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Ostalgie Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 Reported by Susan R. Boettcher <susan.boettcher@mail.utexas.edu>, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin What one finds crucial to German culture and politics at any given moment depends heavily on whether one is reading or watching. If you *watch* the _Tagesthemen_, you know that Anne Will, the delightfully tough ARD newscaster, managed to drive Edmund Stoiber to stammers during a live interview a few weeks ago by repeatedly asking him whether he would make another run for Chancellor. If you only *read* about the _Tagesthemen_ in _Bunte_ (because you picked up someone else's discarded copy in the _Regionalbahn_, of course), you know that Anne Will's ratings are down, rumors are coursing that she is a lesbian, and that honchos at ARD fear that German audiences find her failure to make Stoiber speak a sign of indecisive weakness. So anyone who follows the serious media knows that the vital speeches of the day center on social welfare, pension reform, anti-Semitism and the crumbling margins of _Rot-Grun_; NDR 4 has bombarded its listeners during its morning drive-time slot almost exclusively with reports around these themes in the last weeks, and the _Gerd Show_ on NDR2 has become so wickedly cruel it's occasionally hard to listen to.[1] If you don't live primarily in the world of the _oeffentlich-rechtlichen Sender_ and the serious papers, though, you can't help but be overwhelmed by the real dominant theme of the fall--a wave of renewed interest in the GDR. This phenomenon is different than the oft-disdained _Ostalgie_ in the former territories of the GDR--in that it bears all the marks of a deft marketing plan. Die Puhdys, City and Karat are going on tour together this fall through the _alten Bundeslaender_, and four different _Privatsender_ offered entertainment programs dealing with the DDR this fall [2]. Bars in Munich have GDR nights attended by Ossis and Wessis alike, and much of this activity appears to be a response to the phenomenal success of the movie _Goodbye Lenin_, a black comedy on themes that explored in _Sonnenallee_. _Goodbye Lenin_ has brought over six million Germans to the cinema and was selected as the German nominee for the Best Foreign Film Oscar (the Academy nominations come out on January 24, 2004).[3] A great deal of this flood has the feel of a smoothly-merchandised GDR _Alltagsgeschichte_ in parallel to the recently-filmed, newly-cult novel _Herr Lehmann_, a nostalgic take on 1980s Kreuzberg, the popularity of groups like _Wir sind Helden_ that clearly imitate the _Neue Deutsche Welle_, or the success of "That Seventies Show" in the US--only, of course, that the past plays in a brutal dictatorship and not the United States in the Nixon years (hmm).[4] All of this is quite light-hearted: Ekel Alfred, like Archie Bunker, was a figure for the 1970s.[5] The increasing consumption of _Ostalgie_ outside of the new _Laender_ was brought home to me at a Wolfenbuettel reading by Claudia Rusch, the author of _Meine Freie Deutsche Jugend_, a book now in its fifth printing and a modest success at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where the big story this year was the on-going scandal around the memoir of another 1980s giant: Dieter Bohlen's slanderous tell-all _Hinter den Kulissen_[6]. Rusch, who was born in 1971 and grew up in the circle around Robert Havemann, offers twenty-five essays in a scant 156 pages on her experiences growing up in the GDR for a hefty EUR 14,90. In contrast to the strident tone of _Zonenkinder_[7], a book by an author who was clearly a decisive five years younger in 1989, and despite her much more troubled status in the GDR, Rusch is sometimes accused of _Verharmlosung_ with her anecdotes of Stasi stakeouts that ended with government cars stuck in the mud or her naively loud recounting of anti-government jokes as a six-year-old on public transportation in Berlin. But they are thoughtfully presented, and sometimes turn the reader in unexpected directions, as when the author describes the let-down she felt when she finally boards the Sweden Ferry that symbolized her imprisonment for so long, her fear of admitting to her human rights activist parents that she would have fled the GDR because she didn't want to spend her life on political protest, or her frustration with the post-_Wende_ bureaucrat who, when copying