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Shows that while the GDR is generally seen as - and mostly was - an oppressive and unfree country, from late 1989 until autumn 1990 it was the "freest country in the world": the dictatorship had disappeared while the welfare system remained.
Stephen Brockmann's new book explores the year 1989/1990 in East Germany, arguing that while the GDR is generally seen as - and was for most of its forty years - an oppressive and unfree country, from autumn 1989 until the autumn of 1990 it was the "freest country in the world," since the dictatorship had disappeared while the welfare system remained. That such freedom existed in the last months of the GDR and was a result of the actions of East Germans themselves has been obscured, Brockmann shows, by the now-standard description of the collapse of the GDR and the reunification of Germany as a triumph of Western democracy and capitalism.
Brockmann first addresses the culture of 1989/1990 by looking at various media from that final year, particularly film documentaries. He emphasizes punk culture and the growth of neo-Nazism and the Antifa movement - factors often ignored in accounts of the period. He then analyzes three later semiautobiographical novels about the period. He devotes chapters to dramatic films dealing with German reunification made relatively soon after the event and to more recent film and television depictions of the period, respectively. The final chapter looks at monuments and memorials of the 1989/1990 period, and a conclusion considers the implications of the book's findings for the present day.
Stephen Brockmann's new book explores the year 1989/1990 in East Germany, arguing that while the GDR is generally seen as - and was for most of its forty years - an oppressive and unfree country, from autumn 1989 until the autumn of 1990 it was the "freest country in the world," since the dictatorship had disappeared while the welfare system remained. That such freedom existed in the last months of the GDR and was a result of the actions of East Germans themselves has been obscured, Brockmann shows, by the now-standard description of the collapse of the GDR and the reunification of Germany as a triumph of Western democracy and capitalism.
Brockmann first addresses the culture of 1989/1990 by looking at various media from that final year, particularly film documentaries. He emphasizes punk culture and the growth of neo-Nazism and the Antifa movement - factors often ignored in accounts of the period. He then analyzes three later semiautobiographical novels about the period. He devotes chapters to dramatic films dealing with German reunification made relatively soon after the event and to more recent film and television depictions of the period, respectively. The final chapter looks at monuments and memorials of the 1989/1990 period, and a conclusion considers the implications of the book's findings for the present day.
Price: $130.00
Pages: 352
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Inc.
Imprint: Camden House
Series: Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture
Publication Date:
20 June 2023
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781640141544
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
LITERARY CRITICISM / European / German, Literature: history and criticism, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / Genres / Documentary, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Politics, PERFORMING ARTS / Film / History & Criticism, PERFORMING ARTS / Television / History & Criticism, Documentary films
Outstanding. . . . This is one of the most exciting books on East Germany that I have read in a long time and should be required reading for all who are interested in East Germany, be they scholar, student, or the general public alike.
Brockmann demonstrates with this book that taking a second look at more obscure cultural texts can be extremely valuable for gaining a truer, more nuanced sense of a time once a standardized narrative has been established. This volume could serve as a foundation for any number of deeper investigations into that turbulent year and its impact on Germany today.
The Freest Country in the World shows us persuasively that memories of 1989-1990 are partial, local, complex, and vulnerable to being eclipsed by simplified dominant narratives driven by ideological interest. In revealing the haunted nature of this moment and its cultural reflections, Stephen Brockmann does a great service in allowing us to challenge such narratives, and he offers us an academic perspective on issues often driven by more polemical interventions (e.g., Hoyer, Kowalczuk, Mau, Oschmann).
There is today a "dominant narrative" of 1989/90, Brockmann asserts, one that revolves around "national reunification and political freedom." One of the virtues of his book is that it helps recentre stories sidelined from this narrative.
The Freest Country in the World is a richly detailed and analytically acute book about 1989-1990 at the time in the GDR and in the memory of that time among both East and West Germans. I learned so much from every chapter: about novels, films, punks, neo-Nazis, the sausage-making of memorials.
— Donna Harsch, Professor of History, Carnegie Mellon University
[A]n admirable and useful synthesis.
Provides an exciting contribution to the ongoing debate on Ostalgia and on what is remembered of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) more broadly. Shows not only how various media and subcultures have disrupted the time period from 1989 to 1990 but also how, by cracking open a space between GDR and FRG, the alternative spaces then become "interventions in the here and now" that affect narratives and actual realities in contemporary Germany.
