Department of German Studies GE436 German Studies Dissertation German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema Coming to terms with the past and forging an understanding of a new national identity in a reunified Germany Student Andrew Jones Dissertation Supervisor Seán Allan WORD COUNT 9931 excluding footnotes
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German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
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Department of German Studies GE436 German Studies Dissertation German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema Coming to terms with the past and forging an understanding of a new national identity in a reunified Germany Student Andrew Jones Dissertation Supervisor Seán Allan
WORD COUNT 9931 excluding footnotes
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
Contents Abbreviations 2 Referencing 2 Introduction 3 I. Memories of Progress: Die Architekten (1990) 6 II. The Quest for ‘Normalisation’: Coming to terms with the East 15 III. Memories of Settlement: Sonnenallee (1999) 18 IV. Memory Contests: Alles auf Zucker! (2004) 26 Conclusion 32 Filmography 34 Bibliography 35
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
Abbreviations DEFA Deutsche Film Aktiengesellschhaft FDJ Freie Deutsche Jugend FRG Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) GDR German Democratic Republic (East Germany) SED Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland (East German
Communist Party) Referencing This dissertation follows the conventions of the Chicago Manual of Style in regards to referencing for footnotes and bibliographical entries. Figures refer to stills taken from the respective films of that section and are embedded within the text.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema Coming to terms with the past and forging an understanding of a new national identity in a reunified Germany
Introduction
Questions of national identity have plagued the German nation for the majority
of the twentieth-century and continue to do so today. Even prior to the
establishment of Germany as a sovereign state in 1871, there existed a sense
of ‘Germanness’ in the German-speaking territories of Europe, regardless of
geopolitical borders. The division of Germany after the Second World War,
which culminated in the formation of two ideologically opposed states, started to
endanger this sense of solidarity and common, borderless German identity, an
identity that would inevitably diverge due to the politics of the Cold War.
The Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the West was the legal successor to
the previous incarnation of the German state – the Third Reich – but it was in
no way its spiritual successor. The FRG established a state that placed great
importance on the rule of law, in stark contrast to the ‘Unrechtsstaat’ that
preceded it. The state saw it as its moral and historical responsibility to come to
terms with the troubled past of Nazism, a process that would come to be known
as ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’. It was a responsibility that aimed to
understand the drastic change of course in German history, from the notion of
the culturally rich land of Goethe and Schiller to the genocidal nation of Hitler
and Himmler.
On the other side of the inner-German border in the East, the German
Democratic Republic (GDR) approached the nation’s shared recent past
differently. Grounded in the Soviet model, the socialist state and its ruling party,
the SED, saw National Socialism as the most extreme form of capitalism. The
state therefore attempted to gain legitimacy through the dissemination of its
founding myth. “Auferstanden aus Ruinen”, as the country’s anthem would
proclaim, the East was starting anew, rising from the physical ruins of war, the
psychological and economic failure of fascism, and, “der Zukunft zugewandt”,
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
was now striving for and building a better future. The SED would style the GDR
as anti-fascist with its western neighbour, due to its capitalist nature, seen as
the continuation of fascism. These ideological beliefs would be ‘concretised’ by
the Party in 1961 with the erection of the ‘Antifaschistischer Schutzwall’, more
commonly known as the Berlin Wall.
Diametrically opposed concepts of historiography thus became entrenched in
the German psyche as it had been in the respective states’ politics. Fulbrook
and Swales describe this as “an extraordinary experiment […] to reappropriate
and reinterpret a common past”1 and it is a process that would continue in a
unified Germany, one which would also have to be applied to their divided past.
The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, the culmination of weeks of peaceful
protests, many with the slogan: “Wir sind ein Volk”. Despite decades of division,
a sense of Germanness prevailed and swift unification would become politically
imperative. It was a process that came to be known as the ‘Wende’, or turning
point, and as former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt would declare:
“Jetzt wächst zusammen, was zusammengehört”. But, as Fuchs notes,
“although [… the fall of the wall and unification] appeared to heal the war-torn
history of the twentieth-century, unification posed the question of identity
afresh”.2 Brandt’s declaration is both poetic and optimistic but also hints at
Germany’s coming problems. Forty years of separation and a rapid reunification
would prove to be a rupture in the complex fabric of German national identity.
The government of the now reunified Germany, or the Berlin Republic as it
would come to be known, was keen to foster ‘inner unity’. It was thought that
the Western approach of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, typically associated with
the ‘Aufarbeitung’ of the country’s fascist past, could be utilised to come to
terms with the country’s socialist past. With this in mind, by the end of the 1990s
the ‘Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur’ had been established.3
However, as one author argued, it became clear that:
1. Mary Fulbrook and Martin Swales. “Introduction: Representation in Literature and History”, in
Representing the German Nation: History and Identity in Twentieth-Century Germany (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 2.
2. Anne Fuchs, Kathleen James-Chakraborty and Linda Shortt. “Introduction”, in Debating German Cultural Identity Since 1989, ed. Anne Fuchs, et al. (Rochester: Camden House, 2011), 1.
