The Paradox of Ordinary Life: East Germans between Reality and

Idealism (By Abir Bouguerra)

               

         

 

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When  in  November  1989,  says  Mary  Fulbrook  in  her  book  The  People’s  State,  the  Berlin  Wall  fell,  Westerners  were  aghast  at  the  state  of  East  Germany:  the  crumbling  housing;  the  pot-­‐holed,  cobbled  roads;  the  brown  coal  dust  and  chemical  pollution  in  the  industrial  centers  of  the  south;  the  miserable  offerings  in  the  shops;  the  relative  paucity  and  poor  quality  of  consumer  goods…1  In  short,  Eastern  Germany,  or  the  GDR,  had  neither  political  legitimacy  nor  economic  viability.  

And  yet,  once  historians,  sociologists,  and  political  scientists  started  to  write  about  East  Germany  under  communist  rule,  protesting  voices  began  to  be  raised.  People  like  Miriam  Weber,  Brigitte  Reinmann,  Manfred  Uschner,  Walter  Womacka  and  many  others,  who  might  have  received  a  violent  treatment  and  torture  at  a  time,  protested  the  idea  of  criticizing  the  communist  rule  in  East  Germany.  Faced  with  accounts  of  repression,  complicity,  and  collusion,  says  Fulbrook,  former  citizens  of  GDR  claimed  that  their  own  memories  and  experiences  told  them  otherwise.  This  paper  is  going  to  look  at  the  reasons  behind  this  behavior  by  taking  a  close  look  at  the  way  people  led  their  daily  lives  in  Communist  Germany.  

For  forty  years,  from  1949  to  1990,  the  communist  Socialist  Party  (SED)  ruled  over  a  rump  state—that  part  of  defeated  Germany  that  had  come  under  Soviet  control  at  the  end  of  the  Second  World  War2.  Within  the  time  frame  of  almost  forty  years,  the  SED  did  not  only  seek  to  exercise  and  retain  power  for  power’s  sake.  The  SED  actually  wanted  to  do  something  with  their  power:  to  transform  society  in  to  what  they  thought  would  be  a  better,  more  egalitarian,  more  just  society3.  Thus,  an  emphasis  on  the  collective  rather  than  the  individual  became  a  fundamental  element  in  the  GDR.  It  was  a  key  feature  in  all  areas  of  life,  from  collective  potty  training  in  state-­‐run  crèches  and  nurseries,  through  conformity  in  youth  organizations,  schools  and  military  service,  to  the  participation  in  the  work  brigades,  the  frequent  campaigns  and  regular  public  rallies,  and  mass  organizations  and  bloc  parties  of  adult  life4.  Even  political  participation  seemed  to  be  well  managed  by  involving  a  large  number  of  the  citizens  on  the  political  structures  and  processes.    

One  in  five  adults  became  a  member  of  the  SED.  An  astonishing  number  appear  to  have  been  willing  to  act  as  unofficial  informers  for  the  Stasi—the  East  German  secret  police  that  observed  and  reported  on  everything.  According  to  Fulbrook,  Nearly  all-­‐working  adults  were  members  of  the  trade  union  organization,  the  Freier  Deutscher  Gewerkschaftsbund  (FDGB)5.  The  vast  majority  of  young  people  were  members  of  the  state  youth  organizations  under  the  Freie  Deutsche  Jugend  (FDJ)  6.  And  by  the  1970’s,  and  “despite  continuing  grumbling  over  all  manner  of  specific  irritations  and  shortages,”7  as  Fulbrook  put  it,  there  is  much  evidence  to  suggest  that  

                                                                                                                 1  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p  1  2  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p  2  3  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p  9  4  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p  9  5  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p  4  6  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p  4  7  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p  4  

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there  was  widespread  acceptance  of  the  general  parameters  of  life,  that  this  was  simply  the  “way  things  were.”    

Thus,  within  the  GDR,  new  generations  grew  to  maturity  that  had  known  nothing  else;  those  who  remembered  an  undivided  Germany,  those  socialized  in  imperial  Germany,  the  Weimar  Republic  or  the  Third  Reich,  became  an  ever-­‐dwindling  minority  of  the  population.  Many  East  Germans  were  surprised  and  shocked  to  hear  the  revelations  of  corruption,  to  learn  the  extent  of  Stasi  infiltration.  Many  thought,  however,  that  they  were  able  to  lead  what  they  considered  to  be  “perfectly  ordinary  lives”  –or  to  use  the  German  expression,  “ein  ganz  normales  Leben”  –  in  the  GDR8.  And  this  is  where  the  concept  of  Nostalgia,  or  Ostalgie,  comes  from,  as  talking  about  East  Germans’  experiences  is  usually  related  to  “that  sentiment  flowering  only  under  the  conditions  of  upheaval  and  uncertainty  in  the  difficult  years  after  formal  political  unification.”9  

Just  by  going  through  this  short  introduction  we  can  note  that  the  Eastern  German  experience  was  not  a  simple  one;  it  wasn’t  one  that  will  either  condemn  the  communist  choice  or  victimize  the  society  for  accepting  the  communist  rule.  The  experience  of  East  Germans  was  far  more  complex:  the  distinctions  between  a  brutal  repressive  state  and  a  subordinate,  repressed,  or  complicit  society  cannot  be  drawn  so  neatly.  The  institutionalized  denial  of  human  rights  was  given  literally  concrete  embodiment  in  the  shape  of  the  wall;  yet,  even  so,  for  a  pretty  long  time—more  in  some  periods  than  others—10  the  GDR  came  to  appear  quite  “normal,”  taken  for  granted,  among  large  numbers  of  its  citizens.    

In  this  paper  I  will  be  looking  at  the  definition  of  that  “normality”  that  was  created  in  the  daily  lives  of  East  Germans.  I  will  be  addressing  the  phenomenon  of  maintaining  an  “ordinary”  life  under  the  paradox  of  ordinary  existence.  As  this  phenomenon  was  not  about  normalizing  the  daily  activities  of  life,  like  going  to  the  dentist,  having  a  family,  buying  a  car  and  renting  a  small  house  with  a  white  picket  fence.  The  normality  for  East  Germans  was  about  living  in  an  imagined  community  under  the  circumstances  of  reality.  The  normality  was  about  reimagining  that  same  community  when  things  start  to  change  and  shift  towards  the  unknown—and  Nostalgia  is  the  tool  that  helped  shape  this  concept.        

Ostalgie,  Nostalgia,  Paradox,  normal,  ordinary.  These  are  some  of  the  themes  that  will  be  defining  and  highlighting  the  East  German  experience  under  the  rule  of  communism—Precisely  the  experience  of  ordinary  people.  

Throughout  this  research,  I  will  be  shedding  the  light  on  individual  experiences;  some  experiences  that  could  be  perceived  as  unique,  yet  very  ordinary  and  common.  I  will  be  shedding  the  light  on  the  quality  of  life  that  people  had  in  Communist  Berlin  by  defining  their  daily  activities  and  finding  Nostalgia  in  their  way  of  life.      

Thus,  this  paper  is  going  to  address  the  Eastern  efforts  to  achieve  paradise  on  earth.  This  paper  is  going  to  focus  on  the  ways  in  which  the  Easterners’  experiences,                                                                                                                  8  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p  3  9  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p  3  10  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p  2    

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perceptions  and  actions  contributed  to  the  complex  social  and  political  history  of  their  country,  which  was  not  purely  made  by  the  ruling  party’s  policies  and  practices.  This  paper  is  simply  about  the  intersections  and  disjunctions  between  dictatorial  structures  and  experienced  normalities  of  everyday  life.    

     Her  experience;  their  experiences:    

Each  epoch  in  Eastern  Germany’s  communist  history  had  its  own  distinguishing  characteristics.  At  some  point  in  time,  the  notion  of  the  so-­‐called  Stasiland—that  will  be  elaborated  later  in  the  paper—was  established  and  the  concept  of  fear  was  further  embedded  in  the  daily  view  of  life  in  East  Germany.  At  this  point  in  history,  and  even  though  East  Germans  were  very  different  in  character  from  each  other,  there  was  one  common  element  that  unified  them  all:  the  experience  of  life  under  Communism.  

Thus,  introducing  one  experience,  lived  by  one  character  would  be  the  best  way  to  shed  the  light  on  the  quality  of  life  the  different  members  of  the  community  used  to  have.  For  this  reason,  introducing  Miriam  in  the  paper,  the  East  German  character  that  Anna  Funder  interviewed  in  her  book  “Stasiland,”  would  give  us  a  sense  of  what  East  Germans  had  to  deal  with  in  their  day-­‐to-­‐day  life.  Stasi  control,  cell  tortures,  sleep  deprivation,  false  accusations—these  are  some  concepts  that  people  like  Miriam  had  to  reflect  on,  only  at  the  age  of  sixteen.    

At  the  Brandenburg  Gate  Miriam  Weber  was  amazed  that  she  could  walk  right  up  to  the  wall.  She  couldn’t  believe  the  guards  let  her  get  that  close.  But  it  was  too  flat  and  too  high  to  climb.  Later  she  found  out  that  the  whole  “paraphernalia”11  only  started  the  Wall  at  the  spot.  “Even  if  I  had  been  able  to  get  up  there,  I  could  only  have  put  my  head  over  and  waved  ‘Hello’  to  the  Eastern  guards.  I  wanted  to  have  a  look  at  the  border  in  a  few  places.  I  thought:  this  cannot  be  for  real,  somewhere  or  other  you  just  must  be  able  to  get  over  that  thing.”12  

By  nightfall  the  chances  were  looking  slim.  “I  hadn’t  found  any  holes  in  it,”  Miriam  said13.  She  was  cold  and  unhappy.  She  sat  in  the  suburban  train  on  her  way  to  Alexanderplatz  station  to  catch  the  regional  line  home.  “I  thought:  if  I  am  travelling  along  here,  and  there’s  this  big  wire  fence  right  next  to  me,  then  West  Berlin  would  have  to  be  just  over  there  on  the  other  side.”14  She  got  off  the  train  crossed  the  platform  and  caught  another  train  back.  It  was  as  she  had  thought:  a  tall  wire  fence.  She  got  off  again  and  went  back,  this  time  getting  out  at  Bornholmer  Bridge  station.    

At  Bornholmer  Bridge  the  border  ran,  in  theory,  as  Funder  put  it  in  her  book,  along  the  space  between  the  tracks.  In  other  places  in  Berlin,  the  border,  and  with  it  the  wall  “cut  a  strange  wound  through  the  city.”15  The  wall  went  through  houses,                                                                                                                  11  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p19  12  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p19  13  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p19  14  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p20  15  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p20  

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along  streets,  along  waterways,  and  sliced  underground  train  lines  to  pieces.  Here,  according  to  Miriam,  instead  of  cutting  the  train  line,  the  East  Germans  built  most  of  the  Wall’s  fortifications  in  front  of  the  train  line  on  the  Eastern  side,  letting  the  Eastern  trains  run  through  to  the  furthest  wall  at  the  end  of  the  death  strip.    

“I  had  a  look  at  the  lie  of  the  land  and  decided:  not  too  bad,”  Miriam  said16,  she  could  see  the  border  installation,  the  dissonance  of  wire  and  cement,  asphalt  and  sand.  In  front  of  where  it  began,  was  a  hectare  or  so  of  fenced-­‐in  garden  plots,  each  with  its  own  little  shed.  Miriam  climbed  through  and  over  the  fences,  trying  to  get  closer  to  the  wall.  “It  was  dark  and  I  was  lucky,”  she  said17.  She  got  as  far  as  she  could  go  but  not  to  the  wall,  because  there  was  this  “great  fat  hedge”18  growing  in  front  of  it.  She  searched  through  someone’s  tool  shed  for  a  ladder,  and  found  one.  She  put  it  against  the  hedge  and  climbed  up.  “I  still  have  the  scars  on  my  hands  from  climbing  the  barbed  wire,  but  you  can’t  see  them  so  well  now,”  said  Miriam19.    

