Corona thought away: what would it have been for a year? And who was Thomas Kemmerich again? In any case, a year full of excitement – and a suggestion that has lasted for 30 years: to think about the East German soul, to take it seriously as a political factor. There were enough occasions for this this year.
Before the pandemic hit, the republic’s eyes were directed eastwards, with irritated eyes. In Thuringia, the largely unknown FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich catapulted himself into the office of Prime Minister with the help of the CDU and AfD – a state chief by right-wing grace, the whole country was rightly outraged.
The left hand threw the bouquet of flowers, actually intended for incumbent Bodo Ramelow, at his feet; federal politics clapped their hands over their heads: nothing new in the east. The old state of governability could only be restored with pain: The crisis talks in Erfurt almost caused FDP leader Christian Lindner to stumble over himself again and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer powerlessly to drop the office of CDU chairman – because of the pandemic and internal party disruptions, nobody has so far canceled.
But one feeling remained: with its political decisions and the feelings that peek out from them, the East is still something special. Why actually?
How little federal politics, whose elites continue to be recruited primarily from the old Federal Republic, is still able to fathom the still new part, was also shown at the beginning of December. Saxony-Anhalt’s Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff was able to save his Kenya coalition as a bulwark against the AfD at the last minute by unceremoniously canceling the decision to increase the license fee in the Magdeburg state parliament, which led to the failure.
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The public service broadcaster, previously endowed with eight billion euros a year, then rushed to the Federal Constitutional Court to get a further 400 million euros annually for all its programs, where they stepped on the brakes and referred a main decision that comes when it comes.
The excited republic, on the other hand, attacked the state political decision. The state CDU had redeemed a long-term election promise with the blockade. Only Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left), who was back in office thanks to CDU tolerance, publicly supported his CDU colleague from Saxony-Anhalt.
In the east there is a different life experience
Haseloff had “always explained among the state leaders that there would be no majority in favor of an increase in broadcasting fees in his state parliament unless there was a debate about the broadcasters’ ability to reform”. Prime ministers of other countries had “rolled their eyes”, reported Ramelow – and added an illuminating sentence: “West German politicians often find objections from the East annoying. That also explains the East German defiance. ”
Does anger rule between the Baltic Sea and the Ore Mountains even in the state chancelleries? In any case, rulers have to face a different life experience. Based on upheavals, power relationships prevail in the private sphere and in parliaments, which make majorities beyond the prejudiced, increasingly right-wing AfD more difficult. The CDU is forced to make concessions if it wants to remain able to act – not to a CDU chancellor in Berlin at the end of her era, but to people who were skeptical of the state even in GDR times and who were too rare in the new Germany were invited to participate in key positions.
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In many of them there is defiance, which can only be reduced through positive experiences. With more visibility in important positions. And yes, even if you’ve heard it often, by listening.
Even 30 years after the urgent unity, the East ticks according to a different calendar, lives in a different emotional household. In retrospect, experiences from constant change must always be taken into account. Even on its shades.
In retrospect, we should first and foremost look at the people who made change possible with their courage – who were imprisoned for freedom, whose health was compromised, whose families and groups of friends were partially destroyed.
How can you gain interest and empathy?
Remembering them, their dreams and their pains, remains the task of the whole country. But how can the gaze of everyone else who was not there be drawn to it, how can their empathy be gained? For this, history must be presented in a more modern way, told in a more contemporary way. Not only oriented towards anniversaries, but towards the audience. It would be an important step to better understand the present. And to recognize losses – losses of habits after the end of the GDR. Losses that still trigger fears that need to be dealt with.
It starts with public television, which struggles with structural reforms and self-criticism and too seldom addresses the fear of loss and life experiences of people in the East – because the channels themselves are often West German in the lines of their East German stations.
Processing – a dusty word
“ARD and ZDF have stayed in many branches of Western television,” Haseloff told the “Welt”. Some reports from the East looked like reports from abroad, “of course people notice that”. The reaction of the East German-dominated media to fall into nostalgia as a kind of antidote and to get caught up in old GDR memories has also caught dust. To tell the new from the old; it seldom succeeds.