documents related to her grandfather's death in a GDR prison in the late 1960s, tells her in all seriousness that the government now is just as bad as it was then. The Wolfenbuettel audience was obviously sympathetic to criticism of the GDR, and Rusch reported that the book is selling better in the old _Bundesrepublik_ than in the former East. The human quality to her recounting of her youth--for example, embarrassment at the way her father dressed at her _Jugendweihe_, which could just have well taking place at a confirmation or _quinceanera_ -- explains this attraction at least partially and underlines the probability that her work is likely to appeal to a broader audience than Hensel's book. In fact, the first foreign-language translation will appear soon--in Greek. In line with her emphasis on the humanity of her stories, during the discussion after the reading, which was attended by over fifty people, Rusch refused my attempt to connect her essays with any historical trends or tendencies: she insisted that they are merely her stories and that they don't carry broader historical meaning. Moreover, she rejects any attempt by former GDR citizens to suggest to her that the people in the West really don't understand. "Everyone understands," she insisted. Asked about Jana Hensel's very different picture of the same years, she replied that she had finished her book before Hensel's was published, and that after resenting the association of her own work with Hensel's for sometime, now she has come to resent only that Hensel says "wir" in detailing experiences that she clearly does not share. Honesty toward her art in this case also supports the sale of more books; as Rusch noted, it is easy for people to sympathize with a narrator who belongs to the victims of the GDR. Her visible emotion when confronted with the laughter and obvious approval of the audience was also, quite frankly, endearing--it can't hurt her sales. At the same time that readers are eagerly snapping up the book (the bookstore sold out of its supply of Rusch's book immediately after the reading), however, one finds oneself wondering where this nostalgia is going. One of the curators of the GDR art exhibition at the Neue Nationalgalerie [8] this last summer even admitted that they hoped to benefit from it. When I saw it, I was not moved to consume. (I admit, in the capacity of my real occupation as a Reformation historian, that four hours of traumatic exposure to Werner Tuebke's masterpiece, "Fruehbuergerliche Revolution in Deutschland"[9] may possibly have spoiled GDR art for me permanently). The brusque tone and rough treatment one receives at the hands of the museum personnel in Berlin don't encourage one to linger, and the only picture I would have liked to have taken home with me, Wolfgang Mattheuer's "Die Flucht des Sisyphos" (1972), was available neither as a postcard nor as a poster.[10] The prelude to the exposition was controversial, as with its predecessor in Weimar (1999), which had to be closed prematurely due to protests. If the connection in Weimar between NS and GDR art was considered too political, once open, the Berlin exhibition was criticized for its neutrality and lack of political consciousness.[11] Mattheuer complained that he was sick of the GDR being treated as a special case and why not a combined German exhibition of art from the Cold War years, a tone echoed faintly in _Neues Deutschland_ [12] Curators Eugen Blume and Roland Maerz were criticized for their rejection of social realism and the public and commercial art of the GDR, as well as their lack of interest in the art shown in public exhibitions there, and their emphasis on exhibiting only works that they found to be of lasting artistic worth. An anti-exposition, "Zuegellos", was offered by gallery owners who felt that the official retrospective was "zu brav."[13] The idea that the exhibition could avoid politics was held to be unrealistic; the art critic in the _Berliner Stadtzeitung_ claimed reasonably that art gains meaning from its relationship to a particular historical context. [14] Moreover, the suggestion that the only good art was non-state art was rejected. [15] NDR _Kultur Journal_ ventured that the exhibition wasn't critical enough of artists who were following the party line. [16] On the other hand, it was also praised as authentic and moving [17]. In line with its "not everything in the GDR was bad" campaign, the exhibition was praised on the Berlin PDS homepage.