3. See Ruth Wittlinger, “The Quest for ‘Inner Unity’”, in German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century: A Different Republic After All? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 68.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
Geschichte kann weder aufgearbeitet noch bewältigt werden. Sie ist nur aus dem Alltag heraus zu begreifen [...] Es sind Geschichten des Alltags, dem die Historie verwoben ist.4
History could no longer easily fit into a single, universal narrative; public and
private histories failed to align. As Fuchs explains, “while historians agree in
their evaluation of the GDR as a totalitarian system […], former East German
citizens emphasize the normality of their lives in the GDR”.5 It is a dialectic that
has been termed a ‘memory contest’, a term which “puts emphasis on a
pluralistic memory culture which does not enshrine a particular normative
understanding of the past but embraces the idea that individuals and groups
advance and edit competing stories about themselves that forge their changing
sense of identity”.6
Sabrow pinpoints three separate memory discourses that affect both
contemporary Germany’s understanding of the GDR and, with it, contemporary
German identity. Firstly, there is the memory of the GDR as a totalitarian
dictatorship (‘Dikataturgedächtnis’), a view that often correlates with that of
official history. Secondly, there is the memory of settlement
(‘Arrangementgedächtnis’), an understanding that a sense of normality could be
achieved under the regime for those willing to compromise. Thirdly, there is the
memory of progress (‘Fortschrittgedächtnis’) that understands socialism as a
legitimate alternative to capitalism. 7 With the existence of such conflicting
memory strands, traditional historiographical studies of the past therefore no
longer seemed to suffice in a reunified Germany and, just as it had with
Vergangenheitsbewältigung, the past moved into the cultural sphere. The
importance of this development is not to be underestimated and Fulbrook puts it
perfectly when she writes:
Historians delude themselves if they think that they are the key to shaping popular historical consciousness. Of arguably far greater impact are the – emotionally more accessible, if sometimes intellectually less rigorous – media, novels and dramas […], films, television
4. Kerstin Hensel, as quoted by Karen Leeder in “Introduction”, Oxford German Studies 38, no. 3 (2009):
239. 5. Fuchs, James-Chakraborty and Shortt, “Introduction”, 1. 6. Anne Fuchs and Mary Cosgrove, “Introduction”, German Life and Letters 59 no. 2 (2006): 4 7. See Martin Sabrow, “Die DDR erinnern”, in Erinnerungsorte der DDR, ed. Martin Sabrow (Munich:
Beck, 2000),18-20. See also Fuchs, James-Chakraborty and Shortt, “Introduction”, 8-9.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
documentaries, museum exhibits, commemorations and reconstructions in the ‘authentic locations’ of the past, the ‘sacred sites of collective memory’.8
By analysing three such pieces of media – namely Peter Kahane’s Die
Architekten (1990), Leander Haußmann’s Sonnenallee (1999), and Dani Levy’s
Alles auf Zucker (2004) – this dissertation offers an analysis of the changing
historical consciousness underpinning the Germans’ equally-changing sense of
identity and understanding of the past.
I. Memories of Progress: Die Architekten (1990)
Filmed shortly before the fall of the Wall and released a few months before the
unification process would begin, Die Architekten consequently (and
unintentionally) critiques a society and system that was now itself a mere
memory. Understandably, going to the cinema was not top of the agenda for
many East Germans at the time and the film would be of little interest to West
Germans, for, as Wittlinger notes, “whereas East Germans, due to access to
West German TV and radio, were fairly well informed about the West, West
Germans were not only rather ignorant about the GDR but were also not
particularly interested”.9 The film then, for a time, remained largely ignored, “ins
Wendeloch gefallen”,10 but it nevertheless warrants attention, as it is able to
offer a unique contemporary commentary on the East German experience of
the Wende.
Concerning himself with the ‘Baupolitik’ of the GDR, Kahane follows a tradition
set by other DEFA directors. Architecture proved to be an apt metaphor for
exploring the political structures of the regime. Frank Beyer’s
Spur der Steine (1966) – banned in the wake of the Eleventh Plenum –
highlighted the slow-moving nature of construction in the GDR, with its limited
budgets, out-dated technology, and corrupt officials. Lothar Warneke’s
Unser kurzes Leben (1980) followed, focusing on a young female architect,
8. Mary Fulbrook, “Re-presenting the Nation: History and Identity in East Germany”, in Representing the
German Nation: History and Identity in Twentieth-Century Germany (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 185.
9. Wittlinger, “The Quest for ‘Inner Unity’”, 53. 10. A number of books and films that appeared during the tumult of unification were hardly noticed, hence
the expression, notes Laura Green McGee in “‘Ich wollte ewig einen richtigen Film machen! Und als es soweit war, konnte ich's nicht!’: The End Phase of the GDR in Films by DEFA Nachwuchsregisseure”, German Studies Review 26, no. 2 (2003): 332.
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Franziska, who encounters similar issues. Warneke’s film showcases a state
with a predominantly male bureaucracy set in its ways, resistant to change and
the young architect’s dream of a more utopian living space. In what would be
one of DEFA’s final productions, Kahane’s film takes up the challenge and
develops many of the motifs established in Unser kurzes Leben.
The bureaucracy in Die Architekten is shown to be similarly reactionary. At the
start of the film, the protagonist, Daniel, is yet to have anything of note built,
despite being thirty-eight years of age. This apparent lack of opportunity is
caused by the incumbent older generations of the bureaucracy, who appear
reluctant to relinquish power and mistrust of the younger generation. This lack
of trust is evident in an older architect, who, in a sequence near the start of the
film, recounts how much he had done by the same age as Daniel. Accordingly,
the architect is dismissive of Daniel, believing the error lies in his work and not
the system. Another architect of Daniel’s age eventually gives up:
Wozu habe ich 6 Jahre studiert, wenn sie mir als Architekt nur dann vertrauen, wenn ich […] beweise, dass ich ihre politischen Lektion gefressen habe … Mit neununddreißig will ich endlich Erwachsen sein!
