Walter Ulbricht - Sein Leben und seine persönlichen Leistungen für den Staat DDR (German Edition)

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Ulbrichts Schatten wird größer

Available to ship in days. German Edition Mar 14, Parody revisits elements of our history, be it in literature or art, and reconstructs our connection with them. Through the challenge it places on the connection between the signified, signifier and referent, parody questions and then reinvents meaning. It is not a matter of nostalgic imitation of past models; it is a stylistic confrontation, a modern recording which establishes difference at the heart of similarity. No integration into a new context can avoid altering meaning and perhaps even value. Hutcheon 8 The author essentially appropriates the original meaning of the background text, places it in a new context and through the critical distance between the old and the new texts creates new meaning.

He recalls the often negative cultural connotations of his native GDR and aims to deconstruct them by incorporating and then inverting them. Helden wie wir explores East German stereotypes through their inversion and in doing so deconstructs them. Hutcheon defines parody as a form of imitation that is characterized by ironic inversion 6.

In Helden wie wir, Brussig parodies the former GDR in that the historical context remains the same, but characters are inverted versions of their stereotypes. The Stasi men, for example, instead of being organized, meticulous and semi-omniscient, are three laughable caricatures Nause Their priorities lay in the plentiful number of Salzstangen Helden wie wir and their observational skills are reduced to an obsession over creating superlative abbreviations Helden wie wir Essentially, Klaus is the caricature of a GDR citizen.

Everything and everyone in Helden wie wir is so typically East German that not only does it, as Nause suggests, become a comic modern tale full of caricatures , it also illustrates how foolish and inaccurate these stereotypes are. Since the classical period through to the Renaissance and even still today, the process of repetition has been seen as didactic Hutcheon That is, the act of imitation teaches.

Therefore, it becomes clear that Brussig uses parody to instruct his readers. But how he employs parody to educate deserves further exploration. With the distance imposed by the decades that have passed, we observe these characters differently. It is this difference between our past notions and our present knowledge that develops into a greater understanding of East German culture and history. He parodies the literary conventions of the former GDR as well as the conventions of how we think and talk about East Germany: Through parody, Brussig satirizes the Socialist state within which he was raised and within which such critical statements could never have been voiced publicly.

As a novel, Helden wie wir is a carnival of Stasi caricatures. He mocks the sanctimonious ceremonies of the former GDR and in doing so incites laughter — carnival laughter — which involves him as the writer, the reader, as well as the greater public.

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This laughter is able to break through the narrow individual perspective one usually finds in traditional autobiographical writing and to open a much broader perspective on the GDR. Helden wie wir is an open invitation to remember and learn about the GDR, and to do so with pleasure — a sure recipe for future recollection. Carnival laughter is the laughter of all the people.

The entire world is seen in its droll aspect, in its gay participants. Third, this laughter is ambivalent: It asserts and denies, it buries and revives. Such is the laughter of carnival. The carnival is not an event observed by the people; it is a spectacle in which the people participate. Bakhtin writes that contemporary satire places the one who laughs above that which is mocked, making it a private reaction.

Many East German citizens were conscious of their own oppression. Not to acknowledge their roles as individuals who supported the system, even if only in their passivity, would continue to pose the question of guilt instead of confronting it and moving on. Folk humour denies, but it revives and renews at the same time. Brussig uses the carnivalesque spirit to incorporate everyone in his ambivalent laughter and in doing so attempts to overcome the tumultuous history of the East German state. For the citizens of the GDR, this repression is the result of years of political oppression and only with laughter can it be released.

The prevention of invective or of insulting rejoinders by external circumstances is such a common case that tendentious jokes are especially favoured in order to make aggressiveness or criticism possible again persons in exalted positions who claim to exercise authority. The joke then represents a rebellion against that authority, a liberation from its pressures. The charm of caricatures lies in this same factor; we laugh at them even if they are unsuccessful simply because we count rebellion against authority as a merit. It becomes clear that through Hutcheonesque parody it was not only an act of reconciliatory rebellion for Brussig to write Helden wie wir.