The  first  fence  was  wire  net  with  a  roll  of  barbed  wire  along  the  top.  “The  strange  thing  is,  you  know  how  the  barbed  wire  used  to  be  looped  in  a  sort  of  tube  along  the  top  of  the  fence?  My  pants  were  all  ripped  up  and  I  got  caught—stuck  on  the  roll!  I  just  hung  there!  I  cannot  believe  no  one  saw  me,”  Miriam  said.20  

She,  then,  got  on  all  fours  and  started  her  way  across  the  path,  across  the  wide  street,  and  across  the  next  strip.  The  whole  area  was  lit  as  bright  as  day.  “I  just  got  down  on  my  knees  and  went  for  it.  But  I  was  careful.  I  was  very  slow.”  Miriam  said21.  After  the  footpath,  she  crossed  the  wide  asphalt  road.  She  could  not  feel  her  body;  she  was  invisible.  As  Funder  put  it,  “she  was  nothing  but  nerve  endings  and  fear.”22  She  reached  the  end  of  the  asphalt  and  no  one  came  searching  for  her.  There  was  a  cable  suspended  about  a  metre  off  the  ground.  She  stopped.  “I  had  seen  it  from  my  ladder.  I  thought  it  might  be  some  sort  of  alarm  or  something,  so  I  went  down  flat  on  my  belly  underneath,”  Miriam  said23.  She  crawled  across  the  last  stretch  to  a  kink  in  the  wall  and  couched  and  looked  and  did  not  breathe.  “I  stayed  there.  I  was  waiting  to  see  what  would  happen.  I  just  stared,”  she  said.  She  was  wondering  the  whole  time  when  would  they  come  for  her.  Something  shifted,  right  near  her.  It  was  a  dog.  The  huge  german  shepherd  pointed  himself  in  her  direction.  That  cable  was  no  alarm:  it  had  dogs  chained  to  it.  She  could  not  move.  The  dog  did  not  move.  She  thought  the  guards’  eyes  would  follow  the  pointing  dog  to  her.  She  waited  for  him  to  bark.  If  she  moved  away,  along  the  wall,  he  would  go  for  her.    

“I  don’t  know  why  it  didn’t  attack  me.  I  don’t  know  how  dogs  see,  but  maybe  it  had  been  trained  to  attack  moving  targets,  people  running  across,  and  I’d  gone  on  all  fours.  Maybe  it  thought  I  was  another  dog,”  said  Miriam.  She  and  the  dog,  then,  held  each  other’s  gaze  for  what  seemed  a  long  time.  Then  a  train  went  by,  and,  unusually,  it  

                                                                                                               16  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p20  17  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p21  18  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p21  19  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p22  20  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p22  21  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p22  22  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p22  23  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p22  

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was  a  steam  train.  The  two  of  them  were  covered  in  a  fine  mist.24  “Perhaps  then  he  lost  my  scent,”  Miriam  said.  Eventually,  the  dog  walked  away.  Miriam  waited  another  long  time.  “I  thought  he  would  come  back  for  me,  but  he  didn’t.”25  She  climbed  the  last  barbed-­‐wire  fence  to  reach  the  top  of  the  wall  bordering  the  train  line.  She  could  see  the  West—as  Funder  put  it,  “shiny  cars  and  lit  streets  and  the  Springer  Press  building.”26  She  could  even  see  the  Western  guards  sitting  at  their  sentry  posts.  The  wall  was  broad.  She  had  about  four  meters  to  cross  on  top  of  it,  and  then  a  little  railing  to  get  under.    That  was  all  there  was.  She  couldn’t  believe  it.  She  wanted  to  run  the  last  few  steps,  before  they  caught  her.    

“The  railing  was  really  only  so  high,”  Miriam  said,  “all  I  had  to  do  was  get  under  it.  I  had  been  so  very  careful  and  so  very  slow.  Now  I  thought:  you  had  only  four  more  steps,  just  RUN  before  they  get  you.  But  here…”27  

Sirens  went  off,  wailing.  The  western  sentry  huts  shone  searchlights  to  find  her,  and  to  prevent  the  easterners  from  shooting  her.  The  eastern  guards  took  her  away  quickly.  “You  piece  of  S***t,”  a  young  one  said.  They  took  her  to  the  Berlin  Stasi  HQ.  They  bandaged  her  hands  and  legs,  and  that  was  the  first  time  she  noticed  her  blood  or  felt  any  pain.  The  blood  was  on  her  face  and  in  her  hair.    

Miriam  was  returned  to  Leipzig  in  the  back  of  a  paddy  wagon.  The  Stasi  officer  questioning  her  told  her  they  had  contacted  her  parents,  who  no  longer  wanted  anything  to  do  with  her.        

Miriam  was  then  held  in  a  cell  in  Dimitroffstrasse,  which  has  been  recreated  in  the  nearby  Stasi  Museum.  The  cell  is  two  meters  by  three,  and  at  one  end  there  is  a  tiny  window  of  dull  frosted  glass  recessed  very  high  up.  It  has  a  bench  with  a  mattress,  a  toilet  and  a  sink.  The  door  is  thick,  which  metal  bolts  across  it,  and  a  spyhole  for  the  guard  to  watch  you.28  

Miriam  was  allowed  no  telephone  calls,  no  lawyer,  no  contact  with  the  outside  world.  She  was  sixteen  and  locked  in  solitary.  “When  they  came  to  take  me  to  interrogation,  at  least  it  was  something  to  do.  But  that…that  is  when  the  whole  miserable  story  really  took  off.”29  

   

Why  East  Germany:    During  the  Korean  War  in  the  1950’s,  and  according  to  some  historians,  myths  

circulated  in  Eastern  Germany  of  obscene  torture  methods  practiced  on  American  POWs—or  Prisoners  Of  War.  After  they  were  captured,  the  men  would  be  taken  to  a  camp,  reappearing  as  little  as  a  week  later  on  a  platform,  mindlessly  mouthing  their  conversion  to  Communism  for  the  cameras.  After  the  war,  it  was  revealed  that,  contrary  to  rumors,  the  Korean  military’s  secret  was  neither  traditional  not  high-­‐                                                                                                                24  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p23  25  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p23  26  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p23  27  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p23  28  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p24  29  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p24  

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tech—it  was  sleep  deprivation.  As  Funder  put  it,  “a  hungry  man  can  still  spit  bile,  but  a  zombie  is  remarkably  liable.”30  

The  interrogation  of  Miriam  Weber,  aged  sixteen,  took  place  every  night  for  ten  nights  for  the  six  hours  between  10  PM  and  4  AM.  Lights  went  out  in  the  cell  at  8  PM,  and  she  slept  for  two  hours  before  being  taken  to  the  interrogation  room.  She  was  returned  to  her  cell  two  hours  before  the  lights  went  on  again  at  6  AM.  She  was  not  permitted  to  sleep  during  the  day.  A  guard  watched  through  the  peephole,  and  banged  on  the  door  if  she  nodded  off.31  For  the  Stasi  it  was  beyond  explanation  that  a  sixteen-­‐year-­‐old  with  no  tools,  no  training,  and  no  help,  could  crawl  across  their  “anti  fascist  protective  measure”32  on  her  hands  and  knees.  The  guards  who  interrogated  her  wanted  to  know  what  sports  clubs  she  was  in.  she  wasn’t  in  any.  But  the  main  point  of  questioning,  night  after  night,  was  to  extract  the  name  of  the  underground  escape  organization  that  had  helped  her.  They  wanted  to  names  of  members,  physical  descriptions.  “Ten  times  twenty-­‐four  hours,”  said  Miriam,  “in  which  you  hardly  sleep.  Ten  times  twenty-­‐four  hours  in  which  you  are  hardly  awake.  Ten  days  in  time  enough  to  die,  to  be  born,  to  fall  in  love  and  to  go  mad.  Ten  days  is  a  very  long  time.”33    

Miriam  then  had  to  go  through  a  thirty-­‐day  trial.  At  the  end  of  that  experience  the  judge  gave  her  one  and  a  half  years  in  Stauberg,  the  women’s  prison  at  Hoheneck.  And  at  the  end  of  the  thirty-­‐day  trial  he  said  to  her,  “Juvenile  accused  Number  725,  you  realize  that  your  activities  could  have  started  World  War  III.”34  

On  the  first  day  at  Hoheneck,  Miriam  was  required  to  undress,  leave  the  clothes  she  came  in  and  take  in  her  hands  a  blue  and  yellow  striped  uniform.  She  was  led  naked  down  a  corridor,  into  a  room  with  a  deep  tiled  tub  in  it.  Two  female  guards  were  waiting.  Miriam  said,  this  was  the  only  time  she  ever  thought  she  would  die.  The  bath  was  filled  with  cold  water.  One  guard  held  her  feet  and  the  other  her  hair.  They  pushed  her  head  under  for  a  long  time,  they  dragged  her  up  by  the  hair,  screaming  at  her.  They  held  her  down  again.  She  could  do  nothing,  and  she  could  not  breathe.35  She  thought  they  would  kill  her.  Miriam  said  the  prisoners  were  brutal  to  each  other  too.  She  said  the  criminal  prisoners  received  privileges  for  abusing  the  political.  For  eighteen  months,  she  was  addressed  by  number  and  never  by  name.36  

On  the  larger  scale  of  society,  however,  the  sixteen-­‐year-­‐old  Miriam  Weber  was  never  an  isolated  case.  And  the  treatment  that  she  received  by  the  Stasi  forces  was  never  a  unique  one.  The  highly  formalized  system  and  the  sheer  extent  of  the  regularized  network  of  unofficial  informers  for  the  East  German  State  Security  Service  had  highlighted  the  last  decades  of  the  twentieth  century  dictatorships,  according  to  Fulbrook.  By  way  of  comparison,  the  Gestapo  employed  7,000  officials  for  a  total  population  of  66,000,000  in  Nazi  Germany;  the  Stasi  employed  over  91,000full-­‐time  

                                                                                                               30  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p24  31  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p24  32  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p24  33  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p26  34  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p30  35  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p32  36  Anna  Funder,  Stasiland,  1992,  p32  

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staff  in  a  GDR  population  of  about  16,400,000  in  1989.37  Unlike  the  Gestapo,  however,  that  relied  heavily  on  the  occasional  willingness  of  many  Germans  to  inform  voluntarily  on  their  neighbors  “with  whom  they  might  have  a  personal  score  to  settle,”  as  Fulbrook  put  it,  the  Stasi  developed  a  highly  organized  system  of  enrolling  and  directing  regular  activities  of  large  numbers  of  citizens,  seeking  not  merely  to  gain  an  insight  into,  but  even  to  intervene  actively  in  the  GDR.    

What  makes  the  case  of  East  Germany  in  the  Communist  era  even  more  interesting  to  look  at  and  to  investigate  through  ordinary  peoples’  experiences  is  the  contradictory  behavior  that  the  people  have  elaborated.  Despite  going  through  these  experiences  of  torture  and  maltreatment,  such  as  Miriam’s,  this  generation  of  East  Germans—the  ones  who  have  grown  in  Communist  Germany  between  the  40’s  and  90’s—has  exhibited  a  great  deal  of  courage  and  enthusiasm  in  defending  life  in  Communist  Berlin  (especially  when  the  media  and  the  rest  of  the  world  started  criticizing/attacking  the  system).    

What  is  a  better  way,  then,  than  looking  at  the  daily  life  of  these  people  to  help  us  understand  the  secret  behind  this  paradox?    

