Post-unification (East) German Documentary and the Contradictions of Identity

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barton Byg
Keyword(s):  
West Germany ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East German ◽  
Innovative Enterprise ◽  
East And West ◽  
The Individual

This chapter focuses on the three major themes that have helped make the integration between East and West German documentary filmmakers successful and have contributed new strengths to German independent documentary as a productive and innovative enterprise. It first illustrates the phenomenon of collaboration between filmmakers from both East and West Germany, which preceded the fall of the Berlin Wall and provides the basis for unique accomplishments in documentary. Then, partly based on these East–West collaborations, it discuss examples of German documentary's frequent explorations of non-European topics, which challenge the clear separation of European and non-European in both politics and film art. Here, the film collaborations between Helga Reidemeister and Lars Barthel will serve as a case study. Finally, also as a result of decades of experimentation with the nature of the film medium's presentation of ‘reality’, ‘history’, and the individual human subject, Thomas Heise's German ‘portrait film’ Barluschke (1997) is explored as an example of this defining quality of independent German documentary filmmaking in the context of the post-Cold War.

From London to Leipzig and Back: A Transnational Approach to the Endzeit  (R)Evolution (1976–92)

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-100
Author(s):  
Marlene Schrijnders
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East German ◽  
German City ◽  
East And West ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship

Twenty-five years ago, just as the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the suitably-titled West German goth fanzine Glasnost announced that a festival called Wave-Gotik-Treffen was to be held in the East German city of Leipzig. Today, the Wave-Gotik-Treffen is the biggest such festival in the world. Initially, however, its significance lay in allowing East and West German goths to meet and dance together, revealing differences in their respective experiences and understanding of the dark subculture. This article will examine two inter-related questions. First, what was the relationship between ‘goth’, as a music and aesthetic, across the frontier of the cold war? Second, to what extent were the goth subcultures of East and West Germany informed by and understood in relation to the original goth subculture emergent within the UK? The article will feed into the debate on the politics of youth culture, but also on the ways by which subcultural meanings and identities are transmitted and redefined across national borders.

After the Wall: Parental attitudes to child rearing in East and West Germany

2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harald Uhlendorff
Keyword(s):  
Parental Attitudes ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Child Rearing ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Path Analyses ◽  
The Social ◽  
Family Orientation ◽  
Kinship Relations ◽  
East German ◽  
East And West

In the years following German reunification, East and West German parents (282 mothers and 207 fathers) were interviewed about attitudes to the rearing of their 7- to 13-year-old children and about their social networks. Path analyses show that East German parents engage in more protective and less permissive parenting, and that East German fathers raise their children in a more traditional and authoritarian manner than their West German counterparts. In part, these differences can be attributed to the strong family orientation of East German parents (many and intensive kinship relations, few friends). Further analyses show that corollaries of the social upheavals in East Germany, namely closer cohesion of the immediate family and a decrease in the social support provided by the extrafamilial environment, are associated with protective attitudes to parenting and hence with the tendency to limit children’s freedom of decision-making.

scholarly journals Reinventing Consumption Traditions through the Process of Unification of a Country: Understanding “Good Bye Lenin!”

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-153
Author(s):  
Ece Ceren Engür
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East And West ◽  
The Times

This paper focuses on the change of consumption traditions in terms of re-unification of a country. The discussion bases on the movie, “Good Bye Lenin!”(2003) and chases the transformations on consumption trends in order to understand how the re-unification of East and West Germany influences the practices of everyday life after a four decade long segregation. The movie displays the 1990’s Germany during the times when the Berlin Wall falls and frames a family portrait which is dominated by an idealist and traditional mother character in the last days of her life.

Catching-up of East German Labour Productivity in the 1990s

2000 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray Barrell ◽  
Dirk Willem te Velde
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
Labour Productivity ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Foreign Firms ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
East German ◽  
East And West ◽  
Organization Of Production

Abstract We provide empirical evidence for exogenous and endogenous catching-up of East German labour productivity to West German levels. We argue that labour productivity in East Germany has caught up faster than has happened elsewhere. The sudden formation of the German Monetary Union was followed by large transfers to East Germany, migration of workers to West Germany, reorganization and privatization of East German firms. This has quickly led to a partial closing of the organizational, idea and object gaps that existed between East and West Germany. This paper analyses labour productivity in East and West Germany using both aggregate German data and unbalanced panel analysis of developments in East and West Germany. Factors affecting the organization of production, and especially privatization and `foreign' firms, are found to be particularly important in this context.

scholarly journals Where is the Hoechst Insulin?: The Role of Diabetics and Their Doctors as Consumers During the German Democratic Republic’s Autarkic Policy of ‘Making Free From Disturbance’, 1961–1966

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 924-945
Author(s):  
Kathrin A Hiepko
Keyword(s):  
West Germany ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Medical Ethos ◽  
East German ◽  
Insulin Dependent ◽  
Continued Use ◽  
German Diabetes

Summary This article examines the treatment of the chronic disease, diabetes mellitus, during and immediately after the German Democratic Republic (GDR)’s autarkic policy of Störfreimachung, literally translated as ‘making free from disturbance’. I look specifically at an insulin favoured by East German diabetes specialists and their patients delivered from the West German pharmaceutical company, Hoechst AG, and the consequences of preventing this insulin from being imported. By using insulin as a case study, a medication necessary for the survival of insulin-dependent diabetics, the article offers a close analysis of the complex relationship between ordinary citizens, medical professionals and the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) following the building of the Berlin Wall. I argue that the intense focus on the issue of consumption in the competition between the GDR and West Germany shaped both the attitude of the SED and those responding to the policy of Störfreimachung. The SED regime and leading health officials espoused a highly ‘productionist’ medical ethos that was somewhat at odds with their growing desire to meet increasing consumer demands. This collision opened up ideological contradictions, which provided an opportunity for those on the receiving end of the policy to discredit it, and, by extension, justify the continued use of their preferred choice of insulin from Hoechst. I draw, in particular, on patient Eingaben (petitions) and reports by district diabetologists in order to uncover this trend.