This architect’s desire to become ‘an adult’ is the wish for self-emancipation and
to be free from the shackles of ‘the parent’ – the controlling bureaucracy of the
Party. He sees a chance to redefine his identity if he does not abide by their
rules. Identity in Daniel, however, is by contrast portrayed as being a fixed
concept. Daniel sees this period of time as his last chance to define and confirm
his identity, which is determined by his ideology. Daniel is therefore reliant on
the prevailing political system, no matter how deficient that system may be. The
constitution promised that “die Jugend wird in ihrer gesellschaftlichen und
beruflichen Entwicklung besonders gefördert”, 11 but the experiences of the
architects in this film show this promise has been broken, due to what the
screenwriter, Thomas Knauf, describes as “das tiefe Mißtrauen der Väter dieses
Landes gegenüber ihren Söhnen”.12 He, like Daniel, had similar problems to get
an opportunity to prove his worth, and, although Daniel is eventually given a
11. Artikel 20(3) of “Die Verfassung der DDR vom 7. Oktober 1974”, in Die Verfassung der DDR: Ein
Machtinstrument der SED?, ed. Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung, (Bonn: Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, 1987), 71. 12. Thomas Knauf, “’Die Architekten’ (1990)”, in Spur der Filme: Zeitzeugen über die DEFA, ed. Ingrid
Poss et al. (Berlin: Christoph Links Verlag, 2006), 462.
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generational attitudes towards architecture. For the older generation, the
‘Plattenbau’ represents a departure from the past, a vast improvement on what
came before, particularly when bearing in mind their experiences of the
hardships of war. For the younger generation, who lack an understanding of the
past, having had no experience of fascism nor capitalism, the style is a socialist
cliché that represents conformity and a lack of individuality. For them, the
‘Altbau’ represents individualism, not capitalism or fascism as it does for their
elders.
Kahane utilises the technique for one last time near the film’s climax where a
range of different architectural designs are shown whilst the FDJ song
Unsere Heimat plays in the background. Although the images show one idea of
‘Heimat’ (see-Fig.-4), the lyrics of the song convey another idea:
Unsere Heimat, das sind nicht nur die Städte und Dörfer, unsere Heimat sind auch all die Bäume im Wald […] wir lieben die Heimat, die schöne und wir schützen sie, weil sie dem Volke gehört, weil sie unserem Volke gehört
Kahane is inviting the viewer to
reflect on what ‘Heimat’
actually means and ‘Heimat’ is
of great importance to GDR
identity. Blunk explains how the
concept of ‘Heimat’ in the GDR
was not only an emotional one,
but a political one too, seen by
the SED as “an important factor in the creation of a socialist society”.13 The
state’s constitution, for instance, claimed that “der Boden der Deutschen
Demokratischen Republik gehört zu ihren kostbarsten Naturreichtümern. Es
muß geschützt und rationell genutzt werden”,14 but the viewer is left wondering
whether the state is living up to this declaration and protecting the ‘Heimat’.
13. See Harry Blunk, “The Concept of ‘Heimat-GDR’ in DEFA Feature Films”, in DEFA: East German
Cinema, 1946-1992, eds. Seán Allan and John Sandford (New York: Berghahn Books, 1999), 204-205. 14. Artikel 15(1) of “Die Verfassung”, 69.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
The constitution similarly states that “Mann und Frau sind gleichberechtigt. […]
Die Förderung der Frau […] ist eine gesellschaftliche und Staatliche Aufgabe”15
Nevertheless, the state is shown to be failing to keep to this promise as well.
The position of women is shown to have changed very little since the time of
Unser kurzes Leben and men are shown to have similar patriarchal attitudes.
For example, Daniel’s boss questions a woman’s place in the workplace, noting
their ‘tendency’ to become ‘inconveniently’ pregnant. Even Daniel, a seemingly
progressive figure, misunderstands women. When he first hears of the
unhappiness of his wife, Wanda, he offers a basic, superficial solution of extra
theatre and cinema visits. Women are thus shown to be members of a
marginalised section of society and this ostracism allows them to have greater
critical distance and a greater understanding of how things really work. This
critical distance is evident in
Wanda’s sceptical response to
Daniel’s belief that change is
achievable. Whilst Allan
attributes the couple’s
eventual separation to the
“well known screen cliché of
the husband who unwittingly
sacrifices his private life and
family to his work”,16 Wanda’s unhappiness is apparent from very early on
(See Fig.-5). It is implied to a greater extent that the blame lies with patriarchal
society and the controlling state. Wanda explains:
Es geht nicht um Sex, es geht nicht um körperliche Sachen und Essen, Schlafen, Trinken … ist alles hier kein Problem … es geht um das Andere …
‘Das Andere’ here refers to the concept of ‘leben’. Wanda feels unfulfilled, as
she is unable to realise her potential in her career as a doctor due to the
budgetary constraints of an ailing socialist system. Furthermore, she is
dissatisfied as a result of the burden of having to do the housework whilst 15. Artikel 20(2) of “Die Verfassung”, 71. 16. Seán Allan, “1989 and the Wende in East German Cinema: Peter Kahane’s ‘Die Architekten’ (1990),
Egon Günther’s ‘Stein’ (1991) and Jörg Foth’s ‘Letztes aus der Da Da eR’ (1990)”, German Monitor 50 (2000): 234.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
Nevertheless, as the filmmakers would discover, this new system was soon to
become a reality, but the ideals they wished to preserve would not rise from the
ruins.
