the shadows of Germany’s National Socialist past. June 17 becomes a “happy day in German history,” as Die Welt sees it.49 An editorial in Die Zeit in 2003 openly plead for resurrecting a date like 17 June 1953 as a national holiday for the purposes of constructing a positive national identity. As the editorial argues, this move would be vitally necessary for constructing a positive supra-national European identity in the future. According to the newspaper, the West German “Day of German Unity” was fraught with weight because it touched upon what 45 “Der Grundwert der Freiheit ist von unschätzbarem Wert und ohne Zivilcourage und Engagement nicht erreichbar,” as quoted in Kixmüller, “Exempel der Zivilcourage,” Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten, reprinted in Projekt “17. Juni 1953.” 46 Dombrowski, “17. Juni als Feiertag: TED-Ergebnis: 60 Prozent der BZ-Leser sind dafür,” Berliner Zeitung, June 12, 2003. 47 “Auch Eppelmann für 17. Juni als Feiertag,” Berliner Zeitung, June 14, 2003. 48 “Es geht um eine deutsche Freiheitstradition. Der Aufstand gegen die zweite deutsche Diktatur ist etwas, auf das wir stolz sein können. Aber das müssen wir erst wieder lernen,” in Möller, “Stolz der Freiheit: Der Kommentar,” Die Welt, June 17, 2003. 49 Ibid.

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historian Fritz Stern had called “national taboos” in his 1987 commemoration speech of June 17.50 The main taboo was that of the “national question,” namely the reunification of Germany and the historical as well as present-political implications of such an act. Into the twenty-first century, Germans continue to feel uneasy about both the “national question” and a healthy national self-identification as Germans because of the catastrophic role a nationalistic Germany played in the history of the twentieth century. Yet as the editorial continues to argue, after unification the country did not fall into a nationalistic or revanchist mode and therefore 1953 should be honored as a positive marker for a unified German national identity. Following Die Zeit, Johannes Rau summed up the new interpretation of June 17, 1953, best during his commemorative speech on occasion of the uprising’s fiftieth anniversary: German history knows so many days that are linked to defeat or errors. Outwardly, June 17 was a defeat, but it was not an error, and that is why we can say today: The 17th of June is one of the proud days in German history . . . The courageous and spontaneous uprising that was supported by people from all social strata is one of the big markers of the German as well as the European historical quest for freedom. The quest for freedom, democracy, and unity should serve us as an enduring role model.51

In other words, 2003 saw the construction of a new nationally unified emblematic memory that highlighted the positive contributions of the East Germans to a unified Germany’s history and also fashioned the 1953 uprising as a day of which Germans can be proud, because June 17th represents the freedom-loving and democratic character of the German people. Furthermore, the 1953 uprising became an important marker for a unified, positive, patriotic German identity, which, according to Rau and

50

Robert Leicht, “Eine Revolte kehrt wieder,” Die Zeit, June 12, 2003. “Es gibt so viele Tage in der deutschen Geschichte, die mit Niederlagen oder mit Irrtümern zusammenhängen. Der 17. Juni war äußerlich eine Niederlage - aber er war kein Irrtum, und darum können wir heute sagen: Der 17. Juni ist einer der stolzen Tage in der deutschen Geschichte . . . Der mutige, der spontane und von Menschen aus allen Schichten des Volkes getragene Aufstand ist eine der großen Wegmarken deutscher und europäischer Freiheitsgeschichte. Der Einsatz für Freiheit, Demokratie und Einheit sollte uns dauerndes Vorbild sein,” as quoted in “Rau mahnt Gerechtigkeit für Opfer des 17. Juni an,” dpa Deutsche PresseAgentur GmbH, June 17, 2003, or “Vergessen befördert: Rau zum 17. Juni 1953,” Südkurier, June 18, 2003.

51

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Die Zeit, was not only linked to the German but also to the European past and therefore future. The newly minted emblematic memory of 2003 acknowledged the historicity of the uprising, linking it to 1989 as well as in some cases to 1848 and 1918—the other two years that saw attempted democratic revolutions on German soil. Fashioning the uprising as a quest for freedom was both sufficiently vague and appealing to accommodate a lot of historical interpretations and personal memories. As the entire media hoopla surrounding the fiftieth anniversary of the uprising shows, the new interpretation was covered and broadcast thoroughly by the media and found many convincing social referents in the persons of the many eyewitnesses that came forward in 2003. It also found very effective and powerful spokespersons on both ends of the German political spectrum, ranging from Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel on the right to Wolfgang Thierse and Johannes Rau on the left, which shows that cultural and political elites did everything within their power to anchor the uprising within the national consciousness. Only time will tell how deeply anchored this emblematic memory will become in the German collective conscience, and whether dissident memories will emerge in the future. Yet the renaming of streets to honor the 1953 uprising as happened in Görlitz, Leipzig, Dresden, Halle und Stralsund52 and the installation of commemorative plagues and monuments honoring the victims of the uprising, as unveiled in former border regions such as Heinersdorf on the Bavarian-Saxon border53 and in the Rhöner Grenzmuseum at “Point Alpha,” the Hesse-Thuringian border,54 are designed to ensure that the 1953 uprising will not be confused with the soccer world championship finale anytime soon. The year 2003 saw an important effort at creating a politically and socially useful emblematic memory of the event. Linking the memory marathon with Confino’s definition of identity through collective memory, the commemorative efforts of 2003 did indeed fashion an improved version of the past by renegotiating and displacing older versions while at the same time stirring the emotions of eyewitnesses and prompting the renaming of streets and unveiling of monuments. In the end the emblematic memory construction of 2003 demonstrates how much the National Socialist past still haunts the country. This most recent memory construction of the 1953 uprising signifies the ongoing 52

“Auch Nachdenkliches zum 17. Juni,” Neues Deutschland, June 18, 2003. Engel, “Über Gedenktage und die neue Zweistaatlichkeit,” Freies Wort, June 18, 2003. 54 “Haus auf der Grenze feierlich eingeweiht,” Freies Wort, June 16, 2003. 53

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German struggle, both East and West, to deal with that past and forge a positive German identity post-1945. Historian Tony Judt indicts most European countries for having built their national memories on quicksand by fashioning themselves exclusively as victims of World War II rather than acknowledging guilt or collaboration.55 He rather urges them to face up to their wrong-doings so as to construct a more honest national identity. Although Judt does not include Germany in his case studies, he should have, for even they managed to fashion themselves as victims for a very long time.56 While I agree with scholars like Richard Schröder that it would be nonsense to make the crimes of National Socialism the basis of a German national identity57 I also believe that Judt has a point to demand an honest treatment of a country’s past so as to forge an honest and durable national identity. Resurrecting the June 17, 1953 uprising and commemorating it as a day when Germans struggled for freedom and therefore a day of which Germans can be proud, while carefully acknowledging the many past mistakes as Johannes Rau certainly did, seems a step in the right direction to both unifying the “hearts and minds” of the country and creating a positive, though neither apologetic nor nationalistic, German identity.

Works Cited Baring, Arnulf. Uprising in East Germany: June 17, 1953, translated by Gerald Onn. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1972. Berdahl, Daphne. Where the World Ended – Re-Unification and Identity in the German Borderland. Berkeley: U of Cal. Press, 1999. Berliner Zeitung, “Auch Eppelmann für 17. Juni als Feiertag,” June 14, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=2051906373 (accessed April 17, 2005). —. “Der unbekannte 17. Juni: Unter den Jüngeren weiß nur noch jeder Fünfte, was an diesem Tag geschah / Appell von Wowereit: 50. Jahrestag zur Aufklärung der Jugend nutzen,” June 14, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=318530710 (accessed April 17, 2005). —. “Die Rückblende auf den 17. Juni 1953 öffnet manchem die Augen: War doch nicht alles grau bei den Brüdern und Schwestern im Osten,” June 16, 2003. 55

Tony Judt, “The Past is Another Country.” Moeller, War Stories. 57 Schröder, “Die Deutsche Einheit – Eine Bestandsaufnahme,” 39. 56

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http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=283186412 (accessed April 17, 2005). Berth, Hendrik and Elmar Brähler, eds. Deutsch-deutsche Vergleiche– Psychologische Untersuchungen 10 Jahre nach dem Mauerfall. Berlin: Verlag für Wissenschaft und Forschung, 1999. Brubaker, Rogers and Frederick Cooper. “Beyond ‘Identity.’” Theory and Society 29, 2000: 1-47. Confino, Alon. The Nation as a Local Metaphor- Württemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871-1918. Chapel Hill: U of NC Press, 1997. Die Welt, “Wir haben den 17. Juni von uns weggeschoben: Marianne Birthler, Bundesbeauftragte für die Stasi-Unterlagen, über die Erinnerung an den Volksaufstand in der DDR,” May 19, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=1338424739 (accessed April 17, 2005). Dokumente zur Geschichte, “Der 17. Juni 1953 - eine spontane Arbeitererhebung: Erklärung der Historischen Kommission beim Parteivorstand der PDS,” April 1, 2003. http://www.db.stiftungaufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=239049819 (accessed April 26, 2005). Dombrowski, Boris. “17. Juni als Feiertag: TED-Ergebnis: 60 Prozent der BZ-Leser sind dafür.” Berliner Zeitung, June 12, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=1368808842 (accessed April 17, 2005). dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH, “Aufstand am 17. Juni 1953,” June 17, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=234217869 (accessed April 17, 2005). —. “Rau mahnt Gerechtigkeit für Opfer des 17. Juni an,” June 17, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=1127694714 (accessed April 17, 2005). “Ein deutscher Aufstand.” Der Spiegel 24, 2003. Engel, Jürgen. “Über Gedenktage und die neue Zweistaatlichkeit: angemerkt,” Freies Wort, June 18, 2003. http://www.db.stiftungaufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=137176144 (accessed April 17, 2005). Freies Wort, “Haus auf der Grenze feierlich eingeweiht: Gedenkveranstaltung zum 17. Juni auf Point Alpha,” June 16, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=976044465 (accessed April 17, 2005). Funke, Manfred. “Flammen des Aufruhrs.” Politische Meinung 403, June 2003: 45-48.

