On the whole, does Goodbye, Lenin paint a positive or negative picture of life in communist East Germany? East Germany, its demise relayed through the mass media of recent history, has in popular consciousness been posited as negative, a corrupt bulwark of the last dying days of Communism in Eastern Europe, barren and silent. The other Germany to its West, its citizens free, was striding confidently ahead into the millennium. Recent cinema has sought to examine re-unification, the Wolfgang Becker film Goodbye Lenin! (2003) a recent example of such an investigation into the past through cinema. In this essay I will look at the film and the narrative techniques it uses, probing whether it portrays the East German nation as positive or negative, concluding that though many negatives are identified, some positives are deduced from Honecker's state. I will also consider why, in recent times, East Germans have come to regard their former state with nostalgia, or as the Germans would put it, ostalgie, an act which Goodbye Lenin! (2003) explores. Not a doom laden, emphatically political treatise on the reunification of East and West Germany but a touching and sometimes comedic insight into the gargantuan changes impacting on the small scale, day to day life as experienced by an East German family, Christiane Kerner and her two children Alex and Ariane. Awaking from a coma, Alex fears his mother?s condition may worsen if she learns of re-unification, going to increasingly elaborate lengths in maintaining the illusion of the GDR's omniscience. Becker?s stance as to reunification is ambivalent throughout, the film's concerns not didactic but subtly relayed. How the personal and political interweave is skilfully constructed by Becker,... ... middle of paper ... ...a more positive emphasis placed on the possibilities of forgiveness, redemption and hope for what can be made of tomorrow. Bibliography A Reversal of Fortunes? Women, work and change in East Germany. Rachel Alsop. Berghahn Books. 2000 Germany and the Germans. After Unification. New Revised Edition. John Ardagh. Penguin Books. 1991 German Cinema since Unification. Edited by David Clarke. Continuum, in association with University of Birmingham Press. 2006 Representing East Germany since Unification. From Colonization to Nostalgia. Paul Cooke. Berg. 2005 Germany since 1945. Lothar Kettenacker. Oxford University Press. 1997 Germany. Unravelling an Enigma. Greg Nees. Intercultural Press. 2000 Understanding Contemporary Germany. Stuart Parkes.Routledge. 1997 Dividing and Uniting Germany. J.K.A Thomoneck and Bill Niven. Routledge. 2001
In the Early years of film one can easily say that Germany lead the way in experimentation, with such striking examples as Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu and Dr. Mabuse the Gambler. How when looking at two of these film, Nosferatu and Dr Mabuse the Gambler one can find a similar theme that run throughout. This theme is that of Weimar’s insecurity about outsiders and otherness different cultures. While both films have different stories at their very simplest both films see someone come into the idyllic lives of the protagonist not only wrecking their lives but the lives of ordinary people as well. It’s worth noting that borth Nosferatu and Dr. Mabuse the Gambler were filmed in the turbulent early 20’s of the Weimar period where Germany was still dealing with the aftermath of the war and outside powers such as France encroaching on German territory and at the same time political unrest had reached its high. With all these changes going on it easy to see why Germany might have felt that outsider were at work trying to remold modern Germany. This is why in these turbulent early years befor the Weimar Golden age we see such strong use of the other/outsider as a stand in for events taken place in Germany
Just as German language literature addressed the topic of German-Jewish relationship, German cinema was not far behind. In Films such as Joseph Vilsmaier’s Comedian Harmonists (1997), Max Färberböck’s Aimée und Jaguar (1999), and Margarethe von Trotta’s Rosenstrasse (2003), we witness German-Jewish relationship, how gender plays a role in mix, and who is portrayed as victim.
The film’s subject matter is portrayed through the juxtaposition of dramatic and sad moments against moments of comedy and satire which makes the genre classification of ‘tragicomedy’ the most appropriate. The story of Good Bye Lenin! focuses on the life and growth of a young man, Alex (played by Daniel Brühl) as he, his girlfriend Lara (Chulpan Khamatova), and his sister Ariane (Maria Simon) attempt to shield their mother (Katrin Saß) from learning that the East German state has dissolved. It is in this context that Alex must come to terms not only with his mother’s failing health, but also with his own identity in a rapidly changing space. In order to protect his mother Alex re-creates the GDR for her, but his portrayal does not exactly depict the ideals of the former socialist state. Instead, this ‘new’ GDR reflects Alex’s own personal beliefs and opinions of how he wants the state to be.