   

Communism:  convenient  rule:    Taking  a  deep  look  at  history,  many  experts  agree  on  the  fact  that  a  real  “social  

revolution”  took  place  in  East  Germany  during  the  1940’s.  This  revolution,  however,  was  not  a  matter  of  popular  rising  from  below,  as  envisaged  in  the  Marxist  theory  of  revolutions.  Rather,  it  was  in  large  measure  an  imposition  from  above  by  a  relatively  small  communist  party,  “massively  facilitated  by  the  brute  facts  of  Soviet  military  occupation  and  by  the  total  defeat  and  utter  moral  disrepute  of  Nazi  Germany,”  as  Fulbrook  put  it.38  The  political  and  economic  elites  of  Nazi  Germany  were  rapidly  and  thoroughly  displaced;  for  over  forty  years  thereafter,  a  society  allegedly  on  the  road  of  a  “classless”  utopia  was  dominated  by  a  small  political  elite.  In  May  1945,  and  as  Jürgen  Weber,  the  author  of  Germany  1945-­‐1990  ensured,  the  “total  war”  that  Joseph  Goebbels,  Hitler’s  propaganda  minister  and  one  of  the  political  elites  who  led  the  country,  guided,  came  to  an  end  in  the  complete  defeat  of  the  Third  Reich.39  This  war,  that  had  exhorted  the  German  people  in  February  1944,  led  to  a  military,  political,  and  moral  catastrophe  that  was  unique  in  German  history.    

For  the  vast  majority  of  ordinary  Germans,  the  immediate  port-­‐war  priorities  were  sheer  survival  and  rebuilding  their  own  personal  lives  out  of  the  ruins.  Their  history  of  an  innocent  birth  entailed  tales  of  individual  heroism  and  survival.  Civilians  crawling  out  of  cellars  and  air-­‐raid  shelters  were  horrified  to  walk  through  the  ruins  of  bombed-­‐out  cities.  One  anonymous  diarist  described  her  impressions  of  conditions  in  Berlin  on  Thursday  10  May  1945:  

           

                                                                                                               37  Mike  Dennis,  The  Stasi:  Myth  and  Reality,  2003,  p4  38  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p  23  39  Jügner  Weber,  Germany  1945-­‐1990:  A  Parallel  History,  2004,  p1  

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“The  Kleistpark  is  a  desert.  Underneath  the  arcades  there  are  encampments  of  rags,  mattresses  and  ripped-­‐out  car  seats.  Everywhere  piles  of  excrement,  with  flies  buzzing  around…Everything  belongs  to  everyone.  The  widow  and  I  whispered  involuntarily  to  one  another,  our  throats  were  dry,  the  dead  city  took  away  our  breath.  The  air  in  the  park  was  full  of  dust,  all  the  trees  powered  over  white,  shot  through  with  holes  and  badly  damaged.  A  German  shadow  hurried  past,  trailing  bedding.  At  the  exit,  a  Russian  grave,  surrounded  by  wire…[I]n  between,  a  flat  granite  slab,  on  which  it  says,  painted  in  chalk,  that  heroes  rest  here,  fallen  for  the  Fatherland.”40  

      For  German  women  in  Berlin  and  elsewhere  in  what  became  the  Soviet  Zone  of  Occupation,  the  war-­‐time  experience  of  living  in  cellars  and  air-­‐raid  shelters  gave  way  to  the  daily  fear  and  the  frequent  experience  of  rape  at  the  hands  of  Russian  soldiers.41    

  For  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men,42  the  war  did  not  really  come  to  an  end  in  1945:  many  remained  interned  as  prisoners  of  war,  often  for  very  long  periods  and  under  conditions  from  which  many  never  recovered;  the  last  survivors  to  be  released  from  imprisonment  in  Soviet  camps  only  returned  to  their  home  country,  Germany,  a  full  ten  years  after  the  end  of  the  war.43  Men  returning  from  internment  were  often  barely  recognizable,  even  by  their  own  families  and  friends.  As  the  East  German  novelist  Brigitte  Reinmann,  at  the  time  child  of  twelve,  put  it  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  then  living  in  Western  Germany:  

 “You  simply  can’t  believe  how  miserable  Daddy  looked!  He  had  

disgusting  old  rags  and  a  rough  Russian  coat  on  and  a  dirty  Russian  cap…  Ass  to  this  the  skeletal  face,  the  shorn-­‐off  hair  and—the  voice!  ...  [T]he  voice  repelled  me  so  much,  that  I  simply  couldn’t  say  ‘Daddy’  to  him.  I  can  hardly  describe  to  you  how  it  was!  So  nervous,  so  ill  and—and  I  don’t  know,  just  so  terribly  strange!  …Naturally  he  is  totally  undernourished,  had  a  double  lung  inflammation,  and  barely  escaped  death…  He  is  terribly  nervous.  But  we  thank  God  that  He  sent  Daddy  back  to  us  at  home  at  all!”44        Manfred  Uschner,  later  a  functionary  in  the  office  of  Hermann  Axen,  the  

Politburo—the  principal  policymaking  committee  of  a  Communist  Party—member  responsible  for  foreign  affairs,  writes  for  example  of  the  horrifying  scene  of  the  

                                                                                                               40  Anon.,  Eine  Frau  in  Berlin,  2003,  p  180-­‐181  41  Norman  M.  Naimark,  The  Russians  in  Germany:  A  History  of  the  Soviet  Zone  of  Occupation,  1995  42  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p27    43  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p27  44  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p27  

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“flaming  inferno”45  as  his  home  town  of  Magdeburg  was  bombed  on  the  night  of  16  January  1945.  At  the  time  a  seven  year-­‐old-­‐boy,  as  he  himself  puts  it,  Uschner  was  awakened  by  his  grandparents  and  pulled,  along  with  his  then  four-­‐year-­‐old  sister,  from  the  collapsing  walls  of  their  house.  As  they  rushed  through  the  back  courtyard  to  escape,  his  grandmother  was  hit  by  a  combustible  bomb.  Manfred  Uschner  and  his  little  sister  turned  and  watched  in  horror  as  their  grandmother  burnt  to  death  before  their  eyes.  The  following  day  they  picked  their  way  through  the  still-­‐burning  streets  of  Magdeburg  over  “mountains  of  burnt  corpses”46  as  Uschner  puts  it  in  his  summary:  

 This  terrifying  experience  branded  us  forever.  I  have  never  been  

able  to  get  over  it.  And  it  was  the  key  to  the  fact  that  I  became  political,  asked  political  questions,  acted  politically.  It  moved  me  to  become  a  member  of  the  children’s  branch  of  the  FDJ  already  in  1947,  and  to  become  a  young  pioneer  in  1948.  As  a  child,  at  anti-­‐fascist  gatherings  on  the  Magdeburg  Cathedral  Square  and  in  the  ‘Crystal  Palace,’  I  called  out  with  tremulous  voice  that  adults  should  ensure  that  a  new  war  and  a  new  catastrophe  should  never  happen.”47  

 The  1940s  changes  that  the  East  German  community  was  witnessing,  by  this  

point,  had  created  a  sense  of  apathy  as  more  important  concerns  were  imposed  on  and  prioritized  by  the  people.  The  political  system  followed  by  the  state  could  be  said  to  be  one  of  the  last  issues  that  concerned  the  ordinary  citizen  in  East  Berlin,  at  this  point.    

This  could  be  seen  as  the  starting  point  for  a  long  journey—a  journey  that  will  introduce  the  East  German  citizen  to  a  society  of  Nostalgic  clashes  between  imagination  and  reality.    

   

Socialism:  Adaptation  VS  Change:    Thus,  by  this  time  each  of  Reinmann’s  and  Uschner’s  cases  and  experiences  

were  far  from  being  unique  throughout  the  40’s  and  the  beginning  of  the  50’s.  These  two  decades  were  signaled  by  instabilities  and  large  social  unrest.  As  Bill  Niven  ensured  in  his  book  “Germans  as  Victims:  Remembering  the  Past  in  contemporary  Germany,”  The  50’s  came  to  a  start  with  the  imposition  of  massive  social  changes  against  the  will  of  those  adversely  affected  by  them,  for  the  most  part  with  no  regard  for  popular  support.  The  “Building  of  Socialism,”  suddenly  announced  in  1952,  involved  the  speeding  up  of  industrialization,  with  the  concentration  of  heavy  industry  at  the  expense  of  consumer  goods,  alongside  the  enforced  merging  of  small  peasant  farms  into  larger  agricultural  collectives.48    

                                                                                                               45  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p30  46  Translated  version  of  the  book,  Mafred  Uschner,  Die  zweite  Etage,  1995,  p29  47  Translated  version  of  the  book,  Mafred  Uschner,  Die  zweite  Etage,  1995,  p29  48  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p34  

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As  Fulbrook  put  it,  associated  political  unrest,  flights  from  the  land  and  disruption  of  food  supplies  to  the  towns  were  exacerbated  by  the  physical  strengthening  of  the  inner-­‐German  border  and  the  forcible  relocation  of  those  living  within  a  five-­‐Kilometer  distance  who  were  not  considered  politically  reliable.  Growing  popular  unrest  was  demonstrated  in  part  by  increased  numbers  fleeing  the  GDR  for  the  West  in  1952-­‐1953;  and  it  exploded  into  the  more  visible  uprising  of  June  1953,  with  widespread  popular  demonstrations  ironically  hastened  by  a  sudden  reversal  of  many  of  these  policies  with  the  announcement,  under  Soviet  pressure,  of  a  “New  Course.”49  This  demonstration  was  of  widespread  unrest,  eventually  quelled  by  Soviet  tanks,  put  a  temporary  end  to  the  rapid  construction  of  Socialism  that  had  been  announced  the  previous  year,  and  it  diffused  the  political  culture  of  the  ruling  elite  with  “a  somewhat  paradoxical  combination  of  paranoia  and  paternalism,”  as  Fulbrook  puts  it,  “contributing  to  the  simultaneous  growth  of  the  repressive  forces  and  consumerist  policies,  a  pattern  that  proved  to  be  characteristic  of  the  rest  of  the  GDR’s  history.”50  

When  talking  about  concepts  of  repressive  forces  in  East  Germany  it  is  very  necessary  to  talk  about  the  means  of  coercion  and  control  in  the  society  at  this  time:  The  Stasi  and  police  forces.  Although  I  will  be  coming  back  to  this  point  in  details  later  in  the  paper,  I  think  introducing  the  concept  of  the  Stasi  force  at  this  point  is  crucial  to  getting  a  sense  of  what  it  means  to  be  an  Eastern  German  by  now.    

The  visible  organs  of  coercion  in  the  country  were  directed  inwards  and  outwards.  The  East  German  army  the  Nationale  Volksarmee  (NVA),  was  founded  in  1956  and  constituted  a  highly  important  element  in  the  Soviet  bloc  military  alliance,  the  Warsaw  Pact,  to  which  it  was  officially  subordinated51.  “Conceived  and  presented  as  the  ultimate  defensive  force,”  as  Fulbrook  puts  it,  “protecting  the  workers’  and  peasants’  state  against  all  enemies  abroad,  the  NVA  participate  din  the  prevailing  friend/foe  mentality  that  which  was  as  quick  to  perceive  enemies  within  as  enemies  without.”52    

Less  visible  but  more  insidious  and  even  more  frightening,  however,  was  the  State  Security  Service  (Staatssicherheitsdienst,  or  Stasi,  as  it  was  popularly  known).53  Here,  as  many  historians  have  proven,  reputations  and  careers  were  smashed  in  an  instant  once  Stasi  connections  were  so  much  as  reported,  let  alone  proven.  The  Stasi  was  established  by  a  law  of  8  February  1950—exactly  four  months  after  the  foundation  of  the  GDR  itself.  Until  the  uprising  of  17  June  1953,  the  Stasi  employed  around  4,000  people.  By  1955,  however,  its  size  had  more  than  doubled  to  9,000  employees.54  In  the  Richtlinie  Nr.  1/58  (Guideline  no.  1/58)  of  1958,  the  Stasi’s  central  function  was  defined  very  precisely:  “The  monastery  of  State  Security  is  entrusted  with  the  task  of  preventing  or  throttling  at  the  earliest  stages—using  whatever  means  and  methods  may  be  necessary—all  attempts  to  delay  or  to  hinder  the  victory  of  

                                                                                                               49  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p34  50  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p34  51  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p45  52  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p45  53  Frederick  Taylor,  The  berlin  wall:  A  world  Divided  1961-­‐1989,  2006  54  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p47  

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Socialism.”55  As,  mentioned  before,  however,  I  will  be  coming  back  to  this  point  later  in  the  paper  with  more  illustrations  of  the  role  the  Stasi  played  in  the  society.  