[18] And if potential spectators weren't confused enough already, the interview with a former Dresden galery operator published in the _taz_, that snooty arbiter of all things cool in Berlin, suggested that all the excitement was for nothing. [19] If over 150,000 visitors, three times the hoped-for number, saw the uncomfortably-displayed collection (why, why, build a museum in which the majority of the useful exhibition space is in the poorly-lighted and claustrophobic basement?), then it was not merely to see again works that have rarely been exhibited in recent years. And presumably, the intensive presentation of the Neue Nationalgalerie would have been challenging to superficial consumers of _Ostalgie_. I am not an art critic. I can understand, though, why one might be politically disturbed by the retrospective--the de-emphasis on "official" art does suggest that the only real artists in the GDR were suppressed by the state, and the very scanty political information, detailing the persecution and exclusion of artist after artist, suggests that the primary purpose of GDR cultural policy was to eliminate artistic originality. The blending out of the inner logic of SED decisions thus passes over the very real hope held by party leadership for the inspiring role of the arts and literature in the GDR--which undermines a characteristic trope of _Ostalgie_ in its high cultural form, that before the _Wende_ artists were taken more seriously. Still, insofar as GDR and SED politics appear only in their oppressive functions, the exhibition is dismissive of the GDR's attempt at governance and social transformation--all the artists displayed here experienced in the end was the lust for power that crushed their independence. But if the proper attitude toward art in the stateless society of the future had really been as obvious the political information in this exhibition suggests, the debates among artists and writers could hardly been as vehement as they became by the mid-1970s. As a historian, I admit a fatal tendency to interpret culture as a _Schluesselroman_ about history. But I wonder whether the attempt to factor politics out of this exhibition and its incredible popularity aren't indeed steps toward the demands of many artists and critics for a combined German post-war art exhibition. Maybe the price that has to be paid for that common history is a public version of GDR cultural politics that emphasizes its oppression just as it admits that GDR painters were "real" artists. Perhaps the eagerness of Wessis to buy Claudia Rusch's stories betrays a growing willingness to consider the East German past as part of the combined German past, and the price for that is the admission that _Jugendweihe_ can be compared to confirmation. Admittedly, it's hard to be optimistic about anything under the barrage of negative information about the German economy. I concede myself that I'd rather read _Bunte_ lately than listen to the _Tagesthemen_. So perhaps, like the many commercial GDR retrospectives, it's really symptomatic of a wave of consumption, the flavor of the moment that allays worries about unemployed apprentices, the threat of increasing _Rentenbeitraege_, and the empty coffers of public health insurers--a nostalgia for the 1980s, when there were two Germanies, nobody was broke, and everything was groovy. NOTES [all websites accessed November 24, 2003] [1] Recent episodes can be heard on the NDR2 homepage at http://www.ndr2.de/onair/morgen/comedy/ and older episodes are available on CD. [2]To see highlights from "Die DDR-Show" at RTL, go to http://www.rtl.de/musik/musik_819362.html -- there is even a quiz you can play with the same UserID you used to use to play _Wer wird Millionaer_ online you know you want to. [3] See "Goodbye, Lenin" website at http://www.79qmddr.de/aktuelles.php. The stream of ticket-buyers has dwarfed even the success of "Sonnenallee" (http://www.sonnenallee.de/start.html), with its 2.4 million visitors to date. Look for an H-German review of the new "Goodbye, Lenin" DVD by Jon Berndt Olson in Spring, 2004. [4] Sven Regener, _Herr Lehmann_ (Frankfurt/Main: Eichborn, 2001); film "Herr Lehmann" 2003, directed by Leander Haussmann (http://www.herr-lehmann.de/); Wir sind Helden, CD: "Die Reklamation", EMI 2003. Haussmann refused this connection in an interview with DeutschlandRadio Berlin (at http://www.dradio.de/dlr/sendungen/fazit/179912/) but the denial falls flat for