For sure there were certain things that Robert would have liked to have from the West: as a child it was Milka chocolate and Matchbox toy cars that he coveted in the Intershops, which he describes as being like ‘a gate to heaven’, and as a teenager it was leather or bomber jackets, West German military boots, literature, and records.15 However, this did not mean he wanted to move to the West. At school he was taught that Westerners were the enemy, and teachers underlined the disadvantages of living in a capitalist society, such as unemployment, homelessness, drugs, and crime, so he had no desire to go there.16 When he visited his aunt who lived in a flat in Baumschulenweg, the train would pass near the Berlin Wall. From the train window, he could see part of Neukölln in the West. Robert recalls that he thought, ‘Oh, that’s the West. I have no interest in that.’ Other young East Germans were even more oblivious to the division of Germany. Felix R. from Pankow in East Berlin remembers marking his seventh birthday by going to see the view from the top of the TV tower (Fernsehtum). Far from noticing the Wall that divided the city below in two, he remembers spotting a shiny slide and begging his father to take him there.17 Robert was that much older, but still the division did not consciously intrude on his daily life.
When Robert heard bands like Die Toten Hosen—a popular punk rock band from Düsseldorf—playing on West German radio, he explains, he wished that he could go to such concerts, but ultimately he felt at home in the GDR, surrounded by family and friends. And besides, he reasons, it was all but impossible to get over the Wall, so why waste energy thinking about it? Young people a little older than Robert did begin to challenge the restrictions imposed by the regime. Why couldn’t Die Toten Hosen play in the GDR, for example? A growing number found the answers they received to such questions both odd and unsatisfactory, leading to disaffection with the regime. Robert believes he may well have shared these feelings if the Wall had not fallen when it did. Certainly the period around 1990 was a time when he began to grow curious about the world beyond Eastern Europe. Others, a few years older than Robert, could not believe that they would have to wait until they were retired to visit Paris or Rome.18
Robert loves to confound the assumptions of Westerners about life in the East by talking about the punk rock concerts he went to as a teenager. Westerners, he explains, cannot believe that such a counterculture existed in the GDR.19 However, it was a different matter in the late 1970s and the early 1980s when punk rock music and the associated nonconformist scene were not tolerated by the SED. Young people who seemed to prefer Western music and lifestyle epitomized the antithesis of the ‘socialist personality’ that the SED had tried to instil in young East Germans. East German punks’ unruly hair and casual clothing further grated with the authorities, which had a much smarter, tidier, and crucially military ideal in mind for their young people. Punks therefore were considered a menace to society, and the Stasi monitored their activities carefully. Unlike subversive literature, access to which could be controlled relatively easily, it was harder for the government to limit access to alternative music which East Germans could tune into on the radio, although it did not stop them trying. Bands had to submit lyrics to the authorities for approval ahead of performances, to ensure that the words did no damage to the socialist cause. And when they did get permission to perform, it was on the condition that a maximum of 40 per cent of the music they played was of Western origin, and the rest was produced under socialism. These were just a few of the rules that the SED government enforced to regulate popular music.20
In the context of perestroika (the easing and restructuring of socialist rule initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev from 1985 onwards), however, when Robert was coming of age, there was a greater acceptance of punk music, which was played by the likes of Party member and radio DJ Lutz Schramm during his show Parocktikum on East Germany’s youth radio station DT64.21 In some senses, then, the regime did not exert as much control over society as the ‘Stasi-state’ label would suggest.
Symptomatic of this was the room that existed for rebellion among Robert’s age group. In the late 1980s, Robert explains, there was a growing problem with neo-Nazi gangs, especially where he lived in Marzahn, the home of many elite party functionaries. Children of loyal Party members were rejecting the values of their parents, saying ‘My father is a socialist, therefore I’ll be a Nazi.’ This was something that Robert particularly noticed when he went on a youth camp to Czechoslovakia in early 1989. It was customary in the GDR for youth camps to be arranged by the workplace of one of the parents. Because his father was an FDJ functionary, the camp Robert attended was for FDJ functionaries’ children.