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Harpprecht, Klaus. “Overtüre einer europäschen Revolution.” Die Zeit, June 12, 2003. http://zeus.zeit.de/text/2003/25/P-17_Juni (accessed April 12, 2005). Hennemann, Lars and Ralf Schuster. “Schon vergessen oder ein Zeichen der Freiheit?: 50 Jahre nach dem Aufstand in der ehemaligen DDR ist der 17. Juni als nationaler Gedenktag nicht unumstritten.” Allgemeine Zeitung, June 17, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=725124360 (accessed April 17, 2005). Jonscher, Norbert. “17. Juni: Mehr als ein Ex-Feiertag: Magdeburgs früherer Oberbürgermeister Dr. Willi Polte schildert seine Erinnerungen - Gedenken im Rathaus.” Braunschweiger Zeitung, June 18, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=1479707128 (accessed April 17, 2005). Judt, Tony. “The Past is Another Country: Myth and Memory in Postwar Europe.” In The Politics of Retribution in Europe – World War II and its Aftermath, edited by István Deák, Jan T. Gross and Tony Judt, 293324. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000. Kellermann, Eike. “Ein großer Schatz wurde gehoben: GESCHICHTSAUFARBEITUNG Staatssekretär Jürgen Aretz nimmt Anstoß an ‘event-orientiertem Gedenken.’” Freies Wort, June 20, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=1511742282 (accessed April 17, 2005). Kixmüller, Jan. “Exempel der Zivilcourage,” Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten, reprinted in Projekt „17. Juni 1953“, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, DeutschlandRadio, and Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Berlin, e.V. http://www.17juni53.de (accessed April 12, 2005). Kowalczuk, Ilko-Sascha. “Die gescheiterte Revolution – ’17. Juni 1953.’ Forschungsstand, Forschungskontroversen und Forschungsperspektiven.” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 44, 2004: 606-664. Laitin, David D. Identity in Formation – The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1998. Leicht, Robert. “Eine Revolte kehrt wieder.” Die Zeit, June 12, 2003. http://www.zeit.de/2003/25/01___leit_1 (accessed April 12, 2005). Merkel, Angela. “Die DDR im Geschichtsbewusstsein der Deutschen.” Speech given on the occasion of the “Wendgräbener Gespräch anlässlich des Gedenktages 17. Juni 1953,” sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung e.V., June 13, 2002.

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http://www.kas.de/publikationen/2003/1380_dokument.html (accessed April 12, 2005). Möbius, Regine, ed. Panzer gegen die Freiheit – Zeitzeugen des 17. Juni 1953 berichten. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2003. Möller, Johann Michael. “Stolz der Freiheit: Der Kommentar.” Die Welt, June 17, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=268603332 (accessed April 17, 2005). Moeller, Robert G. War Stories – The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany. Berkeley: U of Cal. P, 2001. Neubauer, Hans-Joachim. “Das Gedächtnis der ‘kleinen Leute’: KOLLEKTIVES ERINNERN / Die Umbenennung von Straßennamen ist ein überfälliger symbolischer Akt.” Rheinischer Merkur, June 12, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=1623969616 (accessed April 17, 2005). Neues Deutschland, “Auch Nachdenkliches zum 17. Juni: Offizielles Gedenken an Arbeiteraufstand in der DDR vor 50 Jahren,” June 18, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=535885239 (accessed April 17, 2005). Ostermann, Christian. Uprising in East Germany, 1953. New York: Central European UP, 2001. Ross, Corey. The East German Dictatorship. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. Schröder, Richard. “Die Deutsche Einheit – Eine Bestandsaufnahme.” Politische Bildung 403, 2003: 39-44. Semler, Christian. “Wer zu früh kommt...: 17. Juni 1953: Ein veränderter Blick auf den Aufstand.” die tageszeitung, June 14, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=364953150 (accessed April 25, 2005). Serwuschok, Ingolf and Christine Dölle. Der Besser Wessi. Leipzig: Forum Verlag, 1992. Steinbach, Peter. “Ein Denkmal zum 17. Juni 1953?” WerkstattGeschichte 16, 1997: 70-78. Stassen, Manfred. “Ost-west-deutsche Befindlichkeiten – Die abgewickelte Nation und die Zukunft der deutschen Teilung.” In Zwischen Traum und Trauma – Die Nation, edited by Claudia MayerIswandy. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag, 1994: 205-222. Stern, Steve. Remembering Pinochet’s Chile – On the Eve of London 1998. Durham: Duke UP, 2004.

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Südkurier, “Vergessen befördert: Rau zum 17. Juni 1953,” June 18, 2003. http://www.db.stiftung-aufarbeitung.de/lang.php?id=350961935 (accessed April 17, 2005). Wettig, Gerhard. “Der 17. Juni im Lichte der neuesten Literatur.” Deutschland Archiv 5, 2003: 881-893. Wolff, Jochen, ed. Der Aufstand, Juni ’53 – Augenzeugen berichten. Berlin: Das Neue Berlin, 2003. Wolfrum, Edgar. Geschichtspolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Der Weg zur bundesrepublikanischen Erinnerung, 1948-1990. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1999. —. “Neue Erinerungskultur? Die Massenmedialisierung des 17. Juni 1953.” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 40/41, 2003: 33-39.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN FROM SS TO STASI AND BACK AGAIN?: OSSIS, WESSIS, AND RIGHT EXTREMISTS IN CONTEMPORARY GERMANY NITZAN SHOSHAN

Late one night, Hellmuth1 and I were talking about the issues of the day over beers, as we occasionally did after work. For several months I had been regularly accompanying Hellmuth, a street social worker servicing predominantly young right extremists. That night he abruptly interrupted our conversation to inquire: “Are you with the Mossad?” Of its nature such a question defies an unambiguous refutation, and my best denial efforts proved ineffective. Anthropologists often face mistrust about their identities, for their voyeuristic inquisitiveness, for their obscure sources of funding, institutional affiliations, and project titles, which tend to sound like badly thought-out cover stories, and finally for the paranoid fantasies of their subjects, for whom being spied upon entails a higher sense of significance than merely being studied.2 Such suspicions may place the research or the researcher herself at risk. But this case was different, As Hellmuth explained, keen on enticing a confession: “We won’t hold it against you in any way, or stop cooperating with you on your project, we have no problem with you working for the Mossad, we’re just curious to know… You see, among us it’s quite normal that really good, interesting, smart people also worked for the secret service, we all had such friends and colleagues. Good people.” Faced with my stubborn denial, he told me how, after unification was all over, he met for drinks 1 All interviews were conducted in confidentiality, and the names of interviewees are withheld by mutual agreement. 2 Of course, suspicions of this kind also gesture to the discipline’s problematic record of collaboration with (and funding by) governments and intelligence agencies (see Nash 1975).

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with guys from his old NVA (National People’s Army, the GDR military) platoon, and how they mutually divulged what they had filled out on each other in reports that were collected by the Stasi (The Ministry of State Security, East Germany’s secret police). The appropriate place and time to tell of such matters, Hellmuth seemed to be suggesting, was late at night, between pals, in a pub, over a few beers. In this curious and friendly inquiry a silent third was present in its absence, hinted at without being named as that which remained excluded: the shifter “among us” (bei uns) entailed a collective identity, produced by generating a difference between the Ossi and the Wessi: it’s Ossis whom under specific circumstances one may trust with one's secret agent identity, not Wessis. My emphatic denials notwithstanding, the question of my possible Mossad identity continued to be raised throughout my ethnographic fieldwork on young right extremists in East Berlin, providing but one of many unexpected encounters with the forms in which Ossis and Wessis imagine their differences. Yet the story above also gestures toward another horizon, that of the Nazi past in Germany, of anxieties about Israeli agents hunting aging Nazis and imaginations of Mossad anthropologists spying on young neo-Nazis. This horizon constituted the backdrop against which the difference between Ossi and Wessi was generated. The triad of the (neo-)Nazi, the Ossi, and the Wessi, in different permutations, has emerged time and again and at multiple levels of my research. And ever since the Wende (unification, literally turn), it has indeed been central to imaginations of differences between Ossi and Wessi. In this article I shall examine the dialectic that has played out between these terms since 1989. I will open by introducing the local category of Rechtsextremismus (right-extremism), its genealogy, its place in the management of deep cultural anxieties, its political entailments, and the debates and apprehensions it provokes; all of which will prove vital for understanding the manners in which it has mediated the relation between Ossis and Wessis.3 I will then explore three particularly illuminating moments in the intertwinements of Ossis, Wessis, and right-extremists. First, I will analyze discursive representations and institutionalized practices that have produced certain imaginations of the East by employing the extreme right as a trope. Secondly, I will examine how unification and the subsequent rise of an active extreme right in the East have impacted the social composition, cultural forms, and political orientations of the extreme right across Germany. Finally, I will conclude 3

As the entire present volume comprises of investigations into the constructions of Ossi and Wessi, I will refrain from commenting on these concepts separately here.

