Bangor University DOCTOR of PHILOSOPHY Reimagining
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Bangor University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Reimagining Everyday Life in the GDR Post-Ostalgia in Contemporary German Films and Museums Kreibich, Stefanie Award date: 2019 Awarding institution: Bangor University Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 29. Sep. 2021 Reimagining Everyday Life in the GDR: Post-Ostalgia in Contemporary German Films and Museums Stefanie Kreibich Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in Modern Languages Bangor University, School of Modern Languages and Cultures April 2018 Abstract In the last decade, everyday life in the GDR has undergone a mnemonic reappraisal following the Fortschreibung der Gedenkstättenkonzeption des Bundes in 2008. No longer a source of unreflective nostalgia for reactionaries, it is now being represented as a more nuanced entity that reflects the complexities of socialist society. The black and white narratives that shaped cultural memory of the GDR during the first fifteen years after the Wende have largely been replaced by more complicated tones of grey. Films and museums depicting the quotidian in East Germany have advanced this transformation of the everyday, as they instigate vital public discourses on how to remember the GDR. By focussing on objects and narratives as transmitters of memory, this thesis brings together museums and films in order to investigate the process of cultural memory formation. This comparative approach, which brings together seven museum and eight film case studies from the last decade, thus demonstrates wider trends in the German memory landscape pertaining to the GDR. Although both nostalgic and hegemonic accounts persist, this thesis finds that memory of East Germany is undergoing a process of democratisation, pluralisation and ‘normalisation’, which I call post-ostalgia. This is particularly illustrated by a rise in biographical and regionalised remembering in films and museums, in which counter- mnemonic readings of East Germany come to the fore. More pluralistic and balanced representations of the quotidian in the GDR are also emerging through a renegotiation of memory icons and narratives. By contesting the idea of a distinct East German identity and challenging Cold War-rooted stereotypes about former GDR citizens, visual culture is dismantling the notion of the GDR as the ‘other’ Germany. Instead, as this thesis demonstrates, East Germany is in the process of being normalised in cultural memory by approximation to Western societal norms. 2 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 8 1.1 The GDR within German Cultural Memory .................................................................... 9 1.2 The Present State of the GDR in Visual Culture ............................................................ 13 1.3 Project Overview, Rational and Outline ........................................................................ 17 2 German Memory Landscapes: Nostalgia, Ostalgie and Post-Ostalgia .......................... 28 2.1 Nostalgia, Memory Boom and Ostalgie ......................................................................... 29 2.2 Ostalgie in Visual Culture .............................................................................................. 37 2.3 Post-Ostalgia in Contemporary German Visual Culture ............................................... 43 2.4 Post-Ostalgia as a form of Cultural Memory ................................................................ 47 3 Zu Tisch in … der DDR: Reimagining Food and Rituals of Eating ............................... 58 3.1 There’s no Place like Home: Food as a Place of Retrospective Identity Construction in the Memory Discourse of East Germany ............................................................................. 60 3.2 See Food: Sensory Food Experiences in Visual Culture................................................ 67 3.3 Food Power: Food as a Symbol of Power Relations ...................................................... 75 3.4 Communist Commensality: Reflecting East German Social Relations through Depictions of Food ............................................................................................................... 81 3.5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 91 4 Fashion-East-a: Reimagining Sartorial Memory of the GDR ........................................ 93 4.1 Imagined Comraderies: Deconstructing Eastern Identity through Dress ....................... 96 4.2 Insatiable Desires: Remembering Clothing as an Index of East German Consumer Culture ................................................................................................................................ 101 4.3 Dress to Express: Remembering the Influence of Fashion on East German Youth Culture ................................................................................................................................ 110 4.4 Frau Modes Launen und Herrn Geschmacks zeitlose Ästhetik: Reimagining Norms of Femininity and Masculinity in the GDR through Dress .................................................... 120 4.5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 133 5 Grinding Gears: Memory of East German Transport in Museums and Films .......... 135 5.1 Inside Out: Spatial Aspects of Depicting East German Automotive Culture .............. 138 5.2 Distorted Perceptions: Audio-visual Aspects around Depicting East German Transport Culture ................................................................................................................................ 148 3 5.3 Haste was, Biste was: Reimagining Social Distinction in the GDR through Motorised Vehicles .............................................................................................................................. 156 5.4 Gender Trouble: Transport Culture and the Construction of Femininity and Masculinity in the GDR ......................................................................................................................... 162 5.5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 173 6 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 176 6.1 Visibility and Invisibility – Remembering and Forgetting in Visual Culture .............. 178 6.2 Post-ostalgic Remembrance of East Germany in Visual Culture ................................ 181 6.3 The Future of Remembering the GDR in Films and Museums ................................... 189 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 192 Films and Broadcasts ......................................................................................................... 192 Museum Exhibitions and Unpublished Leaflets ................................................................ 193 Secondary Literature .......................................................................................................... 194 4 Acknowledgements Although the PhD is often described as a lonely venture, it would remain an insurmountable challenge without the support of others. For this project, I have greatly profited from the contributions of colleagues, research participants, friends and loved ones who I would like to acknowledge here. First and foremost, my profoundest gratitude and appreciation must go to my supervisors Dr Anna Saunders and Dr Linda Shortt. Drawing on their vast insights and thorough understanding of the subject of memory has been invaluable and provided guidance for the conceptualisation and development of this project. My ways of thinking and writing have tremendously benefitted from their meticulousness and scrutiny throughout. Not least, I am grateful for their perpetual encouragement and enthusiasm for my research over the past five years. This project was made possible through the generous financial support by Bangor University in form of a fee waiver as part of my position as Graduate Teaching Assistant in German. I am also very grateful for overall four postgraduate travel bursaries from the College of Arts and Humanities at Bangor University, which have supported my fieldwork, and have enabled both conference attendances and a crucial return to one of my museum case studies. The idea for this project dates back to the year 2011 and my internship at the Wende Museum and Archive of the Cold War in Culver City, where I discussed ‘black