This  could  give  us  a  sense  of  the  way  life  was  shaped  for  the  ordinary  East  German  citizen  at  this  time.  The  intervention  in  peoples’  daily  life  crossed  the  boundaries  of  social,  however,  to  reach  the  shaping  of  mentality—simply  by  “molding”  the  educational  values  conveyed  to  the  people  by  a  specific  system.    

   

Education  and  life:  a  question  of  illusion:    Besides  the  introduction  of  the  New  Economic  system  and  the  emphasis  on  

science  and  technology  in  the  1960’s,  East  Germany  has  witnessed  a  number  of  reforms  and  initiatives  with  respect  to  education—we  could  even  say  culture.  Women  and  young  people  were  introduced  with  widespread  publicity  and  well-­‐controlled  debate,  signaling  some  hope  for  the  construction  of  a  more  equal  and  fair  society  for  those  who  remained  behind  the  wall.56  The  role  of  the  family  was  included  even  in  the  law  on  the  Unified  Social  Education  System  in  1965,  in  which  parents  and  the  family  were  mentioned  as  being  given  “a  new  moral  and  educational  role.”57  As  Alexander  Abusch,  Deputy  Prime  Minister  and  Chair  of  the  State  Commission  for  formation  of  a  Unified  Socialist  Education  System,  put  it  in  his  introductory  remarks  on  the  new  law:  

 “Here  [bei  uns],  the  interests  of  the  family  and  of  society  are  not  

in  contradiction  to  one  another…Our  socialist  society,  surely  like  good  family,  wants  to  bing  up  and  educate  young  people  as  well  as  possible  for  a  secure,  peaceful  and  happy  future.  The  higher  ethical-­‐moral  significance  of  the  family  as  the  smallest  cell  of  our  new  society  results  from  the  fact  that  it  has  been  liberated  from  the  destructive  influences  of  capitalism.”58  

 Education  in  this  era,  however,  was  not  merely  about  instilling  political  

conformity,  and  serving  political  ends,  but  also  about  producing  a  highly  skilled  workforce  for  a  modernizing  industrial  society.  As  Fulbrook  confirms  it  in  her  book  “People’s  state,”  ever  closer  links  were  to  be  developed  with  the  world  of  work  and  industry  through  “twinning”  agreements  between  schools  and  industrial  enterprises  (Patenschaften),  and  through  the  annual  Messe  der  Meister  von  Morgen  (“Fair  of  Tomorrow’s  Masters”),  the  first  of  which  took  place  in  Leipzig  in  1958,  and  which  continued  to  play  a  major  role  right  through  to  the  late  1980’s.59  While  this  latter  

                                                                                                               55  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p47  56  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p38  57  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p117  58  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p118  59  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p122  

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seems  to  have  encouraged  many  young  people  into  careers  as  engineers,  technical  experts,  or  “investors  in  the  widest  sense,  the  twinning  arrangements  seem  to  have  been  somewhat  more  mixed  in  their  consequences.  Children  were  taken  to  their  partner  economic  enterprises  not  merely  to  gain  exposure  to  the  atmosphere  of  adult  life  “and  to  encourage  a  sense  of  positive  identification  with  the  heroised  industrial  worker,”  as  Fulbrook  puts  it,  “but  also  to  give  real  assistance  in  reaching  production  targets.”60  Recent  research  suggests  that  while  on  the  one  hand  teachers  were  often  happy  to  gain  additional  materials  (and  even  food)  from  the  enterprises  with  which  their  classes  were  “twinned,”  reactions  among  schoolchildren  on  occasion  consisted  of  boredom,  disillusionment  and  a  degree  of  shocked  surprise  at  the  dirty  conditions  and  prevalent  drunkenness  that  were  characteristic  of  some  East  German  workplaces61.  Yet  this  act  of  exposing  children  to  some  laborers’  working  conditions  and  encouraging  them  into  certain  future  careers  was  seen  in  a  rather  more  positive  light,  according  to  many  historians.        

One  last  characteristic  that  marked  the  60’s  in  East  Germany  was  the  rising  of  the  so-­‐called  “Berlin  Wall.”  Reporting  the  incident  from  the  German  Easterners’  point  of  view  would  be  the  best  way  to  get  real  sense  of  the  experience.  As  John  Dornberg,  author  of  the  book  “The  two  Germanys”  put  it:  

 “At  1:11  A.M.  Sunday,  August  13,  1961,  East  Berliners  were  

jolted  out  of  their  sleep  by  the  clatter  of  tanks,  the  rat-­‐tat-­‐tat  of  motorcycles,  and  the  deep  rumble  of  the  truck  engines  in  the  dark  and  empty  cobblestone  streets.  Those  who  peeked  from  Behind  their  curtains  saw  convoys  of  grim-­‐faced  People’s  policemen,  or  Vopos,  and  steel-­‐helmeted  troops  of  the  National  Peoples’  Army  moving  toward  the  28-­‐mile-­‐long  frontier  that  divides  East  from  West  Berlin.”62            

The  wall  that  blocked  all  hopes:  East  Germany  questions  its  identity:    By  the  early  70’s,  hopes  for  a  better  future  were  revived  in  East  Germany  with  

international  recognition  of  the  GDR  following  Ostpolitik63  and  the  acknowledgment  of  human  rights  in  the  Helsinki  agreement  of  1975.64  This,  however,  did  not  last  for  

                                                                                                               60  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p122  61  Emmanual  Droit,  Research  paper  delivered  at  a  conference  of  the  Centre  Marc  Bloch,  March  2005    62  John  Dornberg,  The  Two  Germanys,  p19  63  Ostpolitik  (German  for  Eastern  Policy)  is  a  term  for  the  "Change  Through  Rapprochement"  policy—as  verbalized  by  Egon  Bahr  in  1963—the  efforts  of  Willy  Brandt,  Chancellor  of  the  Federal  Republic  of  Germany  (West  Germany),  to  normalize  his  country's  relations  with  Eastern  European  nations  (including  the  German  Democratic  Republic,  or  East  Germany).  [http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Ostpolitik.html]  64  Helsinki  Accords,  also  called  Helsinki  Final  Act,    (August  1,  1975),  major  diplomatic  agreement  signed  in  Helsinki,  Finland,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  first  Conference  on  Security  

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long.  The  second  major  period  of  instability  began  during  the  1970s,  and  gathered  strength  in  the  course  of  the  1980s.  From  the  mid-­‐to  later  1970’s,  there  were  rising  real  problems  facing  an  apparently  inflexible  and  ageing  leadership  in  East  Berlin.65    

       For  many,  in  one  way  or  another  like  Miriam  Weber,  the  impact  of  Stasi  surveillance  and  interference  with  their  lives  was  devastating.66  In  the  case  of  members  of  the  dissident  political  scene,  as  Fulbrook  ensures,  a  classic  Stasi  ploy  was  to  initiate  the  breakup  of  previously  harmonious  relationships  by  sowing  the  seeds  of  mutual  suspicion  and  distrust;  the  reputations  of  morally  upright  dissidents  (such  as  pastors)  might  be  destroyed  by  casting  suspicion  over  fidelity;  the  children  and  relatives  of  dissidents  might  be  subjected  to  harassment  and  personal  disadvantage.  As  Fulbrook  also  indicated,  attempts  to  come  together  and  discuss  lyric  poetry  or  other  writing  critical  to  the  state,  to  listen  or  play  whatever  was  designated  as  politically  subversive  music,  to  engage  in  organized  protests,  could  land  an  individual  in  prison  for  indefinite  periods  of  time  without  any  apparent  possibility  of  restoring  to  legal  rules  or  appeals  to  human  rights.67  

At  the  extreme,  according  to  some  historians  like  Fulbrook,  there  are  suspicions  that  the  Stasi  not  only  initiated  well-­‐attested  murders  and  attempted  murders  of  a  number  of  individuals  but  also  attempted  more  subtle  methods  of  causing  long-­‐term  ill-­‐health  and  death  from  less  easily  identifiable  causes,  such  as  cancers  caused  by  exposure  to  sustained  high  levels  of  radiation.68  The  subsequent  serious  illnesses  and  premature  deaths  of  dissidents  such  as  the  novelist  Jürgen  Fuchs,  and  the  author  of  the  critical  analysis  of  The  Alternative  in  Eastern  Europe,  Rudolf  Bahro,  have  been  linked  by  some  to  the  suspicion  of  exposure  to  extraordinarily  high  and  sustained  levels  of  X-­‐rays  while  waiting  for  interrogations,  and  being  strapped  to  unpleasant  chairs  in  small  prison  cells  in  front  of  mysterious  closed  boxes—boxes  that,  along  with  their  mysterious  apparatus,  curiously  disappeared  after  the  collapse  of  the  SED  system.69  There  have  also  been  suspicions  that  symptoms  of  metal  illness  were  actually  created  by  “medical”  treatment,  as  in  the  case  of  Pastor  Heinz  Eggert.  This  latter,  who  fell  ill  while  on  a  family  vacation  at  the  Baltic  in  the  summer  of  1983,  sought  medical  help  for  a  depressive  psychiatric  illness  and  was  treated  in  a  closed                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    and  Co-­‐operation  in  Europe  (CSCE;  now  called  the  Organization  for  Security  and  Co-­‐operation  in  Europe).  The  Helsinki  Accords  were  primarily  an  effort  to  reduce  tension  between  the  Soviet  and  Western  blocs  by  securing  their  common  acceptance  of  the  post-­‐World  War  II  status  quo  in  Europe.  The  accords  were  signed  by  all  the  countries  of  Europe  (except  Albania,  which  became  a  signatory  in  September  1991)  and  by  the  United  States  and  Canada.  [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/260615/Helsinki-­‐Accords]  65  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p37  66  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p245  67  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p245  68  This  is  abstracted  from  two  of  Fulbrook’s  books  (Anatomy  of  a  dictatorship,  The  people’s  state).  Many  other  historians  also  focused  on  this  issue,  and  for  more  detailed  information,  see  the  suggested  reading  in  Rainer  Eppelmann,  Bernd  Faulenbach  and  Ulrich  Mählert.  69  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p245  

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psychiatric  institution  by  a  doctor  who  was  also  a  Stasi  informer.70  His  later  fears  that  medications  administered  actually  produced  and  exacerbated  the  symptoms  of  illness  have,  on  further  investigation,  proved  to  be  without  adequate  foundation;  the  Stasi’s  crimes  in  this  case  consisted  rather  of  persistent  harassment  of  family  and  friends  while  Eggert  was  ill,  and  breaching  of  medical  confidentiality  to  report  on  his  illness  and  thus  to  discredit  him.71  

According  to  some  experts  in  the  matter,  like  Fulbrook,  it  appears  to  be  difficult  to  assess  the  impact  of  reporting  on  those  who  were  subject  to  routine  surveillance,  or  who  simply  knew  they  might  be  reported  on  if  they  stepped  too  far  out  of  line.  Where  no  apparent  damage  was  done  by  inoffensive  situation  reports,  and  where  the  vast  majority  of  the  population  was  aware  of  the  existence  of  the  Stasi,  it  appears  to  have  been  simply  taken  for  granted  as  a  fact  of  life,  in  light  of  which  certain  precautions  had  to  be  taken—which  for  some  individuals  undoubtedly  meant  major  restrictions  on  their  activities,  whereas  for  others  the  impact  barely  registered.72  The  codes  of  secrecy  and  manipulation  had  an  effect  on  the  character  of  inter-­‐personal  relationships,  but,  nevertheless,  trust  and  friendships  were  still  possible  for  most  people  most  of  the  time.  The  personal  consequences  of  Stasi  informing  in  these  cases  were  often  proved  infinitely  more  explosive  in  the  1990’s,  once  the  files  were  opened  and  the  identities  of  the  former  informers  were  revealed.73    

Based  on  some  historians’  research,  however,  it  was  not  only  friendships  that  might  be  broken  by  post-­‐unification  revelations  from  the  files.  A  much  deeper  concern  was  established.  Interestingly,  the  fear  also  existed  that  one’s  own  biography  might  be  presented  in  such  a  totally  alien  light  that  one’s  very  identity  was  challenged.  As  the  dissident  Lutz  Rathenow  put  it,  the  unwillingness  on  the  part  of  a  former  acquaintance,  Frank  Wolf  Matthies,  to  look  at  his  Stasi  files  was  based  on  “the  fear  that  one’s  whole  life  would  in  retrospect  appear  to  have  been  steered  from  outside.”74  This  challenged  the  very  conception  of  the  self-­‐made  life,  so  central  to  the  post-­‐Enlightenment  thinking  about  the  individual,  as  Fulbrook  ensured.    