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by looking at some of the ways in which the interpellation effects of hegemonic discourses find their echo as the GDR and the Third Reich converge in the fabric of everyday life.

Taming the Demons While highly contested and heterogeneously deployed, Rechtsextremismus forms a fundamental category in the political imagination of most Germans. It has gained ground in the FRG since the early 1970s following its integration into official state discourses,4 and has since occupied a key position in the conceptual arsenal through which the state represents, perceives, and produces knowledge about its enemies, accordingly entailing concrete and consequential implications: from publishing houses and media channels that may censure “extremist” voices to consumption venues that may ban particular items, or from schools that may bar certain groups to real-estate owners who may refuse prospective clients.5 Before Extremismus became commonplace, the distinction between a democratic center (Mitte) and anti-democratic margins was drawn with the concept of radicalism (Radikalismus), which marked political fields—whether on the right or on the left— as outside of the spectrum of tolerable difference. When it arrived, Extremismus did not replace Radikalismus, but rather displaced it towards the political center: radicalism became re-signified to accommodate groups that, while represented as far from the mainstream, were not perceived by the state as threats to the liberal-democratic order; while extremism now came to designate that which stood outside the frontiers of the acceptable. In other words, the borderland of ambiguity previously constituted by a binary distinction between the mainstream and the excluded—defining who is enemy and who adversary6—has been baptized as a category of its own. The political terrain underwent semiotic differentiation, now extending in 4

Primarily following its adoption by the Verfassungsschutz (The Authority for the Protection of the Constitution). 5 For instance, the Junge Freiheit, an ultra-conservative publication, has recently appealed—successfully—to the Supreme Court against its classification as a rightextremist organization, a classification that meant its exclusion from sales venues and book-fairs. 6 I use these concepts following Chantal Mouffe, who has described an adversary as “a legitimate enemy, one with whom we have some common ground because we have a shared adhesion to the ethico-political principles of liberal democracy: liberty and equality.” A real enemy, in contrast, is a political element with whom a democratic resolution of conflict is impossible (Mouffe 2000 p. 102.).

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both directions from a putative mainstream (Mitte) through a zone of tolerated ambiguity (Radikalismus) to the radically excluded (Extremismus). This attempt, as hopeless as it was urgent, to tame the ambiguity by naming it as an objective term within the universe of political possibilities expressed an anxiety about the inherent tenuousness of the distinction itself. In any case, today the concept of Extremismus—right or left— predominates official state discourses, the media, scholarship, lay classifications, and a variety of other contexts. Corresponding to a hegemonic memory that represents the fall of Germany’s first liberal-democratic experiment as resulting from its helplessness against the two extremes of communism and fascism, the category of Extremismus has also reflected the preeminence in the FRG of the theory of totalitarianism, which entails the reduction of extremes to their non-identity with liberal-democracy and hence, ultimately, their equivalence. By means of a single operation the theory of totalitarianism and its conception of extremism allowed West Germany to generate distance between itself and its two primary others: its National-Socialist predecessor and its state-socialist contemporary. Despite broad consensus among experts that Rechtsextremismus encompasses heterogeneous phenomena, attempts at outlining its definition are varied and often inspire heated debates. Such definitions commonly delineate a cluster of characteristics which, depending on the author, may include various permutations of nationalist sentiments, imperialist ambitions, authoritarian personality structures, orientation to violence, racism and/or xenophobia, misogyny and rigid conceptions of gender roles, attachment to National-Socialist symbols and ideas, or belief in fundamental inequalities between different ethnic or national communities (see, e.g., Butterwegge and Meier 2002). In matter of fact, the scope of Rechtsextremismus embraces individuals, groups, organizations, cultural forms, styles, commodities, literature, media, events, places, words and phrases, and more. The social contexts of its employment are at least as varied, including mass media discourses, official state rhetoric, pedagogical idioms, scholarly discussions, informal exchanges, and so on. Similarly diverse—and often unexpected—seem to be the pragmatic operations of its deployments.7 7

Just how bewildering such operations may at times be could be illustrated with one telling example. The CDU, the socially conservative and economically liberalist center-right party now in power, has persistently hindered government interventions aimed to counter right-extremism, whether at the level of localities, states, or the Federal Republic. In the context of the recent battle about antidiscrimination legislation required by EU regulations and promoted in Germany

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The ubiquitous usage of Rechtsextremismus goes hand in hand with widespread dissatisfaction with the concept, usually formulated in either analytical or political terms. Researchers and other field specialists frequently express reservations about the analytical value of the concept, citing its agglomeration of fundamentally dissimilar phenomena, the inconsistency of its application, and its manipulation for political gains. From another direction, the concept comes under fire for its political entailments, its ideological erasures, and its function within the hegemonic discourse of the state, with criticism focusing on its collapsing of right and left and on the alibi it provides for pervasive racist, nationalist, or sexist currents in the general population, which pass as innocuous, legitimate opinions.8 Yet the measure of its force unravels in the difficulty of formulating alternatives to it, indeed in the very inevitability of employing it in the German context, a frustration voiced in multiple instances during my research.9 Some prefer the term (Rechts)Radikalismus, yet beyond the debatable value of this substitution, the two terms are in fact frequently used inconsistently and interchangeably in expert discourses as well.10

largely by the political left, a campaign that ultimately failed, one high-ranking CDU politician argued that anti-discrimination laws should be rejected because they would prevent employers from denying positions to right extremists. 8 I have heard such reservations about the concept from political activists, educators, and NGO staff. 9 Thus, for example, a poignant and extensive critique of the inadequacy of Extremismus as an analytical concept for research and scholarship opens the volume Rechtsextremismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland – Eine Bilanz (Right-Extremism in the Federal Republic of Germany – Taking Stock), edited by two leading scholars and including numerous articles, nearly all of which feature Rechtsextremismus in their title (Schubarth and Stöss 2001). This dilemma seems somewhat weaker among those who criticize the concept from a political perspective. On the radical left, Extremismus is often avoided altogether. Here, the things that otherwise fall under the category of Linksextremismus (left-extremism) instead become differentiated and designated on their own terms, for example Antifa (anti-fascist), Antideutschen (anti-Germans), Autonome (anarchists), and so on; while the term Faschismus is employed in place of Rechtsextremismus. On the far right the use of Linksextremismus is prevalent, yet its corollary Rechtsextremismus is all but absent, the things it generally designates instead named by particular terms, for instance Nationalisten (nationalists), Rechte (rightists), or Deutsche (German). 10 Thus the Handbuch Rechtsradikalismus (Handbook to Right-Radicalism), an encyclopedic reference guide with detailed entries on personalities, organizations, publishers, musicians, and commercial venues whose title indicates a particular terminological allegiance, opens with fifteen articles by various experts of which

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That the concept of Rechtsextremismus is at once so widespread and so contested, so fundamental and yet so tenuous, owes to its role in the primary processes of othering and to its articulation with formidable cultural taboos. Marking for most Germans what they are not, it constructs what Allan Pred has termed “otherwheres” (Pred 2000) into which the undesirable can be projected. Following Ernesto Laclau (Laclau 1996), because right-extremism lies beyond the distinction that separates the community and its political enemy, its representation necessarily involves its reduction to relations of equivalence, its homogenization; equally, representing the identity constituted by its exclusion entails a similar silencing of differences, from which the collective emerges as uniform under such empty signifiers as “democracy,” “tolerance,” or “openmindedness.” Crucial to this othering process is the lingering spectral presence of the historical horizon of National Socialism. Far more urgent than generating difference with a neo-Nazi street gang or a racist political party usually of insignificant dimensions, indeed precisely why in Germany such discourses are particularly powerful, is the constitution of distance with history. In this sense, again following Laclau, today’s right extremists appear as the concrete incarnations of more general forms that have haunted Germany for the past six decades.11 The relation between right-extremism and the collectivity constituted against it is not an external dialectic of two separate terms. Rather, to draw on Mouffe’s formulation of Derrida, right-extremism is a constitutive outside, at once incommensurable with and the condition of possibility of the collectivity, at once radically external to and fundamentally constitutive of it (Mouffe 2000, 12). Since “the constitutive outside is present within the inside as its always real possibility,” (Mouffe 2000, 21) right extremism marks deep anxieties about identity, about the persistent potential of Germany becoming—or indeed already being contaminated by—its radical other. Encounters with and physical proximity to right eleven, including those by the book’s editors, feature Rechtsextremismus in their title, and only three feature Rechtsradikalismus (Grumke and Wagner 2002). 11 Just how ingrained this othering has become may be illustrated with the help of a group of soccer hooligans, loyal followers of a local team generally perceived in Berlin as popular among right extremist soccer fans. Many in this group indeed were NPD (National Democratic Party of Germany, currently the most predominant on the extreme right) enthusiasts, sported jewelry or clothing items and appreciated music listed in official state reports as right extremist, and confessed clearly racist political opinions. Inquiring about their dislike for the fans of another local team, which holds a similar reputation, they explained that “there they are all Rechtsextremisten.”

