Legacies of East German Communism THOUGHTS FROM GERMANY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
ALISON LEWIS
In 2020 I found myself in Berlin at the utterances, it was clear how much her own peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. I arrived just personal experience as an easterner framed as the first restrictions were announced and every decision. In one sentence on 18 March, I would be lying if I said I was not fearing she was explicit about her communist past: the worst. Would the Germans impose ‘For someone like me, for whom freedom of stricter isolation rules than, say, their French travel and movement has been a hard-fought or British neighbours, I asked myself. And right, restrictions can only be justified as an would they police them more rigorously? absolute necessity.’4 Would we even see the re-emergence of When I was not scouring shops for the authoritarianism—the ‘authoritarian stores of food that might see me through personality’ that Theodor Adorno and the a 14- or 28-day complete lockdown—if it Frankfurt School diagnosed while in US came to this—I took time out to observe exile and which undergirded National the city’s commemorations to mark the ▲ Title image: Montage using Socialism and the communist German 75th anniversary of the liberation of article figures and 1 Democratic Republic? Berlin by the Red Army in 1945. Far less archive files photo by On many occasions when confronted prominent, but noticeable nonetheless, were Anton P Daskalov, Shutterstock. with rows of empty shelves in supermarkets events to celebrate the 30th anniversary
and the sight of queues outside them, I was of the dissolution of the GDR and its ▼ Fig 1. Masks in reminded of the fabled chronic shortages in infamous secret police service, the Stasi or Berlin, July 2020 the GDR. For many locals, the public health Staatssicherheitsdienst. Immersed in this rich IMAGE: CARSTEN JS, FLICKR, CC0 1.0 crisis awakened painful memories of being memory culture of two dictatorships, I began UNIVERSAL robbed of one’s civil liberties—the right to associate and freedom of movement. In a powerful address to the nation on 18 March 2020, Angela Merkel implicitly acknowledged this history. She spoke about how ‘dramatic’ the changes to everyday life were and the need for ‘common sense and proportionality’ in the Corona restrictions.2 On other occasions, she referred to the pandemic as a ‘democratic challenge’ and expressed how deeply she regretted having to restrict ‘our existential rights and needs’.3 In all these
HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 11 / 2020 47 ► Fig 2. Reiner Kunze at a reading in 2012 IMAGE : WIKIMEDIA, CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 3.0 UNPORTED
to ponder some of the imponderables in my ambitious blueprints for complex covert fields of research. Would the Germans from operations that were designed to intervene the former East be better equipped to deal with proactively in people’s lives and shape them restrictions of civil liberties or would they have in specific ideological ways. In them the a lower tolerance for government crackdowns? security forces effectively ‘played God’ and And connected to this was the larger question arrogated to themselves powers to intimidate of whether they had done a better job at and harass. The measures were specifically dealing with their communist past than designed to sully reputations, ruin friendships their Nazi past? Were the Germans doubly and families, and even to destroy suspects’ guilty—namely, guilty of ignoring the crimes of health. What these show us is that the Stasi National Socialism as well as the injustices of was much more than just a ‘thought-police’; communism—as Ralph Giordano once accused it became in effect a massive bureaucratic them of being?5 Or were they so determined machine for curtailing undesirable political not to repeat the mistakes of ‘mastering’ the contingencies in the population. legacy of Nazism that they made a better fist of The first case study in my project was the confronting the wrongs of communism? East German dissident writer Reiner Kunze I was in Germany to take up a research (fig. 2). I planned to compare the Stasi’s fellowship at the intercultural research monstrous plans to destroy Kunze with institute, the Morphomata Center for Advanced his own account of his life. Was it possible Studies at the University of Cologne. I was that Kunze had been just as effective in risk studying one particularly chilling feature of the management as the Stasi had been? Had he Stasi files. The dossiers of Stasi victims, which been able to thwart some of these contingency are made up of endless biographical profiles plans, and if so how? And how could I find and informer reports, are punctuated at regular out? In the course of trying to answer these intervals by draconian departmental action questions, I realised that Kunze could also plans, often replete with innocuous sounding serve as a contained case study for my bigger labels such as Informationen or Maßnahmeplan question of how Germany has dealt with (action plan). These plans do far more than the burden of Cold War history. In many merely describe the victim or sketch out the ways he could count as representative of the contours of the life of a suspect. They contain
