Nick Hodgin & Caroline Pearce 
The GDR Remembered 
Representations of the East German State since 1989

Competing representations of the former East German state in the German cultural memory.


Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the consequences of the country’s divided past continue to be debated. The legacy of the German Democratic Republic occupies a major role in German popular culture, with audiences flocking to films claiming to depict the East German state ‘as it was.’ Politicians from both left and right make use of its legacy to support their parties’ approach to unification, while former citizens of the GDR are still working through their own memories of the regime and adjusting to unification.


Since 1989, competing representations of the East German state have emerged, some underlining its repressive nature, others lamenting the loss of asense of community. The twentieth anniversary of the
Wende is an occasion to reflect upon both the history of the GDR and the ways in which it has been remembered, and the present volume presents new research on the theme from a variety of perspectives, with sections on film and literature, museums and memorials, and historiography and politics.


Contributors: Thomas Ahbe, Pertti Ahonen, Silke Arnold-de Simine, Stefan Berger, Laura Bradley, Mary Fulbrook, Nick Hodgin, Anna O’Driscoll, Stuart Parkes, Caroline Pearce, Günter Schlusche, Peter Thompson, Andreas Wagner.


Nick Hodgin is a Cultural Historian working at the University of Sheffield, UK, and Caroline Pearce is Lecturer in German and Interpreting, also at the University of Sheffield.

Table of Content

Introduction – Nick Hodgin and Caroline Pearce

From Berlin to Prenzlau: Representations of GDR Theater in Film and Literature – Laura Bradley

Melancholy and Historical Loss: Postunification Portrayals of GDR Writers and Artists – Anna O’Driscoll

Literary Portrayals of the GDR by Non-GDR Citizens – Stuart Parkes

Screening the Stasi: The Politics of Representation in Postunification Film – Nick Hodgin

‘The Spirit of an Epoch Is Not Just Reflected in Pictures and Books, but Also in Pots and Frying Pans’: GDR Museums and Memories of Everyday Life – Silke Arnold-de Simine

Remapping the Wall: The Wall Memorial in Bernauer Strasse – From an Unloved Cold War Monument to a New Type of Memorial Site – Günter Schlusche

Commemorating the Berlin Wall – Pertti Ahonen

The Evolution of Memorial Sites in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania since 1990 – Andreas Wagner

An Unequal Balance? Memorializing Germany’s ‘Double Past’ since 1990 – Caroline Pearce

Living through the GDR: History, Life Stories, and Generations in East Germany – Mary Fulbrook

Competing Master Narratives: Geschichtspolitik and Identity Discourse in Three German Societies – Thomas Ahbe

‘Worin noch niemand war’: The GDR as Retrospectively Imagined Community – Peter Thompson

GDR Historiography after the End of the GDR: Debates, Renewals, and the Question of What Remains – Stefan Berger

Notes on the Contributors

Index