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extremist “things” arouse feelings of discomfort if not angst among many Germans. This constant return of the repressed calls for institutionalized mechanisms, formulaically scripted tropes, and clichéd representations that tame these anxieties, erasing the inherent tenuousness of distinctions and restoring a semblance of stability. A plethora of social institutions— from government agencies to research centers and from expert journalists to NGOs—all participate in this working through of a national neurosis. Not surprisingly, a prominent position in this broad field is reserved precisely for repressive mechanisms: criminalization, state persecution, bans and prohibitions play a central role in managing the angst, and are likely to be hailed by actors who, in any other context, would vehemently oppose them. The labor required for taming this anxiety, for perpetually reinforcing the distinction of an other that stubbornly defies exclusion and that ultimately contaminates the inside, this labor together with the exigency of the task and the weight of the taboos in question forms the context within which the relation between the concept of Rechtsextremismus and the Ossi/Wessi divide must be understood.

Imagining Ossis If pervasive anxieties, cultural taboos, and a labor of repression form the backdrop for right extremism, the latter must also be understood against the historical horizon of 1989 and its aftermath. Since unification, it has featured as a pivotal trope in representations of the new federal states. From TV coverage of pogroms against asylum-seeker shelters in the early ‘90s to reports on economically depressed Plattenbauten12 neighborhoods terrorized by skinhead gangs, in the mass media, in parliamentary debates, or in scholarly research, “Nazis in the East” has emerged as central to imaginations of the former GDR. In journalistic articles, academic studies, or discussion panels, the phrase “rightextremism is not only an eastern phenomenon” more often than not serves as an apologetic prefix to discussions that turns out to be devoted entirely to the East. Terms like “nationally liberated zones” (National befreite Zonen), “fear zones” (Angstzonen), or “no-go areas” have appeared in innumerable forums, evoking eastern landscapes placed under the de-facto domination of neo-Nazis (see, e.g., Schröder 1997; 1998; 2001; Kleffner 2001; Kleffner 2002; Weiss 2003; Staud 2005). 12

Plattenbauten, literally plate-buildings, designates for West Germans cheap, production line, uniform construction associated in the West with underclass ghettos and in the East with vast GDR-era residential neighborhoods. East Germans generally refer to such buildings as Neubauten (lit. “new buildings”).

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Just how strong the association of the East with right extremism has been could easily be illustrated with innumerable examples. Sometimes, however, it is not the presence of significations but instead precisely their absences, the silences in narratives, that best disclose the operations behind discursive constructions. Let me therefore consider the instance of the documentary film “Dead in Lübeck” (Tot in Lübeck). The film inquires into a 1996 arson attack on an asylum seekers’ shelter in Thomas Mann’s birthplace. Ten inhabitants of the shelter were killed and many more were injured in the incident. More than the arson deed itself, the movie explores its aftermath. This emerges as drenched in denials and in uncharacteristically—if not suspiciously—incompetent investigation efforts, including an almost successful attempt to frame one of the resident refugees for the arson. The case remains unresolved. The film juxtaposes multiple voices and perspectives, portraying a collective repression, a refusal to recognize that such an event could have transpired “here,” in Lübeck; as well as a denial—as resilient as it is unfounded—that, if it did happen, the perpetrators could have come from among “us.” Nowhere in the film is it mentioned that Lübeck lies in West Germany. Nowhere do the “here” and “us” seem to index anything beyond Lübeck and its residents. This erasure operates both at the level of the discourses of interviewees and local sources, as well as at that of the narration and framing by the directors themselves. The crucial point here is that such denials and erasures would have been unimaginable—indeed impossible— had this been a representation of an analogous instance in an East German town. In such a case, denial would automatically be interpreted as premeditated cover up for, complicity with, or even sympathy to neoNazis. The very employment of shifters like “here” and “us” merely to index a particular locality would be a discursive impossibility, as speakers would be compelled to reflect on these also in terms of East and Ossis and the framing voices of authors would likewise not fail to construct the geographical location of the event and the collectivity to which it “belongs” in these terms. Representations of the East as a space of right extremism have complemented description with ontology, with theories of origins and causality. Beyond manufacturing particular imaginations, they also provided interpretative frameworks within which these could be understood. Debates about causes and factors have witnessed an especially emphatic resurgence of authoritarianism theory. Classically elaborated by Theodor W. Adorno (Adorno, Frenkel-Bruswik, et al. 1950), the theory employed a psychoanalytic approach to account for the rise of fascism as a mass phenomenon and provided a conceptual basis for the development of

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the F-scale, a quantitative instrument for measuring fascist orientations. In the immediate aftermath of WWII it met the pressing need to comprehend the vulnerability—indeed perhaps the predisposition—of German society to National Socialism. The theory relates the emergence and consolidation of fascist orientations to a particular personality type, itself the consequence of distinct family relations and early childhood experiences. Particularly, it identifies as root causes culturally pervasive family structures that cultivate subjectivities characterized by traditionalism, submission to authority, anti-democratic attitudes, and hatred of marginalized social groups. Its historical horizon therefore consists in the relation between deep-seated Kaiser-era cultural customs on the one hand and National-Socialist popularity on the other hand. In the historical context of post-1989, however, authoritarianism theory has been transposed to trace the roots of an ostensibly special Ossi vulnerability to right-extremism back to GDR traditions of discipline and order, lingering relics of a backward past (cf. Butterwegge and Meier 2002; Boyer 2006; Boyer 2006). Since the family context provides the central site for the formation of authoritarian personality types, this theory implants by genealogical implication in every Ossi an inherent, latent Nazi.13 The contemporary deployments of authoritarianism theory to account for rightextremism in the East and the analogy they construct between the GDR and the Third Reich or between Ossis and fascists imply that, by contrast, the West has already transcended its fascist-authoritarian past. Much like in representations of colonial subjects, here too asymmetrical power relations background a conception of the other as deterministically bound by a collective consciousness, its behavior and thought prescribed by injunctions of cultural customs. From this perspective, the Ossi subject, like the colonial one, has not yet attained the alleged autonomous agency of the liberal individual claimed by the West; it has not yet broken free of the authoritarian chains of tradition. Hence a violent assault in the East will inevitably emerge as representative of the East and comprehensible through the East, that is by recourse to an imagined Ossi collectivity; while an arson attack in the West, as we have seen, will neither become framed in relation to a national (German) nor to a regional (Wessi) collectivity, and its representation will instead focus on individual actors.

13

The CDU’s Jörg Schönbohm, for example, remarked in August 2005 on a multiple infanticide case in Brandenburg, tracing the mother’s actions to the GDR past, and conjecturally gesturing to an unredeemably blemished character of all Ossis.

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These discursive representations are embedded in a rich field of strategic practices in which the East and Ossis are constructed as targets for therapeutic interventions. Such interventions constitute through concrete practices a hegemonic identity (as democratic, as “western,” etc.) and its other (as authoritarian, extremist, and so on). Since its inception in 2001, the over 50 million Euro government-funded program “CIVITAS initiativ gegen Rechtsextremismus in den neuen Bundesländern” (CIVITAS – initiative against right extremism in the new federal states) has been the most prominent element in the spectrum of interventionist efforts in this field.14 The goal of CIVITAS is: to oppose an ideology of the inequality of humans, which expresses itself in right-extremism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism, with a democratic, community-oriented culture in the new federal states. (2006)

This is to be achieved through the “construction, reinforcement, networking, and further model development of civil-society structures in communities in the new federal states.”15 Complementing its work, numerous church groups, sports clubs, political parties, and foundations have also established programs and projects against right extremism. Through various performances, bureaucracies, and disciplinary mechanisms, these interventions constitute also the very dichotomy of state and civil society. The distinction in official discourses between the two resolves itself concretely in the situated practices of local organizations such as those that operate under the financial umbrella of CIVITAS. Frequently NGOs that receive a substantial portion of their funding from the program, they occupy a mediating position between the two sides of the dichotomy, in effect performing the labor of converting (state) financial resources into (civil society) cultural and social resources: training, education, consulting, networking, organizational know-how, research, policy recommendations, and cultural events. They translate budget figures into school projects, community forums, exhibitions, soccer tournaments, creative competitions, public campaigns, music festivals, or 14

Interventions in other fields, such as infrastructure, investment, privatization, or federal subsidies have concerned far higher sums of money, of course. 15 “Ziel des Programms ist es, eine demokratische, gemeinwesenorientierte Kultur in den neuen Bundesländern einer Ideologie der Ungleichwertigkeit von Menschen, die sich in Rechtsextremismus, Fremdenfeindlichkeit und Antisemitismus ausdrückt, entgegenzusetzen…. Das Programm soll dazu beitragen, zivilgesellschaftliche Strukturen im Gemeinwesen in den neuen Bundesländern aufzubauen, zu stärken, zu vernetzen und modellhaft weiter zu entwickeln.”