II. The Quest for ‘Normalisation’: Coming to terms with the East
The Berlin Republic would continue on the same constitutional foundations that
the West had used for the past four decades, as it was considered to be a
largely stable and successful system. The Bonn Republic’s engagement in the
process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung was also seen as a successful aspect of
the FRG. Many during the Cold War saw the process as a quest for
‘normalisation’, the desire to be seen as ‘normal’ on the world stage. Wittlinger
notes that:
For Germany to be perceived as normal meant absolution from the barbaric atrocities committed during the Third Reich and implied regaining acceptance as a civilised nation in the international community.24
Welcoming the East into the fold endangered the sense of ‘normality’ achieved
by the Bonn Republic, since the division of Germany had also come to be seen
as ‘normal’ by the international community.25 The assimilation of a population
unfamiliar with democracy meant the East would need to be ‘re-educated’ or
‘normalised’, in a similar way to how the West had to be after Nazism, or
Germany would lose its claim to normality.
In what many critics refer to as ‘hegemonic Western discourse’, the FRG was
subsequently cast as the moral victor, the GDR as a failed totalitarian
experiment. As Richardson points out, “not just the political system but also the
entire culture of East Germany was dismissed wholesale as regressive and
anti-modern”.26 The then Justice Minister, Klaus Kinkel, even declared in 1991
that “der DDR-Unrechtsstaat müsse ‘delegitimiert’ werden”, and “[erklärte] auch
die Alltagskultur des Landes zum real gelebten Verbrechen”.27 Whether or not
24. Ruth Wittlinger. “Introduction: A Different Republic After All?”, in German National Identity in the
Twenty-First Century: A Different Republic After All? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 5-6. 25. See Wittlinger, “Introduction”, 6. 26. Michael Richardson. “A World of Objects: Consumer Culture in the Filmic Reconstructions of the GDR”,
in The Collapse of the Conventional: German Film and its Politics at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, ed. Jaimey Fisher, et al. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2010), 218.
the GDR was an ‘Unrechtsstaat’ is a highly contentious issue for it is a term that
“implies a state lacking the rule of law, but it also suggests one systematically
perpetrating injustice, or even one founded on injustice”28. The term also hints
at an equivalence to the Nazi regime, which, alongside the wholesale dismissal
of everyday life in the GDR, is problematic. As Müller explains:
[…] despite the supposed omnipresence of the Stasi, it never controlled everyday life in the total way that many theories of totalitarianism seem to suggest; those who lived in East Germany also frequently insist that they had been able to lead perfectly ‘normal’ lives outside politics, as opposed to the image of a total politicization of society and even private life.29
Moreover, although many experienced relatively happy and fulfilling private
lives under the socialist regime, the West actively promoted the notion that “the
only authentic East German experience is one predicated on an opposition to
the state”.30 The attempt to ‘normalise’ and incorporate the former East led
many former GDR citizens to instead feel rather abnormal. Stripped of their
GDR identity, they had been turned into an exotic Other, symbolic of how
“unification has been presented as a quasi-colonial ‘subjugation’ of the East by
the West”.31
The process led the former citizens of the GDR to develop a new affection for
their old state. This fondness often centres on consumer goods of the planned
socialist economy, products that had often been in short supply and of
negligible quality compared to their Western counterparts. Just as citizens of the
former East had fetishised capitalist products during the Cold War, they were
now fetishising their own. For many in the West this fondness seemed illogical.
Richardson, however, describes this resurgence in popularity as signifying “a
longing for a lost sense of identity, one that had been rooted both in these
objects and in the absence or lack of access to objects from the West”.32 It is a
phenomenon that came to be known as ‘Ostalgie’, nostalgia for the former East.
28. Jan-Werner Müller, “Just Another ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’? The Process of Coming to Terms with
the East German Past Revisited”. Oxford German Studies 38, no. 3 (2009): 335. 29. Müller, “Just Another ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung?”, 338. 30. Richardson, “A World of Objects”, 218. 31. Paul Cooke, “Postcolonial Studies, Colonization and East Germany”, in Representing East Germany
since Unification: From Colonization to Nostalgia (Oxford: Berg, 2005), 2. 32. Richardson, “A World of Objects”, 219.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
Ostalgie is highly controversial and has been criticised for it seemingly forgets
the perpetrators. It is therefore seen by some as “a dangerous form of selective
amnesia that sees the East German state through rose-tinted spectacles,
ignoring the problems of life there and idealizing it”.33 Such criticism, however,
forgets the situation on the other side of the former divide. It is not only former
East Germans, but also former West Germans, who look fondly upon and
sentimentalise the past, with a ‘Westalgie’ (a nostalgia for the Bonn Republic)
also having emerged.34 Nevertheless, the controversy surrounding Ostalgie
adds yet another facet to the memory contests, and, to gain a greater
understanding of it, it is important to clearly define what nostalgia is. For Boym:
Nostalgia […] is a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one’s own fantasy.35
This sentiment of loss and displacement creates an emotional distance from
reality, for, as Caruth explains, “we are always separated from historical
experience by the repression inherent in trauma”.36 This repression belatedly
manifests itself as nostalgia. Boym, however, also distinguishes between a
restorative and a reflective form of nostalgia. This distinction is particularly
important when it comes to the concept of Ostalgie, for, whilst it certainly shows
an appreciation for the past, it is “[not] an attempt either to relive the past or to
restore it […, for] no one seriously seeks to reinstate the GDR”.37 The focus
instead shifts from the crimes of the SED to the relative stability and comfort the
system provided. Ostalgie is consequently not a regressive form of nostalgia
seeking the restoration of the past. Instead, Ostalgie can be seen as being
largely a reflective form of nostalgia – a critical commentary on what is missing
in the present, which itself highlights another function of memory.
