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THE GDR OBJECTIFIED
Had Täve Schur not existed, the GDR would have had to have invented him. In fact, one might argue that it did. Gustav-Adolf Schur, or Täve as he is known to all East Germans of a certain age, was a road racing cyclist whose fame grew throughout the course of the 1950s as he moved from one sporting success to the next.CITIES & TOWNS
About this blog; Biographies. A “Schur” Thing: The GDR’s First Homegrown Hero; Playing By Their Own Rules: A Clergy Couple in the GDR; An Olympic-sized dream is MARZAHN: THE PROS AND (ALL THE MOD) CONS Anyone with an interest in the GDR quickly encounters mention of Marzahn, a massive housing estate located on the northeastern edge of the East German capital Berlin. Made up of approximately 60,000 prefabricated concrete apartment units housed largely in high rise tower blocks, Marzahn was built over approximately fifteen years beginning in the mid-1970s to provide modern THE RED WOODSTOCK: 10TH WORLD FESTIVAL OF YOUTH AND The Red Woodstock: 10th World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin. The GDR’s leaders were very sensitive about how their country was perceived internationally. Seen by many as a rump state and proxy of the Soviet Union, East German leaders took great pains to assert their legitimacy whenever and however they could. THE WILD EAST: DIVIDED BERLIN IN 1962 The Wild East: Divided Berlin in 1962. “East Germany and things happening there had been in the news all the time. We understood the seriousness of the political situation, but we didn’t let it affect our decision making. . . . There was always a feeling of tension, no one was really sure where things were going, but no one was in anypanic
NEUE BERLINER ILLUSTRIERTE: IT’S A LOT LIKE LIFE Neue Berliner Illustrierte: It’s a lot like LIFE. One of the GDR’s most popular magazines was the weekly Neue Berliner Illustrierte (New Berlin Illustrated), a bright and colourful publication which, with its mixture of politics, portraits, social trends, sport and culture, resembled nothing so much as that iconic chronicler of American society and politics LIFE. TRABANTS IN CANADA OR HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION Trabants in Canada or How I Spent My Summer Vacation. About fifteen years ago or so, I was back in Winnipeg visiting family during the summer. One afternoon I was driving around with my aunt when we passed a car lot on a service road in the city’s north end.EXTRA – USA FKK
The GDR Objectified. Original size at 339 × 246. Leave a comment. “But no FKK (nudity): Americans prefer to show themselves in athong.”.
STATE OF THE ART AND THE ART OF THE STATE From the outside, it looks like nothing so much an 80s-era sports arena that has been placed quixotically atop a small mountain in the Thuringian countryside. However, the Panorama Museum in Bad Frankenhausen is in fact one of the few manifestations of GDR cultural policy to have survived the transition to a unified Germanyessentially intact.
HALLE-NEUSTADT: WHERE THE STREETS HAD NO NAME Halle-Neustadt: Where the Streets Had No Name. Halle-Neustadt from a series of stamps marking the GDR’s 20th anniversary and depicting urban development undertaken since WWII. I am a sucker for architect’s drawings and grand notions of urban design and these weaknesses go some ways to explaining my interest in the GDR.THE GDR OBJECTIFIED
Had Täve Schur not existed, the GDR would have had to have invented him. In fact, one might argue that it did. Gustav-Adolf Schur, or Täve as he is known to all East Germans of a certain age, was a road racing cyclist whose fame grew throughout the course of the 1950s as he moved from one sporting success to the next.CITIES & TOWNS
About this blog; Biographies. A “Schur” Thing: The GDR’s First Homegrown Hero; Playing By Their Own Rules: A Clergy Couple in the GDR; An Olympic-sized dream is MARZAHN: THE PROS AND (ALL THE MOD) CONS Anyone with an interest in the GDR quickly encounters mention of Marzahn, a massive housing estate located on the northeastern edge of the East German capital Berlin. Made up of approximately 60,000 prefabricated concrete apartment units housed largely in high rise tower blocks, Marzahn was built over approximately fifteen years beginning in the mid-1970s to provide modern THE RED WOODSTOCK: 10TH WORLD FESTIVAL OF YOUTH AND The Red Woodstock: 10th World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin. The GDR’s leaders were very sensitive about how their country was perceived internationally. Seen by many as a rump state and proxy of the Soviet Union, East German leaders took great pains to assert their legitimacy whenever and however they could. THE WILD EAST: DIVIDED BERLIN IN 1962 The Wild East: Divided Berlin in 1962. “East Germany and things happening there had been in the news all the time. We understood the seriousness of the political situation, but we didn’t let it affect our decision making. . . . There was always a feeling of tension, no one was really sure where things were going, but no one was in anypanic
NEUE BERLINER ILLUSTRIERTE: IT’S A LOT LIKE LIFE Neue Berliner Illustrierte: It’s a lot like LIFE. One of the GDR’s most popular magazines was the weekly Neue Berliner Illustrierte (New Berlin Illustrated), a bright and colourful publication which, with its mixture of politics, portraits, social trends, sport and culture, resembled nothing so much as that iconic chronicler of American society and politics LIFE. TRABANTS IN CANADA OR HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION Trabants in Canada or How I Spent My Summer Vacation. About fifteen years ago or so, I was back in Winnipeg visiting family during the summer. One afternoon I was driving around with my aunt when we passed a car lot on a service road in the city’s north end.EXTRA – USA FKK
The GDR Objectified. Original size at 339 × 246. Leave a comment. “But no FKK (nudity): Americans prefer to show themselves in athong.”.