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trips to Auschwitz. It is precisely in their neoliberal function of mediation that such NGOs become important sites for the generation of the dichotomy in the first place. Yet, to borrow on Laclau once more, to the figure of the state these hegemonic interventions in the East oppose civil society and a tolerant democratic culture as an empty signifier, the symbolic representation of a lack (Laclau 1996). The Ossi public appears here deficient, incomplete, in need of education for democracy and tolerance and of therapeutic rehabilitation from the traumas of two pasts. Not surprisingly, in colloquial parlance such interventions are often described as arrogant Besserwessis (a pun on Besserwisser, meaning smart aleck) telling “us” what’s good. These rehabilitative interventions and the discourses that surround them not only unfold against the backdrop of the GDR era, but also gesture towards the historical horizon of the Third Reich, and more particularly to the aftermath of the war. John Borneman remarked on the projection of West Germany’s post-WWII historical narrative onto the post-unification East (Borneman 1993). The narrative form of the story of the United States as the good protagonist defeating a totalitarian regime and proceeding to reconstruct the economy, install democratic institutions, and spread liberal values has remained the same, while the cast of characters has changed. In this iconic transposition we find the Federal Republic as a strong capitalist state fixing up a post-totalitarian territory: providing aid for economic reconstruction, re-educating the masses for democratic values, establishing a cultural hegemony, introducing new consumption habits, silencing a history that must be suppressed, and purging all those it deems ex-perpetrators. Again, the image of the GDR emerges here as a term which, through its analogy with the Third Reich, enables the Federal Republic to generate a distance not so much from its 16 state-socialist rival as from its National-Socialist past. Through its interventions in the new federal states Germany constructs itself as a liberal-democratic society now mature enough to crusade for the values that it once had to be taught. The analogies through which the two historical horizons of the Third Reich and the GDR or of post-WWII West Germany and post-unification East Germany are brought together appear in multiple sites and moments. The wholesale purges that followed unification— not only in government branches but also in academia, juridical professions, media establishments, 16

As more than one scholar has noted, the GDR for its part used the FRG for precisely the same purpose, identifying fascism with capitalism and presenting socialism as the surest defense against it (see, e.g., Borneman 1993).

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and leading positions in education or health (see, e.g., Borneman 1992; Boyer 2001)—have indeed far surpassed the half-hearted de-Nazification that followed the war. The scale of the purges has stretched far beyond Stasi employees or SED loyalists, even beyond the wide populations of party members or of persons listed in Stasi files as informers, and included also their relatives and, in academic institutions, their students. GDR archival materials—especially Stasi files—have been opened to the public to an extent far exceeding the accessibility of Third Reich and Gestapo documents even to scholars and experts at the time.17 An ultimately impossible campaign to erase traces of the GDR past from public space included the demolition of buildings, the removal of monuments, and the renaming of streets, the latter particularly telling because it de-facto placed on equal ground anti-fascist resistance fighters who were sympathetic to communism and after whom many streets were named with the Nazis against whom they struggled (Verheyen 1997). The concept of Extremismus of course facilitates the discursive construction of such analogies, with its entailment of an equivalence relation between fascism and communism. Thus, for example, hegemonic state discourses often represent as comparable the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism), the socialist offspring of the GDR’s ruling SED party that enjoys wide support in the East, and the NPD (National Democratic Party of Germany), today’s most prominent far-right party in Germany. From budget worksheets to Bundestag deliberations, from policy papers to mediated representations, and from scientific communities to NGOs, the production of the Ossi proceeds at multiple institutionalized discourses and practices. But it equally proceeds in spontaneous interactions, at soccer games, at the pub, or at the workplace, through jokes and side-comments, or in the formation of networks of personal relationships. This dialectic of differentiation employs multiple other tropes besides political sympathies. Child rearing practices, linguistic forms, professional cultures, or spatial orientations are only some of the dimensions around which the production of differences has been

17

Far from being an arbitrary decision by the Federal Government imposed upon a passive population, the opening to the public of classified GDR archival materials was performed (also) in response to wide demands by many East Germans. However precisely the fact that here, in contrast to elsewhere, the voices of former GDR citizens were listened to and their demands so duly and promptly granted exposes the political will on the side of the Federal Government to conduct this chirurgical intervention.

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documented (Boyer 2000; Glaeser 2000).18 Yet, ever since unification, the figures of the right-extremist or the (neo-)Nazi have had a particularly crucial role in the dialectical constitution of otherness. As the production of difference, othering generates meaning or identity by negation, in this case by indexing what the non-marked Wessi is not. Yet the very work of othering in which, as we have seen above, such immense social resources are spent and such a wide array of forces is involved, in itself already divulges another face of the process. Namely, that beyond mere signification of identity, the othering at play entails a deep anxiety precisely about the lack of difference, about proximity and contamination, indeed about the always present possibility of being or becoming that which is signified as a radical other. In other words, the construction of the Ossi and the East that we have examined reveals not so much what the Wessi is not, but rather the nature of the anxieties about being or becoming that underpin the process in the first place. We have seen how in its very exclusion the other emerges as intrinsically constitutive of that from which it was excluded. Yet the operations entailed in productions of otherness proceed neither unambiguously nor along a single path. Understanding the construction of the Ossi/right extremist demands that we look beyond the mere relation between the excluded and the collective, that is, beyond the former as telling of and negotiating the constitutive anxieties of the latter. Instead, we must also attend to the multiple paths of exclusion and inclusion that emerge within this process, and we must ask how these are linked with different productions of others. Before proceeding to the next section of this paper, I would like to advance the current discussion one step further in this direction. If the Ossi as right extremist marks the efforts of a hegemonic German collectivity to exorcize its demons, it simultaneously also traces a path of (re)inclusion into that collectivity. 19 The blending of the GDR and the Third Reich grounds the East’s very particular history in a familiar terrain, in “our” history. The Ossi as right-extremist gestures toward a shared past, a common identity, and an essential likeness that transcends its temporary destabilization by uneven progress through 18

See also Anja Vogel’s article in this volume for an insightful analysis of this othering process in interactions between teachers and students in Berlin schools. 19 In his discussion of the exception and the example Giorgio Agamben points out that exclusion is always inclusive and inclusion always exclusive: “While the example is excluded from the set insofar as it belongs to it, the exception is included in the normal case precisely because it does not belong to it… in every logical system, just as in every social system, the relation between outside and inside, strangeness and intimacy, is this complicated” (Agamben 1998, 22).

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history. The very form of the exclusion here provides the means for reintegration through a narrative that constitutes Ossis as essentially like “us,” or more precisely like “we” once were. The debates about Ossis and Wessis, about democracy and authoritarianism, or about new and old Nazis thus draw demarcations of inclusion in the national collective. The absent third against which such debates generate a community reveals itself to be the essentially alien other of the immigrant, who must either be tolerated as different (multiculturalism) or learn to conform to a presumed dominant German culture (Leitkultur) despite his fundamental otherness (integrationism).

Right Extremism after the Wall The discussion above is meant to engage critically with the ways in which representations of right extremism in the East (or of the East as right extremist) have produced particular imaginations and have functioned in processes of identity constitution. Yet it should not be misread as contesting the emergence and perseverance of forms of racism, ultra-nationalism, and violence in the new federal states since unification. That the term right extremism today covers phenomena that were absent from its spectrum a mere decade and a half ago owes not to a simple shuffling of definitional distinctions, but rather to the emergence of new cultural and social constellations that—because of their zealous nationalistic ideologies, their rabid racism, or their affinity with Third Reich elements—have come to be classified under the term. The development of these new forms has been crucially motivated by unification and by the subsequent rise of extreme right groups in the East and of the figure of the right-extremist Ossi, whether as representation or as interpolated production of selves. It is to these processes, which present the second level at which in the aftermath of unification Ossis and Wessis have articulated with the extreme right, that I should like to turn now. Before we explore these currents in detail, however, I must briefly sketch their historical background. Official denials of the GDR at the time notwithstanding, neo-Nazi groups were active in East Germany by the early 1980’s (Wagner 2001; Bugiel 2002). Growing at the fringes of marginalized subcultural scenes of punks, hooligans, and skinheads, however, such groups were not only minor but also poorly organized, especially when compared with their western equivalents. Naturally, their capacity for staging political, cultural, or commercial activities was small, as were their possibilities for gathering means and resources. If the state denied the presence of neo-Nazis per-se,

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it did not ignore these groups, but rather classified them—as it did also the punks, hooligans, and skinheads—as Asoziale (asocials). Accordingly, it persecuted and repressed them in the same way it did all those placed into this default category for the excluded: by issuing against them prohibitions on residing in or even entering Berlin, by imprisoning them, or by including them in “freigekauft” exchanges with the FRG, a practice that consisted of the GDR handing over unwanted persons in return for muchneeded western currency (cf. Hasselbach and Bonengel 2001). Many of those who were handed to the West in these deals returned following the fall of the Berlin Wall, bringing with them the organizational skills, ideological training, and financial backing that they had meanwhile acquired. East Germany’s leadership was finally forced to acknowledge the presence of “fascist” elements in its territory following a 1987 incident in which a neo-Nazi skinhead mob assaulted a punk concert in an East Berlin church. Nevertheless, their numbers remained trifling and their presence virtually insignificant. While the GDR was neither innocent of institutionalized discrimination nor everyday racism, many immigrants report it was only following 1989 that verbal harassment and physical violence against them became a problem. An Ethiopian immigrant who arrived to the GDR as a student in 1980 and now heads a local intercultural center in East Berlin remembered: … and then came the Wende, really, that is, and then in the Wende, it was difficult for us, because these people, who never had any contact with foreigners, when they received their freedom, they openly harassed people on the street, then they really started, to harass and to assault, and naturally I was afraid then… I bought an old car, a small one, for my family, so that we won’t use public transportation. (interview by author, December 2, 2005)