Arnold-de Simine and Radstone note that “memory, in whichever form, is not an
open window onto the past; rather our vision of the past is constantly adapted to 33. Paul Cooke, “Productive Hybridity: Nostalgia and the GDR on Film”, in Representing East Germany
since Unification: From Colonization to Nostalgia (Oxford: Berg, 2005), 104. 34. See Wittlinger, “The Quest for ‘Inner Unity’”, 66. 35. Svetlana Boym, “Introduction: Taboo on Nostalgia?”, in The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic
Books, 2001), xiii. 36. Cathy Caruth, as quoted by Anne Fuchs and Mary Cosgrove in “Introduction: Germany’s Memory
Contests and the Management of the Past”, in German Memory Contests: The Quest for Identity in Literature, Film, and Discourse since 1990, ed. Anne Fuchs, et al. (Rochester: Camden House, 2006), 11.
37. Hodgin, “Mapping Identity”, 32.
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our needs in the present”.38 Ostalgie was thus the need for the former East
Germans to reclaim an identity that had been lost.
III. Memories of Settlement: Sonnenallee (1999)
The lost GDR identity is reclaimed in Leander Haußmann’s Sonnenallee.
Haußmann directly engages in the memory debates surrounding the GDR and
Ostalgie, highlighting the differences inherent in public and private history,
raising the question of the validity of these different histories and ‘memories’.
Furthermore, Haußmann attempts to ‘normalise’ life in the East, demonstrating
that a sense of normality could be achieved in the GDR and that East Germans
are not an exotic Other. The film consequently falls into the second of Sabrow’s
memory categories – the memory of settlement (‘Arrangementgedächtnis’).
The memory of dictatorship is largely absent in the film, and this, alongside the
film’s use of comedy, was problematic for many critics. Sonnenallee was
opened up to accusations that it was trivialising the nature of the SED
dictatorship and a lawsuit was even filed against the filmmakers by an
organisation for victims of political violence, Help e.V., who saw the film as an
insult to those who had suffered under the regime. 39 This organisation,
however, failed to realise the complexity of the comedy utilised by Haußmann.
Comedy is reliant on an accurate observation of life and requires a delicate
balance of intellect and emotional detachment. Humour, however, is not as
universal as other aspects of human emotion, such as empathy, and people
can find different things funny for various reasons, which is something that is
later made clear in Sonnenallee. Nevertheless, comedy has great potential to
provide a critical commentary of events, both past and present. Brecht
theorised about the critical potential of comedy. As Wright suggests:
For Brecht the comic is a historically bound phenomenon, something that can be used for immediate political purposes [… Brecht] finds the source
38. Silke Arnold-de Simine and Susannah Radstone. “The GDR and the Memory Debate”, in
Remembering and Rethinking the GDR: Multiple Perspectives and Plural Authenticities, ed. Anna Saunders, et al. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 19.
39. See Paul Cooke, “Performing ‘Ostalgie’: Leander Hausmann’s ‘Sonnenallee’”, German Life and Letters 56, no. 2 (2003): 157.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
Finally, as Haußmann constantly breaks the fourth wall, such as in the
aforementioned voiceovers and characters often looking knowingly at the
camera, the audience is constantly reminded of the medium. This awareness
reduces the audience’s ability to be completely immersed in the action, limiting
empathy and expanding the possibility for critical engagement. By contrast, in
Die Architekten we do empathise, but, by allowing this, critical distance is
lessened. Die Architekten’s weakness is thus its overly melodramatic nature,
where suffering is reduced to entertainment. We are shown what happens but
the audience does not necessarily have to critically engage to understand why it
happens. Sonnenallee depicts a very different GDR to the one in Kahane’s film,
and indeed many that followed in the intervening years post-unification.
Haußmann also portrays a culture in the GDR that, although different to the
West, is not so different as official history would have you believe. The film
depicts a ‘Jugendkultur’ typical of the 1970s anywhere in the Western world.
Micha and his friends share similar interests, dreams and problems as their
Western counterparts. They are fans of Western rock music for example and
listen to many of the same records as those in the West, despite them being
strictly ‘verboten’. Micha also dreams of becoming a popstar, “einer der was
bewegt”, a statement which is followed by an “obwohl” and a poignant pause.
Some would expect him to go on to say his dreams are hampered by the
system, but he instead worries about how many popstars have suffered early
deaths. Micha’s portrayal is an attempt to ‘normalise’ life in the East, since he 43. Sandra Maischberger, “’Sonnenallee’ - Eine Mauerkomödie: Interview mit Leander Haussmann und
Thomas Brussig”, in ’Sonnenallee’: Das Buch zum Farbfilm, ed. Leander Haussmann (Berlin: Quadriga Verlag, 1999), 12.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
and his friends, far from stereotypical conformist and indoctrinated followers of
the Party, are shown to be normal adolescent boys. As Cooke explains, “the
film translates the experience of East Germans into a cultural language that
West Germans will understand, thereby ‘normalising’ this experience”.44
The East German experience is also devoid of the atmosphere of fear so
prevalent in Western discourse, with characters aware of the state apparatus
and willing to criticise it openly. This criticism is highly visible in the sequence
with the ‘Multifunktionstisch’ (see-Fig.-8). The ‘MuFuTi’ is just one piece of
ostalgic product placement that Haußmann inserts into the film. The viewer’s
attention is drawn to the object in this instance by the repetition of the product’s
full name (“Du sollst den Multifunktionstisch herrichten!”; “Ist das ein MuFuTi?”).
For a former citizen of the GDR it is a nostalgic reminder of an everyday item
they probably would have owned. Our attention however is not only drawn to
what is now a museum
artefact but to the inadequacy
of consumer goods in the
GDR, with Micha’s father
struggling to set it up, referring
to it as a “Scheiß-Ostding”.
