The Rhetorical Crisis of the Fall of the Berlin Wall
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THE RHETORICAL CRISIS OF THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL: FORGOTTEN NARRATIVES AND POLITICAL DIRECTIONS A Dissertation by MARCO EHRL Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Nathan Crick Committee Members, Alan Kluver William T. Coombs Gabriela Thornton Head of Department, J. Kevin Barge August 2018 Major Subject: Communication Copyright 2018 Marco Ehrl ABSTRACT The accidental opening of the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 1989, dismantled the political narratives of the East and the West and opened up a rhetorical arena for political narrators like the East German citizen movements, the West German press, and the West German leadership to define and exploit the political crisis and put forward favorable resolutions. With this dissertation, I trace the neglected and forgotten political directions as they reside in the narratives of the East German citizen movements, the West German press, and the West German political leadership between November 1989 and February 1990. The events surrounding November 9th, 1989, present a unique opportunity for this endeavor in that the common flows of political communication between organized East German publics, the West German press, and West German political leaders changed for a moment and with it the distribution of political legitimacy. To account for these new flows of political communication and the battle between different political crisis narrators over the rhetorical rights to reestablish political legitimacy, I develop a rhetorical model for political crisis narrative. This theoretical model integrates insights from political crisis communication theories, strategic narratives, and rhetoric. My analyses then test this model by tracing the narrative trajectories and rhetorical transformations of the narrative enactments by the East German citizen movements, the West German press, and the West German political leadership. As recent historical research revealed, Helmut Kohl favored what others refers to as the “pre-fabrication model” for German and European unification, which entails the ii expansion of West German and European legal, political, and economic systems eastward. Using Sarotte’s research about Kohl’s prefab model as a rhetorical anchor, my reconstructions of the different political crisis narratives reveal how the individual narratives support or weaken Helmut Kohl’s pre-fabrication model for German and European reunification. Finally, while the West’s rhetoric of practical politics, economic necessity, and rapid unification offered short-term solutions for political and economic integration, it concealed long-term narrative possibilities for German and European integration. Thus, this dissertation discusses the hidden rhetorical possibility for German and European political integration as they reside within the discourse between the East German opposition groups, the West German press, and the West German political leadership. Keywords: Berlin Wall, Political Crisis Narratives, Rhetoric iii DEDICATION Für meine Familie. Die mich lehrte was Zusammenhalt und Durchhaltevermögen bedeuten. (To my family. For teaching me what togetherness and perseverance mean.) iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to the members of my dissertation committee. Thank you, Dr. Nathan Crick, Dr. Randy Kluver, Dr. Timothy Coombs, and Dr. Gabriela Thornton for your personal and professional support, encouragement, and guidance. Your insights about rhetoric, strategic narratives, crises communication, and European politics were instrumental in developing the theoretical lens for this dissertation. I extend special thanks to my dissertation advisor, Professor Crick, whose critical, yet supportive voice was vital to both the completion and revision of this project. Nathan, you set the right constraints for me to be creative. Whether it is your advice about academic writing, teaching, or conference presentations, you introduced the right standards for me to grow as a researcher and teacher. Further, thank you Dr. Kluver for introducing me to Alister Miskimmon’s ideas about policy narratives. Your guidance and encouragement to view European politics through a narrative lens, as well as our numerous conversations about the role of Europe and Germany in international politics truly helped me to shape my research agenda. Also, thank you Dr. Coombs for exposing me to Arjen Boin’s ideas about political crisis management and Frandsen and Johansen’s rhetorical arena approach to crisis communication. Your input and support to write about Angela Merkel’s lonely political voice in Europe’s 2015 migration crisis led to a conference paper, which I presented during the best student paper panel in the PR Division at NCA in Dallas. Finally, thank you Dr. Thornton for helping me develop a research interest in European politics and thank you for the numerous insightful and inspiring conversations about European identity politics. v My mom, Dorothea Ehrl, and my best childhood friend Christoph Pöter deserve special recognition in that they researched and located those newspaper articles for me that were not accessible through A&M’s databases. Their efforts were invaluable to the coding process of my data. Also, I wish to thank Christoph Pöter, Robert Engel, and David Fricke for listening to my concerns and doubts and encouraging me to continue despite logistical and psychological obstacles. I also owe great debts to the communication faculty and staff at Texas A&M University, who not only helped me to navigate A&M’s bureaucracy, but also entrusted me with teaching a variety of lower and upper level communication courses. By providing me the opportunity to teach courses like rhetorical criticism and group communication, as well as international communication and argumentation and debate, the communication department allowed me to grow into the role of a well-rounded instructor of communication. Finally, I wish to thank my wonderful wife, Paige Calamari Ehrl, who puts up with an academic who is also a German. She puts the world into perspective when I try to explain it from high up in the ivory tower. She often reminds me that there is a world outside of seminar rooms and lecture halls. Thank you for turning an academic into an adventurer and recording our adventures with beautiful photography. You are my most loyal fan. vi CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES This work was supervised by a dissertation committee consisting of Professor Nathan Crick, Professor Alan Kluver, and Professor William T. Coombs of the Department of Communication and Professor Gabriela Thornton of the Bush School of Government and Public Service. All work for the dissertation was completed by the student independently. There are no outside funding contributions to acknowledge related to the research and compilation of this document. vii NOMENCLATURE AfD Alternative for Germany Party ASNA Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata BPB Germany’s Federal Agency for Civic Education CDA Critical Discourse Analysis CDU Christian Democratic Union Party CSCE Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe EEC European Economic Community EPC European Political Cooperation FAZ Frankfurter Allgemenine Zeitung FR Frankfurter Rundschau FRG Federal Republic of Germany GDR German Democratic Republic LDPD Liberal-Democratic Party of East Germany NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NDPD National Democrats PDA Political Discourse Analysis SED Socialist Unity Party of Germany SPD Social Democratic Party SZ Süddeutsche Zeitung STASI East Germany’s State Security Service TAZ Tageszeitung viii USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics WTO Warsaw Treaty Organization ix TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... ii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... v CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES ............................................................ vii NOMENCLATURE ........................................................................................................ viii TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................... x LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... xii LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... xiii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1 The East German Public ................................................................................................. 8 The Western Print Media ............................................................................................. 14 The Political Leadership of the West ........................................................................... 16 Dissertation Data .......................................................................................................... 21 Approach ...................................................................................................................... 24 Organization of the Dissertation .................................................................................