Indeed, it was only with 1989 and the liberalization of movement between East and West, of political organization and mobilization, of commercial activities, and of cultural practices that far right currents became more widespread, more visible, and more aggressive, their swift rise culminating in a number of spectacular pogroms on asylum seeker shelters in the years 1991-1992.20 20 Unfortunately, I will not have the space in the current discussion to examine the complex processes that motivated this rapid growth of far right identifications in the post-unification East. One important factor seems to have been the massive efforts of various western groups that entered communities in the East—at times represented by returning “exiles”—well before the conclusion of official

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Since then, these processes have in turn impacted in several unexpected ways the political orientations and cultural identifications of extreme right groups throughout the Federal Republic. Most prominently, and in stark contrast to pre-unification times, today’s extreme right has swung decisively towards socialism, if still, of course, within an ultranationalist framework. One might say that it has shifted from NationalSocialism to National-Socialism. This change has been perhaps most hyper-visible in the rhetoric of established extreme right parties. Particularly the NPD and DVU (German People’s Union), traditionally West German and socio-economically conservative, have appropriated the “we are the people” (“Wir sind das Volk!”21) slogan of the 1989 East German Monday demonstrations,22 which they placed at the center of their relatively successful election campaigns in the East. Socialist tropes have also come to dominate the discourse of non-partisan groups, these often far more radical than parliamentary parties, which they perceive as too institutional, pro-democratic, and moderate. In internet discussion forums and on banners, stickers, flyers, or graffiti, the interests of the working class and their oppression by the rich take central stage. Popular slogans include for instance “Kapitalismus zerschlagen!” (smash capitalism); “Sozialismus ist braun” (Socialism is brown23); or “Echter Sozialismus ist national” (real socialism is national). In demonstrations, orators declare, “the struggle is not about left and right, but about top and bottom.” Extreme right political parties and non-affiliated groups alike participated enthusiastically in the broad protest movement against the looming Hartz IV social reforms in the fall of 2004.24 At times they staged their own unification, bringing with them financial resources, organizational skills, institutional structures, propaganda materials, and, not least, a wide array of commodities. For a more detailed analysis of these processes, see Stöss 2000; Peter, Fromm, et al. 2001. 21 The German term Volk carries special associations with National Socialist vocabulary, signifying at once the socialist concept of the working people or the masses and the nationalist notion of a pure ethnic nation. 22 These popular weekly demonstrations demanded political reform and liberalization and played an important role in bringing down the GDR, even if this was not their intended consequence. 23 Brown being the color associated with National-Socialism. 24 Consisting of a major reshuffle of unemployment and welfare policies aggressively promoted by then-Kanzler Gerhard Schröder, this restructuring constituted the fourth and last phase of Germany’s “Agenda 2010,”a series of labor market reforms known after Peter Hartz, who headed the commission mandated with formulating recommendations on the reforms. The approaching advent of Hartz IV witnessed massive mobilizations and regularly recurrent protests

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independent marches, but more frequently they joined ranks in mass demonstrations organized by labor unions and leftist groups, generating tremendous embarrassment and triggering panicked debates about how to keep out the unwanted guests. The socialist tide, however, has not manifested itself only amongst the politically organized or those whom they have mobilized for action. It reveals itself equally in park bench conversations between the (frequently long-term) unemployed or in lay political analysis between friends at people’s apartments. In such situations, memories of full employment and generous welfare often blend with ethnic imaginations of the nation, with admiration for NationalSocialist policies, and with racist scapegoating of immigrants. Moreover, as we shall explore in more detail below, such discourses also frequently converge with nostalgic memorializations of the GDR era, these often ventriloquized by persons too young to have experienced life in preunification East Germany. Socialism runs like a thread that weaves together the Third Reich, the GDR, and the present, where its spectral absence hovers over the state in the form of resentment and discontent. Another significant impact of unification has consisted of a makeover of the generational structure of extreme right groups in Germany. In contrast to the West, where political parties, publishing houses, or civil associations feature continuous genealogies of sympathizers stretching back to the war and often dominated by a culturally conservative older elite, in the East such foundations were all but absent, and new recruits came largely from among the younger generations. Even if today the earliest cohorts are approaching middle age, extreme right subcultural scenes and political discourses in the East have preserved the strong youth-oriented flavor with which they emerged. In the neighborhood where I worked, for example, the central campaign of local Kameradschaften (extreme right fraternities) has focused on increased state support for youths in the face of continuing budget cuts and on demands for the establishment of a “nationalist” youth club, campaigns which have included demonstrations, the distribution of flyers, or internetbased propaganda. Again, such discourses find a strong echo also among young people who refrain from involvement in organized political activities. In nearly all of the interviews I conducted, such subjects cited increased allocation of resources for young people as the most pressing change in contemporary government policy: “doing more for the youth” and “having more youth clubs” were among the most common responses to inquiries about what urgent problems they would address had they throughout Germany, many of which employed the loaded label Montagsdemos (see above) with reference to the GDR and 1989.

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found themselves in positions of political authority. Especially hard-hit by high and lingering unemployment, young persons in the biographical phases of high-school termination, professional training programs, or recent entry into the narrow labor market who face slim prospects of obtaining work demonstrate particular receptivity to this youth-oriented rhetoric and to its simultaneous condemnation of political elites on the one hand and immigrants on the other. Younger and more socialist, the extreme right in the East has also been an important impulse behind the emergence of new cultural practices and aesthetic forms, those often borrowed from the opposite political camp of the radical left. Whereas until the late 1990’s young sympathizers generally spanned the limited spectrum of hooligans and skinheads, 25 today’s constituency of extreme right parties, participants in Rudolf Heß commemoration marches, or members of local Kameradschaften exhibit a far more diverse range of cultural identifications. In their outlook, especially young activists take after the anarchist (Autonome) dress code, consisting of dark pants and jackets, caps, sunglasses, sneakers, and short haircuts. Alongside garments decorated with gothic letterhead inscriptions of “Berlin – Reichshauptstadt” (Berlin – the Reich’s capital) or of neoNazi rock bands’ insignia are also T-shirts featuring the familiar Che Guevara print, whose popular black, red, and white combination—the colors of the Third Reich—conveniently blends in with other outfits and propaganda items. Even more ubiquitous is the sporting of Palestinian headscarves, which—in much the same manner as on the left—have proliferated far beyond the context of political protest against Israeli occupation to become trendy fashion items. Designs of shirts and demonstration banners also increasingly resemble aesthetic forms previously associated with and popular on the left, most noticeably in the widespread use of comics characters, in more diverse color palettes, in the inclusion of digital media characters and symbols, and finally in the formatting of textual elements, often printed in letterheads that emulate graffiti styles. Graffiti crews generally counted among the worst enemies of the scene, the practice of spraying also deemed unworthy of true Germans, and finally popular comics viewed as imperialist cultural pollution, such forms and elements would have been unthinkable scarcely a few years ago.

25

Heß was Hitler’s deputy who parachuted into Britain in 1941 to seek an armistice deal and spent the rest of his life in prison until committing suicide in 1987, and therefore is hailed as a peace-loving martyr.

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Complementing these changes in style and fashion, language has also been affected, notably by the ever more frequent employment of English slogans and phrases, a practice that had previously been tabooed as contaminating the purity of German, and indeed which was identified with and broadly used strictly on the radical left. Nowadays, however, whether on demonstration banners, clothing items, or graffiti, English has become commonplace, in phrases such as “Fight Jews,” “Reds better run,” “Smash the reds,” “Fight terror, defend Europe!,” “C426 for reds,” or the skinhead rhyme “I’ve been pushed too far, now it’s time to fight; I will never stop, until the wrongs are made right.” Some groups have also adopted the familiar Antifa emblem of a red flag foregrounding a black flag, modifying it only inasmuch as the order of the flags has been reversed. Finally musical tastes, which play a critical role in recruitment, financing, community-building activities (such as underground concerts or private parties), and the production of identities, have likewise undergone extensive diversification (Dornbusch and Raabe 2002). Whereas HardMetal remains among the best-liked genres, skinhead Oi! music in contrast has sharply declined in popularity. And some now prefer hip-hop or visit techno clubs, two musical genres that until recently were also tabooed as non-German and perceived as leftist. The tropes that define the political agendas of extreme right groups, unlike their aesthetic dispositions and cultural practices, have seen far less innovation. With the significant exception of the oscillation towards a socialist vision of nationalism, political campaigns continue to pursue long-standing issues and to formulate familiar slogans, even if slightly modified to accommodate a changing context or to address the burning themes of the day. Immigration occupies the top of the list, with the NPD’s Gute Heimreise (a good journey home) campaign dominating the field, which articulates also with protests against unemployment and against “foreigners’ criminality.” Other related issues involve the EU expansion, or more accurately the impending entry of Turkey into the EU, against which an originally Christian Democrat-proposed petition campaign has been picked up and promoted by the NPD; as well as local actions in opposition to the construction of mosques. Straddling the discourses about immigrants and criminality, protests decry an alleged soft-handedness of the state in its policies on and penalization of drug-use and child molestation. Close behind the spectrum of immigration-related issues stands the memory of World War II, which in the last few years has focused on the 26

Poison gas.

