At the time of the 'Wende', the dominant image of the SED state in political and cultural discourse was that of 'Vater Staat', the authoritarian state which had kept its population in an unduly protracted form of 'Unmündigkeit' or childhood. As the GDR recedes further into the past, this perception of the relationship between state and population has been maintained and indeed reinforced by the media's continued emphasis on images of the peaceful revolution. This article will trace developments in a quite different image of the GDR as it appeared in official iconography throughout the state's forty-year existence, i.e. of the state itself as a child. It will draw on monuments (Treptower Park and Buchenwald) and posters commemorating state anniversaries to argue that official representations of the GDR as child were a means of acknowledging the state's debt to its Soviet liberator, while at the same time attempting to negotiate a separate identity for itself and encourage citizens' loyalty to their state. The cultural artefacts are interpreted both on their own terms and from a present-day perspective in order to present a more differentiated image of the relationship between GDR state and population.Das vorherrschende Bild des SED-Staats im politischen und kulturellen Diskurs um die Wendezeit war das Bild vom 'Vater Staat', dem autoritären Staat, der seine Bevölkerung allzulange im Zustand der kindlichen Unmündigkeit gehalten hatte. Je ferner die ehemalige DDR in die Vergangenheit entrückt, desto eindeutiger und unverrückbarer wird dieses Bild der Beziehung zwischen Staat und Bevölkerung, vor allem aufgrund der ständigen Wiederholung von Medienbildern der friedlichen Revolution, die dazu neigen, diese Deutung zu bekräftigen. Dieser Aufsatz widmet sich einer komplementären Darstellung der DDR, die in der staatlichen Ikonographie immer wieder benutzt wurde, nämlich das Bild des Staates selbst als Kind, und wie sich dieses Bild im Laufe der vierzigjährigen Geschichte des Staates entwickelte, vor allem in Bezug auf Denkmäler (Treptower Park und Buchenwald) und Plakate, die aus Anlass von staatlichen Feierlichkeiten, besonders Jahrestagen, veröffentlicht wurden. Es wird gezeigt, wie diese offiziellen Darstellungen der DDR als Kind ein Mittel dazu waren, dem sowjetischen Befreier gebührende Dankbarkeit auszudrücken. Sie 1 The research for this article was enabled by a DAAD-funded research visit to Berlin in summer 2007, and I would like to thank the DAAD for its generous support. I would also like to thank staff at the Bundesarchiv, the Kinder-und Jugendbuchabteilung at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, and the Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv, Potsdam, for all their help during that visit. I am particularly grateful to the Bundesarchiv, Thomas
Anniversaries are tricky things. The year 2014 marks twenty-five years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and what for many is seen as the end of state socialist rule in Eastern Europe. Nonetheless, this date holds different meanings for different postsocialist states: where Hungary saw a negotiated transition from socialist to market economic structures, in Romania, 1989 was marked by violent revolution and the dramatic execution of the dictator. In the Baltic States, 1989 is perhaps less significant than 1991-the year which saw the end of Soviet rule and independence for Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Even before this watershed, the experience of state socialism itself was equally diverse, with the 'Goulash communism' of Hungary and the brutal Ceauşescu regime once again occupying opposite ends of the spectrum. Within individual nations, the memories associated with this part of twentieth-century European history vary dramatically: accounts of extensive surveillance and state repression clash with sometimes nostalgic reflections on the security (particularly economic security) that the socialist system provided. Moreover, twenty-five years on, an entire generation has grown up with no direct experience of dictatorship and only mediated memories of this period. This diversity calls into question the very endeavour we are embarking on in this special issue. Can we really speak of remembering state socialism? Would this Debbie Pinfold is Senior Lecturer in German at the University of Bristol (UK). Her research focuses on the manifold ways the former GDR is remembered in the culture of united Germany. Recent publications include articles on Jana Hensel's Zonenkinder, childhood in the political discourse and iconography of the GDR, and Christian Petzold's Barbara, and she is co-editor (with Anna Saunders) of Remembering and Rethinking the GDR: Multiple Perspectives and Plural Authenticities (Basingstoke, 2013).
When Christian Petzold's Barbara appeared in 2012 it was received as a new departure in both Petzold's work and in representations of the former GDR. The film was understood first and foremost as a love story, and this, together with the provincial setting and bright colour palette, lent an unaccustomed warmth to the image of the GDR. This article presents a close reading of the film to demonstrate that Petzold's plot deconstructs the victim / perpetrator binary that underlies paradigmatic representations of the GDR, notably Das Leben der Anderen (2006). This creates a more nuanced image of the former socialist state which challenges the dominant discourse. It further argues that Petzold underpins this surface with a dense matrix of cultural allusions designed to draw the audience into the characters’ coded language. This enables the audience to empathise with the characters’ difficulties in communicating with one another and to experience viscerally what it was to live in an atmosphere characterised by such mistrust. However, these same cultural allusions say more than the characters intend; they also allow Petzold to communicate directly with the audience, posing deeper questions about our own interpretative strategies and the possibility of fully understanding the GDR.
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