Work-up. This word also seems outdated. It holds out the prospect of something to be concluded that cannot be concluded: to organize the present by classifying it in history – with approaches that are as future-oriented as possible: more digital, more interactive, looking for new things. Traditional bulkiness, ideological self-confidence, also when dealing with AfD voters, and rituals of remembrance spill curiosity. But without the curiosity of others, important memories are lost.
Understanding today’s political upheavals in the East includes exposing the struggles of unity: unemployment and disorientation, emigration and turning away. Times and feelings that many found to be forgotten, but which must not be forgotten. Institutions and people need a fresh look at the transformation, curiosity about the upheaval after the upheaval. After all, that has been noticed across the country this year.
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But how do you get old memories retold? Of course, you need the authentic places, the prisons in Hohenschönhausen or Bautzen, and also the museums that testify to the perpetrators and desk criminals.
But it also needs more interaction beyond one’s own memory bubble, which has also formed around these places. There were a few examples in Berlin around the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, more than at the rather unemotional unification anniversary this year – here Corona has increased the inner distance of many from the view of German unity. The small “MachMit” museum in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg provided a good approach to combining the new and the old, especially with lockdowns. Here children asked former civil rights activists from their neighborhood what they had previously risked in order to freely say what they thought and to hear the music they liked.
Remember the GDR as an unknown, interesting country
Young people think and speak differently about the GDR and the peaceful revolution – namely like about an unknown and, above all, interesting country that was not perceived as an SED dictatorship in every phase, although it was there of course. In this way memories spread and develop anew at the same time.
Today’s haptic is important to arouse curiosity. It loads memories with new experiences and shows how much courageous people in Belarus are risking for their freedom. And by the way, some corona deniers in Saxony (and Bavaria) could also become aware that a dictatorship is something different than wearing a face mask in public spaces.
“How did you survive the unit?”
“How did you survive the unit?” After 30 years, this question is becoming more of a focus of memory. The victims of the GDR’s arbitrariness must never be forgotten. Now the price of unity is being negotiated – for all those who opposed neo-Nazis in their villages, who tried to occupy and empty the empty spaces with violence. And for people who toiled indestructibly through the storms of the post-reunification period. That too is a creditable achievement.
As far as upheavals are concerned, East Germany is hiding a treasure trove of experience under shattered emotions – curiosity can raise it for everyone. And should therefore be scientifically researched and discussed in society. Because new upheavals have long since arrived and are affecting the whole country: those caused by digitization and the coming of self-discovery in the pandemic. This could also create pride in what you have achieved yourself, which is not based on nostalgia, but provides emotional support in the present.
They come back with their east-west-north-south experience
Many young East Germans left their homeland during the decades of harmonization. Some are now returning to Thuringia or Saxony-Anhalt – or their children. And build new things, with their own East-West-North-South experience. That such transformations and metamorphoses should now be researched and discussed, as suggested by the Unity Commission under the leadership of the former Brandenburg Prime Minister Matthias Platzeck (SPD) – what else is that but overdue?
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s proposal to set up a memorial to the peaceful revolution that is alive through research and debates – for example in the former Stasi headquarters in Berlin-Lichtenberg, which is still waiting to be awakened in the present – could also attract the attention of the entire country widen. And young people are also interested.
What makes a new view even more appealing: The preparation of history and its present view, including the memory of those who resisted and the victims, is facing a generation change. It has to change with modern, artistic actions in public space, with more conversations between generations, with modern communication, interactive narration and social empathy.
History has to be told from below
If there is a GDR victim commissioner in the Bundestag from next year to replace the Stasi file commissioner, this new institution will have to take care of curious commemoration. It is about making old experiences different. A modern memory is just in the interests of the victims. And it explains much that many find inexplicable about current East German politics.
History has to be told from below – with stories from families and communities that were not all heroes. Just as there are not only heroes today. In order to better understand resistance today, it is worth taking a closer look at those who made the peaceful revolution possible. Curiosity that also the West German-influenced public television and the old federal politics have to muster up more often, which should not only flare up when one does not understand a political decision in the East again. East Germany has a lot of new things to tell about the old. And that’s why you often have a different opinion politically. You don’t have to share it. But you may want to understand them.