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figure of Rudolf Heß; but also, increasingly, on the commemoration of German victims of the massive Allied carpet bombings of cities (referred to as the Bombenholocaust, or bombing Holocaust), with a special emphasis on Dresden, which was particularly hard hit; and finally too on the memorialization of German military casualties, which has concentrated on the vast army cemetery at Halbe in Brandenburg. Somewhat more sporadic, protests against the erection of memorials for the victims of the Nazi regime likewise fall under this rubric, recently targeting primarily the construction of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, but also the reconstruction of synagogues in various localities. Always linked with the memory of the war and of National Socialism as well—or with their tabooing and criminalization—are campaigns against political persecution, legal repression, and limits on the freedom of expression. Certain newer concerns have also come to the limelight, although these tend to reveal themselves upon closer inspection as recent formulations and permutations of long-standing and well-known tropes. The deployment of anti-globalization language for articulating “socialist” positions, for example, has underscored countless political actions: “Employment instead of globalization!” or “Against globalization wars!” have become popular slogans, alongside others denouncing capitalist imperialism. Anti-globalization rhetoric lends itself well to incorporation into the extreme right’s political agenda not only because of the latter’s recent socialist turn but also as an up-to-date and more widely tolerated substitute for the traditional figure of Jewish capital. As with the domestication of aesthetic orders previously associated with the radical left, here too the re-articulation of ideological stands through the language of (anti-)globalization entails a realignment of positions vis-à-vis traditional political enemies. A similar case has been that of the anti-Iraq war protests, which have likewise stood at the center of numerous political actions of extreme right groups in Germany in recent years, and which follow a well-established anti-Americanism. Indeed, leftist anti-Iraq war activists have encountered difficulties as menacing as have anti-Hartz IV protestors in keeping NPD supporters and other extreme right groups away from their demonstrations. For the time being, the classical figure of the neo-Nazi skinhead remains far from extinct, and the followers of Che Guevara or fans of hiphop music constitute subcultural minorities that, more often than not, become hyper-visible precisely against a more conventional background. Yet these emergent forms of right-extremist expression have undeniably gained acceptance in and come to be perceived as belonging to the groups that gather in political or cultural events, or at train stations and shopping

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malls entrances. Rather than describing a sweeping and radical transformation of style and cultural identifications, then, these changes gesture to important reconfigurations in relations of difference and equivalence through which collectives and their others become constituted in today’s extreme right, and which have witnessed a proliferation of meanings as they absorbed and accommodated new elements and forms. The fact remains, however, that nowadays NPD enthusiasts and Kameradschat members might look, walk, and talk like radical left antiglobalization activists, and that during demonstrations distinguishing them from the Antifa crowds that vocally—sometimes violently—protest against them may prove all but impossible.

Grandpa was SS, Dad was Stasi, I’m BFC So far, we have seen how hegemonic discourses articulate the past of the GDR with that of Third Reich, or the figure of the Ossi with that of the (neo-) Nazi; and we have also examined the transformations that were motivated by the upheaval of unification in the groups that compose the sphere of right extremism in today’s Germany. In this last section I would like to briefly explore those unexpected quotidian moments in which being Ossi converges with being Rechte, in other words, in which subjects formulate their Ossi-Sein in terms of Rechte-Sein, and vice versa. If in diverse contexts and employing varied discursive strategies state apparatuses equate the GDR with National Socialism, the Stasi with the Gestapo, or the PDS with the NPD, their hegemonic constructions are echoed as these two horizons merge into a single specter in a variety of everyday situations. Far beyond the institutional walls of government agencies, the mass media, or the academic community, outside too of the artifacts of knowledge that they produce and propagate, such images and imaginations circulate, traverse, and ultimately pervade the manners in which the production and presentation of selves unravel. For subjects that inhabit the places in which such convergences emerge, they become taken for granted, naturalized relations of indexical proximity. In third-league soccer matches, for example, black leather jackets display the GDR flag next to favorite neo-Nazi symbols: an iron cross, the digits 88, or the black sun.27 Elsewhere GDR hats can be spotted shading pendants with miniature representations of Thor’s hammer, a much beloved jewelry 27

The iron cross was the Reich’s badge of honor; the number 88 stands as an encrypted acronym for the illegal “Heil Hitler,” H being the 8th letter in the alphabet; and finally the “Black Sun” was an SS symbol.

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piece in extreme right circles. And gothic script Ostberlin (East Berlin) coats half covering banned insignia shirts are likewise observable. Or, sharing in an altogether different medium of circulation and consumption, seated under a canopy outside a train station kiosk that serves as a regular meeting place for cliques of right-extremists, two young persons sip on beers while transferring ring-tones between their cellular phones: a soundclip of a childlike female voice talking about killing all the blacks and the Jews, another of an address by the character Derek from the movie American History X dubbed into German, a techno mix with shouts of Deutschland Sieg Heil, and the melody of the national hymn of the GDR. Such momentary flashes of visual and auditory conjunctions entail and constitute relations of proximity between the two historical horizons towards which their respective elements gesture. The same merging appears in less incidental and more articulate forms in nostalgic narratives of historical memory. Here, shifters such as damals (then) or früher (before) constitute a temporal distance at the other end of which lies an amorphous past in which red and brown blend indistinguishably. “Everything was better before,” state people hardly old enough to have acquired their own childhood memories of the GDR. More often than not, inquiries into what damals or früher might more precisely signify in this context—which chronological eras span their scope—reveals a nondifferentiated and non-specifiable past. Its meaning becomes constituted strictly in terms of non-identity with a perceived present and its image emerges as saturated with nostalgia: “earlier,” “simply before,” or “the way things once were.” Questions about the sources of such memories generally elicit similarly vague replies: “everybody says so and therefore it can’t be entirely wrong,” so goes a typical response. Upon further investigation “everybody” turns out to consist of grandparents, parents, and other kin, or of older relatives of friends. They relate their recollections in intimate contexts, at the dinner table, in private conversations, while watching TV, or at family gatherings: from grandfather, tales of brotherhood, sacrifice, and honor, and from father, stories of full employment, low prices, and few immigrants. Hence perhaps the print that decorated the T-shirt of a fan of BFC Dynamo, a Berlin soccer club once strongly associated with the Stasi and nowadays infamous as a stronghold of neo-Nazi hooligans. It read, “Grandpa was with the SS, dad was with the Stasi, I’m with BFC Dynamo.” Beyond the family context, the circulation of such narratives may also be traced to a neighborhood elderly home, where some residents still remember and talk nostalgically about the war. Or to a routinely frequented train station kiosk or park corner, where older men, many of them chronically unemployed or

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“transition losers” in vernacular terminology, discuss how cheap beer used to be. GDR hats and neo-Nazi garments dot their young audience, whose employment prospects scarcely appear any better. It may therefore come as hardly surprising that many young NPD enthusiasts or Third-Reich admirers declare unhesitatingly their desire to see the Berlin Wall rebuilt. Unification, distilled in the image of the demolition of the Wall, emerges here as the temporal partition that separates a disquieting “now” from a nostalgic “then” and whose reversal holds the promise of a return.

Conclusion The attentive crowd in the room appears mostly middle-aged and older, and the rows of folding chairs look toward an elevated panel at which a number of experts and public figures are seated. They have congregated here to inform concerned locals about the alarming level of extreme right activity in their East Berlin neighborhood and to debate appropriate strategies for countering what they perceive as worrying recent trends. As the last of the speakers concludes the mediator opens the stage for questions and comments from the audience. Immediately numerous people raise their hands. The question is raised of why the state abstains from criminalizing the entire range of these groups, their political activities, their cultural practices; another person condemns the failure of schools to impart to their students an adequate understanding of history and the fundamental values of humanism; yet another would like to encourage active civil engagement and to enhance the alertness of fellow residents. The panelists respond to each, bringing forward examples and sharing their knowledge. One indicting voice remains unanswered, indeed unnoticed, left to dissipate in the ongoing stream of remarks, queries, and replies; that of an animated man who, rising to his feet, proclaims, “it came from the West, fascism, from Munich, where they started, from the USA, where they are free to do as they wish.” Out of the cacophony of voices that come to bear on Rechtsextremismus, on Ossis, Wessis, or on the unification in today’s Germany a hegemonic discourse nevertheless coheres, one that renders utterances as that quoted above illegible, if not laughable: clearly, fascism could not have come from the West; instead, it is right extremism that has come from the East. The present article has sought to illuminate these hegemonic constructions of otherness and to expose the discursive operations through which they give rise to particular imaginations of social and political landscapes, to a sequence of relations of difference and equivalence, and to a set of analogies and exclusions. But it has also aimed to bring to light the

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interpellating force that hegemonic discourses entail: to uncover how they induce certain perceptions and productions of self and how they foreclose others. These forms of being that they subtend negotiate and articulate their varied—and at times divergent—exclusions. These processes, importantly, always proceed under asymmetrical power relations. Their erasures and silences just as much as their enunciations outline the positions from which voices may speak and from which subjects may act. Put differently, they define the spectrum of possible identities. In postunification Germany, such a position has been constructed and reserved for the conjunction of the right extremist and the Ossi, and its call indeed has been answered.