me after reading the book. While I haven't been able to see the film yet, I laughed myself silly reading Regener's book, but had forgotten it completely two days later; it doesn't make one reflective. Perhaps because they don't play in a brutal dictatorship, other popular books in the basic category of _Westalgie_ also lacked bite for me. Two of them include Florian Illies, _Generation Golf. Eine Inspektion_ (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 2001), which I found quite whiny, even if some of its observations (like the failure of West German children to develop an Oedipus complex) are quite provocative, and Frank Goosen, _Liegen Lernen_ (Heyne, 2002), of which Jana Hensel has said "man glaubt langsam wirklich, dass es damals sehr langweilig gewesen sein muss." See the DeutschlandRadio comment on Goosen and films about the 1980s at http://www.dradio.de/dlr/sendungen/fazit/133747/ ). [5] A resumee of the series "Ein Herz und Eine Seele," written by Wolfgang Menge, which ran in West 3 and ARD in 1973-4, is available at http://www.nebelbank.de/einherzundeineseele/. Videotapes of individual episodes can also be purchased. [6]Claudia Rusch, _Meine Freie Deutsche Jugend_ (Frankfurt/Main: S. Fischer, 2003), Bohlen, who fronted the German band Modern Talking in the 1980s, is another example of the current fascination with the 1980s, as well as a topic of major concern in _Bunte_, since many of Bohlen's subjects have sued him and injunctions have been issued on the book. The book fair's theme, this year on Russian literature, went almost uncommented in the popular media. If you don't want to shell out 30 marks for such a thin book, wait for the paperback edition, or read the summary at http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendungen/politischeliteratur/131790/ . [7] Jana Hensel, _Zonenkinder_ (Reinbeck: Rowohlt, 2002). Twenty pages longer, same price. Her tone is very reminiscent of books by Jana Simons like _Denn wir sind anders. Die Geschichte des Felix S._ (Rowohlt, 2002). As a reader not involved in the events described here, I found the accusing tone of both works, if understandable, still relatively hard to take, even over a short time-frame. [8] Exhibition "Kunst in der DDR. Eine Retrospektive," at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Exhibition ran from July 25 to October 26, 2003. Catalog: Eugen Blume et al., eds., _Kunst in der DDR. Ein Retrospektive der Nationalgalerie_ (Berlin: G+H Verlag, 2003), ISBN 3931768732 (EUR 36,00, cloth). The catalog filled in a great deal of the background missing from the exhibition itself. A selection of the public available reviews on the internet includes http://morgenpost.berlin1.de/archiv2003/030731/was_noch/story619874.html (Berliner Morgenpost); http://www.dradio.de/dlr/sendungen/fazit/133666/ (DeutschlandRadio Berlin); http://www.nzz.ch/2003/10/17/fe/page-article92S4I.html (Neue Zuericher Zeitung); http://www.abendblatt.de/daten/2003/07/28/190569.html (Hamburger Abendblatt); http://www.freitag.de/2003/32/03321701.php (Der Freitag); http://www.portalkunstgeschichte.de/events/ausstellungsrezensionen/25.php?PH PSESSID=11e0715f9db8a0b84006dbf8f7a25382 (Portal Kunstgeschichte); http://www.sopos.org/aufsaetze/3f4facd00687e/1.phtml (Ossietzky). [9] Museum website, including an explanation of the relationship between this piece of DDR and Reformation history, at http://www.panorama-museum.de/index.html [10] For example, by Lukas Panzer in _Neue Internationale_ 83, September 2003, at http://www.arbeitermacht.de/ni/ni83/kunst.htm [11] See a response to a discussion of the exhibition in _Neues Deutschland_ at http://www.nd-online.de/artikel.asp?AID=43167&IDC=4&DB=O2P [12] http://www.barthel-tetzner.de/ ; Review of this exhibition in _Freie Presse_, at http://www.freiepresse.de/TEXTE/KULTUR/TEXTE/683426.html [13] at http://www.scheinschlag-online.de/archiv/aktuell/dateien/texte/26.html [14] Review in Berliner Zeitung, at http://www.berlinartnet.de/Startframes/Neuer_newsframe.html; search "Kunst DDR" and click on "BerlinOnline: Vom Auszug der Kunst aus der DDR" (article from Monday, November 03, 2003). [15] http://www.ndr.de/tv/kulturjournal/archiv/20030728_3.html [16] See Kondensat, Berlin art-info at http://www.kondensat-berlin.de/kondensat22/kunstinderddr.htm [17] http://www.pds-berlin-drei.de/extra/2003/z308ddrk.html [18] http://www.taz.de/pt/2003/07/26/a0086.nf/text
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