Those  who  lived  through  this  one  era  in  East  Germany,  aside  from  witnessing  the  establishment  of  the  so-­‐called  Stasiland,  they  have  experienced  the  deep  and  sudden  focus  on  the  concept  of  “liberation”  of  women.    

By  the  1970’s,  and  according  to  Peter  Molloy,  author  of  The  Lost  World  Of  Communism,  East  Germans  had  decided  that  sex  and  the  body  were  areas  where  they  would  carve  out  a  degree  of  freedom,  especially  for  women.  By  this  time,  the  role  of  women  became  a  key  factor  in  the  sexual  culture  that  developed  in  the  country.  After  

                                                                                                               70  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p245  71  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p245  72  This  was  based  on  many  readings  of  many  authors  including  Jürgen  Weber  and  Frederick  Taylor  73  This  was  based  on  many  readings  of  many  authors  including  Jürgen  Weber  and  Frederick  Taylor  74  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p247  

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the  Second  World  War,  women  in  the  Soviet  zone  of  occupation  heavily  outnumbered  men,  due  to  the  heavy  male  casualties  sustained  during  the  conflict.  Consequently,  East  German  women  were  in  great  demand  in  the  labor  market.75  

Allied  to  this  was  a  Marxist  belief  in  the  need  for  the  “emancipation”76  of  women  in  accordance  with  collective  aims.  According  to  Molloy,  the  equal  status  of  women  was  established  in  the  1949  constitution,  which  said  that  men  and  women  had  equal  rights,  including  the  right  to  work  and  equal  pay  for  equal  work.  In  1950  the  Law  for  the  Protection  of  Mother  and  Children  and  the  Rights  of  Women  introduced  measures  of  practical  support.  The  provision  of  crèches  and  various  childcare  facilities,  improved  hospital  and  medical  care,  and  rights  to  work,  along  with  increased  financial  support,  all  underlined  state  support  for  women.77  

In  practice,  this  “emancipation”  of  women  was  only  achieved  to  a  degree.  Nevertheless,  the  fact  that  some  East  German  women  found  themselves  in  roles  of  responsibility  and  power  at  work,  and  that  some  men  could  accept  women  as  their  superiors  at  work,  and  that  some  men  did  stay  at  home  and  do  housework,  all  helped  redefine  the  relationship  between  male  and  female.78  This  highly  contributed  in  creating  the  phenomenon  of  a  sex-­‐focused-­‐community.  According  to  Molloy,  sex  advice  became  a  growth  industry  in  the  mid  1960’s  as  marriage  and  sex  counseling  centers  were  established,  and  women  became  highly  active  in  this  area.      

The  alleged  “emancipation  of  women”  in  the  GDR  was  for  all  sorts  of  reasons  at  best  uneven  and  partial,  according  to  Fulbrook.  There  were  very  radical  changes  in  the  public  roles  and  professional  aspirations  of  women,  and  only  minimal  changes  in  assumptions  about  what  was  “normal”  for  men.  This  analysis  introduced  a  pair  of  problematic  terms  under  the  light  of  which  the  roles  of  women  were  discussed:  “emancipation”  or  “double  burden”  (Doppelbelastung).  Closer  inceptions  of  people  in  the  society,  however,  suggested  that  there  was  far  more  at  stake  here  than  simply  a  pair  of  alternatives.  The  notion  of  “double  burden”  instantly  reveals  one  aspect  of  the  problem:  that  the  roles  of  only  half  the  population,  namely  females,  were  subject  to  close  scrutiny,  and  that  for  women,  traditionally  male  tasks  were  simply  added  on  to  traditionally  female  roles.79  As  Fulbrook  ensured,  male  roles  were  not  subject  to  the  same  scrutiny,  and  there  was  no  comparable  degree  of  rethinking  the  division  of  labor  in  the  domestic  sphere  (except  for  some  exceptions).    

As  time  passed  by,  according  to  many  experts  like  Fulbrook,  the  society  of  East  Germany  started  to  realize  that  what  would  constitute    “emancipation”  is  in  any  event  a  far  wider  issue  than  that  of  the  simple  notion  of  freedom  of  choice  for  individuals,  

                                                                                                               75  Peter  Molloy,  The  Lost  World  of  Communism:  An  Oral  History  of  Daily  Life  Behind  the  Iron  Curtain,  2009,  p230  76  Peter  Molloy,  The  Lost  World  of  Communism:  An  Oral  History  of  Daily  Life  Behind  the  Iron  Curtain,  2009,  p230  77  Peter  Molloy,  The  Lost  World  of  Communism:  An  Oral  History  of  Daily  Life  Behind  the  Iron  Curtain,  2009,  p231  78  Peter  Molloy,  The  Lost  World  of  Communism:  An  Oral  History  of  Daily  Life  Behind  the  Iron  Curtain,  2009,  p231  79  This  part  is  concluded  from  Fulbrook’s  chapter  about  women  (Chapter  7,  Part  1)  in  her  book,  The  Peoples’  state.  

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however  fundamental  a  human  right  this  belief  may  be  held  to  be.  As  Fulbrook,  again,  noted  in  her  book  The  People’s  State,  the  complexities  related  to  this  issue  were  rooted  partly  in  the  fact  that  individuals  live  in  social  communities  where  –as  it  is  often  formulated—“your  freedom  ends  where  my  nose  begins,”  a  point  noted  both  in  the  liberal  tradition  of  J.  S.  Mill,  in  which  freedom  should  not  extend  to  areas  where  one  person’s  actions  might  cause  harm  to  others,  and  in  the  Marxist  notion  that  true  “emancipation”  is  only  possible  in  a  fundamentally  equal  society  in  which  the  “condition  for  free  development  of  each  is  the  condition  for  free  development  of  all.”    

Thus,  sculpting  the  social  status  of  women  and  discussing  women’s  roles  generally,  was  in  fact  a  part  of  a  bigger  and  larger  set  of  issues  concerning  the  social  construction  of  gender,  more  broadly,  including  men’s  roles,  as  Fulbrook  ensured  it;  issues  of  power  and  conceptions  of  freedom;  and  the  social  shaping  of  individual  aspirations  and  choices.    

   Socialism  between  acceptance  and  resistance:  

 The  East  German  society  at  this  point  in  history  was  fundamentally  aware  of  the  

larger  picture  that  should  be  captured  and  the  bigger  issues  that  should  be  tackled,  rather  than  the  simple  task  of  providing  women  with  their  freedom  to  choose.  The  questions  that  people  ask  at  this  point  was  a  rather  fundamental  one,  and  even  a  complicated  one:  how  to  improve  the  structural  composition  of  the  regime,  and  so  the  society,  from  within?  

It  is  usually  a  false  dichotomy,  as  Fulbrook  put  it,  to  suggest  that  states  are  either  based  on  coercion,  or  on  consent,  and  that  to  point  areas  of  the  latter  is  to  deny  the  former.  Far  greater  differentiation  is  needed,  especially  if  we  are  trying  to  understand  the  peoples’—East  Germans’—paradox.  There  were  varying  mixtures  at  different  times,  and  for  different  people  in  different  areas  of  their  lives.  To  speak  of  the  ways  in  which  the  vast  majority  of  East  Germans  felt  they  could  live  what  they  saw  as  “perfect  ordinary  lives,”80  at  least  for  most  of  the  time,  is  not  to  deny  the  present  dissatisfaction  with  the  acts  of  brutality  and  the  concept  of  determination  that  resided  in  peoples’  thoughts  to  “change”  the  fundamental  structure  and  implementation  of  Communism  as  an  applied  regime  and  adopted  life  style.  

The  East  German  regime,  generally  speaking,  never  succeeded  in  quelling  dissent,  discontent,  or  dissatisfaction.  What  was  new  about  the  1980s  was  not  the  growth  of  opposition—as  many  may  argue—nor  even  the  growth  of  discontent,  but  rather  a  combination  of  other  more  fundamental  factors.  These  include,  as  many  historians  may  agree:  the  changing  organizational  forms  and  cultural  orientations  of  a  growing  minority  of  political  activists,  who  were  seeking,  not  to  overthrow  the  regime,  nor  even  to  escape  from  GDR,  but  rather  to  improve  it  from  within.  As  Fulbrook  put  it:  

 

                                                                                                               80  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p293  

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“[What  is  special  about  this  era  in  the  East  German  history  is]  the  changing  domestic  political  context  of  their  actions,  including  both  the  growth  of  structural  within  which  to  act,  and  the  changing  responses  of  the  state  to  what  they  denigrates  as  ‘hostile-­‐negative  forces  (feindlich-­‐negative  Kräfte)’  and  finally,  changing  aspects  of  the  international  contexts.”81  

   All  of  these  aspects  together  formed  the  needed  platform  for  East  Germans  to  

stand  up  and  raise  fundamental  question  to  change  the  structure  of  their  society.  The  path  of  change  was  first  signaled  by  the  meeting  that  Honecker,  on  6  March  1978,  with  church  leaders,  at  least  as  far  as  the  structural  context  of  political  action  was  concerned.82  In  the  years  that  followed,  the  state  consciously  used  the  Church  leadership  as  an  indirect  means  of  seeking  to  control  dissident  activities.  At  the  same  time,  and  as  Fulbrook  ensured  it  in  her  book  Anatomy  of  a  Dictatorship,  dissidents  themselves  used  the  free  spaces  provided  by  the  church  for  more  open  discussion,  and  for  experimentation  with  new  forms  of  debate  and  organization.    