STATE OF THE ART AND THE ART OF THE STATE From the outside, it looks like nothing so much an 80s-era sports arena that has been placed quixotically atop a small mountain in the Thuringian countryside. However, the Panorama Museum in Bad Frankenhausen is in fact one of the few manifestations of GDR cultural policy to have survived the transition to a unified Germanyessentially intact.
HALLE-NEUSTADT: WHERE THE STREETS HAD NO NAME Halle-Neustadt: Where the Streets Had No Name. Halle-Neustadt from a series of stamps marking the GDR’s 20th anniversary and depicting urban development undertaken since WWII. I am a sucker for architect’s drawings and grand notions of urban design and these weaknesses go some ways to explaining my interest in the GDR. MARZAHN: THE PROS AND (ALL THE MOD) CONS Anyone with an interest in the GDR quickly encounters mention of Marzahn, a massive housing estate located on the northeastern edge of the East German capital Berlin. Made up of approximately 60,000 prefabricated concrete apartment units housed largely in high rise tower blocks, Marzahn was built over approximately fifteen years beginning in the mid-1970s to provide modernBERLIN WALL
The Berlin Wall, or as it was known officially in the GDR, 'The Anti-fascist Protection Wall' was built on August 13, 1961 and stood until November 9, 1989. The Wall encircled what would become known as West Berlin and was built in response to the ongoing mass exodus of East Germans citizens to the West ONLINE EVENT: BOWLING FOR COMMUNISM The eastern German city of Leipzig is known as the "City of Heroes" for its role as home to the protests which led to the demise of the state socialist regime. Explanations for why Leipzigers took to the streets have often focused on a number of factors including political repression, the desire toEXTRA – USA FKK
The GDR Objectified. Original size at 339 × 246. Leave a comment. “But no FKK (nudity): Americans prefer to show themselves in athong.”.
SIBYLLE: HAUTE COUTURE GDR-STYLE While the notion of an East Bloc fashion magazine may leave one imagining photo spreads of models clad in Mao suits or Thälmann caps, for thirty-three years Sibylle, East Germany's magazine for "fashion and culture", made the case (sometimes more convincingly than others) that state socialism and style were not necessarily mutual exclusiveconcepts.
ROTKÄPPCHEN: THE CHAMPAGNE OF THE GDR The popularity of Rotkäppchen did not go unnoticed by the markets and in 2002, the French champagne manufactuer and Seagrams, a Canadian distiller, bought into the company. In the years since, the wine has become the market leader in its category in Germany (33.5% market share) and is now being exported worldwide, as is attested to by its appearance under my tree in Toronto, Canada! ON PINS AND NEEDLES: ACKNOWLEDGING SOCIALISM’S GOOD AND On Pins and Needles: Acknowledging Socialism’s Good and Faithful Servants. Plastic pin produced for participants in the Spartakiade of the Combat Groups of the Working Class in Halle / Saale in 1973 (photo: Jo Zarth). One of the distinguishing features of state socialism in the GDR was its use of awards, medals and commendationsas a means of
EASTERN EDEN: ALLOTMENT GARDENS IN THE GDR Allotment Gardens – “Part of the Political Organization of the GDR’s Socialist Society”. That many East Germans saw their garden plot as a refugium from the trials of daily life in “real existing socialism” (as SED jargon would have it) was a challenge to Party leaders keen on creating the “new man” which their ideologypromised.
ERICH HONECKER, “THE GRAVE DIGGER OF THE NATION” AND 1983 Erich Honecker, “The Grave Digger of the Nation” and 1983. Statue of Martin Luther, Wittenberg Town Square, spring 1980 (photo: D. Hendricksen) As today is Reformation Day, it seems an appropriate moment to turn our attentions to the GDR’s relationship to Martin Luther (1483 – 1546), the German theologian generally credited withhaving
SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIS: THE SANDMAN A Brief History of the Sandman. The Sandman is the star of a night-time TV series for small children which was the brainchild of one Dr. Ilse Obrig, an academically-trained children’s broadcaster who began her career with the Nazi’s Reichssender Berlin radio station in 1936, a position she retained throughout the war years. Dr.THE GDR OBJECTIFIED
Had Täve Schur not existed, the GDR would have had to have invented him. In fact, one might argue that it did. Gustav-Adolf Schur, or Täve as he is known to all East Germans of a certain age, was a road racing cyclist whose fame grew throughout the course of the 1950s as he moved from one sporting success to the next.CITIES & TOWNS
About this blog; Biographies. A “Schur” Thing: The GDR’s First Homegrown Hero; Playing By Their Own Rules: A Clergy Couple in the GDR; An Olympic-sized dream is LEUNA & BUNA PT. II: A WORKER’S LIFE II: A Worker’s Life. Youth Researcher Collective in the Leuna Works Research Centre, October 1971 (Photo: Bundesarchiv Bild 183-K1027-0014) In our previous post on the Chemical Works at Leuna and Buna, the focus was very much on the political and economic history of those sites. But what was working life like for the nearly50,000 East German
MARZAHN: THE PROS AND (ALL THE MOD) CONS Anyone with an interest in the GDR quickly encounters mention of Marzahn, a massive housing estate located on the northeastern edge of the East German capital Berlin. Made up of approximately 60,000 prefabricated concrete apartment units housed largely in high rise tower blocks, Marzahn was built over approximately fifteen years beginning in the mid-1970s to provide modern NEUE BERLINER ILLUSTRIERTE: IT’S A LOT LIKE LIFE Neue Berliner Illustrierte: It’s a lot like LIFE. One of the GDR’s most popular magazines was the weekly Neue Berliner Illustrierte (New Berlin Illustrated), a bright and colourful publication which, with its mixture of politics, portraits, social trends, sport and culture, resembled nothing so much as that iconic chronicler of American society and politics LIFE.EXTRA – USA FKK
The GDR Objectified. Original size at 339 × 246. Leave a comment. “But no FKK (nudity): Americans prefer to show themselves in athong.”.
