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DEMYSTIFYING THE NOTION, “THE WEST IS BETTER”: A GERMAN ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Jennifer Stanek A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2011 Committee: Dr. Christina Guenther, Advisor Dr. Kristie Foell ii ABSTRACT Dr. Christina Guenther, Advisor I began my project in 2004 as an oral history project, involving four German women, with the purpose of finding out what motivated them either to flee East Germany before the construction of the Berlin Wall or stay. Five years later I wished to revive my project and interview all four women again, but with another purpose in mind. What had started out as a desire to understand my own family’s past turned into a desire to gain a better idea of the complexity of the notion, “the West is better,” and, therefore, an even better understanding of what moved a people across dangerous borders. In this thesis I examine what the idea, “the West is better,” meant to real individuals, who chose a life in the West either before the construction of the Wall on August 13, 1961 or in the 1980s before the fall of the Wall. I examine how this notion applied to their experiences specifically, the GDR-refugees’ contribution to the creation and perpetuation of this idea, and how this concept has affected the German people since 1949. The notion, “the West is better,” assumed much mythical character during the existence of the GDR, which it largely has not shed. This is apparent in the manner, in which it is still often expressed: as an idea whose origins can be found in nature, not in history, and one that often goes unexplained. Using Roland Barthes’ ideas on myth, I was able to spot mythical elements of the belief, “the West is better.” My interviewees’ narratives challenge many commonly perceived associations with this notion. A primary thread throughout this thesis is a discussion of the complexity of myth as well as the complexity of oral history. iii “Any life story, written or oral, more or less dramatically, is in one sense a personal mythology, a self-justification.” -- Raphael Samuel and Paul Thompson iv I dedicate this thesis to my German Großeltern for fleeing to West Germany and raising my mother there and to my American grandmother, who consistently encouraged me to finish this project while she was recovering from hip surgery. Two of them are no longer among us and my German Oma has lost her memories to Alzheimer’s. May I never forget the life stories they shared with me while they were still able. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Christina Guenther for seeing potential in the new ideas I had for a former project of mine, for sharing her great insights with me, and for her meticulous and prompt proofreading. I also wish to express my deep gratitude to my interviewees, without whom this project never would have been possible. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for their unwavering support of my education and for encouraging me and my sister to be citizens of the world with fluid national identities. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 I. BACKGROUND AND THEORETICAL COMPONENT ............................................. 2 II. OBJECTIVES .............................................................................................................. 21 III. METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................... 24 CHAPTER ONE ........................................................................................................................... 26 I. HISTORICAL CONTEXT ............................................................................................ 26 II. PREVIOUS LITERATURE ......................................................................................... 32 A. Oral history testimonies from refugees pre-reunification ................................ 32 B. Post-reunification oral history testimonies ....................................................... 41 C. Schröder: an overview of German oral history studies up to reunification ..... 44 D. Myth in a GDR oral history study .................................................................... 46 E. Myth in oral history studies not relating to Germany....................................... 49 CHAPTER TWO .......................................................................................................................... 50 I. ORAL HISTORY: THE PRINCIPLES THAT GOVERN ITS USE ............................ 51 II. THE INTERVIEW PROCESS..................................................................................... 53 A. The participants ................................................................................................ 53 B. The interview questions ................................................................................... 55 C. Carrying out the interviews .............................................................................. 57 D. Transcribing the interviews .............................................................................. 58 III. ANALYSIS OF MY INTERVIEWS .......................................................................... 59 A. Gretchen and Ursula: Fleeing before the construction of the Berlin Wall....... 59 i. Gretchen ................................................................................................. 59 vii a. Short biography ......................................................................... 59 b. The interview situation ............................................................. 60 c. Analysis of Gretchen’s interviews ............................................ 60 ii. Ursula .................................................................................................... 64 a. Short biography ......................................................................... 64 b. The interview situation ............................................................. 64 c. Analysis of Ursula’s interviews ................................................ 65 B. Lydia and Tante Gitti: Leaving for the West in the 1980s before the fall of the Wall .................................................................................................................. 72 i. Lydia ...................................................................................................... 72 a. Short biography ......................................................................... 72 b. The interview situation ............................................................. 73 c. Analysis of Lydia’s interviews.................................................. 73 ii. Tante Gitti ............................................................................................. 84 a. Short biography ......................................................................... 84 b. The interview situation ............................................................. 85 c. Analysis of Tante Gitti’s interviews ......................................... 86 C. Comparison between all four participants ........................................................ 95 i. Specific and noteworthy recurring topics .................................... 95 a. Goods and products in East and West Germany ........................ 95 b. Heimat ........................................................................................ 96 c. West German politics and politicians, past and present ........... 100 d. Comparisons between the GDR and the Third Reich/Nazis .... 102 viii CHAPTER THREE: CONCLUSION ........................................................................................ 107 WORKS CONSULTED ............................................................................................................. 114 APPENDIX 1: SET 1 QUESTIONS FLED ............................................................................... 124 APPENDIX 2: SET 1 QUESTIONS STAYED` ........................................................................ 129 APPENDIX 3: SET 2 QUESTIONS FLED ............................................................................... 134 APPENDIX 4: SET 2 QUESTIONS STAYED.......................................................................... 140 APPENDIX 5: APPROVED CONSENT FORM ……………………………………………...146 1 INTRODUCTION In December 1960, just months before the Berlin Wall was constructed, my grandparents told my mother, who was at that time a mere eleven years old, to go with her grandparents to the train station and meet them in a train headed for Berlin. The plan was to fly out of West Berlin to West Germany. Whereas the preparations which had been carried out in the months prior to departure had had to be made secretly, for fleeing East Germany was dangerous and could lead to imprisonment,1 the journey itself was to any outsider a regular one. However, underneath my family’s stoic facial expressions lay a web of conflicting emotions: fear, hope, suspense and sadness. Just before boarding the train my mother said goodbye to her grandparents; she did not know if she would ever see them again. Not only did my mother and her parents leave all family members, friends, and personal belongings behind, they said goodbye to their entire past and the homeland (Heimat) of their ancestors. This is the story my mother told me as a child. My first conscious encounter with the subject