scholarly journals Hidden Behind the Wall: West German State Building and the Emergence of the Iron Curtain

2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 506-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sagi Schaefer
Keyword(s):  
German Economy ◽  
State Building ◽  
West Germany ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
German State ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East German

It is widely accepted that the inter-German border was constructed by East German authorities to halt the emigration to the west, which had damaged the East German economy and undermined the East German state agencies' power. This article argues that this is an inaccurate understanding, which mistakenly treats perceptions and insights gained from studying the Berlin Wall as representative of the mostly rural border between East and West Germany. It emphasizes crucial transformations of frontier society during the 1950s, highlighting the important role of western as well as eastern policy in shaping them.

How Robust is the IAT? Measuring and Manipulating Implicit Attitudes of East-and West-Germans

2001 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrich Kühnen ◽  
Michael Schießl ◽  
Nadine Bauer ◽  
Natalie Paulig ◽  
Claudia Pöhlmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Attitudes ◽  
West Germany ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East German ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Dimension 2 ◽  
East And West ◽  
Underlying Processes ◽  
East West ◽  
Representative Samples

Abstract. We investigated consequences of priming East-West-German related self-knowledge for the strength of implicit, ingroup-directed positive evaluations among East- and West-Germans. Based on previous studies we predicted opposite effects of self-knowledge priming for East- and West-Germans. Since in general the East-German stereotype is regarded as more negative than the West-German one, bringing to mind East-West-related self-knowledge (relative to neutral priming) was expected to attenuate ingroup favoritism for East-Germans, but to increase it for West-Germans. After having fulfilled the priming tasks, participants worked on an IAT-version in which the to be classified stimuli were East- or West-German city names (dimension 1) and positive or negative adjectives (dimension 2). Results of Experiment 1 showed (a) that East- and West-German students implicitly evaluated their ingroups as more positive than the outgroups and (b) confirmedthe predictions of the priming influence. Experiment 2 replicated these findings with more representative samples from East- and West-Germany. The results are discussed with regard to underlying processes of implicit attitudes in intergroup contexts.

Rejecting Radbruch: The European Court of Human Rights and the Crimes of the East German Leadership

2001 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 653-663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Miller
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Central Line ◽  
West Germany ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
European Court ◽  
East German ◽  
East And West

The European Court of Human Rights found no violation of the Convention in its judgement in the complaints of the former East German political and military leaders Streletz, Kessler, and Krenz. All three were convicted and sentenced to terms in prison by German courts in relation to the deaths of East Germans who were killed in attempts at fleeing across the fortified border between East and West Germany. Nonetheless, the Court's decision constitutes a clear rejection of the Radbruch Formula, which served as a central line of reasoning in the decisions of the German courts in the cases. The author addresses the Court's rejection of the Radbruch Formula, focusing especially on the distinct historical and political circumstances that existed after World War II and in 1989.

scholarly journals The Covariance Structure of East and West German Incomes and its Implications for the Persistence of Poverty and Inequality

2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Biewen
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Covariance Structure ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Transitory Shocks ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
East German ◽  
East And West ◽  
The One

Abstract Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), this paper analyzes the dynamics of equivalent income in East and West Germany in the years following reunification. Special emphasis is given to the separation of permanent and transitory components, the persistence of transitory shocks and their implications for the persistence of poverty and inequality. The results suggest that in West Germany, between 52 and 69 per cent of cross-sectional income inequality was permanent, and that poor individuals stayed in poverty for two years on average. In East Germany, the share of the permanent component in overall income inequality rose continuously from 20 per cent in 1990 to 72 per cent in 1998, reaching a level near the one that prevailed in West Germany during the same period. The rising importance of time-invariant components in East German incomes was also reflected in expected poverty durations which slightly increased from 1.47 years in 1990 to 1.67 years in 1998.

Human Capital, Job Tasks and Technology in East Germany After Reunification

2007 ◽  
Vol 201 ◽  
pp. 97-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Spitz-Oener
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The West ◽  
Job Tasks ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East German ◽  
Surprising Finding

At the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, employees in East Germany were at least as well educated as employees in West Germany in terms of formal educational qualifications. However, it is unclear to what extent the skills and knowledge acquired through the East German education system, and through employment in a socialist labour market, are transferable to the new market-based economy. This study aims to shed light on this issue by giving a comprehensive description of the work of those employees who remained employed after the first phase of restructuring (i.e. in 1991) in East Germany, and comparing it with work in West Germany. Overall, the similarity between workplaces in East and West Germany soon after reunicication is striking. In addition, the patterns of task changes between 1991 and 1999 were very similar in both parts of Germany. Neither the level of task inputs in1991 nor the changes in task inputs between 1991 and 1999 were driven by cohort effects, a surprising finding given how differently the age groups were affected by the historical event. The Largest difference between the east and the west exists in terms of workplace computerisation. Although East Germany has caught up rapidly, it was still lagging behind the west in terms of computer use in 1999.

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