By the autumn after its release, it was already in its eighth printing Neuhaus But even five years after the fall of the Wall, readers were still awaiting the novel that would definitively encompass the Wende. What changed with the release of Helden wie wir was the manner in which the topic of the GDR was approached. Brussig continues to describe his novel and discusses how it approaches the concept of failure: Ich stellte eine literarische Figur her, die sich mit ihrem Versagen auseinandersetzt.

Neubauer The initial concept behind the Wenderoman is that it is a novel which should encompass the events surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall. Helden wie wir, on the other hand, attempts to deconstruct many of the ideas we associate with the end of the GDR. It encourages discussion and the telling of individual stories — not of fabricated victories but of authentic failures. In a semi-autobiographical fashion Personal Interview , Wasserfarben explores the search for identity and direction of Anton Glienicke, an East Berlin high school student. It follows Anton as he attempts to reconcile his desire to become a journalist with the reality of living in a state that employs a strict censorship policy.

And through these narrative techniques he has redefined East German literature. Helden wie wir recounts the story of how young Klaus Uhltzscht essentially fells the Berlin Wall by revealing himself to the border guards. It is written in the first person and told from the perspective of Klaus as an adult taking part in a New York Times interview looking back at the role he played in the downfall of East Germany.

The structure is that of a recorded interview, which opens with Klaus discussing his childhood.

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The narrative structure of Helden wie wir is unique because although it is a novel, it is written as if it were an interview and reads as if it were a megalomaniacal monologue. As a New York Times reporter, Mr. This act of creating interest in the Western reader is important because it normalizes the East German experience transcontinentally and pushes it into the cultural memory of the rest of the world.

Although Helden wie wir is distinctly fiction, all autobiographies are arguably to a large extent invention, just as fiction is often partly autobiographical Nause Tanja Nause writes that firstly the autobiography can be a way of taking revenge. There appears to be a particular need for autobiographical writing in times of cultural change. Some preliminary assumptions can be made. Firstly, memoirs can be, to a certain degree, a way of taking revenge.

In my interview with Brussig, he described Helden wie wir as a means of regurgitating the indoctrination of the Socialist state: Through writing his novel, Brussig came to terms with the history of the GDR as he experienced it. One media recording in particular is pivotal here. It was originally intended that the policy would come into effect the morning of November 10th only for those with a passport or visa — and in an orderly fashion Dennis Thus ended the forty-year reign of the GDR and communism in Europe — with the broadcast of the media recording of a confused SED official.

There is another strong association to be made between recording devices and the GDR: This dimension of reversing the East German practice of taping citizens inverts the result. The recording device is also used in opposition to our traditional means of learning about the past. Namely, the television and print media play a vital role in how we understand history and with specific reference to the fall of the Wall, the Wende was published on magazine covers and featured in news reports not only directly after November 9th, but also a decade later and even today.

In his narrative, Brussig criticizes this mediated experience of history and replaces it with a new way of uncovering the East German past — with oral histories of the GDR and the stories of its individuals. He obsesses over Klaus als Titelbild and one of his most influential experiences is becoming a Meister von morgen. Klaus later learns that what he had thought was the long awaited recognition of his exceptionality was in fact a political ploy that his father orchestrated to deface a prominent politician Helden wie wir The fact that the protagonist realizes the way in which the media are used as an instrument to manipulate public opinion directs the reader to make a similar conclusion.

The primary way in which Brussig combats East German stereotypes and negative associations constructed by the media is with the media. Brussig uses his novel to make a mockery of journalism and he does so through his use of irony and sarcasm. Much of the Western press on the former GDR represented real issues in the Socialist state such as the treatment of political prisoners, strict censorship and culture of spying, but it never painted the whole picture. And this is what Brussig takes issue with in his writings: Brussig uses the conventions of the media, documentaries and textbooks on the history of East Germany to reconstruct the popular perception of the GDR.