Despite the screenwriter’s
assertion Sonnenallee “soll ein
Film werden, bei dem die Westler neidisch werden, daß sie nicht im Osten
leben durften”,45 the film does not depict the past affectionately, but critically
engages with it.
The ‘MuFuTi’ sequence additionally highlights the comic duality of the film with
Haußmann creating a complex and multi-layered comedy, jokes having different
meanings for different audiences. He noted that there was “einen Unterschied
zwischen West- und Ost-Zuschauern – die lachten an unterschiedlichen
Stellen”.46 A prime example of this is the sequence with the family’s West
German uncle, who smuggles various products into the country for his relatives.
On a basic level, this sequence is amusing due to the physical comedy of a 44. Cooke, “Performing ‘Ostalgie’”,156. 45. Maischberger, “Interview mit Leander Haussmann und Thomas Brussig”, 22. 46. Maischberger, “Interview mit Leander Haussmann und Thomas Brussig”, 21.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
male wearing tights and the fact this ‘contraband’ is perfectly legal. On a more
critical, analytical level, the sequence demonstrates the fact many products
were in short supply in the GDR, whilst, in a post-Wende context, it additionally
highlights the arrogance of Westerners. As Allan notes, “Heinz and the tourists
on the viewing platforms remain trapped within their clichéd vision of life in East
Berlin, [but] Sonnenallee offers the viewer a glimpse of an altogether different
reality”.47
The film’s artificiality reflects the character of human memory, for memory, as
already established, is often not an accurate recollection of events. As the
screenwriter, Thomas Brussig, notes, “Erinnern ist doch das Gegenteil von
Merken”, and “das, was nicht so schön war, vergißt man”.48 This declaration
can be seen as an explanation for the film’s apparent lack of attention to the
human rights abuses of the regime, the only visual reminders of such being the
Wall and the border guards, which, far from being a menacing threat, are
ridiculed and play a peripheral role. We are, however, reminded of the absurdity
of the inner-German border
when Micha’s friend, Wuschel,
is shot. Haußmann had
originally intended for the
character to be killed by the
border guards but Brussig was
of the opinion that “nicht
Wuschel muß erschossen
werden, sondern seine Platte
– das ist eigentlich schlimmer”49 and this change has profound consequences.
Firstly, Wuschel’s reaction to his record being destroyed (see-Fig.-9) stresses
the importance the youth placed on rock culture. It is a theme of cultural
universality that runs throughout the film, which not only highlights the systemic
differences but also similarities. Secondly, it also highlights that consumerist
fetishisation is nothing new. The fetishisation is also not just limited to the East,
as is evident in the sequence where the Dresdeners are transfixed by a 47. Séan Allan, “‘Ostalgie’, Fantasy and the Normalization of East-West Relations in Post-Unification
Comedy”, in German Cinema Since Unification, ed. David Clarke (London: Continuum, 2006) 113-114. 48. Maischberger, “Interview mit Leander Haussmann und Thomas Brussig”, 22. 49. Maischberger, “Interview mit Leander Haussmann und Thomas Brussig”, 12.
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Western discourse. We are reminded to constantly analyse what we see, not to
take things at face value, or more simply, not to believe what we see.
The audience is also reminded not to believe what they read. The dialectic of
private and public history is further explored in Micha’s attempts to win the
affections of Miriam, wherein he attempts to portray himself as a rebellious
non-conformist to gain her attention. In his effort, he rewrites his past in falsified
diaries (see-Fig.-11). Echoing
the hegemonic discourse of
the West, his ‘recollections’, as
Schutte explains, “are exactly
what a Western audience
would have expected to find in
the diaries of someone who
had lived under the ‘never
ending oppression’ of the GDR – as life in the GDR was referred to in several
documentary films”.51 It simultaneously ridicules this discourse when bearing in
mind the happy experiences Micha had prior to this rewriting of the past. The
audience is reminded of the realities for some citizens of the GDR, but also of
the absurdity in assuming everyone had the same experiences. As Allan
explains, “the film reminds us (humorously) of the way in which memory and the
construction of personal and political histories are conditioned by the needs and
the desires of the present”.52 Micha needed to redefine his past and identity to
achieve his desire, and in doing so the audience gains an understanding of the
nature of identity.
The film portrays identity as being fluid and changeable, adaptable to present
needs. The youths’ conception of identity is based heavily in their appreciation
of rock music and, as we have seen with Micha, we are introduced to the
concept of identity as ‘performance’. This is evident in Mario, who performs the
role of a non-conformist drop out with radical ideas, similarly in an attempt to
gain the affections of Sabrina. At the film’s climax Mario and Sabrina get
married, despite asserting that they would do the contrary, due to the fact she 51. Barend Schutte, “The Portrayal of the GDR in Post-1990 German Feature Films”, German as a Foreign
Language no. 2 (2005): 14. 52. Allan, “‘Ostalgie’, Fantasy and the Normalization of East-West”, 115.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
Alles auf Zucker! “shows how film-makers now feel empowered to tackle taboo
subjects”,55 Lamb argues, with the film attempting to tackle several explosive
topics in contemporary Germany: the country’s Nazi past, its divided past, and
its divided present. He goes on to argue that “as a contribution to reassessment
of two key aspects of Germany’s recent past (anti-Semitism and the GDR) Alles
auf Zucker! has had a major impact”,56 since, despite not depicting the GDR
past, the film explores the effects of the memory of the former state upon the
present. The film therefore straddles various memory discourses of the GDR,
thus indicating the diversity of memory.
