Der ostdeutsche Citoyen. Beobachtungen zu Tiefenstrukturen der Demokratieentwicklung in Marzahn-Hellersdorf. Generationen, Erfahrungen, Erkenntnisschranken

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (8-9) ◽  
pp. 701-729
Author(s):  
Raiko Hannemann
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Research Report ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
Political Sciences ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
East German ◽  
Collective Process

Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel versteht sich als Forschungszwischenbericht sowie Kritik an bisherigen Erklärungsansätzen zur bisherigen Demokratieentwicklung in Ostdeutschland seit 1990. Am Beispiel des Ost-Berliner Bezirkes Marzahn-Hellersdorf wird auf der Basis qualitativer, narrativ-biografischer Interviews mit Bürger_innen des Bezirkes thesenartig zum einen eine Kritik traditioneller politiktheoretischer Begriffe wie privat und öffentlich, sozial und politisch am Material entfaltet. Dabei erscheinen die in der Bundesrepublik epistemisch ‚erfolgreichen‘ politikwissenschaftlichen Begriffe von Zivilgesellschaft, Engagement und Politik für Ostdeutschland unzureichend. Zum anderen wird auf der Basis des qualitativen Datenmaterials die These von der Entstehung einer ostdeutschen Öffentlichkeit, einer Ost-Sphäre vorgestellt und historisch hergeleitet. Sie verdankt ihre Existenz einem kollektiven Entfremdungsprozess des Citoyens dem Gemeinwesen gegenüber. Dabei wird festgestellt, dass populäre Diagnosen über eine unterentwickelte Zivilgesellschaft in Ostdeutschland, verursacht durch die DDR-Vergangenheit, nicht aufrechtzuerhalten sind. Abstract: The East German Citoyen. Notes on Deep Structures of Democracy Development in Marzahn Hellersdorf. Generations, Experiences, Frontiers of Perception This article is intended as an interim research report as well as a critique on previous explanatory approaches to the democracy development in East Germany since 1990. Based on qualitative, narrative-biographical interviews with citizens of Marzahn-Hellersdorf, a critique on traditional concepts of political sciences such as private and public, social and political is developed. Applied to this East Berlin district, it is shown that epistemically in West Germany ‘successful’ notions of civil society, political activism and the Political are not suitable enough for a deeper understanding of East German terms. Moreover, based on the qualitative data, the hypothesis of the emergence of an East German public, an Eastern-sphere, is presented and derived historically. It owes its existence to a collective process of alienation between the citoyen and the polity of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is claimed that currently popular notions of an alleged backward civil society in East Germany, caused by the GDR past, cannot be sustained.

How Udo Wanted to Save the World in ‘Erich's Lamp Shop’: Lindenberg's Concert in Honecker's East Berlin, the NATO Double-Track Decision and Communist Economic Woes

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
LORENZ M. LÜTHI
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
East German ◽  
Peace Activist ◽  
Nuclear Missiles ◽  
Double Track

AbstractThe concert given by the West German rock star Udo Lindenberg in East Berlin on 25 October 1983 links cultural, political, diplomatic and economic history. The East German regime had banned performances by the anti-nuclear peace activist and musician since the 1970s, but eventually allowed a concert, hoping to prevent the deployment of American nuclear missiles in West Germany. In allowing this event, however, East Germany neither prevented the implementation of the NATO double-track decision of 1979 nor succeeded in controlling the political messages of the impertinent musician. Desperate for economic aid from the West, East Germany decided to cancel a promised Lindenberg tour in 1984, causing widespread disillusionment among his fans in the country.

scholarly journals Denying Difference to the Post-Socialist Other: Bernhard Heisig and the Changing Reception of an East German Artist

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 45-74
Author(s):  
April A. Eisman
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
German Unification ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Before And After ◽  
East German

This article traces the reception of East German artist Bernhard Heisig’s life and art—first in East Germany and then in the Federal Republic of Germany before and after the Wall. Drawing on post-colonial and post-socialist scholarship, it argues that Heisig’s reception exemplifies a western tendency to deny cultural and ideological difference in what the post-socialist scholar Piotr Piotrowski calls the “close Other.” This denial of difference to artists from the eastern bloc has shaped western understandings of Heisig’s life and art since reunification. Once perceived as an intellectually engaged, political artist, both in East and West Germany, after the fall of the Wall and German unification, Heisig was reinterpreted as a traumatized victim of two dictatorships, distorting not only our understanding of the artist and his work, but also of the nature of art and the role of the artist in East Germany.

