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Retro Masculinity and Military Theatricality 136 Comrades in Arms This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. COMRADES IN ARMS Military Masculinities in East German Culture Tom Smith berghahn N E W Y O R K • O X F O R D www.berghahnbooks.com This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. First published in 2020 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2020 Tom Smith All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. cataloging record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Control Number: 2019046031 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78920-555-8 hardback ISBN 978-1-78920-463-6 open access ebook An electronic version of this book is freely available thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high-quality books Open Access for the public good. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at knowledgeunlatched.org. This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. license. The terms of the license can be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. For uses beyond those covered in the license contact Berghahn Books. This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. CONTENTS List of Figures vi List of Abbreviations vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 Part I. Military Masculine Ideals and Their Limits Chapter 1. Pluralizing the GDR’s Socialist Soldier Personality 33 Chapter 2. Screen Violence and the Limits of Masculine Ideals 65 Part II. Challenging Performances Chapter 3. The Vulnerable Body in Uniform 105 Chapter 4. Retro Masculinity and Military Theatricality 136 Part III. Challenging Feelings Chapter 5. Shame, Emotions and Military Masculinities 169 Chapter 6. Same-Sex Desire, Archival Narration and the NVA’s Closet 200 Conclusion 233 Glossary 245 Bibliography 247 Index 263 This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. FIGURES 1.1 Five soldiers making music together. Vom Sinn des Soldatseins (1974). 38 1.2 Three soldiers show focus and concentration amidst artillery fire in a ruined building. Vom Sinn des Soldatseins (1974). 41 2.1 Gunter’s scarred face glows as he watches Penny climb the stairs in Julia lebt (1963). 76 2.2 Light and camera angles increase Alex’s vulnerability in An die Grenze (2007). 92 3.1 Officers’ binoculars are dwarfed by film equipment Derin Reserveheld (1965). 115 3.2 Riedel’s wig betrays the artificiality of his officer masculinity in Ein Katzensprung (1977). 119 4.1 Behind glass and on pedestals, uniforms are put at a distance from actual soldiers in Zum Teufel mit Harbolla (1989). 147 6.1 With his raised collar, Wolter looks confidently into the camera on the beach on Rügen. 222 6.2 Reframed and refocused, Wolter’s cover image draws attention to his collage techniques in Hinterm Horizont allein (2005). 223 6.3 The canted angle and the shoreline place Wolter’s profile at the centre of this image from Hinterm Horizont allein (2005). 223 This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. ABBREVIATIONS BArch: Bundesarchiv, Berlin-Lichterfelde – the German Federal Archives. BStU: Bundesbeauftragter für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Berlin – the federal body responsible for the archive of the former Ministry for State Security. DEFA: Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft – the East German state film studios. EK: Entlassungskandidat – literally ‘candidate for dismissal’, the designation for a soldier in the final six months of military service. FDJ: Freie Deutsche Jugend – ‘Free German Youth’, the official youth organization of the East German state. FKK: Freikörperkultur – literally ‘free body culture’, a term for naturism or nudism most associated with nude beaches, especially in the former East Germany. FRG: Federal Republic of Germany, also known as West Germany. GDR: German Democratic Republic, also known as East Germany. HHA: S. Wolter. Hinterm Horizont allein – Der ‘Prinz’ von Prora: Erfahrungen eines NVA-Bausoldaten [Alone beyond the Horizon – The ‘Prince’ of Prora: Experiences of an NVA Construction Soldier]. Halle: Projekte, 2005. KVP: Kasernierte Volkspolizei – literally ‘Garrisoned People’s Police’, the militarized branch of the East German police, which was converted into a standing army in 1956. MfS: Ministry for State Security – alternative (more bureaucratic) abbrevia- tion for the East German security services. NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization – the defence alliance of Western European and North American powers, established in 1949. NCO: Noncommissioned Officer – noncommissioned soldier in leadership or command position, usually a sergeant or sergeant major. The German word ‘Unteroffizier’ is also a rank, but a more senior ‘Feldwebel’ is also an NCO. NL: I. Schulze. Neue Leben: Die Jugend Enrico Türmers in Briefen und Prosa herausgegeben, kommentiert und mit einem Vorwort versehen von Ingo Schulze This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. viii • Abbreviations [New Lives: Enrico Türmer’s Youth in Letters and Prose Edited, Commented and with a Foreword by Ingo Schulze]. Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 2005. NVA: Nationale Volksarmee – the ‘National People’s Army’, the umbrella term for the GDR’s armed forces, founded in 1956. NVA: L. Haußmann (dir.). NVA. Universum, 2005. SED: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands – the ‘Socialist Unity Party of Germany’, the ruling East German party. Stasi: Staatssicherheitsdienst – a common nickname for the GDR’s Ministry for State Security. ZTH: B. Fürneisen (dir.). Zum Teufel mit Harbolla: Eine Geschichte aus dem Jahre 1956 [To Hell with Harbolla: A Tale of 1956]. DEFA, 1989. This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Any book is years in the making and is only as good as the people who have given their help and advice. I have been fortunate to have unfailing support and occasional tough love from colleagues, friends and family along the way. My sincerest thanks first of all to Stephanie Bird and Mererid Puw Davies, who supervised my doctoral work. Their guidance, encouragement, patience and good humour were indispensable, not to mention their belief in my research, and I still miss our discussions. I am indebted to all my former colleagues in German at University College London for their help in the project’s early stages: in particular, Judith Beniston, Mary Fulbrook, Mark Hewitson and my mentor Geraldine Horan. More recently, the book’s final shape has been substantially improved by ongoing discussions with Seán Allan and Andrew Plowman, whose insights and honest feedback have been invaluable. I have been extremely well looked after by the team at Berghahn Books, especially Chris Chappell, Soyolmaa Lkhagvadorj and Mykelin Higham. I am grateful for their enthusiasm for the project and for giving the book such an excellent home. I am indebted to the project’s peer reviewers, whose helpful and constructive comments have greatly improved the book. Thanks too to the Eulenspiegel Press and to Stefan Stadtherr Wolter for their kind permission to reproduce photographs in Chapters 1 and 6. At the University of St Andrews, my supportive colleagues so helpfully gave comments on the final draft: thanks especially to Nicki Hitchcott and Julia Prest for their guidance. Seán Allan, Bettina Bildhauer and Dora Osborne have kept me on track and provided unfailing encouragement, and I am very grateful. This book would have been impossible without the generous support of the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council through my graduate work. My travel and research were generously supported by University College London, the Institute for Modern Languages Research in London, Newcastle University and the University of St Andrews. Any research project is impossible without knowledgeable library staff. I am particularly indebted to Giulia Garoli at University College London, who This open access edition has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. x • Acknowledgements sourced primary and secondary material against all odds. The holdings of the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf in Potsdam have been invaluable, and the librarians there were extremely supportive. Thanks also to the staff at the British Library, Senate House Library, the National Library of Scotland, Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries and Taylor Institution, the Staatsbibliothek and the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek in Leipzig and the Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr in Potsdam. I have greatly valued their help with what must have seemed like baffling requests. My work has been further helped by some terrific archivists. Thanks to the staff at the Zeitungsarchiv in Berlin for patiently teaching me how to use microfilm and for their digitizations of GDR press, a truly remark- able resource.
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