THE WILD EAST: DIVIDED BERLIN IN 1962 The Wild East: Divided Berlin in 1962. “East Germany and things happening there had been in the news all the time. We understood the seriousness of the political situation, but we didn’t let it affect our decision making. . . . There was always a feeling of tension, no one was really sure where things were going, but no one was in anypanic
ROTKÄPPCHEN: THE CHAMPAGNE OF THE GDR The popularity of Rotkäppchen did not go unnoticed by the markets and in 2002, the French champagne manufactuer and Seagrams, a Canadian distiller, bought into the company. In the years since, the wine has become the market leader in its category in Germany (33.5% market share) and is now being exported worldwide, as is attested to by its appearance under my tree in Toronto, Canada! ERICH HONECKER, “THE GRAVE DIGGER OF THE NATION” AND 1983 Erich Honecker, “The Grave Digger of the Nation” and 1983. Statue of Martin Luther, Wittenberg Town Square, spring 1980 (photo: D. Hendricksen) As today is Reformation Day, it seems an appropriate moment to turn our attentions to the GDR’s relationship to Martin Luther (1483 – 1546), the German theologian generally credited withhaving
HALLE-NEUSTADT: WHERE THE STREETS HAD NO NAME Halle-Neustadt: Where the Streets Had No Name. Halle-Neustadt from a series of stamps marking the GDR’s 20th anniversary and depicting urban development undertaken since WWII. I am a sucker for architect’s drawings and grand notions of urban design and these weaknesses go some ways to explaining my interest in the GDR.THE GDR OBJECTIFIED
Had Täve Schur not existed, the GDR would have had to have invented him. In fact, one might argue that it did. Gustav-Adolf Schur, or Täve as he is known to all East Germans of a certain age, was a road racing cyclist whose fame grew throughout the course of the 1950s as he moved from one sporting success to the next.CITIES & TOWNS
About this blog; Biographies. A “Schur” Thing: The GDR’s First Homegrown Hero; Playing By Their Own Rules: A Clergy Couple in the GDR; An Olympic-sized dream is LEUNA & BUNA PT. II: A WORKER’S LIFE II: A Worker’s Life. Youth Researcher Collective in the Leuna Works Research Centre, October 1971 (Photo: Bundesarchiv Bild 183-K1027-0014) In our previous post on the Chemical Works at Leuna and Buna, the focus was very much on the political and economic history of those sites. But what was working life like for the nearly50,000 East German
MARZAHN: THE PROS AND (ALL THE MOD) CONS Anyone with an interest in the GDR quickly encounters mention of Marzahn, a massive housing estate located on the northeastern edge of the East German capital Berlin. Made up of approximately 60,000 prefabricated concrete apartment units housed largely in high rise tower blocks, Marzahn was built over approximately fifteen years beginning in the mid-1970s to provide modern NEUE BERLINER ILLUSTRIERTE: IT’S A LOT LIKE LIFE Neue Berliner Illustrierte: It’s a lot like LIFE. One of the GDR’s most popular magazines was the weekly Neue Berliner Illustrierte (New Berlin Illustrated), a bright and colourful publication which, with its mixture of politics, portraits, social trends, sport and culture, resembled nothing so much as that iconic chronicler of American society and politics LIFE.EXTRA – USA FKK
The GDR Objectified. Original size at 339 × 246. Leave a comment. “But no FKK (nudity): Americans prefer to show themselves in athong.”.
THE WILD EAST: DIVIDED BERLIN IN 1962 The Wild East: Divided Berlin in 1962. “East Germany and things happening there had been in the news all the time. We understood the seriousness of the political situation, but we didn’t let it affect our decision making. . . . There was always a feeling of tension, no one was really sure where things were going, but no one was in anypanic
ROTKÄPPCHEN: THE CHAMPAGNE OF THE GDR The popularity of Rotkäppchen did not go unnoticed by the markets and in 2002, the French champagne manufactuer and Seagrams, a Canadian distiller, bought into the company. In the years since, the wine has become the market leader in its category in Germany (33.5% market share) and is now being exported worldwide, as is attested to by its appearance under my tree in Toronto, Canada! ERICH HONECKER, “THE GRAVE DIGGER OF THE NATION” AND 1983 Erich Honecker, “The Grave Digger of the Nation” and 1983. Statue of Martin Luther, Wittenberg Town Square, spring 1980 (photo: D. Hendricksen) As today is Reformation Day, it seems an appropriate moment to turn our attentions to the GDR’s relationship to Martin Luther (1483 – 1546), the German theologian generally credited withhaving
HALLE-NEUSTADT: WHERE THE STREETS HAD NO NAME Halle-Neustadt: Where the Streets Had No Name. Halle-Neustadt from a series of stamps marking the GDR’s 20th anniversary and depicting urban development undertaken since WWII. I am a sucker for architect’s drawings and grand notions of urban design and these weaknesses go some ways to explaining my interest in the GDR.ABOUT THIS BLOG