‘Another brick in the wall’. On the origins of nationalism in the ‘new’ federal states of Germany

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-125
Author(s):  
A. V. Belinskii ◽  
M. V. Khorol’skaya
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Local Population ◽  
German Economy ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Federal States ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
East German

A relatively broad support enjoyed by the populist and nationalist parties and movements (AfD, National Democratic Party of Germany, PEGIDA), as well as a higher rate of hate crimes in the eastern part of the Federal Republic of Germany raise a question on the nature of nationalism in this region. The present paper examines the causes of widespread xenophobic and nationalist sentiments in the ‘new’ federal states. To this end, the authors address a wide range of social-political and psychological factors, focusing on the historical roots and causes of the recent rise of nationalism in East Germany. Particularly, the authors show that the right-wing parties took advantage of popular frustration caused by the collapse of the East German economy after the country’s reunification and massive unemployment by putting all the blame on migrants. Nevertheless, the causes of growing xenophobia in East Germany were far from being solely economic. For example, the authors underline the role of the politics of memory in the GDR and primarily the approaches of its leaders to the issues of the Nazi past and their attempts to draw on the country’s history to shape a new national identity. However, the failure of the state to provide an unbiased view on the national history, rigid official ideology and its alienation from the popular demands have led to the growing nationalism in the GDR. Besides, a number of other aspects is pointed out which have also fostered xenophobic sentiments in this part of the country. Unlike West Germany which started to accept labour migrants from Italy, Turkey and Yugoslavia back in 1950s, the GDR saw few foreigners and contacts between them and local population were limited. As a result, the paper not only helps to create a more detailed image of the East German nationalism but also to identify the underlying causes of the growing popularity of right-wing populist parties and movements in the FRG, most notably, the unfinished process of the country’s reunification and structural imbalances between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ federal states.

Transit to East Germany: The Distribution and Reception of Once Upon a Time in the West in the German Democratic Republic

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary Stott
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Business Professionals ◽  
The West ◽  
Nation States

This chapter examines the relocation, transition, and appropriation of the Spaghetti Western in a hitherto under-researched context: the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), prior to its unification with the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) in 1990. It explores the selection, distribution and reception of Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West, Sergio Leone, 1968) in the German Democratic Republic as a case study of how international cultural transfer causes objects of cultural production to be repositioned as they enter a new reception context. It also examines the ideological, economic, and sociological concerns underpinning the decisions of those who facilitated the movement of film across the political, cultural, and linguistic boundaries of nation states. In East Germany, the facilitators involved in the selection, censorship, dubbing, and promotion of films were mainly government administrators rather than film business professionals, because film was a state-controlled industry. The chapter focuses on the ‘official’ reception of the film on the basis of available censorship protocols and government policy papers, as well as print media sources.

Salts, Sewage, and Sulfurous Air

2019 ◽  
pp. 125-158
Author(s):  
Astrid M. Eckert
Keyword(s):  
Water Pollution ◽  
Sulfur Dioxide ◽  
Ecological Restoration ◽  
Industrial Waste ◽  
Environmental Problem ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
West Germany ◽  
German States ◽  
East German

This chapter addresses a typical borderland environmental problem—transboundary air and water pollution. During the 1970s and 1980s, rivers carried eastern industrial waste and sewage into West Germany; the wind blew sulfur dioxide both ways. Their environmental interdependency forced both German states to the negotiating table, eventually producing the ineffectual Environmental Accords of 1987. The western encounter with eastern pollution through the interface of the inter-German border confronted West German authorities with early signs of East Germany’s dissolution. While they failed to grasp the message, their experience with East German pollution and the futile diplomatic efforts to curb it nonetheless generated the knowledge about the nature and extent of the GDR’s environmental problems that became the prerequisite for the post-1990 ecological restoration of East Germany.

scholarly journals The Effect of the Post-Socialist Transition on Inequality of Educational Opportunity: Evidence from German Unification

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-473
Author(s):  
Bastian A Betthäuser
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Educational Opportunity ◽  
Educational Inequality ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
German Unification ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
East And West ◽  
Inequality Of Educational Opportunity

Abstract In 1990, German unification led to an abrupt and extensive restructuring of the educational system and economy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as the latter was reintegrated into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). However, the consequences of this large-scale institutional change for the educational inequality between children from different social class backgrounds in East Germany continue to be poorly understood. This article seeks to shed new light on this question by using a quasi-experimental approach to examine the difference in educational inequality between East and West Germany before and after German unification. We compare changes in the class gradient in the attainment of comparable school and university qualifications in East and West Germany across six birth cohorts, including three cohorts of individuals who completed their schooling after unification. We find that before unification, inequality of educational opportunity at the mid-secondary, upper-secondary and tertiary level was substantially lower in East Germany than in West Germany and that unification led to a substantial and sustained convergence of the level of inequality of educational opportunity in East Germany towards that of West Germany.