The survey of texts, films, television productions, commemorative events, and monuments that Brockmann provides is a stunning accomplishment. Written in an eminently accessible and engaging style, this book would be suitable for the graduate or even advanced undergraduate classroom and would be a fantastic starting point for anyone seeking an orientation to unification discourses for their own research.
It is hard not to get quite dark in reflecting both on the missed opportunities of the 1989 revolutions, and on the way in which Western nations in a way exploited that moment to further impose a narrative of Western triumphalism. But instead of getting dark, I am inspired by this book to continue to think about promises and hope, and to use works of art and literature to inform how we recover possibilities rather than abandon them to the graveyard of history.
— Andreea Ritivoi, William S. Dietrich Professor of English and Department Head, Carnegie Mellon University
Brockmann demonstrates with this book that taking a second look at more obscure cultural texts can be extremely valuable for gaining a truer, more nuanced sense of a time once a standardized narrative has been established. This volume could serve as a foundation for any number of deeper investigations into that turbulent year and its impact on Germany today.
The Freest Country in the World shows us persuasively that memories of 1989-1990 are partial, local, complex, and vulnerable to being eclipsed by simplified dominant narratives driven by ideological interest. In revealing the haunted nature of this moment and its cultural reflections, Stephen Brockmann does a great service in allowing us to challenge such narratives, and he offers us an academic perspective on issues often driven by more polemical interventions (e.g., Hoyer, Kowalczuk, Mau, Oschmann).
There is today a "dominant narrative" of 1989/90, Brockmann asserts, one that revolves around "national reunification and political freedom." One of the virtues of his book is that it helps recentre stories sidelined from this narrative.
The Freest Country in the World is a richly detailed and analytically acute book about 1989-1990 at the time in the GDR and in the memory of that time among both East and West Germans. I learned so much from every chapter: about novels, films, punks, neo-Nazis, the sausage-making of memorials.
— Donna Harsch, Professor of History, Carnegie Mellon University
[A]n admirable and useful synthesis.
Provides an exciting contribution to the ongoing debate on Ostalgia and on what is remembered of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) more broadly. Shows not only how various media and subcultures have disrupted the time period from 1989 to 1990 but also how, by cracking open a space between GDR and FRG, the alternative spaces then become "interventions in the here and now" that affect narratives and actual realities in contemporary Germany.
The survey of texts, films, television productions, commemorative events, and monuments that Brockmann provides is a stunning accomplishment. Written in an eminently accessible and engaging style, this book would be suitable for the graduate or even advanced undergraduate classroom and would be a fantastic starting point for anyone seeking an orientation to unification discourses for their own research.
It is hard not to get quite dark in reflecting both on the missed opportunities of the 1989 revolutions, and on the way in which Western nations in a way exploited that moment to further impose a narrative of Western triumphalism. But instead of getting dark, I am inspired by this book to continue to think about promises and hope, and to use works of art and literature to inform how we recover possibilities rather than abandon them to the graveyard of history.
— Andreea Ritivoi, William S. Dietrich Professor of English and Department Head, Carnegie Mellon University
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Memory of Freedom
1: Protocols of History: Reunification Documentaries from 1989/1990
2: Anarchy in the GDR
3: The National Liberation Zone
4: Coming of Age as the State Dies: Three Novels and Their Heroes
5: Provincial Theater: Fiction Film Struggles to Address German Reunification in the Early 1990s
6: The Grand Theater of the East and the Imaginary Stasi: The Emergence of the Standard Depiction of German Reunification in Film and on Television
7: Ritual, Repetition, and Memory: Commemorating and Memorializing 1989/1990
Conclusion: The Last GDR
Selected Works Cited
Filmography
Index
Introduction: The Memory of Freedom
1: Protocols of History: Reunification Documentaries from 1989/1990
2: Anarchy in the GDR
3: The National Liberation Zone
4: Coming of Age as the State Dies: Three Novels and Their Heroes
5: Provincial Theater: Fiction Film Struggles to Address German Reunification in the Early 1990s
6: The Grand Theater of the East and the Imaginary Stasi: The Emergence of the Standard Depiction of German Reunification in Film and on Television
7: Ritual, Repetition, and Memory: Commemorating and Memorializing 1989/1990
Conclusion: The Last GDR
Selected Works Cited
Filmography
Index