My name is John Paul Kleiner and I reside in Toronto, Canada. This blog is my attempt to add a footnote to the "footnote of world history" that was the German Democratic Republic (quote by Heinz-Ulrich Wehler). In The GDR Objectified, I present a collection of objects produced in, or related closely to, the German Democratic LEUNA & BUNA PT. II: A WORKER’S LIFE II: A Worker’s Life. Youth Researcher Collective in the Leuna Works Research Centre, October 1971 (Photo: Bundesarchiv Bild 183-K1027-0014) In our previous post on the Chemical Works at Leuna and Buna, the focus was very much on the political and economic history of those sites. But what was working life like for the nearly50,000 East German
HOUSEWARES | THE GDR OBJECTIFIED First an admission: housewares are not, as you will see, a strength of my collection. However, this is fitting as they were not a particular strength of the East German economy either. Indeed, histories of everyday life in the GDR often point to the shortages of what Germans call the "thousand little things", the items LEUNA AND BUNA PT. III: ENVIRONMENTAL DISTURBANCES Leuna and Buna Pt. III: Environmental Disturbances. The Leuna Works, 1980 (Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Leuna, Leuna-Werke — 1980 — 21” / CC BY-SA 4.0). While East German planners placed great hopes in Leuna and Buna as drivers for the GDR’s economy, developing these sites came at a considerable cost to the environment. ON PINS AND NEEDLES: ACKNOWLEDGING SOCIALISM’S GOOD AND On Pins and Needles: Acknowledging Socialism’s Good and Faithful Servants. Plastic pin produced for participants in the Spartakiade of the Combat Groups of the Working Class in Halle / Saale in 1973 (photo: Jo Zarth). One of the distinguishing features of state socialism in the GDR was its use of awards, medals and commendationsas a means of
STATE OF THE ART AND THE ART OF THE STATE From the outside, it looks like nothing so much an 80s-era sports arena that has been placed quixotically atop a small mountain in the Thuringian countryside. However, the Panorama Museum in Bad Frankenhausen is in fact one of the few manifestations of GDR cultural policy to have survived the transition to a unified Germanyessentially intact.
NUDITY | THE GDR OBJECTIFIED All of his pasty skin in fact. And for the next 10-15 seconds those travellers with the fortune to have been gazing upon the garden colony were subject to a scene of full frontal nudity courtesy of this elderly man. His curiosity satisfied, he let go of the branches, turned and disappeared Yeti-like back into his plot, and my mind began EASTERN EDEN: ALLOTMENT GARDENS IN THE GDR Allotment Gardens – “Part of the Political Organization of the GDR’s Socialist Society”. That many East Germans saw their garden plot as a refugium from the trials of daily life in “real existing socialism” (as SED jargon would have it) was a challenge to Party leaders keen on creating the “new man” which their ideologypromised.
TRABANTS IN CANADA OR HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION Trabants in Canada or How I Spent My Summer Vacation. About fifteen years ago or so, I was back in Winnipeg visiting family during the summer. One afternoon I was driving around with my aunt when we passed a car lot on a service road in the city’s north end. DUTY CALLS: DIETER FRENZEL AND THE GDR’S NATIONAL HOCKEY Duty Calls: Dieter Frenzel and the GDR’s National Hockey Team. Last week I wrote about the club career of Dieter Frenzel, one of the best hockey players to play in the German Democratic Republic.Frenzel was a key player on the SC Dynamo Berlin team that won the East German title 12 of the 17 years he played for them, but he was also the leader of the country’s national team, and hisTHE GDR OBJECTIFIED
Had Täve Schur not existed, the GDR would have had to have invented him. In fact, one might argue that it did. Gustav-Adolf Schur, or Täve as he is known to all East Germans of a certain age, was a road racing cyclist whose fame grew throughout the course of the 1950s as he moved from one sporting success to the next.CITIES & TOWNS
About this blog; Biographies. A “Schur” Thing: The GDR’s First Homegrown Hero; Playing By Their Own Rules: A Clergy Couple in the GDR; An Olympic-sized dream is LEUNA & BUNA PT. II: A WORKER’S LIFE II: A Worker’s Life. Youth Researcher Collective in the Leuna Works Research Centre, October 1971 (Photo: Bundesarchiv Bild 183-K1027-0014) In our previous post on the Chemical Works at Leuna and Buna, the focus was very much on the political and economic history of those sites. But what was working life like for the nearly50,000 East German
MARZAHN: THE PROS AND (ALL THE MOD) CONS Anyone with an interest in the GDR quickly encounters mention of Marzahn, a massive housing estate located on the northeastern edge of the East German capital Berlin. Made up of approximately 60,000 prefabricated concrete apartment units housed largely in high rise tower blocks, Marzahn was built over approximately fifteen years beginning in the mid-1970s to provide modern NEUE BERLINER ILLUSTRIERTE: IT’S A LOT LIKE LIFE Neue Berliner Illustrierte: It’s a lot like LIFE. One of the GDR’s most popular magazines was the weekly Neue Berliner Illustrierte (New Berlin Illustrated), a bright and colourful publication which, with its mixture of politics, portraits, social trends, sport and culture, resembled nothing so much as that iconic chronicler of American society and politics LIFE.EXTRA – USA FKK
The GDR Objectified. Original size at 339 × 246. Leave a comment. “But no FKK (nudity): Americans prefer to show themselves in athong.”.