By  this  time,  the  generation  of  20  to  40-­‐year-­‐olds—metaphorically,  the  children  of  Ulbricht,  not  Hitler—were  at  the  forefront  of  the  new  political  initiatives,  which  became  increasingly  prominent  from  the  late  1970s.  Specific  policy  issues—peace,  the  environment,  and  human  rights—engaged  the  attention  of  a  growing  minority  of  young  adults,  according  to  Fulbrook.  A  new  generation  was  coming  to  maturity,  young  adults  who  had  been  born  and  raised  in  the  GDR,  and  who  increasingly  questioned  NOT  the  right  to  existence  of  a  separate  East  German  state,  “but  rather  the  quality  of  life  in  a  continuing  GDR,”  as  Fulbrook  put  it.83    

Among  those,  a  significant  minority  had  refused  to  conform,  even  while  at  school:  they  had  resisted  pressures  to  undergo  the  Jugendweihe  (a  religious  youth  ceremony),  or  to  participate  in  the  Free  German  Youth;  they  have  sought  alternative  service  as  Bausoldaten  (soldiers  in  construction  units),  or  refused  conscription  altogether;  they  had  uttered  remarks  critical  of  the  regime,  or  shown  too  much  interest  in  the  Western  media  or  Eastern  European  reform  movements.84  Since  the  penalty  for  non-­‐conformity  was  often  non-­‐admittance  to  institutions  of  higher  education  and  the  restriction  of  career  opportunities,  many  such  young  adults  had  found  that  the  only  educational  paths  they  had  open  to  them  were  within  the  Church.85    

Thus,  the  regime  itself  was  producing  a  distinctive  generational  cluster  of  nonconformities  who,  as  Fulbrook  put  it,  “for  structural  reasons,  very  often  came  

                                                                                                               81  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p201  82  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p201  83  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p203  84  This  information  was  based  on  the  analysis  provided  by  Fulbrook  in  her  book  “Anatomy  of  a  Dictatorship”  85  This  information  was  based  on  the  analysis  provided  by  Fulbrook  in  her  book  “Anatomy  of  a  Dictatorship”  

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together  on  common  ground,  in  a  common  cultural  space,  in  the  penumbra  of  East  German  Protestantism.”86  

Given  the  political  circumstances,  it  was  virtually  impossible  to  separate  critiques  of  specific  policies  from  a  critique  of  the  whole  nature  of  social  life  and  the  pressures  for  conformity  operative  in  the  East  German  dictatorship.  As  an  open  letter  of  students  at  the  Katechetischen  Oberseminar  Naumburg  of  January  1981  put  it:  

 “In  our  society,  images  of  the  enemy  are  constantly  being  created  in  

order  to  arouse  hatred  and  readiness  to  engage  in  violence.  This  hinders  a  positive  attitude  towards  peace.  Thoughtlessly  going  along  with  all  this  for  reasons  of  fear  or  for  personal  advantages  furthers  this  trend  and  makes  us  accomplices.  Therefor  we  support  all  attempts  to  point  out  that,  through  such  behaviors…[we]…withdraw  from  their  responsibility  for  society.”87  

              It  was  above  all  a  deep  sense  of  moral  and  social  responsibility,  and  the  courage  to  speak  out  and  to  seek  realistic  changes  and  improvements,  which  characterized  the  emerging  generation  of  1980’s  East  Germany.  

The  mid  1980s—perhaps  from  1984  to  1987—form  a  transitional  period.  The  state  appeared  to  have  achieved  much  of  what  it  was  aiming  for:  the  demoralization  of  the  peace  movement,  the  exile  of  many  dissidents,  the  co-­‐option  of  a  compliant  Church  leadership  prepared  to  adopt  a  conciliatory  role.  But,  at  the  same  time,  new  unplanned  for  currents  started  to  emerge:  the  rise  to  power  of  Mikhail  Gorbachev  in  the  USSR  gave  new  heart  to  those  yearning  for  reform  in  Honecker’s  GDR,  and  dissident  spirits  began  to  bridle  against  the  conservatism  and  caution  of  some  of  the  country’s  leadership.88  Grass-­‐roots  groups  for  reform  began  to  proliferate,  to  create  organizational  networks  and  new  forms  of  publicity,  in  what  can  be  viewed  as  an  emerging,  although  limited,  “civil  society.”89  

One  detail  highlighted  by  historians  at  this  time  was  the  establishment  of  the  concept  of  “controlled  ventilation  of  dissent,”90  under  which  protests  and  relatively  open  discussions  could  take  place  within  the  context  of  religious  meetings  on  Church  premises.  The  state,  however,  had  impressed  on  Church  leaders  the  importance  of  restricting  the  influence  of  these  gatherings  and  ensuring  that  they  did  not  breach  certain  clearly  defined  rules.    

It  is  important  now  to  distinguish  between  a  number  of  different  aspects  of  what  just  been  referred  to  as  “the  state.”  As  far  as  appearances  were  concerned  there  were  three  different  instances  of  authority,  intervention,  and  control:  first,  the  state  

                                                                                                               86  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p203  87  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p205  88  This  information  was  based  on  the  analysis  provided  by  Fulbrook  in  her  book  “Anatomy  of  a  Dictatorship”  89  This  information  was  based  on  the  analysis  provided  by  Fulbrook  in  her  book  “Anatomy  of  a  Dictatorship”  90  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p206  

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functionaries  proper—those  holding  governmental  offices  at  the  national,  regional,  or  local  levels;  secondly,  the  closely  related  SED  hierarchy;  and  thirdly,  the—less  visible—of  the  Stasi—that  we  have  thoroughly  talked  about  earlier  in  the  paper.91    As  Fulbrook  put  it,  “there  was  a  circuitous  route  of  observation,  intimation,  and  ultimately  veiled  intimidation,  culminating  finally  in  meeting  of  Church  leaders  with  dissidents  to  seek  to  deflect  their  original  intentions  or  to  exert  some  control  over  the  events  which  did  take  place.”92  

These  early  years  of  the  1980s  also  saw  the  beginning  of  the  politicization  of  the  peace  movement,  with  individuals  beginning  to  link  whole  society  problems  with  the  question  of  peace.  And  from  1980  onwards,  peace  weeks  (Friedensdekaden)  became  a  regular  annual  event.  These  were  usually  regional  gatherings,  with  programs  of  activities  lasting  for  ten  days,  with  a  predominantly  religious  flavor  but  clear  political  overtones  and  implications.  They  served  to  provide  continuities  within  the  unofficial  peace  movement,  and  to  facilitate  networks  and  contacts  among  activists  in  different  areas  of  the  GDR.  As  Fulbrook  put  it,  these  celebrations  “performed  a  very  important  organizational  function,  which  was  to  distinguish  the  political  activism  of  the  1980s  from  the  disparate  discontents  of  previous  decades.”93  

There  were  also  some  individualistic  initiatives  that  characterized  the  course  of  social  and  political  activism  at  this  time.  Individual  events  included  planned  demonstrations  on  specific  occasions.  Some  were  suppressed  before  they  could  begin:  in  March  1982,  for  example,  the  Junge  Gemeinde  in  Jena  planned  activities  to  commemorate  the  anniversary  of  the  bombardment  of  Jena.  Appropriate  state  pressures  were  put  on  Bishop  Leich,  who  was  persuaded  to  forbid  the  planned  commemorative  service.94  A  more  successful  unofficial  demonstration  did,  however,  take  place  the  following  year  on  the  occasion  of  the  38th  anniversary  of  the  bombardment  of  Jena  on  18  March  1983.    

Similarly,  demonstrations  were  planned  for  the  anniversary  of  the  Hiroshima  bombing  on  6-­‐7  August  1983.  Actions  were  planned  for  Jena,  Berlin,  Halle,  Schwerin,  Neubrandenburg,  Karl-­‐Marx-­‐Stadt,  and  elsewhere.  The  final  comment  which  follows  the  Stasi’s  analysis  of  the  plans  is  very  revealing  of  the  modus  operandi,  and  demonstrates  yet  again  the  role  of  the  Stasi  as  the  center  of  the  state  at  this  particular  time  in  East  Germany’s  history:  “Measures  were  introduced  in  all  affected  districts  and  areas  to  investigate  these  plans  further  and,  in  conjunction  with  the  relevant  state  organs  and  social  forces,  either  to  prevent  the  planned  activities,  or  to  exert  influence  in  such  a  manner  as  to  ensure  that  the  course  of  events  unfolded  without  any  disturbance,  or  to  reduce  them  to  purely  religious  activities.”95  

Throughout  this  time,  the  political  activism  had  been  a  force  for  destabilization  and  change  within  the  GDR,  and  especially  in  the  last  couple  of  years  (between  1987  and  1989).  A  convenient  starting  date  for  this  last  period  of  destabilization  is  

                                                                                                               91  This  information  was  based  on  the  analysis  provided  by  Fulbrook  in  her  book  “Anatomy  of  a  Dictatorship”  92  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p207  93  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p212  94  This  was  ensured  by  the  analysis  of  many  historians.  95  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p214  

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provided  by  a  particular  incident,  which  nicely  illustrates  the  change  in  climate  after  the  moment  of  hope  in  1987.96  On  24  November  1987,  a  raid  by  the  Stasi  was  carried  out  on  the  Umweltbibliothek97  (UB).  This  was  to  be  what  is  conventionally  called  a  “set-­‐up:”  the  Stasi  had  arranged,  through  an  IM,  that  a  copy  of  Grenzfall98,  the  publication  of  the  non-­‐church  based  IFM99,  would  be  printed  that  night,  illegally,  on  the  church-­‐owned  printer  of  the  UB.  Then,  when  the  premises  of  the  UB  were  raided,  this  illegal  material  would  be  found  and  appropriate  charges  brought.  The  raid,  as  Fulbrook,  ascertained  it,  went  ahead  as  planned:  unfortunately  for  the  state,  however,  the  Trabi  which  was  to  bring  the  incriminating  material  to  the  UB  premises—owned  by  the  Stasi  informer,  but  clearly  more  sympathetic  to  the  dissidents’  cause—broke  down  on  the  way  and  failed  to  deliver  the  material  in  time.100  The  UB  and  the  IFM  publicized  the  raid,  which  proved  to  be  more  embarrassing  than  helpful  to  the  SED  and  the  Stasi.101    

The  consequences  were  to  shift  the  relations  between  state  and  activists  into  a  new  gear.  Activists  mounted  public  demonstrations  of  support  for  those  who  have  been  arrested,  including  Mahnwachen  (vigils  of  warning).  The  immediate  effect  was  the  return  of  church  property  and  the  release  of  those  who  had  been  arrested.102    

In  a  climate  of  increasing  tension,  some  individuals  involved  in  the,  by  now  incipient  citizens’  movement  (Bürgerbewegung)  determined  to  make  use  of  the  annual  Luxemburg-­‐Liebknecht  parade  in  January  1988  to  demonstrate  their  concern  and  for  greater  freedom  in  the  GDR.  The  problem  of  demonstrating  for  change  within  the  GDR  was,  however,  increasingly  complicated  by  the  associated  movement  of  those  seeking  a  fast  exit  to  the  West,  who  were  to  some  extent  hijacking  dissident  activities  for  their  own  ends.  The  former,  according  to  Fulbrook,  sought,  through  subtle  tactics  of  pressure  and  demonstration,  to  effect  change  within  the  GDR,  while  the  latter  had  a  vested  interest  in  more  dramatic  gestures  designed  to  have  themselves  arrested  and  exiled—the  most  rapid  means  of  successfully  leaving  to  the  West.    

In  the  event  in  January  1988  a  somewhat  uncomfortable  quotation  from  Rosa  Luxemburg—“Freedom  is  always  the  freedom  to  think  differently  (Freiheit  ist  immer  

                                                                                                               96  This  moment  of  hope  was  signaled  by  the  limited  space  of  freedom  that  was  given  to  some  people.  The  political  activists  had  been  a  force  for  destabilization  and  change  within  the  GDR;  in  the  closing  two  years,  their  voices  were  heard  more  forcibly.  Many  other  people  were  easily  getting  visas  to  leave  to  the  West,  and  the  whole  situation  was  simply  getting  more  open  and  confrontational.        97  Umweltbibliothek  (UB,  or  Environmental  Library),  founded  in  the  summer  of  1986  in  the  East  Berlin  Zionsgemeinde  98  Previous  quasi-­‐political  publication,  such  as  the  ten  page  “information  paper”  Schalom,  been  produced  under  the  auspices  of  the  of  the  church  and  stamped  with  the  censorship-­‐evading  mark,  “only  for  inner-­‐church-­‐use.”    99  Initiative  Frieden  und  Menschenrechte  (IFM|),  formally  founded  in  January  1986.  The  IFM  conceived  itself  as  the  first  truly  independent  political  group,  outside  the  church.  It  was  also  perceived  as  the  first  group  to  openly  articulate  its  role  as  a  political  opposition.    100  Jones,  East  German  Environmental  Movement,  p252-­‐254  101  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p236  102  This  was  abstracted  from  many  historians’  analyses  of  the  situation  in  East  Germany  at  this  time.  