Typically, the history of the GDR is taught in the West only in terms of its political oppression, Socialism and the Stasi. In Helden wie wir, Brussig caricatures this tradition. These characters would not surprise a Western audience when reading an East German novel, but Brussig plays with our expectations. Essentially, he uses these same conventions, but in a very different way. Although the characters in Helden wie wir are emblematic of the stereotypes imposed on citizens of the former East and widely propagated in lecture halls and the media, rather than supporting the same negative conclusions, they lead their readers into making wholly different and unique assumptions about the GDR.

She alleges that in the process of the democratic revolution this body politic disappeared. With the rise of National Socialism, the democratic order was abolished and Hitler became the sole figurehead of German society. Essentially, the Hitler worship that occurred during the Third Reich resurrected the imperial body politic that had died with the democratic revolution.

Despite the difference, a body politic was still very much evident, but this time it was centered on the body of the father Hell Eberhard Uhltzscht is not portrayed as an antifascist hero but as an antifascist doofus. When his son claims to receive bed sheets as the prize for a writing contest, his father suspects political subversion and the failure of the Socialist economical plan, not that his son is merely going through puberty and attempting to keep his nocturnal emissions a secret Helden wie wir The confusion of the public and private spheres is furthered in the Uhltzscht family in that both parents serve the same function inside and outside of the house, both privately and publicly.

Lucie Uhltzscht is the hygienist in her home and at school and Eberhard Uhltzscht polices his household and the state Prager Klaus is very critical of both parents, but he believes that his criticism of his mother is sometimes too harsh. He commends her for three reasons and they are described to Mr. Kitzelstein in three short stories. The first describes how his mother came to his second grade class to inspect the children for lice.

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That the Nazis are referred to as lice is significant because it is along the same vein of insults they had used against the Jewish people. Her ability to speak in principles is another way in which Lucie Uhltzscht is compared to Socialism with its idealistic political aphorisms, while her talent at walking into rooms, which could be read as a comment on the Soviet occupation of Germany, furthers the contrast between her and Eberhard Uhltzscht and thus German fascism. The GDR was actually an unexpectedly sexually liberated country. After the fall of National Socialism, all of Germany tried to separate itself as much as possible from the Third Reich and fascism, but East and West did so in very different ways.

During the war, abortion was outlawed, motherhood was almost mandatory and mothers with multiple children were awarded the Mutterkreuz for service to their country and devotion to the cause Eder After the war, West Germany rejected National Socialism by reverting to Christian values and criticized the Nazis for promoting premarital sex and promiscuity. East Germany distanced itself from its Nazi past through the very political ideology that defined it. Although the highest officials of the Socialist state were considerably conservative and fairly prudish about sex Herzog , as East Germany matured, sexuality became more liberally minded Herzog and the population was encouraged to explore their sexuality Herzog Love and sexuality were considered a true quality of Socialism and East German youth were encouraged to develop sexual relationships.

Premarital sex was condoned, but only in so far as it was clean, committed and within a relationship that would presumably lead to marriage Herzog Lucie Uhltzscht exhibits these same qualities. She criticizes Klaus because the sex was not contained within a clean and meaningful union, which is was completely counter to the Socialist morale. Lastly, as a mother, Lucie Uhltzscht herself is a symbol for East Germany. In the metaphorical sense, Socialism could be read as an overbearing mother. Es hat zwar Repressionen, aber keinen nackten Terror gegeben. Ich wollte gucken, wie sich das entwickelt, wohin das geht.

Das ging dann in die Richtung, die wir kennen: So war eines der Schlagworte in dieser Zeit auch: This image of East German mother is propagated in the characters of several female figures. Nause The same could also be said for Socialism in general. Lucie spoke to the children during their lice examination much like Christa Wolf talked to her audience on November 4th Symmank This too aligns the metaphor of denazification with Socialism.