THE WILD EAST: DIVIDED BERLIN IN 1962 The Wild East: Divided Berlin in 1962. “East Germany and things happening there had been in the news all the time. We understood the seriousness of the political situation, but we didn’t let it affect our decision making. . . . There was always a feeling of tension, no one was really sure where things were going, but no one was in anypanic
ROTKÄPPCHEN: THE CHAMPAGNE OF THE GDR The popularity of Rotkäppchen did not go unnoticed by the markets and in 2002, the French champagne manufactuer and Seagrams, a Canadian distiller, bought into the company. In the years since, the wine has become the market leader in its category in Germany (33.5% market share) and is now being exported worldwide, as is attested to by its appearance under my tree in Toronto, Canada! ERICH HONECKER, “THE GRAVE DIGGER OF THE NATION” AND 1983 Erich Honecker, “The Grave Digger of the Nation” and 1983. Statue of Martin Luther, Wittenberg Town Square, spring 1980 (photo: D. Hendricksen) As today is Reformation Day, it seems an appropriate moment to turn our attentions to the GDR’s relationship to Martin Luther (1483 – 1546), the German theologian generally credited withhaving
HALLE-NEUSTADT: WHERE THE STREETS HAD NO NAME Halle-Neustadt: Where the Streets Had No Name. Halle-Neustadt from a series of stamps marking the GDR’s 20th anniversary and depicting urban development undertaken since WWII. I am a sucker for architect’s drawings and grand notions of urban design and these weaknesses go some ways to explaining my interest in the GDR.THE GDR OBJECTIFIED
Had Täve Schur not existed, the GDR would have had to have invented him. In fact, one might argue that it did. Gustav-Adolf Schur, or Täve as he is known to all East Germans of a certain age, was a road racing cyclist whose fame grew throughout the course of the 1950s as he moved from one sporting success to the next.CITIES & TOWNS
About this blog; Biographies. A “Schur” Thing: The GDR’s First Homegrown Hero; Playing By Their Own Rules: A Clergy Couple in the GDR; An Olympic-sized dream is LEUNA & BUNA PT. II: A WORKER’S LIFE II: A Worker’s Life. Youth Researcher Collective in the Leuna Works Research Centre, October 1971 (Photo: Bundesarchiv Bild 183-K1027-0014) In our previous post on the Chemical Works at Leuna and Buna, the focus was very much on the political and economic history of those sites. But what was working life like for the nearly50,000 East German
MARZAHN: THE PROS AND (ALL THE MOD) CONS Anyone with an interest in the GDR quickly encounters mention of Marzahn, a massive housing estate located on the northeastern edge of the East German capital Berlin. Made up of approximately 60,000 prefabricated concrete apartment units housed largely in high rise tower blocks, Marzahn was built over approximately fifteen years beginning in the mid-1970s to provide modern NEUE BERLINER ILLUSTRIERTE: IT’S A LOT LIKE LIFE Neue Berliner Illustrierte: It’s a lot like LIFE. One of the GDR’s most popular magazines was the weekly Neue Berliner Illustrierte (New Berlin Illustrated), a bright and colourful publication which, with its mixture of politics, portraits, social trends, sport and culture, resembled nothing so much as that iconic chronicler of American society and politics LIFE.EXTRA – USA FKK
The GDR Objectified. Original size at 339 × 246. Leave a comment. “But no FKK (nudity): Americans prefer to show themselves in athong.”.
THE WILD EAST: DIVIDED BERLIN IN 1962 The Wild East: Divided Berlin in 1962. “East Germany and things happening there had been in the news all the time. We understood the seriousness of the political situation, but we didn’t let it affect our decision making. . . . There was always a feeling of tension, no one was really sure where things were going, but no one was in anypanic
ROTKÄPPCHEN: THE CHAMPAGNE OF THE GDR The popularity of Rotkäppchen did not go unnoticed by the markets and in 2002, the French champagne manufactuer and Seagrams, a Canadian distiller, bought into the company. In the years since, the wine has become the market leader in its category in Germany (33.5% market share) and is now being exported worldwide, as is attested to by its appearance under my tree in Toronto, Canada! ERICH HONECKER, “THE GRAVE DIGGER OF THE NATION” AND 1983 Erich Honecker, “The Grave Digger of the Nation” and 1983. Statue of Martin Luther, Wittenberg Town Square, spring 1980 (photo: D. Hendricksen) As today is Reformation Day, it seems an appropriate moment to turn our attentions to the GDR’s relationship to Martin Luther (1483 – 1546), the German theologian generally credited withhaving
HALLE-NEUSTADT: WHERE THE STREETS HAD NO NAME Halle-Neustadt: Where the Streets Had No Name. Halle-Neustadt from a series of stamps marking the GDR’s 20th anniversary and depicting urban development undertaken since WWII. I am a sucker for architect’s drawings and grand notions of urban design and these weaknesses go some ways to explaining my interest in the GDR.ABOUT THIS BLOG
My name is John Paul Kleiner and I reside in Toronto, Canada. This blog is my attempt to add a footnote to the "footnote of world history" that was the German Democratic Republic (quote by Heinz-Ulrich Wehler). In The GDR Objectified, I present a collection of objects produced in, or related closely to, the German Democratic LEUNA & BUNA PT. II: A WORKER’S LIFE II: A Worker’s Life. Youth Researcher Collective in the Leuna Works Research Centre, October 1971 (Photo: Bundesarchiv Bild 183-K1027-0014) In our previous post on the Chemical Works at Leuna and Buna, the focus was very much on the political and economic history of those sites. But what was working life like for the nearly50,000 East German
HOUSEWARES | THE GDR OBJECTIFIED First an admission: housewares are not, as you will see, a strength of my collection. However, this is fitting as they were not a particular strength of the East German economy either. Indeed, histories of everyday life in the GDR often point to the shortages of what Germans call the "thousand little things", the items LEUNA AND BUNA PT. III: ENVIRONMENTAL DISTURBANCES Leuna and Buna Pt. III: Environmental Disturbances. The Leuna Works, 1980 (Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Leuna, Leuna-Werke — 1980 — 21” / CC BY-SA 4.0). While East German planners placed great hopes in Leuna and Buna as drivers for the GDR’s economy, developing these sites came at a considerable cost to the environment. ON PINS AND NEEDLES: ACKNOWLEDGING SOCIALISM’S GOOD AND On Pins and Needles: Acknowledging Socialism’s Good and Faithful Servants. Plastic pin produced for participants in the Spartakiade of the Combat Groups of the Working Class in Halle / Saale in 1973 (photo: Jo Zarth). One of the distinguishing features of state socialism in the GDR was its use of awards, medals and commendationsas a means of
STATE OF THE ART AND THE ART OF THE STATE From the outside, it looks like nothing so much an 80s-era sports arena that has been placed quixotically atop a small mountain in the Thuringian countryside. However, the Panorama Museum in Bad Frankenhausen is in fact one of the few manifestations of GDR cultural policy to have survived the transition to a unified Germanyessentially intact.