48 HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 11 / 2020 persecution of cultural producers and the intelligentsia.6 Kunze was my litmus test of how successfully, or otherwise, unified Germany has performed in righting the wrongs of the East German past. Kunze was born in 1933 in the Erzgebirge, in the same year that Hitler came to power, the son of a coal-miner and a seamstress. The postwar years were kind to him, and he was encouraged to finish high school and went on to study journalism at the Karl-Marx-University in Leipzig. Deeply grateful for the opportunity to gain an education, Kunze initially fell into line with the ideological expectations of the time. He was rewarded for his loyalty with a teaching appointment at the university in 1955 where he earned a reputation among his he published in a volume Die wunderbaren Jahre ▲ Fig 3. (left) Cover contemporaries for being an idealist.7 His (The Wonderful Years) in 1976 in the West, again of Die wunderbaren Jahre by Reiner career was on a steep upwards trajectory and with reluctant permission from the Office of Kunze he was made a member of the journalists’ and Copyright (Büro für Urheberrechte) (fig. 3). The IMAGE: PROSA writers’ unions. He published his first volume regime now decided to call Kunze’s bluff and FISCHER ▲ of poetry around this time, mostly politically issued threats to arrest him. Kunze, who did Fig 4. (right) Cover of Deckname 8 orthodox poems and love poetry. not know these were largely a bluff, promptly ‘Lyrik’ In 1956, around the time of the Soviet applied to emigrate. He and his family left for IMAGE: SACHBUCH FISCHER suppression of the popular uprising in West Germany over Easter 1977. Hungary, Kunze found himself under scrutiny We now know the entire back story to these for his liberal views, and after he spoke out events from Kunze’s Stasi dossier. Kunze’s file, publicly against the indoctrination of students, code-named ‘Lyrik’ or poetry, is voluminous. the Socialist Unity Party (SED) commenced It spans twelve folders and is 3,491 pages long. disciplinary action against him for counter- His file is thick, bulky in a physical sense but revolutionary activities. The Stasi began also thick in Clifford Geertz’s sense of ‘thick low-grade security checks on him. 1968 was description’, those rich layers of sedimented another watershed in Kunze’s vita. After the meaning-making and interpretation that Warsaw Pact troops marched into Prague anthropologists aim to produce. In many ways and suppressed the reform movement, he left the file provides one such ‘thick description’ of the party. From this point on, Kunze became social and intellectual life under communism.9 persona non grata and was placed under Stasi The last three months before Kunze’s exile surveillance. His next volume of poetry was fill two volumes and take up 300 pages. not published in the East, and yet, he received Above all the files afford us insights into the permission to publish it in the West. The Stasi precise objectives of the Operative Procedure nonetheless saw the volume, Sensitive Paths (Operativer Vorgang), which was launched after (Sensible Wege) (1969), as a serious danger. In the crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968. 1973 Kunze was finally permitted to publish The purpose was to investigate activities in another collection of poems in the GDR, relation to violations to Article 106, “Agitation during a brief phase of liberalisation. The Stasi against the State” (Staatsgefährdende Hetze) would have liked to arrest him but could not and Article 220 “Defamation of the State” because this volume had passed the requisite (Staatsverleumdung) of the Criminal Code.10 censorship authorities. Kunze became a Kunze decided to publish key excerpts from magnet for critical citizens and he collected his file in 1990 in a small book with the title true stories about injustices in the land, which Codename ‘Poetry’ (Deckname ‘Lyrik’) (fig. 4).11
HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 11 / 2020 49 critics, who feared declassifying the files would MASTERING THE COMMUNIST PAST AND TRUTH-TELLING lead to witch hunts and a rampant culture of denunciations. Germany’s radical approach In transitional justice studies, scholars speak was even decried by its Polish neighbours as of a number of central pillars in effecting masochistic.15 In truth, none of these fears transition from an authoritarian system of rule were justified. to a democratic one, including truth-seeking, After receiving a copy of his entire Stasi serving justice and achieving reconciliation.12 file, Kunze seriously contemplated destroying In some instances one mechanism is given all but the most important parts of it, not priority over the other, or one sacrificed for because it did not contain many painful truths the other, depending on local histories and but because of the ‘nasty slanderous remarks’ cultures.13 In the German case, it is fair to say informants had made about him.16 These were that it has been the search for the truth about too explosive to be made public, he thought, the SED regime’s human and civil rights abuses and he feared that the Stasi’s brutal character that has been given highest priority. In 1990 assassination of himself might be used against when the terms of East Germany’s accession him. ‘Something could stick,’ he explained in to the Federal Republic were debated and 1991.17 Kunze’s caution now seems exaggerated, negotiated, the most direct way to expose the even paranoid, especially in light of the truth about perpetrators was to secure the systematic way Germany has effected change archives of the regime, in particular those of and rooted out the Stasi and its Chekist, or the Staatssicherheit. While not all Stasi files secret police worldview. As we now know this could be rescued during the upheaval of the is not the case across all of the former Soviet revolution, today there remain, of the entire sphere in which recent nationalist projects 180 kilometres of Stasi files believed to have in Putin’s Russia have reclaimed the figure of existed, 111 km of them, which have been the secret police officer and re-stigmatised salvaged and secured for future generations. the dissident.18 A backlash of this kind has Germany was the first country in the thankfully been unthinkable in Germany. Eastern bloc to open the secret police For Kunze, the files reveal the massive extent archives without the usual embargos on of Stasi meddling in his life. He had suspected state secrets. At the end of 1991 the unified he was under observation but never dreamt German parliament moved swiftly to pass that it was on such a monumental scale. In his legislation regulating access to the secret file he found answers to many of life’s riddles police files, and, early in 1992, set up a federal and learned that the Stasi was behind all of the agency, Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen major setbacks in his career. Incidents he had des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen attributed to a cruel twist of fate or bad luck, he Deutschen Demokratischen Repblik, to oversee its was shocked to discover, were not the work of implementation. Where comprehensive records chance or contingency at all. He discovered, for of the old order exist, truth-finding through instance, which of his friends and associates the archives is universally seen as the most spied on him, and he found the Stasi’s detailed reliable and fail-safe method to ascertain who plans to demoralise and destroy him, and to was a victim, a perpetrator and a collaborator. trick him into leaving. In the excerpts Kunze In this sense, unified Germany has been has published from his Stasi file he is careful gifted a rare historical resource for effecting not to expose the identity of his informers, a radical break with its communist past. For with the notable exception of Manfred/Ibrahim this reason, Eastern bloc scholar Lavinia Böhme, alias IMS “August Drempker”, later Stan has called Germany, along with the renamed IMV “Paul Bonkarz.” (fig. 5). As one of Czech and Slovak Republics, a ‘leader’ among Kunze’s close confidants, Böhme wrote copious a number of ‘laggards’ in post-communist quantities of reports (Treffberichte) about Kunze democratisation.14 Despite this, Germany’s from 1970 to 1977. But when confronted by the uncompromising approach was not without its media about his collaboration in April 1990,