The Songerweg emphasizes the particular model of history that Germany, unlike other Western countries, has gone through. Specifically, ‘proponents of this concept emphasize the peculiarities of German history, such as political institutions, social structures, or mentalities and experience, usually in comparison with other Western countries, to demonstrate the unique course of German history’ (Buse & Doerr, 1998, p. 934). Although initially the theory of Sonderweg viewed the characteristics of German historical development as positive, the situation has changed after the World War II. Specifically, in the 19th and early 20th centuries historians applied the Sonderweg model to stress a focus on the role of strong central state and military as the driving force of the development of the country (Buse & Doerr, 1998). In addition to this, historians regarded social reforms in Germany that were made from ‘above’ rather than being the outcomes of revolution to be a positive feature that depicted German state in a favorable way. Finally, the historical school viewed the course of German industrialization and culture as superior to similar processed in the rest of Western European
Erica Carter teaches Cultural Studies at the University of Warwick. Recently, she published How German is She? Postwar West German Reconstruction and the consuming Woman (1996), in which she explores how the development of a "social market economy" after 1949 gave a new centrality to consumers as key players in the economic life of the (German) nation and in that process gave women a new public significance. Carter argues that concepts of nationhood survived in the rhetorics of public policy and in popular culture of the period.
“Stalin is the Lenin of today,” said a popular propaganda slogan of the thirties and the forties. The situation has changed drastically since that time; people’s opinion of Stalin has changed in light of the new facts that came out during the course of history. One of such influencing factors was the “secret” speech given by Khrushchev during the Twentieth Congress of KPSS. This speech, however, does not give a real picture of either Stalin or Lenin: Khrushchev denounces the idolization of Stalin but supports the cult of Lenin. He also does not pay attention to Stalin’s deeds that do deserve to be criticized (from an non-Communist point of view), but looks sharply onto something that Stalin should be thanked for. Khrushchev puts Stalin in opposition to Lenin and fails to recognize that those leaders were in many ways similar.
Citizens pushed to the side, through streams of proud troops. Women draped in long dresses with the sun bearing down on them, smiling in aspiration of these ‘heroes’ marching through Germany. Impeccable attired men, looking witty and smart, marched with these troops. Frocking little boys and girls on their way home from school. All accompanied by the Nazi band who were playing music. A rich and visual symphony defined the streets of berlin, Germany, 1933. Juxtaposed to his familiar surroundings, a lone 12-year-old boy a sauntered in congruously through the jostling crowds. A 12-year-old boy who was more interested in football, card games and family time, not ‘nationalism’ nor ‘the father land’. Far different to the boys attitude around him, He wore a simple brand of clothes, again different to the Schwartz sticker on many boys around him. Tomas Muller’s strong features; mirrored by seventy million who were part of this pulsating nation. He did not grow up here, but having listened with great fascination to a plethora of myths and stories about Germany from a young age, you would think he would be more excited. He wasn’t. Around him was German propaganda of bringing back to the fatherland.
... is good [,] what’s from the east is bad” (Kirschbaum). These sentiments clearly show the divide and discontent between the “Ossies”, East Germans, and the “Wessies”, West Germans, highlighting the rift in “united Germany.”
The domination of political control must be all encompassing and commands authority from the public and private lives of citizens to the functions of social and economic institutions in order to be distinguished as a totalitarian state. Through the study of Juan Linz, Hannah Arendt and other political philosophers, we are able to define the Soviet Union under Stalin’s control as a true totalitarian regime. The simultaneous components of the center of power surrounding Stalin and his Central Committee, a Stalinist ideology manipulated from Marxist and Leninist philosophy, and the mobilization of the population to participate in collectivization and the Five-Year Plans are parallel to Linz’s three basic characteristics a totalitarian system: a monistic centre of power, an ruling ideology and an active participation of citizens for social tasks. The terror legitimized by this ideology, the propaganda surrounding Stalin’s “personality cult”, the millions of citizens purged in the 1930’s and the constant fear of internal enemies and surveillance by both the secret police and friends and neighbours defines totalitarianism as Arendt’s “novel form of government.” A totalitarian movement reaches deep into every aspect of society with a monopolized power that attempts to control every citizen's thoughts and actions. It spawns from the myth of total unity or as Stalin describes, unity of a “living organism.” The vision of the party members and citizens must completely align with those of the great leader as they are working towards a collective future and while total immersion is expected, surveillance and terror will promise to oust any hidden dissidents. Stalin as a leader functioned ruthlessly and efficiently to develop the Soviet Union ...