It was only here that Robert noticed how popular neo-Nazism was becoming amongst this group, when they sang Nazi songs and did the Hitler salute. This was not for Robert. Having been brought up under socialism, he said, he could never support Nazism. Instead, his generational rebellion was to become a punk rocker who, whilst remaining left wing, believed in anarchism. For Robert and his friends, being anarchists did not mean being violent or committing terrorist crimes, it rather meant being free of regimented leadership and replacing this way of doing things with peaceful discussion.22 Looking at the experiences of Robert and his cohort, it becomes clear why Stasi-centred portrayals of GDR inhabitants as passive conformers are inadequate, undifferentiated, and reductive.
figure 19 Robert’s ticket to an alternative rock concert organized by the FDJ in the summer of 1989.
Courtesy of Robert S.
figure 20 Robert as a teenager, on the day of his Jugendweihe (the socialist state’s equivalent to confirmation) in 1988.
Courtesy of Robert S.
It is not only the misrepresentation of the GDR in reunited Germany that bothers Robert; the manner of unification itself is a sore point. When East German demonstrators took to the streets in the autumn of 1989, he is keen to point out, unification was not on their minds. They wanted to reform socialism from within, to make it more democratic, with an easing of restrictions on the press and on travelling. In previous years campaigners for reform had carefully negotiated the borders of acceptability and asked each other ‘How far can we go?’23 In the months preceding the Wende they became bolder, however, and started saying out loud what many people had thought but not dared to say previously.24 As we saw in Petra’s story, many wanted the practice of socialism to better reflect its ideals. Shortly after the elections in March 1990, Robert recalls taking part in an unofficial left-wing demonstration on the Kollwitzplatz where people were chanting ‘Nie wieder Deutschland’ and someone burnt the Prussian flag. So although East Germans voted overwhelmingly in favour of unity, it was neither the original intention of the demonstrators nor was it unanimously supported when it happened. Furthermore, Robert believes, the election results show that the majority of East Berliners were against Helmut Kohl’s plan for East Germany to join the West German federation. Campaigners, then, did not really get where they wanted to be. They felt that the little steps forward they had made, the little improvements, were all swept away and no longer had any meaning.25 Ulrike Poppe, one of the founding members of the New Forum, who was involved in leading the ‘Peaceful Revolution’ (friedliche Revolution) in the autumn of 1989, later explained that when campaining in the lead-up to November 1989, ‘I looked upon it more as two people walking towards one another with mutual respect than as one taking the other by the hand and going in the direction that only the one wants to go.’26 Most East Germans did not know what they were signing up to, Robert thinks. They formed their impressions of the West from TV adverts showing smiling children eating Milka chocolate and playing with Lego.
figure 21 Postcard from the Young Pioneers’ holiday camp ‘M. I. Kalinin’ near Berlin in the 1980s.Courtesy of Robert S.
figure 22 Robert’s passport bearing the stamp of his first visit to West Berlin on 12 November 1989.
Courtesy of Robert S.
When they voted yes to unification, Robert argues, East Germans were voting to merge the two
cultures of East and West Germany. The reality, he says, is a type of cultural colonization or, as some East Germans wittily put it, ‘Kohl-onization’, referring to Helmut Kohl’s central role in bringing about rapid reunification of Germany:
The idea was that the two countries would accommodate each other. The reality has been that the one eliminates the other. So as an East German I feel keenly the elimination of my own culture … No one talks about any of this in Germany. Everyone carries on as if nothing has happened.27
Perhaps West German politicians could see no reason why East Germans would object to a straight substitution of West German culture for East German culture. However, Robert and Petra, like other East Germans, have subsequently felt angry that their culture has been marginalized and eliminated. They felt angry, too, that the naivety of GDR inhabitants was exploited by West German businessmen who saw opportunities for quick profits in the East, be it through disreputable mail order offers or dubious door-to-door sales.28 One of Robert’s contemporaries, Hans-Michael S., reflected on his dislike of the ‘cold capitalism’ shown by these Western entrepreneurs, saying, ‘in the 1990s I had the feeling that Westerners were just out to make a profit: that they didn’t have anything good in mind. Even if we weren’t as successful economically, I definitely had the feeling that we were morally superior to our Western counterparts.’29 Overall, Robert certainly concurs with the view of East German historian Stefan Wolle that ‘socialism was drowned in Coca-Cola and stoned with Haribo gummi-bears’.30
