Rereading East Germany: The Literature and Film of the GDR

280 Pages·2015·4.11 MB·English

by  Karen Leeder (ed.)

REREADING EAST GERMANY
This volume is the first to address the culture of the German
DemocraticRepublic (GDR)as a historical entity, but alsoto trace
theafterlifeofEastGermanyinthedecadessincethefalloftheBerlin
Wall. An international team of outstanding scholars offers essential
andthought-provokingessays,combiningachronologicalandgenre-
basedoverviewfromthebeginningoftheGDRin1949tounification
in1990andbeyondwithin-depthanalysisofindividualworks.Afinal
chaptertracestheresonanceoftheGDRintheyearssinceitsdemise
and analyzes the fascination it engenders. The volume provides a
‘rereading’ofEastGermanyanditslegacyasaculturalphenomenon
free from the prejudices that prevailed while it existed, offering
English translations throughout, a guide to further reading and a
chronology.
karen leeder is Professor of Modern German Literature at the
University of Oxford and Fellow and Tutor in German, New
College,Oxford.

REREADING EAST GERMANY
The Literature and Film of the GDR
edited by
KAREN LEEDER
UniversityPrintingHouse,Cambridgecb28bs,UnitedKingdom
CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge.
ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof
education,learningandresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence.
www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107006362
©CambridgeUniversityPress2015
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten
permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2015
PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyClays,StIvesplc
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationdata
RereadingEastGermany:theliteratureandfilmoftheGDR/editedbyKarenLeeder.
pages cm
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
isbn978-1-107-00636-2(hardback)
1. Germanliterature–Germany(East)–Historyandcriticism. 2. Motionpictures–
Germany(East)–History. 3. Germany(East)–Inliterature. I. Leeder,KarenJ.,editor.
pt3705.r44 2015
830.9′943109045–dc23
2015024724
isbn978-1-107-00636-2Hardback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof
URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,
anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,
accurateorappropriate.
Contents
Listofillustrations pagevii
Notesoncontributors viii
Acknowledgements xii
Chronology xiv
Abbreviations,referencesandtranslations xvi
Introduction 1
KarenLeeder
1 TheGDRanditsliterature:anoverview 8
WolfgangEmmerich
2 Resurrectedfromtheruins:theemergenceofGDRculture 35
StephenBrockmann
3 DEFA’santifascistmythsandtheconstructionofnational
identityinEastGermancinema 52
SeánAllan
4 FromFaustIIItoGermaniaIII:dramaintheGDRbetween
1949and1989 70
HolgerTeschke
5 AutobiographicalwritingintheGDRera 88
DennisTate
6 GenderinGDRliterature 106
GeorginaPaul
7 Negotiatingthepoliticsandaestheticsofsatire:satiricalnovels
intheGDRandbeyond 126
JillE.Twark
v
vi Contents
8 Thepoliticsofdialogue:poetryintheGDR 143
Gerrit-JanBerendse
9 Undergroundliterature?TheunofficialcultureoftheGDR
anditsdevelopmentaftertheWende 160
BirgitDahlke
10 Tinker,tailor,writer,spy:GDRliteratureandtheStasi 180
AlisonLewis
11 IntellectualsandtheWende:missedopportunities
anddashedhopes 197
CarolAnneCostabile-Heming
12 After-images–afterlives:RememberingtheGDRinthe
BerlinRepublic 214
KarenLeeder
Guidetofurtherreading 238
Index 249
Illustrations
1 Thesufferingantifascistbody.ErwinGeschonneckasHeinrich page61
Witting.
2 Theheroicantifascistbody.ErwinGeschonneckasWalterKrämer. 64
3 Re-imaginingtheantifascistbody.JaeckiSchwarzasGregorHecker. 64
4 HelgaParis.From:‘Müllfahrer’[Dustmen](1974). 111
5 HelgaParis.From:‘FrauenimBekleidungswerkTreffmodelle’ 118
[WomenattheTreff-ModelleClothingFactory,Berlin](1984).
6 Invitationtothe‘Zersammlung’event,5–11March1984,usinga 162
drawingbyCorneliaSchleime(1984).
7 ‘WritersinWilfriedeMaaß’sstudioforareadingorganizedby 163
EkkehardMaaß,20September1981’(1981).
8 ChristianRudat,‘BerlinerFernsehturm’[BerlinTelevisionTower]. 227
9 MichaelWesely,‘PotsdamerPlatz’(1990). 231
vii
Notes on contributors
sea(cid:1)n allan isReaderinGermanStudiesattheUniversityofWarwick.
He has also been a visiting scholar at the DEFA Film-Library
(University of Massachusetts, Amherst) and at Smith College. He is
the co-editor of DEFA: East German Cinema 1946–92 with John
Sandford and has published widely on GDR and post-unification
German cinema, including essays on Konrad Wolf, Kurt Maetzig and,
mostrecently,thedocumentaryworkofJürgenBöttcher.
gerrit-jan berendse isProfessorofModernEuropeanLiteratureand
Culture at Cardiff University. He has published Die ‘Sächsische
Dichterschule’.LyrikinderDDRdersechzigerundsiebzigerJahre(1990)
and Grenz-Fallstudien. Essays zum Topos Prenzlauer Berg in der DDR-
Literatur(1999),aswellasnumerousarticlesonpoetryintheGDR.In
2014heeditedaspecialnumberofGermanLifeandLettersonGerman
poetry.HeiscurrentlywritingamonographonsurrealismintheGDR.
stephen brockmann is Professor of German at Carnegie Mellon
University and was President (2011–2012) of the German Studies
Association. He is the author, most recently, of A Critical History of
German Film (2010), as well as of Nuremberg: The Imaginary Capital
(2006),GermanLiteraryCultureattheZeroHour(2004)andLiterature
andGermanReunification(1999).From2002to2007hewasthemana-
gingeditoroftheBrechtYearbook,andin2007hewontheDAADPrize
for Distinguished Scholarship in German and European Studies /
Humanities.
carol anne costabile-heming isProfessorofGermanandChairof
the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the
UniversityofNorthTexas,inDenton,Texas.Shehaspublishedwidely
onWendeliteratureandpost-WendeBerlin,includingTextualResponses
to German Unification: Processing Historical and Social Change in
viii