This critique of motherhood and Christa Wolf is also another way in which Brussig attempts to overcome the legacy of the East German literary tradition Prager Und wo war der Konfektkasten? He states that while writing Helden wie wir he read an interview with Christa Wolf: Darauf habe ich reagiert, in dem ich einen Romanhelden erschuf, der eben an dem Punkt, an dem die Schriftstellerin Christa Wolf sagt, ab hier war es aus und vorbei, geboren wird. Ein Psychogramm der DDR A psychologist out of Leipzig, Maaz wrote his book in to try to explain the mechanisms of repression and oppression in the GDR.

In discussing his parents as they embody the most poignant political periods in recent German history , Klaus is making an interesting statement. Eberhard Uhltzscht is the cold, overweight and demanding dictator of the household, who fathers with a fascist fist. She also provides the love and security of the household, but needs to be in absolute control of her son. This is essentially a metaphor for the East German response to their Soviet occupation.

In the simplest terms, communism was perceived as good because it was supposed to be the complete opposite of fascism. At the end of the s it became clear to the younger German generation which role their parents had played in the Holocaust by simply supporting the Third Reich politically, physically or even administratively. Although this was largely an issue amongst students in West Germany, echoes of the student protests and the large-scale individual identity crises could also be seen in the East. Brussig uses his narrative to tackle the same question.

Er meint es nur gut! Kann er denn schlecht sein? Ich liebte ihn, aber ich konnte ihn nicht leiden. Helden wie wir 37 Klaus is conflicted because he wants to assume that his father is a good man based on the fact that his father fought for him — even though he lost the battle on the playground and on the warfront.

Ach, ist das alles hoffungslos Neither he nor the sickly Honecker can make a move without losing the game. Not only does it state that Eberhard Uhltzscht was himself bogus, as a representative of oppression and the war generation, Brussig is also commenting on the Socialist ideology in general. In Germany and around the world, the postwar era was a very tumultuous time for the younger generation. Magenau 46 The international student movement expressed its opposition to many things. In his interview with Die Wochenpost Brussig expands on this subject: Ich habe gehofft, genauso wie es 68er gegeben hat, wird es 89er geben.

With Helden wie wir, Brussig incorporates the histories of Nazi Germany as well as the GDR and the novel uses Klaus, his mother and father as a means of dealing with the German past. By doing this, Brussig encourages a revision of the German concept of national history, so that neither the history of the West nor the East is excluded, creating a shared history. Through the shared history offered in Helden wie wir, East and West Germans find their common denominator and use it as a unifying rather than a dividing element in the creation of their national identity.

Sie taten so, als ob alle, die Deutschland sagten, Budesrepublik meinten. Helden wie wir — italics in original For the first time in the novel a word uttered or understood by Klaus Uhltzscht is not to be taken literally. Through his protagonist, Brussig expresses the disappointment felt by many East Germans entering united Germany, for it was not a united Germany — East and West did not converge to create a new Germany; rather, East was amalgamated into the West and thus East Germany was lost forever.

Through his novel, Brussig aims not to resurrect the East Germany of Ostalgie, rather he evokes the image of the East Germany of Postalgie. It is a Germany where the Stasi are disarmed with laughter, where Brussig seeks retribution on behalf of all GDR citizens and where the acts of political subversion are in hindsight. Through the political allegory of the Uhltzscht family, Brussig expresses in terms everyone can understand how oppression and repression produce perversion.

Rather, through the political allegory of the Uhltzscht family, Brussig illustrates that many citizens of the GDR were at least to some extent responsible for their own oppression. But at the same time, he illustrates how on November 9th, those same citizens were responsible for their own liberation. He makes the Uhltzscht family an allegory for twentieth century German politics, but the political parallels do not end here.

