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Corona thought: what would it have been like for a year? And who was Thomas Kemmerich again? In any case, a year full of illusion, and a suggestion that has lasted 30 years: think about the soul of East Germany, take it seriously as a political factor. There were enough occasions for this this year.
Before the pandemic struck, the republic’s gaze was directed east, with red eyes. In Thuringia, the largely unknown FDP politician Thomas Kemmerich was catapulted into the prime minister’s office with the help of the CDU and AfD – a head of state by grace of the right, the whole country was rightly outraged.
The left hand flung the bouquet of flowers at her feet, actually intended for the holder Bodo Ramelow; federal politics covered its head with its hands: 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 again and helpless Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer step down as CDU chairman, Due to the pandemic and internal party disturbances, no one has done so until now. cancelled.
But one feeling remained: with its political decisions and the feelings that permeate them, the East remains something special. Because in reality?
The little that federal politics, the elites of which are still recruited mainly in the old Federal Republic, are still able to understand the still new part, was also shown in early December. Saxony-Anhalt Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff was able to save his Kenyan 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 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 obtain another 400 million euros a year for all its programs, where they stepped on the brakes and submitted a major decision that arrives when it reaches.
The excited republic, on the other hand, attacked the state political decision. The state CDU had redeemed a long-term electoral promise with the blockade. Only Thuringian Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left), who was back in office thanks to the tolerance of the CDU, publicly jumped on his colleague from the CDU in Saxony-Anhalt.
In the east there is a different life experience
Haseloff “had always explained among state leaders that there would be no majority in favor of an increase in transmission rates in his state parliament unless there was a debate on the ability to reform the stations.” Prime ministers of other countries had “rolled their eyes,” Ramelow reported, adding an enlightening phrase: “West German politicians often find objections from the East annoying. That also explains East German defiance.”
Does the anger between the Baltic Sea and the Ore Mountains rule even in state chancelleries? In any case, the rulers have to face a different life experience. On the basis of upheavals, power relations prevail in the private sphere and in parliaments, making it difficult for majorities beyond the prejudiced and increasingly right-wing AfD. 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 its era, but to people who were skeptical of the state even in GDR times and who were too rare in the new Germany. they were invited to participate in key positions.
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In many of them there is a challenge that can only be reduced through positive experiences. With more visibility in important positions. And yes, even if you’ve heard it often, listening.
Even 30 years after the urgent unit, the East marks according to a different era, lives in a different emotional home. In retrospect, experiences of constant change must always be taken into account. Even in its shadows.
In retrospect, we should first of all 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 to gain interest and empathy?
Remembering them, their dreams and their pains, is still the task of the entire country. But how can you attract the gaze of everyone who was not there, how can you win their empathy? For this, the story must be presented in a more modern way, told more contemporary. Not just geared towards anniversaries, but the audience. It would be an important step to better understand the present. And recognize losses, loss of habits after the end of the RDA. Losses that still trigger fears that must be faced.
It begins with public television, which struggles with structural reforms and self-criticism and rarely addresses the fear of loss and the life experiences of people in the East, because the channels themselves are often West German on the lines of its East German stations.
Processing: a dusty word
“ARD and ZDF have remained in many branches of Western television,” Haseloff told the “Welt.” Some reports from the East looked like reports from abroad, “of course people notice.” The reaction of the East German-dominated media of falling into nostalgia as a kind of antidote and getting caught up in old memories of the GDR has already turned to dust. To distinguish the new from the old; seldom successful.
Exercise. This word also seems outdated. It offers the perspective of something to be concluded that cannot be concluded: organizing the present by classifying it in history, with the most future-oriented approaches possible: more digital, more interactive, looking for new things. The traditional volume, the ideological self-confidence also in dealing with AfD voters and the rituals of remembrance spill curiosity. But without the curiosity of others, important memories are lost.
Understanding the current political upheavals in the East includes exposing the struggles for unity: unemployment and disorientation, emigration and estrangement. Times and feelings that many found forgotten, but should not be forgotten. Institutions and people need a fresh look at transformation, curiosity about turmoil after turmoil. After all, that has been noticed across the country this year.
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But how are old memories re-told? Of course, you need the authentic places, the prisons in Hohenschönhausen or Bautzen, and also the museums that bear witness to the perpetrators and desk criminals.
But it also needs more interaction beyond the memory bubble itself that has also formed around these places. There were a few examples in Berlin around the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, rather than the unemotional unification anniversary this year: here Corona has increased the inner distance of many from the perspective of German unity. The small museum “MachMit” in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg provided a good approach to combining the new and the old, especially with closures. Here the children asked former civil rights activists in their neighborhood what they had risked previously so that they could freely speak their minds and listen to the music they liked.
Remember the GDR as an unknown and interesting country
Young people think and speak differently about the GDR and the peaceful revolution, that is, as about an unknown and, above all, interesting country that was not perceived as a SED dictatorship in all phases, although yes, of course. In this way the memories are diffused and developed again at the same time.
Today’s haptic is important to arouse curiosity. Load memories with new experiences and show how much brave people in Belarus risk for their freedom. And by the way, some crown deniers in Saxony (and Bavaria) might also realize 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 memory stick. The victims of the arbitrariness of the GDR should never be forgotten. Now the price of unity is being negotiated, for all those who opposed the neo-Nazis in their villages, who tried to occupy and empty the empty spaces with violence. And for the people who toiled indestructibly through the storms after the Wall fell. That too is a worthy achievement.
When it comes to upheaval, East Germany hides a treasure trove of experience beneath shattered emotions – curiosity can spark it for everyone. And therefore it should be scientifically investigated and debated in society. Because new disorders that are affecting the entire country have long since arrived: those caused by digitization and the arrival of self-discovery in the pandemic. This could also create pride in what you have accomplished 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 East German youth left their homeland during the decades of harmonization. Some now return to Thuringia or Saxony-Anhalt, or to their children. And build new things, with your own East-West-North-South experience. That such transformations and metamorphoses should now be investigated and discussed, as suggested by the Unity Commission under the leadership of the former Prime Minister of Brandenburg, Matthias Platzeck (SPD), what else is that that expired?
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s proposal to establish a monument to the peaceful revolution that is alive through research and discussions, for example, at the former Stasi headquarters in Berlin-Lichtenberg, which is still waiting to be awakened in the present could also attract the attention of the whole country. widen. And young people are interested too.
What makes a new vision even more attractive: The preparation of history and your current vision, including the memory of those who resisted and the victims, faces a generational change. It has to change with modern artistic actions in public space, with more cross-generational conversations, with modern communication, interactive storytelling, and social empathy.
The story must be told from below
If there is a GDR Victims Commissioner in the Bundestag from next year to replace the Stasi Archives Commissioner, this new institution will have to deal with the curious memory. It’s about making old experiences different. A modern memory is in the interest of the victims. And it explains many things that many find inexplicable about current East German politics.
The story must be told from below, with stories of families and communities that were not all heroes. Just as today there are not only heroes. To better understand the resistance today, it is worth taking a closer look at those who made peaceful revolution possible. The curiosity that also West German-influenced public television and old federal politics have to meet more often, which should not only explode when one does not re-understand a political decision in the East. East Germany has many new things to tell about the old ones. And that is why you often have a different political opinion. You don’t have to share it. But you may want to understand them.
