Originally posted in September 2014:
This year the official Germany will celebrated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall, which lead to it´s reunification.
Originally posted in September 2014:This year the official Germany will celebrated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall, which lead to it´s reunification.
German unity has been a shaky marriage. That may seem like a surprise to people outside Germany. But opinion polls inside Germany show widespread discontent, especially in the formerly Communist east. Chancellor Angela Merkel has called it a success and other political leaders will be singing the praises of unification in their lofty speeches and German media interviews in the next months. But for many in the east, like straight-talking Brandenburg ex-premier Matthias Platzeck, German unification in 1990 was not a merger of equals but instead an “Anschluss” (annexation) with West Germany taking over East Germany.
Many easterners have endured change, hardship, upheaval and various negative developments – including sometimes being evicted from their houses that people who fled during the Cold War returned to reclaim. Free speech and freedom to travel have been great but the price has been high: millions lost their jobs, their homes as well as the fabric of their society and their way of life. Many are still struggling to come to terms with life in reunited Germany – and are understandably nostalgic about life in East Germany, to the great irritation of western Germans who have helped pay 1.6 trillion euros to rebuild the east.
Reasons for their disenchantment can be seen everywhere: The eastern population has shrunk by about 2 million, unemployment soared, young people are moving away in droves and what was one of the Eastern Bloc’ leading industrial nations is now largely devoid of industry. Did it all have to happen like that?
The so called "Wende" was not only the end of the narrow minded pseudo-communist dictatorship, but was at the same time the beginning of the end of the lion´s share of the east german subculture and mainstream music scene.
So we will take this anniversary as a chance to bring back some very interesting music to our mind and ears. We will post some compilations featuring music that was part of the musical subculture in the last years of the DDR and during the time of change.
Many easterners have endured change, hardship, upheaval and various negative developments – including sometimes being evicted from their houses that people who fled during the Cold War returned to reclaim. Free speech and freedom to travel have been great but the price has been high: millions lost their jobs, their homes as well as the fabric of their society and their way of life. Many are still struggling to come to terms with life in reunited Germany – and are understandably nostalgic about life in East Germany, to the great irritation of western Germans who have helped pay 1.6 trillion euros to rebuild the east.
Reasons for their disenchantment can be seen everywhere: The eastern population has shrunk by about 2 million, unemployment soared, young people are moving away in droves and what was one of the Eastern Bloc’ leading industrial nations is now largely devoid of industry. Did it all have to happen like that?
The so called "Wende" was not only the end of the narrow minded pseudo-communist dictatorship, but was at the same time the beginning of the end of the lion´s share of the east german subculture and mainstream music scene.
So we will take this anniversary as a chance to bring back some very interesting music to our mind and ears. We will post some compilations featuring music that was part of the musical subculture in the last years of the DDR and during the time of change.
The "Kleeblatt" compilations were an Amiga forum for young, unknown bands. Volume 23 features some bands from the punk and indie rock scene.
Tracklist:
Side1:
Feeling B - Artig
Feeling B - Alles ist dufte
Feeling B - Geh zurück in dein Buch
Hard Pop - Grau
Hard Pop - Tote Ballerina
Hard Pop - Angst vom Mund
Side 2:
Sandow - Wir
Sandow - Fliegen
Sandow - Anders
WK13 - P2
WK13 - Asphalt
WK13 - Sonntag
Kleeblatt No. 23 - Die anderen Bands
(192 kbps, cover art included)
8 Kommentare:
1988, da wurde AMIGA ja fast frech. Danke, zero!
Thank you for this. I can never say that the unification of the two German societies was positive because in my opinion it was not. I never regarded the DDR as a communist state for the same reason I discounted that claim for any member state of the eastern bloc. To me, the political systems were uniformly authoritarian state capitalism run by power-hungry oligarchies. However, the Bundesrepublik also had disturbing aspects that were overlooked by the west. The assimilation of allegedly reformed former National Socialists into the political structure, the militarism and suppression of rights during the Baader-Meinhof period, and the assumption that a plethora of consumer goods and higher wages represented cultural superiority were some of the many issues that went unaddressed in the west. Heinrich Boell's 'Fürsorgliche Belagerung'
provides a fictional account of the severe restriction of civil rights and overreaction of the Bundesrepublik in its effort to maintain law and order, and Boell received considerable criticism and condemnation for merely questioning what what being done to "protect" the citizenry from terrorism. The Nobel prize winner was attacked for raising legitimate questions about a political structure that could so quickly become repressive and lacking in perspective in responding to a relatively small threat to its security. In effect, life in the Bundesrepublik became less free in a relatively short time.