II. Die Sowjetunion und die DDR

Thus his sexual endevours can be read as a private form of resistance and his movement towards sexual ordinariness is the motion towards political freedom. Franz Eder examines the response of the postwar generation to National Socialism in his exploration of German sexuality between and For them sexual experience and liberation became a political act as well as a question of identity. He uses his sexuality to rebel against his mother and father and what they represent — Socialism and fascism respectively. Auf die Frage, warum ich heute schon komme, antwortete ich leichthin: Tja, hat sich so ergeben.

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Und alles in Jeans! Instead of apologizing for his absentmindedness, Klaus makes the decision to intentionally leave the door unlocked from then on. It begins as the main point of contention between Klaus and his father and whether Klaus has or has not locked the door is a frequent argument at the dinner table Helden wie wir Eberhard Uhltzscht, in the tradition of German fascism, wants the door and the German borders closed. Through his attempts at sexual normalcy, he escapes the East German dogma to embrace the rock and roll lifestyle and political ideology.

Ich betrachtete mein Spiegelbild in den Schaufenstern. War ich das wirklich? Through their copulation he is not only distancing himself from the East German sexual norm, he is resisting the Socialist ideology. According to Eberhard Uhltzscht, irresponsible heterosexual sex is one way in which the West is able to corrupt East German youth.

Marina is an example of the East German youth resistance movement forged in and furthered by her generation of GDR citizens who, through their music, were quietly rebelling against the state. Essentially, when his private rebellion is made public, its value diminishes and effectiveness disappears. With his secret resistance revealed, his confidence in rock and roll freedom vanishes and Klaus plunges back into his sexually perverse behaviour and his employment with the politically perverse Stasi. Klaus seeks sexual and political liberation a second time when he and Yvonne meet. Her obsession with democratic Holland, home of the Hague, love of jazz music and ability to see the world differently through her kaleidoscope, mark Yvonne as an envoy of the West.

And if heterosexual sex is a metaphor for political liberation, by analogy the Socialist System is a perverted attempt at democracy. So angered and sexually frustrated by the mockery, instead of pursuing sexual consent, Klaus attacks and proceeds to try to rape the Wurstfrau. Helden wie wir Unfortunately, with his erection still plaguing him, before he even exits the building, Klaus has no recourse but to satisfy himself Helden wie wir Klaus now masturbates not for his personal satisfaction, but for Socialism itself.

To bring a country, people, etc. To render an enemy or other hostile agency friendly or benign; to propitiate, conciliate; to appease. To restore contending parties to a state of friendly relations; to reconcile one person or party with or to another. To calm or quell disorder or conflict ; to put down or suppress an uprising, rebellion, etc. To alleviate the distress or agitation of a person or animal ; to soothe, placate; to mollify.

With these definitions in mind, the act of masturbation in Helden wie wir becomes less of an act of perversion and more of an act of liberation.

Klaus also sees that the Socialist economic plan of selling political prisoners to the West has an expiration date and intends to find some way to market his sexual perversions for Socialist profit. On November 4th, , Klaus stumbles upon the protest taking place at Alexanderplatz. But on his way to the microphone, Klaus is too distracted to see the cautionary sign and broom at the head of the stairs and trips. He falls downs the stairs and seriously injures himself. Klaus is rushed to the hospital where he undergoes an operation to repair the damage that was done to his penis.

The protagonist never gives the exact dimensions of his newly over-proportioned penis, but it earns him the awe and envy of all his attending doctors and quite an audience. First of all, the novel is a twist on the German Bildungsroman. Brussig also parodies the East German literary tradition and attacks the work of Christa Wolf in a number of satiric assaults Helden wie wir , Helden wie wir parodies the only version of GDR that existed after the fall of the Wall.