Robert and his peers grew up in a very distinctive environment within the GDR, and now, a quarter of a century after reunification, barely a trace of that culture remains. The GDR was Robert’s childhood home and that home no longer exists. In the media—on the television, on the radio, in newspapers—when journalists refer to Germany’s history, Germany’s past, they invariably refer to West Germany’s past. It is true that East Germans represented a minority in reunited Germany as the GDR had 16 million people in comparison to the 63 million people living in West Germany.31 But they were a significant minority, nonetheless. They represented a fifth of the population of reunited Germany. And if their distinctive past is marginalized and denigrated, it is easy to see why people like Robert feel disenchanted. ‘Every day another bit of GDR culture disappears,’ he confides. ‘I feel that things are moving further and further away from my own world. It is very difficult to describe. It is a bit like growing up in a building that is knocked down and turned into a supermarket. I feel that my own country isn’t there anymore … I still feel that I’m a foreigner here.’ It is not that he wants to return to the GDR—he concedes the many benefits he has profited from in the new system: the freedom to travel, the freedom to study what you want, and the freedom to buy what you want. The reality of unification, however, from Robert’s perspective, has been a cultural takeover by the West, with little or no room for East German ways, leaving many East Germans like him bereft of the familiar, communal basis of life in the GDR. Robert, like many others, thinks that even after reunification, the West could have learned from the East, as well as the other way around. And even twenty-five years on, he regrets the fact that unification did not represent more of a mixture of the two systems.32
The feelings many East Germans share, of missing their old lives, do not necessarily have anything to do with the political change. Everything was suddenly different. Ostalgie therefore represents East Germans’ longing for the comfort and security of what they knew—the GDR. An East German saying goes as follows: ‘When a West German talks fondly of his early years, this is called his childhood. When an East German talks fondly of his early years, this is branded Ostalgie.’33 When East Germans mention any of the advantages of their old system, this is often met with accusations of being ‘Red’ or ‘one of them’, when really what it shows is an affinity not with the SED state but with the familiar and secure life in the past that happened to be in the GDR.34 The saying furthermore suggests that Westerners believe Easterners are not able to assess accurately what they lived through in the GDR and the knock-on impact of this is that the GDR is now evaluated almost exclusively through a Western lens.35 In fact, many East Germans were simply used to daily life in the GDR, and have no desire to be told by FRG inhabitants how they should view their former lives. It is the apparent preponderance of Western views on the GDR, often epitomized by a focus on Stasi activities, which irks so many who lived in the GDR and who experienced it as much more than this.36
This, and the fact that in reunited Germany there appears to be a self-perpetuating system of West Germans being winners and East Germans losers, means that there remain significant feelings of difference, even a quarter of a century after the two states were reunited. From the perspective of many Easterners like Robert, the entrepreneurial activities of West Germans who bought up cheap property in the East soon after the Wende, simply priced them out of a housing market in which they were already severely disadvantaged, given communist policies on property ownership and wealth distribution.37 Equally too, where forging a career was concerned, East Germans felt at a distinct disadvantage. With reunification, the whole way in which employment was organized for East Germans changed dramatically from being state-controlled to being much more individually determined.
Easterners like Robert, who were coming of age when the Wall fell, had to feel their way in an unfamiliar new system. Their parents were no more experienced in the new system than they were and thus, unlike West German teenagers who could seek advice from their parents, young East Germans had to work it all out for themselves with limited or sometimes understandably ill-informed guidance from their elders.38 Although, theoretically, living in reunited Germany has created more opportunities for Easterners, in reality it seems that these opportunities are not accessible for all and certainly leave some ‘trapped at the lower end of the newly competitive social ladder’.39 Perhaps this explains why, five years after the Wall fell, T-shirts emblazoned with the message ‘I want my Wall back’ rapidly sold out.40 For Robert, though, it is definitely not a case of wanting to return to the GDR: he fully appreciates the new freedoms and possibilities available to him in reunited Germany. He simply wishes that the reunification process had been more of a mixture of the two political systems.