Wage Adjustment, Competitiveness and Unemployment – East Germany after Unification

2009 ◽  
Vol 229 (2-3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Werner Smolny
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
East Germany ◽  
German Economy ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Relative Wage ◽  
Wage Setting ◽  
East And West Germany ◽  
Market Situation ◽  
East German ◽  
Wage Adjustment

SummaryNearly 20 years after unification large differences of the labor market situation in East and West Germany persist. Wages are still considerably lower, the unemployment rate is about twice of the West German level, and the competitiveness of the East German economy seems to be low. This paper analyzes the process of (relative) wage adjustment in East Germany and the resulting development of competitiveness and unemployment differentials. We present estimates of the wage adjustment in East vs. West Germany based on wage convergence and effects of unemployment on wage growth. The central focus of the paper is the empirical analysis of the interaction of the development of competitiveness and the labor market situation. The results reveal large equilibrium gaps for wages and unemployment which are based on the wage-setting process, the behavior of competitiveness and the adjustment of unemployment.

scholarly journals Salmon migration and fertility in East Germany – An analysis of birth dynamics around German reunification

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3-2018) ◽  
pp. 247-268
Author(s):  
Michaela Kreyenfeld ◽  
Anja Vatterrott
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
Large Fraction ◽  
West Germany ◽  
German Population ◽  
German Reunification ◽  
Region Of Origin ◽  
Regional Mobility ◽  
Deutsche Rentenversicherung ◽  
East German

This paper uses rich administrative data from the Deutsche Rentenversicherung (German Pension Fund) to describe changes in the timing and the spacing of births that occurred in the period following German reunification. We examine differences in the birth dynamics of East Germans, West Germans, and women who migrated between the two parts of Germany in these years. As the pension registers provide monthly records on whether a person is living in East or West Germany, they also allow us to examine the role of regional mobility in birth behaviour. In particular, we test the “salmon hypothesis”, which suggests that migrants are likely to postpone having a child until after or around the time they return to their region of origin. Our investigation shows that a large fraction of the cohorts born in 1965-74 migrated to West Germany after reunification, but that around 50% of these migrants returned to East Germany before reaching age 40. The first birth risks of those who returned were elevated, which suggests that the salmon hypothesis explains the behaviour of a significant fraction of the East German population in the period following German reunification.

scholarly journals Realism, Pansophy and Mentality in the Work of the Czech and World Pedagogue J.A. Comenius: An Analysis of Three Fundamental German Works and Their Significance for International Comeniology

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dietmar Waterkamp
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
World View ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Theoretical Structure ◽  
International Reputation ◽  
East German ◽  
Teacher Trainer

Three fundamental scientific works on the pedagogy of Comenius will be considered from newperspectives. These are the works of the East German comeniologist Franz Hofmann and the two WestGerman comeniologists, Klaus Schaller and Andreas Lischewski. Germany has produced numerous scientific analyses of Comenius since 1945, but these three habilitation theses were selected for comparative analysis because their authors gained an international reputation as comeniologists through these works. By illuminating the different views of Comenius, new aspects of his world view and pedagogy can be carved out. Differences arise not only due to certain peculiarities of Comeniology between East Germany and West Germany, but also between Protestant and Roman Catholic interpretations. Each of the three works describes the pedagogy of Comenius from its own perspective. Hofmann wrote as a historian of pedagogy and at the same time as a teacher-trainer who passes on the intellectual heritage to a younger generation of pedagogues; Schaller wrote as a pedagogue and philosopher who provided a philosophical deepening of Comenius' pedagogy; Lischewski, as a younger scientist, undertook a scientific-critical effort to delve into the hidden theoretical structure of Comenius' work. A look at the three works shows that there are still unresolved questions despite the renewed upswing in Comenius research since the 20th century.

Inventing New Forms of Political Theatre

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Fischer-Lichte
Keyword(s):  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Red Army Faction ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
Political Stance ◽  
Red Army ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

Chapter 7, ‘Inventing New Forms of Political Theatre’, covers the 1960s and 1970s. It situates the chosen productions in the socio-political climate of the GDR—that is, within the discussions on the leadership of the Party—and in the Federal Republic of Germany, where the anti-authoritarian movement, the student movement, and the emergence of the Red Army Faction provide the context. The aesthetics of Benno Besson’s Oedipus Tyrant (1967, East Berlin), Hansgünther Heyme’s Oedipus (1968, Cologne), Hans Neuenfels’ Medea (1976), and Christoph Nel’s Antigone (1978, both in Frankfurt/Main) is evaluated in terms of their contribution to this discussion and their political stance. The last three productions serve as examples of how the Bildungsbürgertum—still the majority of the theatregoers in West Germany—wanted the politicization of theatre to be not merely justified but mandatory.

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