NUDITY | THE GDR OBJECTIFIED All of his pasty skin in fact. And for the next 10-15 seconds those travellers with the fortune to have been gazing upon the garden colony were subject to a scene of full frontal nudity courtesy of this elderly man. His curiosity satisfied, he let go of the branches, turned and disappeared Yeti-like back into his plot, and my mind began EASTERN EDEN: ALLOTMENT GARDENS IN THE GDR Allotment Gardens – “Part of the Political Organization of the GDR’s Socialist Society”. That many East Germans saw their garden plot as a refugium from the trials of daily life in “real existing socialism” (as SED jargon would have it) was a challenge to Party leaders keen on creating the “new man” which their ideologypromised.
TRABANTS IN CANADA OR HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION Trabants in Canada or How I Spent My Summer Vacation. About fifteen years ago or so, I was back in Winnipeg visiting family during the summer. One afternoon I was driving around with my aunt when we passed a car lot on a service road in the city’s north end. DUTY CALLS: DIETER FRENZEL AND THE GDR’S NATIONAL HOCKEY Duty Calls: Dieter Frenzel and the GDR’s National Hockey Team. Last week I wrote about the club career of Dieter Frenzel, one of the best hockey players to play in the German Democratic Republic.Frenzel was a key player on the SC Dynamo Berlin team that won the East German title 12 of the 17 years he played for them, but he was also the leader of the country’s national team, and his —THE GDR OBJECTIFIED A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF EPHEMERA FROM OR RELATED TO THE GERMANDEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
* About this blog
* Biographies
* Playing By Their Own Rules: A Clergy Couple in the GDR * An Olympic-sized dream is born: An elite-level sporting career inthe GDR – pt. 1
* Hieu L.: A Foreigner Worker’s Life in the GDR, Pt. 1 * “Ausländer” in Hoyerswerda: A Foreign Worker’s Life in the GDR and Reunited Germany, Part 2 * Hockey Night in Hohenschönhausen: Dieter Frenzel and East GermanIce Hockey
* Duty Calls: Dieter Frenzel and the GDR’s National Hockey Team * Perry Friedman – S/T * “Day of Decision” and Joachim Gauck * Construction Time Again and Who Was Johanna Goldberg? * This East German Life: A Different Johanna Goldberg, Pt. 1 * This East German Life: A Different Johanna Goldberg, Pt. 2 * This East German Life: A Different Johanna Goldberg, Pt. 3 * “If I’d been ordered to shoot, I would have.” – An Officer of the National People’s Army Remembers the Wende * An Opportunist Knocks: Wende Winners * This East German Life 2: Christel B. Makes Her Way, Pt. 1 * This East German Life 2: Benno B. and the Bread of Those EarlyYears, Pt. 2
* This East German Life 2: Comrade Benno B. – One of the ReliableOnes, Pt. 3
* “You had to think on two tracks”: One family’s survival strategy within GDR state socialism * Visits With The Old Lady: “It has never been as bad as it isnow!”
* Cities & Towns
* Berlin – Capital of the German Democratic Republic* Berlin Wall
* “Gorbi! Gorbi!” – Fear and Hope in East Berlin * The Final Victim of the Berlin Wall: Chris Gueffroy * Fragments – Berlin Wall * “The Wall Through Berlin (12 genuine photos)” – Berlin Wall * The Berlin Wall at 52 or What I Did This Summer * Wall Fall 25 – The Bitter With The Sweet * “Mr. Kleiner, you have misunderstood!” – 24 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall * Historical Memory and Berlin’s East Side Gallery * Before The Wall: Berlin, February/March 1960 * Telesparagus: The Berlin TV Tower * The Wild East: Divided Berlin in 1962 * Walter Womacka and East Berlin’s Socialist Face* Karl-Marx-Allee
* Lend me your ear? – East Berlin’s Karl-Marx-Allee * Marzahn: The Pros and (All The Mod) Cons * Palace of the Republic * Mocha cups – Palace of the Republic * Fruit knife – Palace of the Republic * Commemorative stamp and medal – Palace of the Republic * Formo Building Block set – Palace of the Republic * Ermeler House: Historical Preservation GDR-style * Berlin, June 1990: Familiar and Distant * Field Trip: Bonn – Pt. I * Field Trip: Bonn – Pt. II * Field Trip: Chemnitz / Karl-Marx-Stadt * The Hartha They Fall: After the Wende in the eastern GermanProvinz
* Leipzig: Big City Lights * Oberhof: The GDR’s Socialist Winter Paradise* Socialist Cities
* Tom Hanks and I in Eisenhüttenstadt * Eisenhüttenstadt (2008): “We learned to build cities, not tearthem down.”