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die  Freiheit  der  Andersdenkenden)”—  103which  was  excluded  form  the  official  SED  canon  of  the  communist  heritage  was  nevertheless  displayed  on  a  dissident  banner.  Despite  the  state’s  extensive  preparations,  to  ensure  that  the  demonstration  was  not  subject  to  any  unwanted  political  disturbance,  the  dreaded  Öffentlichkeitswirksamkeit104    (public  impact)  of  dissident  activities  was  achieved.  But  the  repressive  response  was  massive.  Large  numbers  of  people  were  arrested;  many  were  held  without  charges  being  brought  for  considerable  periods  of  time,  and  the  most  prominent  dissidents  were  sent  into  exile,  willingly  or  unwillingly.105    

As  Fulbrook  put  it,  “this  was  the  beginning  of  the  end.”106  Ever  larger  numbers  of  people  became  involved  in  organized,  non-­‐violent  demonstrations  of  sympathy  and  solidarity  with  the  dissidents  who  had  been  treated  so  hardly  on  this  occasion.  So  many  different  methods  of  demonstrating  opposition  to  the  state  took  place:  concerts,  long  nights  in  churches,  “candlelit”  meetings…  In  Leipzig,  for  example,  Monday  prayer  services  became  an  important  regular  event—long  before  they  were  to  become  the  highly  public  starting  point  for  street  demonstrations  in  the  autumn  of  1989.107  There  was  a  growing  feeling  all  over  the  GDR  that,  somehow,  there  would  have  to  be  changes;  and  that  people  were  ready  to  organize,  fight,  discuss,  and  even  pressurize  for  change.      

At  this  point,  in  late  summer  of  1989,  and  as  we  have  clarified,  there  have  occurred  many  different  forms  of  popular  response  to  the  regime.  

 “There  was  the  very  small  minority  of  activists,  engaged  in  their  

discussion  groups  and  mini-­‐campaigns  for  changes  on  particular  issues;  the  retreatists  who  were  prepared  to  take  the  risks  entailed  in  applying  for  exit  visas  or  seeking  some  means  of  more  rapid  escape,  including,  of  course,  those  seeking  to  leave  for  the  West  in  increasing  numbers  as  the  borders  became  more  permeable;  and  the  very  much  larger  numbers  of  essentially  passive  subjects,  who  made  do  with  a  grumbling  quiescence  and  constrained  conformity.”108    

      The  commotion  of  change,  however,  was  glanced  in  late  September  1989.  The  voice  of  dissident  groups  began  to  raise  the  bread  of  the  largely  subordinate  masses,  slowly  at  first  but  with  a  rising  strength  over  the  following  weeks.    Unspoken  taboos,  internalized  self-­‐censorship,  inner-­‐fears  and  constrains  were  over  come  in  a  process  of  learning,  as  the  Germans  put  it,  an  aufrechten  Gang—learning  to  walk  upright,  one’s  head  held  high.  A  new  element  entered  East  German  politics  and  the  societal  mind-­‐

                                                                                                               103  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p238  104  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p238  105  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p238  106  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p239  107  This  information  was  ensured  by  the  analyses  of  many  historians  including  Jürgen  Weber  and  Frederick  Taylor.  108  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p246  

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set:  increasing  numbers  of  Germans  began  to  change  from  being  passive  subjects  to  active  citizens.      

Even  those  who  had  served,  through  their  positions,  to  sustain  the  regime  in  an  official  capacity  began  publically  to  articulate  the  need  for  more  open  debate.  The  Evangelical  Synod  meeting  in  Eisenach  emphasized,  in  its  closing  declaration  of  19  September,  the  urgency  of  dialogues:  “In  order  not  obstruct  the  way  into  a  just,  democratic,  internally  and  externally  peaceful  and  ecologically  sustainable  society,  an  open  dialogue  involving  the  whole  of  society  has  now  become  urgent.  This  entails  also  an  opening  up  of  currently  existing  political  structures.”109  

On  the  occasion  of  the  peace  prayers  on  25  September,  a  new  phenomenon  developed.  As  on  many  previous  occasions,  those  who  wanted  a  rapid  exit  from  the  GDR  started  to  demonstrate,  chanting  “we  want  out!”  (Wir  wollen  raus!).110  But,  on  this  occasion,  a  new  chant  was  raised  against  the  voices  of  those  seeking  to  leave,  by  those  proclaiming,  “We  are  staying  here!”  (Wir  bleiben  hier!).111  Those  who  were  choosing  to  stay,  however,  according  to  historians,  were  at  the  same  emphasizing  the  need  for  the  party  to  listen  to  the  people,  not  to  suppress  them  and  expect  unquestioning  obedience  to  the  “diktat”  of  the  party.  

     

The  paradox  of  ordinary  life:  Nostalgia  VS  Ostalgia:    Coming  to  this  point,  and  reflecting  on  the  different  developments  that  East  

Germans  have  been  through,  it  became  clear  to  most  historians  that  the  roles  of  different  elements  and  historical  actors  at  different  phases  of  the  GDR’s  collapse  have  contributed  to  the  complexity  of  the  debate  over  whether  or  not  the  GDR,  as  Fulbrook  put  it,  “has  experienced  a  revolution  from  below,  an  implosion  from  above,  or  a  collapse  from  without.”112  More  importantly,  coming  to  this  point  has  framed  the  question  of  “Nostalgia”  that  I  have  highlighted  at  the  beginning  of  this  paper  and  made  it  more  specific:  What  kind  of  Nostalgia  are  we  talking  about?  And  who’s  Nostalgia  is  it?    

The  easy  way  to  go  for  answering  these  questions  would  be  by  picturing  the  big  idea  of  the  East  German  society  at  this  era:  the  people  played  a  very  active  and  important  role  in  shaping  their  own  lives  and  manufacturing  their  own  futures  in  the  circumstances  in  which  they  found  themselves.  And  to  quote  Karl  Marx:  people  made  their  own  history,  but  they  made  it  not  in  conditions  of  their  own  choosing.    

This  big  idea,  however,  has  many  layers  into  it.      At  one  end  of  the  spectrum  there  were  those  who  never  came  to  terms  with  the  

regime,  and  lived  their  lives  in  conscious  retreat  and  withdrawal  into  alternative  lifestyles,  or  who  actively  tried  to  appose  or  alter  the  structures  of  power.  At  the                                                                                                                  109  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p249  110  This  information  was  ensured  by  the  analyses  of  many  historians  including  Jürgen  Weber  and  Frederick  Taylor  111  This  information  was  ensured  by  the  analyses  of  many  historians  including  Jürgen  Weber  and  Frederick  Taylor  112  Mary  Fulbrook,  Anatomy  of  Dictatorship:  Inside  the  GDR  1949-­‐1989,  1995,  p239  

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other,  however,  there  were  those  who  came  to  collude  in  “acts  that  by  virtually  any  standards  have  to  be  seen  as  inherently  immoral,  manipulative,  deceitful,  and  utterly  antipathetic”  as  Fulbrook  put  it113,  to  any  notion  of  human  rights.  The  vast,  and  most  important  majority  of  the  people,  however,  fit  neither  of  these  two  extreme  categories.    

Miriam  Weber,  as  a  leading  example  in  this  paper  for  the  East  German  persona  under  Communism,  not  necessarily  as  a  young  girl  but  in  the  proceeding  years  of  her  life,  could  be  the  best  illustrator  for  this  direction.  She  was  one  of  many  East  Germans  who  devised  strategies  for  seeking  to  improve  their  own  personal  situations,  and  for  navigating  the  rules,  procedures  and  constrains  of  their  circumstances.  People  like  Miriam,  were  not  afraid  to  speak  up  and  speak  out;  most  learnt  the  unwritten  rules  of  what  to  say  where  and  in  what  form;  many  internalized  the  norms  and  discourse  or  at  least  spoke  and  acted  as  if  they  had.  These  people  were  simply  inheriting  what  I  would  call  the  silent  concept  of  active  resistance,  where  they  focus  on  creating  their  own  personal  favorable  circumstances  of  living  without  loudly  opposing  to  the  rules.  

People,  at  this  point  however,  as  we  have  previously  seen  (especially  in  the  last  couple  of  decades  of  the  20th  century)  were  prepared  to  argue  at  public  meetings  and  “discussions;”  to  refuse  their  signatures  on  declaration  of  support  for  one  development  or  another  or  action  of  the  regime.    

Such  “pressures  from  below”  as  Fulbrook  called  them,  were  both  supported  and  carried  upwards  by  functionaries  of  the  regime,  who  also  played  at  times  a  genuinely  representative  role.  Thus,  the  structure  of  the  “top-­‐down”  accounts  had  a  great  contribution  in  reinserting  “ordinary  people”  as  active  participants  in  making  themselves  and  creating  their  own  history.  

What  spread  the  first  seeds  of  growing  the  “nostalgia”  phenomenon,  however,  was  the  concept  of  “normality”  created  under  the  circumstances  that  the  people  had  to  live  through.  And  this  is  where  the  main  paradox  of  nostalgia  was  established.  

“The  normality,”  or  relatively  wide  spectrum  of  consensus,  that  we  are  talking  about  here  was,  of  course,  we  should  keep  in  mind,  played  out  within  a  context  that  was  anything  but  “normal:”  behind  the  watchtowers  of  and  death  strip  of  the  wall,  and  under  the  hidden  surveillance  and  malign,  manipulative  intervention  of  the  Stasi—that  let  to  the  point  of  questioning  one’s  own  identity.  It  was  only  when  citizens  hit  up  against  these  literal  and  metaphorical  margins  that  the  boundaries  of  “normality”  became  painfully  evident,  as  I  have  previously  outlined  in  the  paper.  For  those  active  opponents  of  repression  who  fought  and  suffered,  and  for  those  who  lived  in  fear  or  whose  lives  were  deformed  by  the  constrains  of  the  system,  the  repressive  aspects  of  the  regime  were  terrifyingly  obvious;  but  it  is  important  also  to  notice  just  how  many  people  never  had  the  chance  to  hit  against  these  boundaries,  and  genuinely  felt  that  they  were  able  to  live  and  lead  “perfectly  ordinary  lives.”  These  people  constituted  the  majority.  These  people  were  the  ones  who  witnessed  the  experience  of  Nostalgia,  when  the  pressure  of  creating  a  “normal”  life  for  one’s  self  under  the  extreme  abnormal  circumstances  has  disappeared.  These  people  are  the  ones  who  suffered  from  the  psychological  “paradox  of  ordinary  life.”                                                                                                                  113  Mary  Fulbrook,  The  People’s  state:  East  German  Society  from  Hitler  to  Honecker,  1990,  p296  

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The  outlines  of  this  phenomenon  were  quite  obvious,  if  we  try  to  take  a  closer  look  at  the  society,  especially  after  the  demolition  of  the  wall—precisely  during  the  90’s.    

As  some  historians,  like  Jonathan  Bach,  have  noted,  ten  years  after  German  reunification,  a  relic  from  the  past  appeared  in  an  industrial  corner  of  what  was  once  East  Berlin:  an  original  “Intershop.”  Part  of  a  chain  of  state  retail  establishments  set  up  by  the  GDR  for  hard  currency  sales,  the  Intershop  had  formerly  served  as  a  type  of  duty-­‐free  store  for  Western  time  travelers  on  their  rare  visits  to  the  world  of  the  East.  In  socialist  days,  these  stores  stocked  scarce  consumer  and  luxury  items  such  as  chocolate,  electronics,  and  perfume.  According  to  Bach  these  shops  were  a  constant  reminder  of  not  only  the  material  failings  of  the  GDR  economy,  but  also  the  incongruity  of  the  socialist  ideal  with  the  state’s  own  hard  currency–seeking  activities.    