I recall the West and especially my country acting as if unification were a benevolent act by the Bundesrepublik that permitted east Germans to benefit from a superior society offering much more political freedom and the marvelous and abundant wonders of free market capitalism. There was no perception of reciprocity between the two cultures; no recognition that east German society might offer a better sense of community or a unique and worthy culture from which positive and creative aspects could be assimilated or emulated. After unification, the integrity of Christa Wolf and other writers of the former DDR was questioned for their supposed insufficient resistance or docile acceptance of the authoritarian state even though many German writers who remained in Germany during the era of national socialism and the Holocaust were still regarded in terms of their artistic, rather than their political, value, were taught in German classes and here in the United States,and were not subjected to the same interviews, or more accurately, interrogations by the press. In brief, the Bundesrepublik was unquestioningly viewed as a benevolent wealthy relative offering at great expense to itself generous shelter and a better life to an impoverished, lesser-educated relative, the citizenry of the DDR.
The question that should have been asked of Wolf, expatriate Wolf Biermann, and other east German artists after unification was, "Is the Bundesrepublik the better alternative that you envisioned when you lived in the DDR or did you have another vision of what might be?" I suspect that the opportunity to speak freely and not be imprisoned or harassed for their views while having access to a plethora of goods would have been insufficient and not the better society to which they aspired while living in the repressive DDR. I won't disparage the benefits of being able to speak freely. But here in the United States, our free speech does little to alter the control of our political structures and economy by a reactionary plutocracy. What we have then is the right to complain amongst ourselves and the awareness that no one in power is really listening or cares about the erosion of the middle class and the worsening predicament of the working class and the poor. We hear only the echoes of our voices when speaking freely as the wealthy control a larger and larger percentage of the wealth and power in our country. To call it representative democracy or a democratic republic is to engage in sophistry.
For a time, the smugness of being the superior benefactor protected the Bundesrepublik from having to contend with its own internal political and social problems such as the rise of the right-wing. It could have been different and I am saddened by the realization that it was not. The word unification is a misnomer for what was really unilateral assimilation that discounted the positive values of a different society by assuming that they were hopelessly infected by the misnamed political structure and bastardized ideology of those who held power in DDR. I am grateful that you consistently remind us of what was positive and don't merely regurgitate western propaganda about the east German people and their society.
Hey, F O'B, those are my sentiments too -- and I'm one of those who grew up and lived in the West. This whole thing of "der Zug ist abgefahren" when anyone brought up ideas about the future of the various German-speaking states/countries/nations other than re-unification totally rubbed me the wrong way. Back then, one of the few intellectuals in the West who was thinking more sanely was Süskind. He wrote a brief commentary/article in DER SPIEGEL back then. If you want it, I can probably dig it up. Anyway, leftie folks in the West were not happy either about how the whole re-unification was handled. If you ask me, THAT was total abgefahren, the handling of the Abwicklung der DDR. And there were quite a few folks East AND West who would have liked to pursued different avenues, but they didn't object loudly enough, and that's what I really regret. Contact me via my profile, if you like, F O'B. Later.
Yes, it is really a pitty that there was no chance to take a different way to a new Germany taking the best parts of East and West. Thanks a lot for your discussion.
DER SPIEGEL; 17.09.1990
"Deutschland, eine Midlife-crisis"
von Patrick Süskind
http://magazin.spiegel.de/EpubDelivery/spiegel/pdf/13501977
Great analysis by Patrick Süskind, even though I don't agree with his take on Brandt and his quote of "Zusammenwachsen." Yes to unite and to grow (up) together, doesn't have that bad connotation. I actually give him the reason of doubt, that he really meant to do it "zusammen."
How nice would it have been, if some of the positive aspects of the former GDR would have been implemented with the (re)-unification.
Almost 30 years ago, not only Germany, but also some other former Eastern Block states, had a huge chance, to go the "third way" as it was propagated by the former Czech economist Ota Sik during the 1968 revolution in Prague and later in exile in Switzerland, where I interviewed him in fall of 1989 right before the walls came crushing down. His warnings at that time and later as an economic adviser to president Havel were unfortunately ignored and not implemented.
Yeah, the trains left the stations too fast (not just in Germany) and without adding an extra caboose offering shelter to "The Third Way." (Recommended Reading "The Third Way: Marxist-Leninist Theory & Modern Industrial Society" by Sik.)
And where are we now, 30 years later? Even though attributed to Engels, when in fact it was Krautsky in 1892, Rosa Luxemburg penned in 1915: [that we] either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.
The ascension of the right (AfD) and the "nationalization" of states (not just Germany) surely prove that point.
Thanks a lot for you thoughts.
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