* Hoyerswerda: Hungover in Utopia (2006) * Hoyerswerda Slight Return: Revisiting the GDR’s Second SocialistCity (2008)
* Schwedt: “A Sanssouci of Socialism” * Halle-Neustadt: Where the Streets Had No Name * Field Trip: Halle an der Saale, Pt. I * Field Trip: Halle an der Saale, Pt. II* Culture
* Amiga Records
* We Got The Beatles: “Beatmusik” in the GDR * Billy Bragg – S/T * Foreigner – Records * Perry Friedman – S/T * Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon * Bruce Springsteen – Born in the U.S.A. * Master and Servant: Depeche Mode in East Berlin * The Red Woodstock: 10th World Festival of Youth and Students inEast Berlin
* Festival of ‘Red October’, East Berlin in 1977 * Shuffling Off to East Berlin: Canadian Jazz in “The Capital ofthe GDR”
* Neue Berliner Illustrierte: It’s a lot like LIFE * Sibylle: Haute Couture GDR-style * State of the Art and the Art of the State – Panorama Museum, BadFrankenhausen
* “History in Twenty Pictures”: Berlin’s Magdalenenstr. U-Bahn * “On The Way” to a Brighter, Socialist Future? – Uwe Pfeifer’s Ambivalent Art * Field Trip: Neues Deutschland (Berlin/Friedrichshain)* Sport
* The GDR Objectified Field Trip: Montreal * An Olympic-sized Dream is born: An Elite-Level Sporting Career inthe GDR, pt. I
* An Olympic-sized Dream: An Elite-Level Sporting Career in the GDR,pt. II
* GDR Gymnastics and Sport Festival: Sport, Pomp and Politics * Duty Calls: Dieter Frenzel and the GDR’s National Hockey Team * The GDR and the World Cup: “Hamburg ’74” * GDR Cultural Policy and the Wende at Ironworkers’ Stadium,November 1989
* Get With the Program! – GDR Soccer Programs as SocialistPedagogy
* The Darth Vaders of East German Soccer: BFC Dynamo * “Iron Union!”: East Berlin’s Favourite Football Team * Best. Team. Ever. – The All-Time GDR-Oberliga Table in BeerGlasses
* The Oberliga apron, The Good Person of Stötteritz and an EastGerman Soccer Hero
* Oberliga Echoes: Soccer in post-Wende Leipzig * Hockey Night in Hohenschönhausen: Dieter Frenzel and East GermanIce Hockey
* Society
* Consumption
* Housewares
* It’s in the Bag – Shopping bags in the GDR * Strange currencies: Money in the GDR * Rotkäppchen: the Champagne of the GDR * “Teacher you can drive my car!” – the GDR’s “Volkswagen”, the Trabant * Trabants in Canada or How I Spent My Summer Vacation * Musik Hans Tappert and the Practicalities of Music Scarcity* Everyday Life
* Erich Honecker, “The Grave Digger of the Nation” and 1983 * GDR at 25: An Anvil not a Hammer? * “Out to the First of May!” * May Day or Markus’ Birthday * “No More Fig Leaves”: Junge Welt on November 7, 1989 * From A(lexanderplatz) to Z(ossen): Public Transit in East Berlin * On Pins and Needles: Acknowledging Socialism’s Good and FaithfulServants
* “Free Body Culture”: Nudism, Me and Eastern Germany * Sweet Dreams Are Made of This: The Sandman * “Out to the First of May!” – Celebrating Socialism in theGDR
* “My workplace: where I fight for peace”: the World Day ofPeace in the GDR
* Get ‘Em While They’re Young!: “Socialist Confirmation” and the Creation of the “Socialist Personality” * Year-end figures with wings we have heard on high . . . * Christmas Music Box or Trojan Horse? * Weekend Warriors – East German style: Militarization of the GDR– Pt. 1
* Desperately Seeking Secretary: Reflections on Notions of Labour and Autonomy in the GDR * Old Comrade Coal: Lignite Mining in the GDR * Home is where the house book is . . . – Part 1 * Home is where the house book is . . . Part 2 * Dear Comrade Diary: Workers’ Voices from Bitterfeld * Eastern Eden: Allotment Gardens in the GDR * Documentation Centre for Everyday Life in GDR Endangered! * Mass Organizations * With Friends Like These: The Society for German-Soviet Friendship FIELD TRIP: FRANKFURT / ODERAugust 10, 2019
Architecture
,
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Memory Culture
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Join the GDR Objectified on a field trip to Frankfurt / Oder, a city one-hour east of Berlin on the German-Polish border. The East German era has left considerable traces in the city and we’ll seek some ofthem out here.
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FIELD TRIP: BERLIN / MARZAHNJuly 6, 2019
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The GDR Objectified visits Marzahn, a socialist-era housing project on the eastern edge of Berlin, to seek out GDR-era public art scattered throughout the estate.SHARE THIS:
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RADIO GDR PODCAST ON GDR FOOTBALLJuly 4, 2019
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For those of you interested in East German football, you may wish to lend an ear to THIS INTERVIEW which ALAN MCDOUGALL, author of _THE PEOPLE’S GAME: FOOTBALL, STATE AND SOCIETY IN EAST GERMANY, _gave to the always interesting RADIO GDR PODCAST . Alan was kind enough to sit through a number of questions put to him by myself and Radio GDR’s Shane Whaley and the result is an interview which I think does justice to a book of remarkable breadth and insight.SHARE THIS:
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FIELD TRIP: NEUES DEUTSCHLAND (BERLIN/FRIEDRICHSHAIN)June 19, 2019
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In May 2019, The GDR Objectified ventured to Berlin’s Friedrichshain district to seek out the building housing _Neues Deutschland _(New Germany), a left-wing daily newspaper founded as the official organ of the GDR’s ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED). Join us as we seek out remnants of the East German past on site and explore the paper’shistory.