The consequences of the past are alluded to when a mother addresses her
sons from beyond the grave in her Last Will and Testament, wherein she states
that “seit über 40 Jahren seid ihr beide in einem wortlosen Streit”. These words
resonate on a much larger scale; the brothers’ estrangement and faltering
reconciliation stands as a metaphor for the incomplete project of inner unity
between East and West. The country and its people are struggling to find each
other again, in a similar manner to this family, after decades of separation.
The brothers are encouraged to reconcile their differences by the prospect of
receiving an inheritance, but due to the strict religious conditions that come with
it, a farce ensues. As Levy himself confirms, “ein Teil der Komik entsteht ja
gerade durch die Unmöglichkeit, die strengen jüdischen Gesetze einhalten zu
können”.57 These laws are not a source of ridicule, but serve as a comical
didactic device, the viewer learning about an aspect of Jewish tradition, the
Shiva, that they would otherwise not know about. The director, who identifies as
Jewish, takes pride in the fact “dass wir deutschen Juden zusehen können,
ohne dass im Hintergrund immer der Holocaust wie ein Schatten an der Wand
aufleuchtet”.58 Levy “will das Judentum aus der Versenkung holen und aus der
55. Stephen Lamb, “Re-presenting the German Past in 2005: Culture’s Contribution in the New Berlin
Republic. A Personal Account”, Debatte 13, no. 3 (2005): 274. 56. Lamb, “‘‘Re-presenting the German Past in 2005”, 275. 57. Thomas Eckbert and Joachim Huber, “Kann man mit Juden Quote machen? - ‘Zucker’: Der Regisseur
Dani Levy über die Probleme und die Freuden einer jüdischen Familienkomödie”, Tagesspiegel, March 26, 2004, accessed February 1, 2014, http://www.tagesspiegel.de/medien/kann-man-mit-juden-quote-machen/502562.html.
58. Eckbert and Huber, “Kann man mit Juden Quote machen?”.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
Opferrolle befreien”.59 This family have little connection to the Holocaust; their
shadow is instead the consequences of the division and subsequent unification
of Germany. By moving the historical burden of these Jewish characters from
one part of Germany’s troubled history to another, the director is challenging
convention, and with it the viewer’s preconceived ideas on Jewish culture and
identity.
The director debunks the idea of an all-encompassing stereotype, for in Jaecki,
who grew up in the GDR, and his brother, Samuel, who was raised in the FRG,
we have two Jews who could not be more different from one another. Jaecki
turned his back on his Jewish faith and secularised after the rest of his family
moved to the West. His brother, Samuel, on the other hand, is an Orthodox
Jew. This difference, explains Allan, “[is] a reflection of the multifaceted
character of Jewish identity which, of course, is not solely a matter of religious
faith, but involves questions of nationality, ethnicity and culture as well”.60 The
characters’ Jewishness however is just another aspect of their identities, as
Levy explains:
Der Begriff ‘Jüdische Komödie’ ist hier nur ein Label. Im Prinzip ist Alles auf Zucker! eine Familiengeschichte über ganz normale Menschen in einer bestimmten grotesken, aber gleichzeitig auch sehr authentischen Situation.61
The authentic situation of having to abide by Jewish religious law naturally
causes problems for Jaecki’s
secular family. Marlene,
Jaecki’s wife, comically
attempts to transform her
husband and children into a
Jewish family in the space of a
day (see-Fig.-12). The
performativity of identity is
highlighted here, for, as the
59. Eckbert and Huber, “Kann man mit Juden Quote machen?”. 60. Seán Allan, “‘Seit der Wende hat der Mann nur Pech gehabt. Jetzt soll er auch noch Jude sein’:
Theatricality, Memory and Identity in Dani Levy's ‘Alles auf Zucker!’ (2004)”, Debatte: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 15, no. 1 (2007): 28.
61. “Interview mit Dani Levy: ‘Alles auf Zucker’”, DigitalVD, accessed February 1, 2014, http://www.digitalvd.de/interviews/Dani-Levy-Alles-auf-Zucker.html.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
appears to be advantageous. The sequence highlights the artificiality and
flexibility of identity, that it is something that is indeed performed, not
predetermined. It is an idea made clear from the opening of the film, where
Jaecki, in his narrative voiceover, explains: “Dat bin ick, ne, dat war ick”
(see-Fig.-14).
The use of the opening voiceover is yet another use of a quasi-Brechtian
‘Verfremdung’ of the kind we saw in Sonnenallee. The viewer is informed from
the opening few minutes that things seemingly do not end well for the character
and is encouraged to try and understand why through the course of the film. On
the comic nature of the film, Levy commented that “Komödie ist Realität 20
Prozent schneller”,63 a notion demonstrated in the narrative’s quick pacing and
the camera’s fast, jerky movement. Within this reality, however, the director also
allows for the viewers to identify with the characters. Levy argues:
Humor ist immer dann am schönsten und berührendsten, wenn er aus einer Not und damit aus einer Situation heraus entsteht, in der man ein starkes Mitgefühl mit jemandem hat. Humor ist das wahrscheinlich schönste und legitimste Überlebensmittel.64
The statement validates not only Levy’s use of comedy, but Haußmann’s too.