50 HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 11 / 2020 Böhme strenuously denied all involvement the so-called Insiderkomitee, in which they ▲ Fig 5. with the Stasi.19 Eight months later he was continued to rattle the secret police sabre.21 Ibrahim Böhme IMAGE: ALCHETRON, still determined to challenge the ‘campaign In their own words, they claimed they want CC BY-SA to slander him’, maintaining he had only ‘an objective and critical evaluation’ of the wanted to mediate in Kunze’s affairs and never actions of Stasi officers and aimed to combat wittingly harmed him.20 He would fight for his the use of the Stasi as a ‘stick’ to disqualify all rehabilitation, which, as we shall see below, did left opposition.22 After 1999 they became less not transpire. active and disbanded as a working group in Kunze’s fears in 1990 of a public backlash 2008, but maintained a low-key web presence, were not realised. He did not destroy his which occasionally comments on Stasi- file and he has made much of it public. No related affairs.23 one seriously believes that those slanderous remarks embedded in his file that accused THE QUEST FOR JUSTICE him of treason, incitement against the state Post-communist countries have used myriad and of harbouring counter-revolutionary tools for delivering justice to the perpetrators views will resurface in public debates or even and recognition for the victims.24 In many in social media. What remains are, however, models adopted in the former Eastern bloc like at the end of any prolonged war, partisan justice was sought through a mixture of skirmishes, rear-guard actions taken by the methods, from access to the secret police few hardliners and diehards, who are mostly files through to truth commissions and operating undercover. As Anna Funder has administrative processes of lustration. For written in her essay for The Monthly, divested the victims justice is best achieved by calling of a public voice, around 100 former Stasi perpetrators to account. Where the truth about officers formed an organisation in 1992, crimes lies solely with the perpetrators, and
HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 11 / 2020 51 there are few records of crimes, countries in some areas such as Saxony, and more lenient have offered perpetrators amnesties, as in in others, such as Brandenburg. Poland and South Africa, in exchange for Using a mix of questionnaires, interviews confessing to the truth.25 Where there have and evidence from the Stasi Archives, all public been other ways of accessing the truth, such servants were screened or ‘Gaucked’ as people as opening the archives, countries have not referred to the vetting at the time. Joachim pursued amnesties, as in Germany. In the Gauck was the first Commissioner for the Stasi combined model used in Hungary and Poland, Archives (BStU) and while his offices were not perpetrators have been offered the opportunity responsible for vetting—which was done by to expose themselves on the basis of the state ministries—the final proof was provided contents of their files in return for a second by Gauck’s archive. In Saxony, for instance, the chance.26 Germany has explicitly chosen not Ministry for Culture drew up an exhaustive to take a more lenient approach to former blacklist of undesirable professions—from communists or Stasi officers. teachers of Marxist-Leninism, Stasi informants and collaborators to teachers holding positions in party organisations—and those were Germany’s difficulties in reckoning summarily dismissed.30 Others were allowed with the communist past have been to present their case at a hearing. In relation to the police force, vetting was less draconian due compounded by a much larger set of to high demand for staff. Membership of the problems resulting from the ideological communist party and some Stasi collaboration were found to be unavoidable.31 In the first divide of the Cold War. decade 1,687,501 easteners were vetted for tainted pasts. Of these, 6.3% were found to Justice in post-communist Germany have Stasi connections, and 3% lost their jobs has been pursued in the courts when high- because of them.32 ranking communists and border guards who These figures might not seem especially shot citizens attempting to flee were put impressive but to my mind they tell us on trial in the 1990s.27 The justice system two things. On the one hand they suggest has also dealt with a range of other crimes that the public service was less thoroughly and miscarriages of justices such as doping, infiltrated with Stasi informants than is electoral fraud, abuse in prison, Stasi crimes, commonly assumed. On the other hand, they corruption, abuse of office and espionage.28 show there was a certain degree of latitude But more effective than legal redress have and local discretion in vetting those tainted been processes of lustration or purification— by their communist affiliations. In my view, so named after the Latin lustratio (review and this flexibility is not necessarily a flaw of the ritual sacrifice) and the Czech wordlustrace process, since it meant that mitigating personal (inventory or registry).29 Since the 1990s the circumstances could be taken into account. term lustration has come into wide usage To return to the example of Kunze, we and denotes the blanket vetting of public can see how vetting played out with regard service employees and politicians along with to Ibrahim Böhme, who was tasked with the purging of old compromised