Collective Memory of the Berlin Wall As Represented In
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Wall Still Stands… Or Does It? Collective Memory of the Berlin Wall as Represented in American and German Newspapers A thesis presented to the faculty of the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University and the Institute for Communication and Media Studies of Leipzig University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degrees Master of Science in Journalism (Ohio University), Master of Arts in Global Mass Communication (Leipzig University) Katlin M. Hiller August 2018 © 2018 Katlin M. Hiller. All Rights Reserved. This thesis titled The Wall Still Stands… Or Does It? Collective Memory of the Berlin Wall as Represented in American and German Newspapers by KATLIN M. HILLER has been approved for the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, the Scripps College of Communication, and the Institute for Communication and Media Studies by Michael S. Sweeney Professor, E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University Scott Titsworth Dean, Scripps College of Communication, Ohio University Christian Pieter Hoffman Director, Institute for Communication and Media Studies, Leipzig University ii Abstract HILLER, KATLIN M., M.S., Journalism; M.A., Global Mass Communication, August 2018 3752360 The Wall Still Stands… Or Does It? Collective Memory of the Berlin Wall as Represented in American and German Newspapers. Director of Thesis: Michael S. Sweeney Committee Members: Mirna Zakić, Patrick Merziger The fall of the Berlin Wall is widely seen as one of the defining moments of international relations in the twentieth century. The thesis compares and contrasts how the American and German narratives reconstruct and interpret the events of November 9, 1989 and its aftermath. The analysis presented here highlights some of the key distinctions in how American and German newspaper narratives are presented. In the American newspapers, reports focus on anecdotal stories in an effort to humanize the event and connect their readers to something that may or may not impact their daily lives. The German newspapers, in contrast, emphasize the facts and intricacy of the chronology of events. In both the American and German newspapers sample, there is a shift in perspectives between the 1990s and 2009 – in the years immediately following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the articles analyzed here overwhelmingly play into commonly lived memory, comparing the “then and now.” In 2009, however, articles speak of this event in a more metaphorical sense, using it as a moral lesson. iii Dedication To my grandparents, for encouraging me to see and understand the world for myself. To my parents, for always supporting me, even when that means I live very far away. And to my sister, for giving me a reason to always come home. iv Acknowledgments Writing this thesis would not have been possible without the advising of Drs. Michael S. Sweeney, Mirna Zakić, and Patrick Merziger. I am beyond grateful for their expertise, their patience, and their willingness to work with me from around the globe. v Table of Contents Page Abstract ......................................................................................................................... iii Dedication ...................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................... v Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Literature Review, Theory and Method .......................................................... 8 Chapter 3: American Newspapers ................................................................................. 27 Chapter 4: German Newspapers .................................................................................... 55 Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusion........................................................................... 90 References .................................................................................................................. 106 vi Chapter 1: Introduction On December 1, 1990, a stereotypical staple of American cuisine made its way across the Iron Curtain to a small city called Plauen in the eastern German state of Saxony. The first McDonald’s franchise opened in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) just over one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. McDonald’s offered Manfred and Brigitte Voight, a couple from Plauen, a twenty-year contract as well as assistance in financing the new franchise. After trying the food for the first time on a trip to Munich, they were sold. Little did the Voights know, this was just the first bite: Fittingly, as the world contemplates all that happened 10 years ago this week, the Voights are vacationing in Florida, reflecting on a decade of blind luck, of East-West rivalry, of booms and busts, of capitalism devouring communism, of communists devouring cheeseburgers, and of teaching an entire nation of consumers to rise up and say “I want,” instead of merely asking, “Do you have?”1 Though the franchise had its ups and downs over the years, by 1994 the initial euphoria of the collapse of the GDR had worn off; as of November 1999, the Voights were close to serving their one millionth customer. But man does not live by fast-food alone. Many East Germans know that while fry-cooks working behind walls of plywood and plastic can serve up Big Macs within seconds, nourishment for the soul cannot be produced upon demand. The Zeitgeist of the pre-Mauerfall West had seemed delicious – for a while. But with it came many of the West’s problems, including, for some, the angst and anomie of the corporate state, captured in the cliché of a cartoon clown selling hamburgers made of interchangeable components. An entire generation of Germans raised in two distinct systems of government and ways of life were suddenly reunited and made to become one for the first time since the fall of the Third Reich in 1945. 1 After the collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945, the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union occupied postwar Germany. By 1949, the three Western powers had combined their sectors to form the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), and the Soviet Union’s sector became the GDR. Berlin, Germany’s capital, which lay entirely in the Soviet sector, was similarly divided. In the 1940s and 1950s, both East and West Germany worked to rebuild everything from morale to infrastructure after the devastation of the Second World War. In 1961, fearing western subversion and looking to stem the flood of citizens fleeing the communist east, the Soviets and East Germans erected a wall around the western sector of Berlin and along the East German-West German border.2 Over the next twenty-eight years, hundreds of individuals attempted to cross the Wall from East to West – over, under, and through the barrier. While some would die in their efforts to leave the GDR, many would also be successful. For many Germans, the Berlin Wall was an everyday reality. Concrete slabs and armed guards divided streets and bisected neighborhoods. In this way, the Wall served as an important symbol of the global divisions between the democratic West and the communist East. By the 1980s, the Wall thus assumed a symbolic quality as a metaphor for the larger ideological struggle. American leaders, such as Ronald Reagan, waged the Cold War not just in terms of walls, rifles, and tanks, but in ideological and moral terms as well. As the Cold War gained status in mainstream media and discourse, so too did the Berlin Wall. Then-President Reagan gave a speech exemplifying this on June 8, 1982: The decay of the Soviet experiment should come as no surprise to us. Wherever the comparisons have been made between free and closed societies – West Germany and East Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, Malaysia and Vietnam – it is the democratic countries that are prosperous and responsive to the 2 needs of their people. And one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this: of all the millions of refugees we've seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward the Communist world. Today on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east to prevent their people from leaving.3 Reagan’s speech helps to build the framework for memory based on a moral telling of the Cold War. Within this framework, the Wall became a symbol, especially in the U.S., for the moral bankruptcy of the communist system and the inherent superiority of democracy. On November 9, 1989, the previously unthinkable happened: The Berlin Wall, part of the Iron Curtain that divided East and West for almost four decades, was opened. Families that had been separated by the Wall’s erection in 1961 were reunited, travel restrictions were lifted, and the visual symbol of the ideological divide between East and West was carved up with hammers and pickaxes. Though November 9, 1989, has gone down in history as the date that began communism’s downfall, a previous crack in the Iron Curtain helped spur the events that would change the face of Europe as the twentieth century came to a close. In spring 1989, the border between Austria and Hungary was dismantled and East Germans were able to legally immigrate to the West via this route. By September 1989, more than 10,000 East Germans had done so.4 After the fall of the Berlin Wall a couple