Works Cited Adorno, Theodor W., Else Frenkel-Brunswik, et al. The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper & Row, 1950. Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998. Borneman, John. Belonging in the Two Berlins: Kin, State, Nation. New York: Cambridge UP, 1992. —. “Uniting the German nation: Law, Narrative, and Historicity.” American Ethnologist 20-2, 1993: 288-311. Boyer, Dominic C. “On the Sedimentation and Accreditation of Social Knowledges of Differences: Mass Media, Journalism, and the Reproduction of East/West Alterities in Unified Germany." Cultural Anthropology 15-4, 2000: 459-491. —. "Yellow sand of Berlin." Ethnography 2-3, 2001: 421-439. —. "Conspiracy, History, and Therapy at a Berlin Stammtisch." American Ethnologist 33-3, 2006: 327-329. —. "Ostalgie and the Politics of the Future in Eastern Germany." Public Culture 18-2, 2006: 361-381. Bugiel, Britta. “Rechtsextremismus Jugendlicher in der DDR und in den neuen Bundesländern von 1982-1998.” Ph.D. diss., Universität Hamburg, 2002. Butterwegge, Christoph and Lüder Meier. Rechtsextremismus. Freiburg: Herder, 2002. Civitas. Das Aktionsprogramm “Jugend für Toleranz und Demokratie gegen Rechtsextremismus, Fremdenfeindlichkeit und Antisemitismus”. Civitas. http://www.jugendstiftungcivitas.org/index.php?action=aktionsprogramm.htm&es=9_1.

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Dornbusch, Christian and Jan Raabe. RechtsRock: Bestandsaufnahme und Gegenstrategien. Hamburg: Unrast, 2002. Glaeser, Andreas. Divided in Unity: Identity, Germany, and the Berlin Police. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2000. Grumke, T. and B. Wagner. Handbuch Rechtsradikalismus: Personen, Organisationen, Netzwerke: vom Neonazismus bis in die Mitte der Gesellschaft. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2002 Hasselbach, Ingo and Winfried Bonengel. Die Abrechnung: ein Neonazi steigt aus. Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch, (2002) 2001. Kleffner, Heike. “Kampf um die ‘Befreite Zone’ am Antalya Grill.” Tageszeitung, March 13, 2002. Laclau, Ernesto. Emancipation(s). New York: Verso, 1996. Mouffe, Chantal. The Democratic Paradox. New York: Verso, 2000. Nash, June. “Nationalism and Fieldwork.” Annual Review of Anthropology. Vol. 4, 1975: 225-245. Peter, Jan, Rainer Fromm and Yury Winterberg. Nach Hitler - Radikale Rechte rüsten auf. 3 vols. VHS. TV Documentary. Germany: ARD, 2001. Pred, Allan Richard. Even in Sweden: Racisms, Racialized Spaces, and the Popular Geographical Imagination. Berkeley: U of California P, 2000. Schröder, Burkhard. Im Griff der rechten Szene: ostdeutsche Städte in Angst. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch, 1997. Schubarth, Wilfried and Richard Stöss. Rechtsextremismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland : eine Bilanz. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 2001. Staud, Toralf. “‘Auf den Rummel kannste nicht gehen.’” Die Zeit, March 10, 2005. Stöss, Richard. Rechtsextremismus im vereinten Deutschland. Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Abteilung Dialog Ostdeutschland, 2000. Verheyen, Dirk. “What's in a Name? Street Name Politics and Urban Identity in Berlin.” German Politics and Society 15-3, 1997: 44-72. Verfassungsschutz Brandenburg. “National befreite Zonen” – Kampfparole und Realität. Potsdam: Verfassungsschutz Brandenburg, 2001. Wagner, Bernd. “Entwicklungen des Rechtsextremismus in Berlin von den 80ern bis heute.” In Berliner Forum Gewaltprävention, edited by Landeskommission Berlin gegen Gewalt. Berlin: Landeskommission Berlin gegen Gewalt, 2001: 23-32. Weiss, Michael. “‘Wir sind drinnen, der Staat bleibt draussen.’” Monitor, January 2003.

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Zentrum Demokratische Kultur. Bulletin 1998-1. “National befreite Zonen” - von Strategiebegriff zu Alltagserscheinung. Berlin: ZDK, 1998.

CONTRIBUTORS

Jennifer M. Bierich-Shahbazi Jennifer M. Bierich-Shahbazi is currently completing her dissertation at UC Irvine, examining the way politics shapes the memory of East Germany in literature written by East and West German authors post1989. She has presented several conference papers and has spent extensive time studying in Germany and researching on a DAAD Fellowship in Berlin. She has taught German language and literature at UC Irvine and Riverside Community College. Philip Broadbent Philip Broadbent is an assistant professor of German at the University of Texas at Austin. He completed his degrees at The University of Oxford and University College London and later went on to teach at The University of Toronto before joining the German Department at The University of Texas-Austin in 2007. His research focus is late twentieth century German fiction with particular emphasis on Berlin novels of the post-Wende period. Marion Gerlind Marion Gerlind was active in the women's movement in Hamburg and Berlin during the 1980s and early '90s. She received her Ph.D. in German with a minor in Feminist Studies from the University of Minnesota. Her interdisciplinary dissertation Off the Record: Remapping Shoah Representations from Perspectives of Ordinary Jewish Women interprets oral histories of working-class and rural Jewish survivors from Germany and Poland. As founder and director of the Gerlind Institute for Cultural Studies in Oakland, California, she enjoys both teaching and research, especially related to Holocaust and Genocide studies, women's and minority literature, and poetry. Rolf J. Goebel Rolf J. Goebel is Professor of German at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He is a co-author of A Franz Kafka Encyclopedia (2005) and is currently editing A Companion to the Works of Walter Benjamin for Camden House. His essay “Berlin’s Architectural Citations: Reconstruction,

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Simulation, and the Problem of Historical Authenticity” won the 2004 William Riley Parker Prize for an outstanding article published in PMLA during the preceding academic year. Keith Kennetz Keith Kennetz, Ph.D. candidate in the Linguistics program at the University of Georgia, recently defended his dissertation entitled "German and German Disunity: An Investigation into the Cognitive Patterns and Perceptions of Language in Post-Unified Germany." His research interests include perceptions of regional variation, standard language ideology in Germany, and the German dialects of the United States. He currently resides in Abu Dhabi, UAE teaching English and German, and is continuing research on the role perceptions of regional language play in post-reunified Germany. Alison Lewis Alison Lewis is Associate Professor and Reader in German at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She has published extensively in the areas of Modern German Literature and German Studies, more specifically on gender studies, postwar West and East German literary studies, unification studies (Stasi) and on the history of intellectuals. She has worked on writers such as Heinrich von Kleist, Martin Walser, Monika Maron, Irmtraud Morgner, Christa Wolf, Bernhard Schlink and the Prenzlauer Berg group of poets. She has authored two monographs, Subverting Patriarchy: Feminism and Fantasy in the Works of Irmtraud Morgner (Berg 1995) and Die Kunst des Verrats: der Prenzlauer Berg und die Staatssicherheit (Königshausen & Neumann, 2003) and is currently finishing a book on the “difficult marriage” of German unification in literature. Beret Norman Assistant Professor of German at Boise State University, Beret Norman (Ph.D. University of Massachusetts at Amherst) continues to research the former German Democratic Republic, in that she focuses on contemporary writers and artists who were socialized in the GDR. Her current research is on writers Julia Franck and Antje Rávic Strubel.

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Andrew Plowman Andrew Plowman completed his PhD on German-language autobiography of the 1970s, and now teaches German language and literature at the University of Liverpool (UK). He has presented widely on his research at a number of conferences. His current research focuses on the representation of the Bundeswehr in literary and cinematic texts. Nitzan Shoshan A doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Chicago, Nitzan Shoshan is completing a dissertation that examines the relations between space and violence in the everyday life of ultra-nationalist street milieus in East Berlin. He has conducted extensive fieldwork research in Berlin and has presented his work at various conferences in the USA, in Germany, and in Mexico. Alexis Spry Alexis Spry was a German Chancellor Fellow with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 2005-2006, researching Alltagskultur in the GDR. She is currently completing her Master's Degree in Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. John Griffith Urang John Griffith Urang is a Visiting Assistant Professor of German at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 2005. His dissertation, Legal Tender: Love and Legitimacy in the East German Cultural Imagination, explores romantic tropes in GDR film and literature. His article “Realism and Romance in the East German Cinema, 1952–1962” appeared in Film History in 2006. His current research includes an investigation of domestic space in the banned DEFA films of 1965 and an article-length study of recent fictional accounts of state surveillance. Anja Vogel Anja Vogel received her Ph.D. in Anthropology at UCLA in 2007 and is currently a lecturer at California State University Long Beach at the Department of Linguistics and Anthropology. Her work has focused on language ideologies and language use in Berlin (Germany) before and after the country's unification and language socialization practices in the classroom.

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Nadine Zimmerli Nadine Zimmerli is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She completed her master's thesis on memory and the June 17, 1953 uprising in East Germany in May of 2006. Her dissertation examines the intersection of mobility and cultural innovation in the city of Dresden between 1871 and 1914.