communist surveilling Kunze for seven years. Böhme elites. Lustration was commenced in Germany was among the reformists in the civil rights almost instantly after unification, with state movement (Bürgerrechtsbewegung) who joined premiers announcing procedures to screen all the peaceful revolution of 1989. He founded East German employees in the public service, the eastern branch of the Social Democratic including teachers and lecturers across the Party (SPD). Popular and well-liked, Böhme whole education sector, the police, the military, was about to stand as the SPD candidate and the judiciary. The five new states adopted for Prime Minister (Ministerpräsident) in the a de-centralised approach, which was harsher first free elections in East Germany in March
52 HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 11 / 2020 1990. Just prior to the elections a former Stasi apologies at the individual or national level, officer claiming to be Böhme’s handler made the fostering of mutual understanding and allegations in the Spiegel that Böhme was a an agreement to co-operate as well as lasting Stasi informer. Other informers who tried constitutional change. For learning the truth to enter politics around the time—Lothar de about the scale of past injustice, the files are Maiziere, who won the East German elections preferable to testimony from the perpetrators— in 1990; Martin Kirchner, the Secretary however, the silence of the perpetrators, who General of the Christian Democratic Party; have not been willing to admit wrong-doing, and Wolfgang Schnur, a candidate for the has been costly. The lack of public catharsis Democratic Awakening party—were exposed and confessions has been especially frustrating around the same time. There was considerable for victims, and it has meant few have been collective will among East and West Germans able to forgive those who betrayed them. to name Stasi informants, even among the For Kunze, closure on the past, and some newly elected East German parliament. This reconciliation, has been made possible in was not a witch hunt but targeted purging that various ways. Since he was forced to leave the was justifiably a matter of national ‘hygiene’.33 GDR, as well as after 1990, he has been listened Since the media generally relied on hard to and his story made public in the media. His evidence from the files before denouncing writing, but also his courage and suffering, someone, the exposures had serious has been acknowledged through many prizes, consequences. What is especially interesting including the Georg Büchner Prize, the most from an Australian perspective, is the broad prestigious literary award in Germany. After consensus that exposed public figures should 1990, when he first returned to his hometown, resign. Ibrahim Böhme, however, continued to he was welcomed back by an older man, rebut the allegations until early in 1992 when, who it later transpired, had been one of his based on the conclusive evidence from Kunze’s informers. From the Stasi files Kunze now Stasi file, he was expelled from his party.34 knows this man only acquiesced to save the For Kunze access to the truth provided by career of his son. Kunze would, he has stated the files has been important for achieving in an interview, still gladly shake hands with some sense of justice. Victims need to know him. Not so with others he identified in his file that those who spied on them are no longer who spied out of spite, ideological conviction in a position to wield power over them. With or for some personal gain.36 Kunze has had no Böhme’s removal from office Kunze was interest in passing absolution on his informers able to feel that justice was served. Equally unless they show contrition or remorse. crucial for Kunze was the swift vetting of Kunze’s experience with Böhme is, from East German members of parliament, and the my knowledge of talking with victims, fairly media’s appetite for exposing the Stasi pasts typical. Whether out of a sense of pride, of those in public office. For those victims of stubbornness or shame, most informers have communism who have not been eligible for played down the extent of their involvement financial compensation measures such as with the Stasi or claimed they were unaware these nonetheless send a strong signal. of the potential consequences their informing could have. By and large, most have not had THE UNFINISHED BUSINESS OF the largesse to confess and not found the RECONCILIATION words to apologise to their victims. On an Equally critical in the transitional justice intersubjective level, reconciliation between process, although hard to achieve, is victims and perpetrators has been elusive.37 reconciliation, forgiveness and healing. Obstacles such as these have led Jennifer Understood as restoring trust between citizens, Yoder to observe that Germany had achieved reconciliation is perhaps the hardest to define ‘truth without reconciliation.’38 Germany’s of all the key categories of transitional justice.35 difficulties in reckoning with the communist It can take many social and political forms— past have been compounded by a much
HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 11 / 2020 53 larger set of problems resulting from the tell their story to tourists and school groups to ideological divide of the Cold War.39 Since ensure it is not forgotten. it was a partitioned country, only one half Reconciliation is always a long-term was directly affected by de-communisation. process.45 In truth we have seen the ideals Only easterners had to be screened for their of reconciliation inform Germany’s memory political affiliations, only easterners lost their politics consistently over the last three decades. jobs in the public service, had to retrain or Eyewitness accounts, for instance, have been take early retirement and only easterners lost included in many museum displays and there the country in which they were born.40 Today is a plethora of both locally and nationally it is still true that in the east Germans have funded foundations—The Federal Foundation smaller pensions,41 earn on average less, work for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship longer hours,42 and express lower levels of (Die Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED- satisfaction with democracy and the economic Diktatur), The German Federal Agency for situation.43 The rise of right-wing parties has Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische not surprisingly also been more pronounced in Bildung)—as well as subsidised private archives eastern Germany. such as the Robert-Havermann-Gesellschaft, In the long run intractable problems whose mission is to promote democracy of social injustice have complicated how and educate about the communist past. The Germany has dealt with older questions of Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung works with victim political justice in relation to communism. In associations and offers advice on rehabilitation social terms working towards reconciliation and compensation. This broad spectrum of between East and West has meant treading educational, memorial and support authorities a fine line between allowing easterners to is to my mind powerful testimony to participate in the rebuilding of their country Germany’s sustained and ongoing commitment and excluding those tainted by association to facing up to past injustices. with the communist past. Knowing what we By way of illustration, Kunze and his wife do now about the emergence of pronounced have set up a private foundation in their name eastern forms of identification, including in their house, which will become an exhibition nostalgia, or Ostalgie, it may well have been a and memorial space after their death and wise decision not to have insisted on blanket preserve their vast personal archives for future purges in the 90s. Had people with even minor generations. This alone is a clear sign that brushes with the secret police been barred Kunze’s fears of his Stasi file being used against from participating in some areas of public life, him have proved to be baseless. This is not to there may have been a greater backlash against say that life in exile in West Germany up until truth-seeking and justice mechanisms. reunification was without its challenges. With Reconciliation is notoriously difficult for the help of the Stasi the regime continued to countries who have experienced civil war and try and intimidate him. The Stasi launched healing can take generations. To be sure, in insidious disinformation campaigns and other Germany’s case reconciliation has occurred readily recognisable secret police operations mainly through mechanisms that are symbolic to silence him. Attempts were made to sully or localised, such as public acknowledgement his reputation in left circles and to spread of victims’ suffering and memorialisation.44 rumours about his wife.46 On one occasion the The many memorial sites and museums roots of a row of newly planted trees around around Germany are one way, for instance, in his house were cut off and the trees stuck back which the memory of persecution is kept alive, in the ground, and another time the roots were and eye-witnesses have become a central plank poisoned.47 One of Kunze’s famous poems in this commemoration culture. Many former about censorship drew on the metaphor of the inmates of Stasi prisons are now employed as forest and trees.48 Although this interference is tour guides in former prisons and are able to worrying in itself, if former Stasi officers were behind it, these incidents have been isolated.