Today’s  Intershop,  however,  is  a  distorted  commentary  on  the  events  of  the  last  ten  years:  old  GDR  products  are  offered  that,  in  some  cases,  are  now  almost  equally  as  scarce  as  the  Western  goods  once  were.  The  rebirth  of  the  Intershop  can  be  traced  to  a  1999  exhibition,  conceived  by  two  western  Germans,  on  everyday  life  in  the  socialist  East.  The  decision  to  house  the  exhibit  in  an  old  Intershop  worked  in  accordance  with  the  show’s  emphasis  on  design,  as  the  structure  was  essentially  a  kind  of  transportable  barracks,  easily  assembled  or  stored  and  easily  recognizable  to  Easterners  and  Westerners  alike.114  

Many  experts  believe  that  the  new  Intershop  arrived  on  a  wave  of  Ostalgia,  by  now  a  household  word  for  the  perceived  nostalgia  for  the  East  (Ost)  that  presents  itself  in  the  form  of  theme  parties,  newly  revived  products,  and  a  general  flowering  of  eastern  “things.”  If,  shortly  after  unification,  East  Germans  famously  abhorred  anything  made  in  the  East  (even  milk  and  eggs)  in  favor  of  items  from  the  West,  ten  years  later  the  situation  is  substantially  reversed.  Ostprodukte  (East  products)—everyday  items  from  the  GDR  that  are  still  or  once  again  available—have  been  making  a  comeback.  These  goods  consist  especially  of  foodstuffs  (e.g.,  chocolate,  beer,  mustard)  and  household  products  such  as  the  beloved  dishwashing  detergent  “Spee.”  Some  of  these  items  are  available  in  GDR  specialty  shops,  others  in  ordinary  grocery  stores  displaying  the  sign  “we  sell  East  products,”  and  most  can  be  found  on  the  Internet.  

F6,  a  former  East  German  Cigarette  brand,  that  has  been  available  in  the  market  till  2012  is  one  example  of  the  kind  of  products  people  were  longing  for.  When  asked  about  f6  and  the  Nostalgia  phenomenon,  Phillip  Morris,  the  owner  of  this  cigarette  brand,  said:  

 “The  f6  stands  for  what’s  good  and  trusted  from  days  past  and  

helps  with  the  self-­‐conscious  articulation  of  East  German  identity.  The  f6  does  not  stand  for  a  misunderstood  conservatism;  rather,  this  cigarette  represents  a  part  of  East  German  cultural  history  that  has  

                                                                                                               114  Jonathan  P.  G.  Bach,  “The  taste  Remains:  Consumption,  (N)ostalgia,  and  the  production  of  east  Germany,  2002,  p545    

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come  to  stand  for  a  significant  portion  of  identity  building  for  the  citizens  in  the  new  federal  lands.”115      The  highlight  of  this  phenomenon  of  paradox  in  people’s  every  day  life  is  not  

only  noted  in  the  reappearance  of  these  Intershops  or  Eastern  products  but  also  in  the  approach  of  East  Germans  to  life  nowadays.    

 “At  one  time  there  were  plans  for  a  mini  East  Germany  theme  park,  

Ossie  World.  Travel  agencies  ran  and  still  run,  Ostalgia  tours.  There  is  a  cachet  about  East  German  design  and  communist  kitsch—communist  condoms,  Vita  Cola  (East  Germany’s  answer  to  Coca  Cola)  and  the  canned  aroma  of  Trabant  fumes  have  all  been  marketed  by  the  purveyors  of  Ostalgia.  An  East-­‐German-­‐themed  youth  hostel,  Ostel,  opened  in  berlin  in  2007.”116  

 Most  importantly,  right  after  the  demolition  of  the  so-­‐called  “Iron  Curtain,”  

people  started  to  speak  out  and  express  their  feelings  and  thoughts  regarding  life  in  the  Eastern  part  of  Germany—especially  when  the  media  started  to  shed  light  on  the  quality  of  life  under  communism.  

East  German  actress  Corinna  Hartfouch  put  it  like  this:  “  I  cannot  recognize  my  country  from  the  way  it  is  depicted  in  the  press  and  media.  We  didn’t  just  have  autumn  and  winter.  We  had  spring  and  summer  too.  Life  wasn’t  just  about  the  Stasi.”  

East  German  singer  Chris  Doerk,  who  shares  the  same  feelings  of  “Ostalgia”  put  it  just  as  strongly,  when  he  defends  the  ides  of  Ostalgie,  or  Nostalgia  for  the  good  “Osty”  days.    

“It  makes  me  angry  when  the  GDR  is  often  reduced  to  the  Stasi  and  I  don’t  know  what  more.  Sometimes  people  talk  about  the  country  in  such  a  strange  way:  ‘in  the  GDR  the  bigwings  feasted  and  the  people  starved  to  death  in  the  streets.’  I  ask  myself,    ‘did  I  live  in  a  different  country?’  Because  where  I  lived  such  things  didn’t  happen.  I  am  not  immersed  in  nostalgia,  I  live  in  the  here  and  now,  but  there  are  many  things  I  miss  about  the  GDR.  The  social  network,  the  day-­‐care  centers;  working  mothers  could  leave  their  children  in  kindergartens,  art  and  culture  had  a  much  higher  value  then.  Many  people  say  they  are  worse  off  nowadays.  All  right  they  can  travel,  but  when  you’re  on  the  dole  and  can’t  earn  money  you  cannot  travel.  These  are  the  things  that  make  our  people  angry.  I  didn’t  lead  a  bad  life  in  the  GDR.”117  

   

                                                                                                               115  Jonathan  P.  G.  Bach,  “The  taste  Remains:  Consumption,  (N)ostalgia,  and  the  production  of  east  Germany,  2002,  p552  116  Peter  Molloy,  The  Lost  World  of  Communism:  An  Oral  History  of  Daily  Life  Behind  the  Iron  Curtain,  2009,  p304  117  Peter  Molloy,  The  Lost  World  of  Communism:  An  Oral  History  of  Daily  Life  Behind  the  Iron  Curtain,  2009,  p305  

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  Many  other  former  East  German  citizens  share  this  strong  opinion  about  defending  life  under  communism  back  at  the  time.  Social  life,  however,  is  not  the  only  element  that  was  subject  to  this  kind  of  emotions  and  highlights  of  Nostalgia.  

Many  other  areas  were  also  highlighted  by  East  Germans,  today,  when  it  comes  to  understanding  the  phenomenon  of  nostalgia,  or  what  I  called  the  paradox  of  ordinary  life—areas  that  wouldn’t  necessarily  cross  our  minds  when  thinking  of  life  in  the  GDR.  Walter  Womacka,  a  distinguished  Socialist  Realist  artist,  laments  “the  loss  of  subsidy  that  was  typical  of  the  GDR.”118  

 “Art  was  a  big  concern  in  East  Germany.  A  lot  of  money  was  spent  on  

it,  and  the  effects  of  that  investment  were  clearly  visible.  Nowadays,  East  Germans  used  to  seeing  public  art,  paintings,  sculpture,  concerts,  theatre,  are  very  disappointed  with  what  has  happened.  For  example,  today  theatre  tickets  are  very  expensive  and  so  only  an  elite  few  can  afford  them.”119  

 After  focusing  on  his  domain  of  specialty,  Womacka  talked  about  the  more  

general  view  of  Nostalgia  and  the  reason  behind  this  feeling,  that,  in  his  opinion,  most  East  Germans  share  today.  

 “Nobody  was  happy  about  the  Wall.  But  it  was  a  means  to  an  end.  

No  one  expected  it  disappear  the  way  it  did,  and  so  fast  too.  It  was  one  of  those  moments  in  history,  which  can  either  be  used  to  one’s  advantage  or  to  one’s  disadvantage…I  certainly  miss  the  way  people  used  to  live  together.  Living  side  by  side  was  good  in  the  GDR.  Most  former  GDR  citizens  miss  that  today.  Money  matters  were  of  no  importance  back  then,  whereas  nowadays  they  are  more  important  than  anything,  because  everything  depends  on  money.  The  good  thing  about  East  Germany  was  the  way  people  trusted  one  another,  and  even  told  their  competitors  about  their  business.  That  would  be  impossible  today.  These  are  the  things  that  I  miss.”120        Decades  after  the  fall  of  communism  in  Eastern  Germany,  a  rose-­‐tinted  view  of  

the  past  persists  in  certain  places.  In  today’s  unified  Germany,  the  concept  of  Nostalgia  is  even  experienced  by  those  too  young  to  remember  life  under  communism.  Such  feelings  were  reinforced  by  the  success  of  films  such  as  the  2003  comedy  Goodbye  Lenin.  As  a  result,  a  whole  community  and  a  new  industry  were  established  to  be  completely  devoted  to  exploring  this  phenomenon  and  trying  to  understand—and  even  reflect  on—developed  memories  of  the  communist  past.    

                                                                                                               118  Peter  Molloy,  The  Lost  World  of  Communism:  An  Oral  History  of  Daily  Life  Behind  the  Iron  Curtain,  2009,  p305  119  Peter  Molloy,  The  Lost  World  of  Communism:  An  Oral  History  of  Daily  Life  Behind  the  Iron  Curtain,  2009,  p305  120  Peter  Molloy,  The  Lost  World  of  Communism:  An  Oral  History  of  Daily  Life  Behind  the  Iron  Curtain,  2009,  p306  

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As  Ann  Arbor  put  it  in  her  book  Socialist  Modern,  however,  the  GDR  is  not  the  subject  of  wistful  recollection.  Neither  its  secure  workplace,  state  childcare,  nor  subsidized  cultural  undertakings  are  the  stuff  of  nostalgia,  “since  they  mainly  served  the  state’s  economic  interests  and  added  too  little  sparkle  to  everyday  existence.  The  Ostalgie  wave  that  has  recently  suffused  the  media  cannot  obscure  this  fact.  In  this  way,  Ostalgie  is  not  to  be  confused  with  Nostalgia  proper,  because  it’s  not  about  a  misty-­‐eyed  longing  for  a  harmonious  past  but  is  rather  a  form  of  identity  politics  that  is  better  understood  as  a  protest  against  the  way  in  which  dominant  interpretations  of  GDR  history  have  robbed  the  GDR  past  of  its  subversive  potential.”121  

Coming  to  this  point,  we  can  ensure  that  East  Germany  was  a  country  of  common  people  (Kleine  Leute).  These  people  were  the  ones  who  drew  the  ability  to  reflect  on  realities  in  many  different  ways  showing  experts,  readers,  and  viewers—usually  of  history—how  the  daily  life,  with  its  paradoxes  and  inconsistencies,  could  be  interpreted  from  different  perspectives  and  using  different  personal  capabilities.  At  times,  Communist  East  Germany  seemed  to  us  like  a  very  “normal”  society  where  people  maintained  an  “ordinary”  life,  and  at  other  times,  it  sounded  like  a  utopian  complex  society  where  people  were  either  in  the  pole  of  “being  controlled,”  or  in  the  pole  of    “being  victimized.”  At  this  point,  however,  it  should  be  clear  that  the  complexity  and  mystery  behind  the  different  aspects  of  the  East  German  society  were  simply  what  created  the  concept  of  existence  for  the  people  in  their  everyday  life—it’s  simply  the  paradox  of  ordinary  life.              

                                             

                                                                                                               121  Ann  Arbor,  Socialist  Modern:  East  German  Everyday  Culture  and  Politics,  2008,  p324  

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