Herf, Jeffrey. Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1997.
The similarity existent between the past and the present in “Stasiland” is what empowers Funder to obtain a sense of truth, she intends to provide the necessary knowledge to the outside world enabling readers to realise the reality of East Germany. Funder undergoes her purpose with caution, as in respect of her interviewers she must consider the effects associated with revealing the truth and the past – as it has the potential to significantly harm the health of ones mental state. When envisaging the impact her background has in terms of perspective Funders intention becomes clear. Instead of finalising a truth she provides the readers with the necessary factors and interpretations - as once actuality is discovered and final...
The December of 1991 marked the end of the Soviet Union—and with it, an entire era. Like the February Revolution of 1917 that ended tsardom, the events leading up to August 1991 took place in rapid succession, with both spontaneity and, to some degree, retrospective inevitability. To understand the demise of Soviet Union is to understand the communist party-state system itself. Although the particular happenings of the Gorbachev years undoubtedly accelerated its ruin, there existed fundamental flaws within the Soviet system that would be had been proven ultimately fatal. The USSR became a past chapter of history because it was impossible to significantly reform the administrative command system without destroying its very core, and because Gorbachev's "democratic socialism" was unattainable without abandoning the very notion of Soviet socialism itself. As R. Strayer had pointed out in Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?, the USSR was held together under Communist rule with "a mixture of ideological illusion and raw coercion" (Strayer, 36). The Gorbachev era saw both of these two bases of the party-state's power falling apart.
The division of Germany into West Germany and East Germany emerged as a stopgap solution for the woeful state of the nation following its defeat in the Second World War. With the United States (US) ultimately gaining full control over West Germany, East Germany increasingly became alienated towards it, as it went under the influence of the Soviet Union (USSR). West Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), rapidly grew into one of the most politically and economically influential nations in Europe representing the democratic interests of the US in the region, while East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR), went seemingly the other way. East Germans became increasingly disillusioned by the way their politicians have promoted communism in the GDR, characterized by oppressive measures and sheer inequality in living standards. The Stasi, the secret police unit of the GDR, closely monitored East Germans and purged those who are suspected or proven dissidents, while politicians of the nation enjoyed living standards that are way superior compared to the average East German. West Germans, on the other hand, enjoyed the benefits of political and economic reforms brought forth by the democratic influence of the US. Therefore, discontentment among East Germans increased the prospect of unification of the FRG and GDR – an issue that was never written off in consideration, only further complicated by political differences. Nevertheless, eventual unification of the FRG and GDR following the symbolic collapse of the Berlin Wall did not completely result to favorable circumstances, as problems that continued to alienate matters between the Western and Eastern sections of Germany remain unresolved (Brockman ...
Military leaders can also benefit from studying the philosophies and principles of past adversaries. For example, the Soviet Union emerged in part by adopting an approach to perceived reality using Karl Marx's "scientific socialism." Vladimir Lenin adapted Marxist rhetoric to free the oppressed workers from a brutal Tsarists regime. The approach followed the "categorical imperative to overthrow all conditions in which man is a degraded, enslaved, neglected, contemptible being." Ironically, Lenin modified the principles to justify his brutal regime. Their political principles were contrary to the existing systems, but acquired sufficient support for a mass movement. Today, the U.S. is engaged heavily with Islam in the middle east, a contrary
... a change in this image to a realization that Stalin’s suppression of dissidents and opposition had real effects on soviet society and can not be justified by Marxist and Leninist Ideology instead they were just Stalin looking to maintain his autocracy.