54 HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 11 / 2020 They have not had any lasting impact on Kunze’s complete public rehabilitation. Confronting the legacies of the Cold War has moreover thrown up additional problems of social injustice and inequities between East and West that demand a different, possibly even contradictory set of responses. All post- unification governments have had a strong interest in inclusive governance and have been committed to holistic forms of reconciliation. Girelli has called this ‘thick reconciliation’: it aims to foster cooperation and a shared social vision rather than ‘thin reconciliation,’ which involves mere toleration and coexistence between antagonistic parties.49 The objective of ‘thick reconciliation’ has meant that Germany has made judicious use of the best resource for dismantling old power elites it has at its disposal, namely its security archives. Opening the files and screening of public servants has sent strong unequivocal messages to civil society and made a major contribution to restoring trust. The expressive and symbolic power of these is not to be underestimated. During my Berlin lockdown I had many occasions to observe whether eastern Germans were more or less tolerant of Covid-19 public For me the pandemic also shed instructive, ▲ Fig 6. Karl- health measures that curtailed their freedom. albeit impressionistic light on Germany’s Marx-Allee, Berlin, Germany I was curious, for instance, to listen to Angela police force. In some eastern regions the IMAGE: PAVEL Merkel’s comments on the restrictions and police were inundated by anonymous callers NEKORANEC, UNSPLASH her insinuation that one needed to be mindful reporting the cars of out-of-towners in breach of the fact that the East of the country of travel restrictions. Ironically, the police had only experienced 30 years of liberal laughed this off as unnecessary vigilantism. In democracy. In light of this, she emphasised fact, judging from the overall lenient attitude that the restrictions, which were ‘a challenge of the police I personally observed during the to democracy,’ ‘should be as short as possible’.50 lockdown, I would say that there are very few Differences in the response to them between hangovers from communist days in the police the eastern and western regions of Germany force. I regularly watched police vans drive were certainly apparent. In the Thuringian city through parks, past people sitting on benches of Jena, the mayor mandated mask-wearing or on lawns, some even drinking beer in small in public as early as 8 April, well before masks groups, but never once did I witness someone were required federally, and long before being questioned, admonished or fined.51 There the World Health Organisation conceded seems to be no evidence that authoritarianism they should be worn. A hangover from the or a lower threshold for the use of violence are authoritarianism of communist times? Or rife in the German police force today. a wise public health initiative that showed Since 1991 most former Eastern bloc solidarity and respect for others? It was most countries have followed Germany’s lead. certainly the latter. Indeed Jena’s success in Germany’s experience of dealing with the suppressing the virus went on to influence legacy of National Socialism has not offered German national policy on protective masks. any readymade templates for post-communist
HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 11 / 2020 55 memory work but it has provided lessons 1. Theodor Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brenswik, Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford, The Authoritarian aplenty. It has moreover produced a collective Personality, with a new introduction by Peter E. consensus that Germany must not incur Gordon (London and New York: Verso, 1950/2019). further guilt by failing to reckon with its 2. ‘Fernsehansprache von Bundeskanzlerin Angela communist history. Mastering both the Nazi Merkel’, Die Bundesregierung.de., 18 March 2020.
56 HUMANITIES AUSTRALIA 11 / 2020 18. Julie Fedor has written about how the KGB 34. See ‘Stasi: Moralische Verwüstung’, Der Spiegel, stage-managed recantations of Soviet dissident 2 April 1990. church leaders in the 1980s to neutralise dissident 35. Williams and Nagy, p. 6. discourse. More recently Russian nationalists have 36. Corino, p. 6. restigmatised dissidents as traitors, unless they have recanted. See Julie Fedor, ‘Soviet Narratives 37. Early attempts to facilitate between aggrieved of Redemption during the Second Cold War and victims of the Stasi and officers have been a dismal Beyond: The Case of Father Dmitrii Dudko,’ in Cold failure: See Katharina Gajdukowa, ‘Versöhnung War Spy Stories in Eastern Europe, ed. by Valentina im Idealismus: Bearbeitung von Opfer- und Glajar, Alison Lewis, and Corina M. Petrescu Tätertraumata in Begegnungsprojekten nach dem (Lincoln: Potomac Books, 2019), pp. 161–94. Ende der DDR’, Zeitschrift für Politische Psychologie, 12.2–4 (2004), 307–21 (p. 307). 19. Kunze, p. 113. 38. In her analysis of the parliamentary truth 20. Corino, p. 7. commissions (Enquête Kommissionen zur Aufarbeitung 21. Anna Funder, ‘Stasiland now,’ The Monthly der SED-Diktatur) set up in Germany in 1992, (December 2019–January 2020), p. 29. Jennifer A. Yoder concludes that these mechanisms 22. See Christian Lannert, ‘Vorwärts und nicht vergessen’?: were ‘of marginal significance in the process of Die Vergangenheitspolitik der Partei DIE LINKE und building trust, consensus, and especially national ihrer Vorgängerin PDS (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2012), unity’ (p. 62). p. 51. 39. See Yoder, p. 61. 23. See
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