Their comedies are not trivialising delicate issues, but instead highlighting their
delicacy, humour allowing the topics to be broached without causing too much
pain. Interestingly, it is only when the two brothers are both afflicted by pain and
illness that the real process of reconciliation begins. In hospital, Samuel
remarks to Jaecki that “Sozialismus war dir wichtiger als deine Familie”, to
which Jaecki responds: “Lass die Politik mal weg”. Prior to this point the two 63. Katharina Dockhorn, “’Alles auf Zucker!’/Aber bitte mit Tempo!”. EPD Film 12, no. 1 (2005): 37. 64. “Interview mit Dani Levy: ‘Alles auf Zucker’”.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
men had continued to argue in Cold War ideological terms whilst discussing the
past. As Bühler points out, “Samuel und Jaeckie [lassen sich] als Prototypen
der unterschiedlichen Entwicklungen in Ost- und Westdeutschland sehen”65 and
the two men additionally symbolise the different memory discourses of the GDR
in contemporary Germany. Samuel remembers the GDR as a totalitarian
dictatorship (‘Diktaturgedächtnis’) whereas Jaecki remembers it fondly as
somewhere he was able to make a good living (‘Arrangementgedächtnis’).
It is, however, important to
note that Alles auf Zucker! fails
to give legitimacy to any of the
discourses. The film instead
argues for a third way:
discussion. It becomes clear
that a financial incentive is not
necessary for the brothers to
reconcile, but rather a deeper
understanding of one and other’s pasts. In a similar way to how Marlene failed
to understand Jewish life by reading a book called Wie Juden leben (see-Fig.-
15), it is suggested that similar failure will come to those who attempt to
understand the East through what they read.
For the German identity-rift to heal, Levy suggests that preconceived ideas
need to be cast aside and actual experiences need to be shared and actually
discussed. The brothers, for example, had failed to see their similarities and
used the past as a barrier to reconciliation. Samuel failed to understand his
brother’s life in the GDR whilst Jaecki similarly misconstrued his brother’s
orthodoxy. Additionally, whilst Jaecki may gamble at the billiard table, Samuel
similarly takes risks, but in the property market instead. Although Jaecki needed
to adapt to the changes brought by the Wende, so did Samuel. The film
proposes that in order to heal the wounds of the Wende, effort has to manifest
itself on both sides of the former divide. The approach is given validity by the
film’s climax, where the family is shown to be in regular contact and
successfully ‘transitioned’. As Bühler explains, “was Levy hier vorschlägt, ist 65. Philipp Bühler, Filmheft: ‘Alles auf Zucker’ (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2004), 9.
GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
nicht weniger als ein allgemein gültiges Toleranzmodell für weltliche und
religiöse Juden, für Juden und Nichtjuden, für Menschen in Ost und West”.66
The past should also not define identity nor should it be forgotten – it should
instead influence our identity, allowing us to adapt and change to suit current
circumstances.
Conclusion
Feeling that her identity is being threatened, a former citizen of the GDR
passionately proclaims in a 2012 documentary that “die DDR wird immer
reduziert auf Mauertote, Bedrückung, keine Reisefreiheit”67. Whilst this may
have been true at some point in time, this dissertation has shown how the
German historical consciousness has developed over the space of some fifteen
years. As Leeder notes, and as the three films have proven, “the post-war
consensus informed by large-scale public memory discourses has increasingly
been challenged by the more agitated legacy emerging from the realm of
personal memory”.68 This realm of memory itself is divided amongst three
distinct but converging memory discourses: memory of dictatorship, memory of
progress, and memory of settlement.69
Die Architekten portrays aspects of the ‘Fortschrittgedächtnis’, the idea of
socialism as a legitimate alternative to capitalism, whilst the ostalgic
Sonnenallee portrays the memory of a normal life within the GDR, the
‘Arrangementgedächtnis’. Alles auf Zucker!, on the other hand, highlights the
diversity amongst (former) East and West Germans alike when it comes to
‘remembering’ the GDR and is an accumulation of all three memory strands.
Whilst no film tackles ‘Dikataturgedächtnis’ head on, it is a strand that has
proven popular for the increasingly globalising German film industry, with films
such as Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Das Leben der Anderen (2006)
and Christian Petzold’s Barbara (2012) finding international success. Such films
not only highlight the diversity of memory, they additionally underline the great
interest in German history both nationally and internationally.
66. Bühler, Filmheft, 10. 67. Jan N. Lorenzen, dir., Meine Heimat: DDR!, (2012). 68. Karen Leeder, “Introduction”. Oxford German Studies 38, no. 3 (2009): 238. 69. As established by Sabrow in “Die DDR erinnern”, 18-20.
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———. “‘Ostalgie’, Fantasy and the Normalization of East-West Relations in Post-Unification Comedy”. In German Cinema Since Unification, edited by David Clarke, 105-126. London: Continuum, 2006.
———. “‘Seit der Wende hat der Mann nur Pech gehabt. Jetzt soll er auch noch Jude sein’: Theatricality, Memory and Identity in Dani Levy's ‘Alles auf Zucker!’ (2004)”. Debatte: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 15, no. 1 (2007): 25-42.
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GE436 GERMAN STUDIES DISSERTATION German National Identity and Representations of the ‘Wende’ in Post-Unification Cinema
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Webber, Andrew J. “Falling Walls, Sliding Doors, Open Windows: Berlin on Film after the Wende”. German as a Foreign Language no. 1 (2006): 6-23.
Wittlinger, Ruth. “Introduction: A Different Republic After All?”. In German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century: A Different Republic After All?, 1-16. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
———. “The Quest for ‘Inner Unity’”. In German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century: A Different Republic After All?, 47-70. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
———. “Conclusion: German Nation Identity in the Twenty-First Century”. In German National Identity in the Twenty-First Century: A Different Republic After All?, 139-145. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Worschech, Rudolf. “‘Alles auf Zucker’ raumte ab: die Deutschen Filmpreise”. EPD Film 12, no. 8 (2005): 5.
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Zelle, Carsten. Ostalgie? National and Regional Identifications in Germany after Unification. Birmingham: Institute for German Studies, 1997.