7
Mirko ~ Rejecting the Party Line
Thirty-nine-year-old Mirko is a man of slight build with long black hair held back by a headband. We sit across the table in Mirko’s kitchen and turn the clock back to the late 1980s when Mirko was a teenager. On 1 October 1989, a crowd gathered at the station in Freiberg, Saxony, to watch six special trains go past. The trains were special because they were carrying East German refugees from Prague to the Federal Republic. Desperate to escape life in the GDR, these refugees had thrown themselves on the mercy of the West German Embassy in Prague, asking to be repatriated to West Germany. Marking a key moment in the demise of the GDR, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher addressed the crowds from the Embassy’s balcony on the evening of 30 September. He began his speech by saying ‘I have come to you to tell you that today your exit … ’, but before he could finish speaking the crowd had drowned him out with cheers. The result was this convoy of trains. Only a month before the Wall came down, these 4,500 East Germans travelled by train across the East–West border, arriving on Western soil at Hof railway station.1
Mirko was in the crowd at Freiberg that day. He was as curious as the next man to see what was going on. The East German police on the other hand were keen to deter such interest, and used brutal methods, including dogs, water cannons, and rubber batons to disperse the crowd. Aged 15, it was the first time that Mirko had seen this aggressive side to the police, and it made a lasting impression.
figure 23 GDR refugees on the train leaving Prague for West Germany in the autumn of 1989.
© CTK/DPA/Press Association Images.
Twenty years later, Mirko organized a commemorative train journey between Prague and Hof to remem
ber this important moment in GDR history. Some of the original passengers joined the train, alongside many young Europeans who were born in 1989. The purpose was both to mark this symbolic action in the final stages of the GDR’s demise and to raise awareness among young people about Germany and wider Europe’s divided past.
Growing up, Mirko’s family life was dominated by his father who was an ardent supporter of the SED and its ideology. Not only was his father a Party member, he was also a university lecturer specializing in the ideology of Marxist-Leninism. Academics in this subject tended to be particularly ardent in their commitment to socialism. Beyond communicating the essence of Marxist-Leninist doctrine in his work, Mirko’s father also acted as an IM (Informelle Mitarbeiter or informer) to support the SED, collecting detailed information about a man in the local mining society, which he then passed onto Stasi officers.2 Mirko was unaware of his father’s role as an informer at the time, and he is unsure if the information his father collected was ever used. But informers tended to give the Stasi reams of detail that they could potentially use to their advantage at a later date. Out of commitment to the Party and dedication to the East German cause, Mirko’s father also cut all contact with his Western relatives, which included his three siblings, regarding everything relating to the West as having a malevolent influence.3 And, whilst watching Western television was not strictly forbidden for Mirko and his sister, his father made it clear that he thought it to be nothing more than Western propaganda.
How did his father’s views affect Mirko? What did he himself make of life in the GDR? In his early years, it appears that Mirko was neither fiercely loyal to the regime nor violently opposed to it. Aged 14, he took part in the socialist Jugendweihe ceremony, marking his passage into adulthood. For Mirko, this was an event which held little heartfelt significance. Like others his age, he was pleased to be recognized as a young adult, pleased to be able to go out alone for the first time, and pleased to be able to drink his first glass of wine, but in his memory the Jugendweihe was as much about receiving presents from the family as it was about making a serious ideological commitment to the state.4 In spite of his seeming ambivalence to the ceremony, Mirko was given the position of Agitator (speech-maker) in the FDJ at school and was later its leader there too. His father was delighted. It reflected well on his parents that their son was progressing within the junior ranks of the official youth organization. On a fundamental level, Mirko does not have particularly fond memories of the FDJ. It was obvious that it was compulsory, he explains, and many pupils were clearly bored by the activities. He recalls little emotional attachment to the ideas expounded by the FDJ leaders, and, like many others of his age, he wore the uniform and took part in the youth movement’s activities until the autumn of 1989 because his parents told him not to make a fuss or irritate the authorities.5 They were only too aware of how serious it would be for their child to be an enemy of the state, since it could affect his career prospects in the future and their own in the present.6
Born in the GDR Page 13