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“ON THE WAY” TO A BRIGHTER, SOCIALIST FUTURE? – UWE PFEIFER’SAMBIVALENT ART
June 14, 2019
Culture , Mass
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“Auf dem Wege”, Uwe Pfeifer (1987). I am by no means an expert in fine art, however, I have found that East German art has provided me with some very useful perspectives on GDR life and society. One of my favourite artists is Uwe Pfeifer , a painter from Halle, whose work captures an ambivalence towards the state socialist system in a palpable way. Technically speaking, the impact of his schooling under two masters of German art, Wolfgang Mattheuerand Werner
Tübke , is clear, however, Pfeifer clearly treads his own path. Above a work entitled _Auf dem Wege_ (On The Way) which features a number of references to German cultural life, but, unable to decipher them all myself, I wrote the artist in search of assistance. To my delight he responded to my mail with the following note: “This picture was commissioned by the _Kulturbund der DDR_ (GDR Cultural Association) in 1987 to mark the organization’s 40thanniversary.
From left, the figures are as follow: Sitting in front of the GDR-era garbage can is Pan, a god from Greek mythology and next to him is a child (son of the artist) playing“Indians”.
Emerging from the depths first is the symbolic figure of a German Man of Sorrows (_Deutscher Schmerzensmann_) followed by Bert Brecht , an unnamed figure and then Johannes R. Becher (poet and GDR Minister of Culture from 1954-58, ed.). From left, the figures at ground level are: some have seen author Christa Wolf in this first person (U. Pfeifer: “I can accept this interpretation.”), then comes Hans Eisler , next to him Caspar David Friedrich(German
Romantic painter, ed.) in front of whom is a child in a Pierrot costume (perhaps symbolic of a fool, ed.) in behind whom is an observer in coat and hat meant to represent the Stasi, the red female nude is a figure symbolizing life and next to her is a symbolic worker. That covers the people. The wind wheel at the bottom can be understood to represent, among other things, stagnation and movement . . . “ _Auf dem Wege_ was not the first time Pfeifer used this motif of a group in motion in his work. Another piece from the same year, _DieGefährten
_(The
Companions), which was commissioned for the Pedagogical College in the artist’s hometown of Halle, also features a group of prominent figures from different eras striding a path together. While both works take socialist society and culture as their starting points, each seems to incorporate reference to the shadows which hung over everydaylife in the GDR.
An earlier work of Pfeifer’s, _Feierabend_ (After Work) from 1977 (seen below), shares the same central image with the two aforementioned paintings, but was the target of much more criticism. Set in an underground walkway (likely inspired by a similar one found under Halle’s Ernst Thälmann Square which has since been removed), this painting features a largely faceless crowd shuffling their way home. The only figure to face the viewer has turned back to glance over his shoulder, a vaguely threatening look on his face, his hand balled into a fist. In the foreground, a garbage can holds a newspaper. This last detail provoked the charge from a high level cultural _apparatchik_ that Pfeifer was criticizing East German media; I’ve also seen interpretations that emphasize the anonymity of the crowd and the monotony of the setting as critiques of the GDR’s “normed” culture, but I find that the artist’s choice of colours and the distinctive dress which he has given these passersby work against such a reading. Again, it’s this ambivalence that I find so engaging. Hopefully you will too. “Feierabend”, Uwe Pfeifer (1977).SHARE THIS:
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“HISTORY IN TWENTY PICTURES”: BERLIN’S MAGDALENENSTR. U-BAHNJune 6, 2019
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Culture
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“Mechanization” (Photo: author). Many visitors travelling by subway to Berlin’s Stasi Museum in the _Normanenstrasse_ may not know it, but their immersion into the ambiance of late-stage “real existing socialism” actually begins when they exit their train at the _Magdalenenstrasse_ station. For it is here, that passengers are met by a series of 20 large scale paintings done in a neo-expressionist style: angular, often grim and only occasionally punctuated by a blast of bright colour. They aren’t “easy” images these 3 metre by 4 metre paintings on Meissen porcelain tile. They challenge and unsettle. Those with a keen eye will find a tile at one end of the platform which identifies the works as being from the year 1986 and gives their title as “History in Twenty Images”. The artists are named (Harmut Hornung and Wolfgang Frankenstein) as is the commissioning institution (Berlin Magistrate’s Office). While marginally enlightened by the information plaque, one is left asking oneself: how, pray tell, did art of this type – so distant from the bright futures, heroic poses and “positive” themes typically favoured by GDR authorities – find its way into the public realm anywhere in the East German capital, much less onto the walls of the subway station directly adjacent to the Stasi headquarters?! Let’s take a couple of minutes to answer this question . . .Read More
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BERLIN, JUNE 1990: FAMILIAR AND DISTANTJune 1, 2019
Berlin , Berlin
Wall ,
Wende
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Chaotic scene at Brandenburg Gate, viewed from eastern side in June 1990 (photo: Mary Ford). Not long after the fall of the Berlin Wall, tours of the East Bloc, which only months earlier had very limited mass appeal, were suddenly in great demand as visitors from the western world descended to explore the treasures of a culturally rich part of the world which had previously been out of reach. Two of these were Mary and Ann Ford, nurses from Ontario, Canada and avid travelers during their vacations. The photos in this post are taken from trip they took to Central Europe in June of 1990 and I enjoy them for how they present a Berlin (mainly) that is both familiar and distant. Read MoreSHARE THIS:
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