This chapter aims to illustrate how the two are intrinsically linked. As a post-unification novel written by a formerly GDR novelist, it undertakes an examination of the mechanisms of repression in the private sphere in order to explore the officially sanctioned repressions associated with that now-collapsed state. Thus at the age of three, he throws himself down the stairs and ceases to mature beyond that point. In an interview with Barbara Felsmann, Brussig says: Man hat ja immer vom pervertierten Sozialismus gesprochen, und ich wollte unbedingt die sozialistische Perversion aufzeigen.

While his pregnant mother had been vacationing in a small village in the Erz Mountains, her fetal son, the soon-to-be protagonist, panicked when troops and tanks were passing by the village in the direction of Prague to crush the democratic uprising. Klaus was born during the Prague Spring on August 20, Lucie Uhltzscht is uptight and frigid. She utterly refuses to recognize the naturalness and need for sex and intimacy. The one discussion the family has on the male sex organ gives Klaus an unrealistic impression of the appearance of the average penis Helden wie wir 57 , which later develops into a penis-envy complex.

Essentially, he comes to terms with his father by oppressing him physically much like Eberhard Uhltzscht had emotionally and politically. In an interview with Focus on Literatur, Brussig states: Und da hat es immer die Redewendung gegeben vom pervertierten Sozialismus.

Er ist eine peinliche Gestalt, ein kritikloser, ein sexuell Perverser und Stasi-Mitarbeiter. Bremer 54 In Helden wie wir heroism is neither unattainable nor conventional. The heroes of East Germany are not heroes because of their roles in the revolution of History books and documentary film alike consistently depict the GDR in terms of its political atrocities and two documentaries screened at the 56th annual Berlinale in are perfect examples of this style of remembering.

You get a strong feeling when you listen to how West Germans interpret our history that it was all shit back then. Therefore, by extension, you are covered in this shit as well. The psychic cost of enduring such criticisms is tremendous. Most of this discourse has focussed on German literature and only more recently have film analyses been included in formal explorations of Ostalgie.

Essays upon essays have been written on contemporary novels remembering and re-remembering the former GDR. The abundance of East German kitsch that has appeared in German novelty stores indicates that since the fall of Socialist Germany a similar fascination amongst the former East German population has been developing. Paul Cook notes the appearance of GDR theme parks and the re-launching of several GDR consumer brand products ; Leonie Naughton remarks that by the new millennium, there were over websites devoted to Ostalgie 20 and at the end of the summer of , DDR-Shows began airing on German television Ahbe 7.

Ostalgie remembers day-to-day life in the GDR, but focuses on the niceties of living in the Socialist state rather than on the problems. It thematizes the sharp separation between past and present Ahbe 7 and has become a means of mediating the two. Similarly, American observer Richard S. This characterization repeats the post-structuralist characterization of nostalgia.

Die DDR in der deutschen Geschichte | bpb

According to cultural critic Susan Stewart, nostalgia functions to avoid discussions of current problems in favour of constructing a more idyllic past that never existed. Before political discordance came to its pinnacle in the revolution, it was an internal struggle and without these private radicals turning their dissent public, the fall of the Berlin Wall could not have occurred. Sadowski-Smith asserts that this tradition of interior dissent has been transferred into the sentiments behind Ostalgie 1. When the Berlin Wall fell in , the first step to unification was taken and shortly thereafter, West and East became one country.

Selbst in der Partei probte Honecker vorsichtig die Demokratie. Erstmals erhielten Genossen sogar das Recht, aus der Partei auszutreten. November in Bonn. Selbst der Beifall des Volkes wird geprobt. Der Filius verteidigte sich. Bei einem Empfang nach einer Modenschau in Moskau prahlte er Wodka-selig: Zudem wagte Ulbricht, wozu seinem Nachfolger stets der Mut fehlte: Ende Juli dann wurde der Staatsratsvorsitzende selbst zum wiedergenesenen Breschnew auf die Krim zitiert. Unter seinem Nachfolger verkam der Sozialismus zur schlechten Imitation des Westens.

Gelesen Verschickt Gesehen 1. Wie der Weihnachtsmarkt zum Volksfest verkommt.