(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Maxim Leo: Red love. Translated by Espen Ingebrigtsen. Vigmostad & Bjørke, 2015
New time Leo meets at a café near his home near the Volkspark Friedrichshain in East Berlin, on the occasion of his documentary novel Red love, recently released in Norwegian. In German is the title Holds your heart ready. Preferably, Leo would have the title "Rote Liebe" – ie "red love" – but it would not publish. "The reason was that 70 percent of those surveyed were associated with the title of 'Rotlicht', or 'red light district', ie prostitution," Leo says. This documentary is definitely not about – "red" has a political significance. The red love revolves around the fascination of the former GDR, and the book tells the history of East Germany from a personal perspective, namely through Leo's own family. The production balances between a granddaughter who tells his family story and a documentary novel written by a source researcher. Leo writes passionately, yet distantly. He has tried to understand what happened and to be fair to those involved rather than to judge them. The German title, by the way, is a good example of one of the main points of the book, namely the continuity of German history from the interwar period to the present day. "Halted Euer Herz Bereit" – "Keep Your Heart Ready" – is a quote from a line in a Christian song. It was used in the Nazi era, including by Hitlerjugend. Then the song was sung in the GDR. Meanwhile, the book has been translated into ten languages, and most people have chosen the title Leo originally desired. In German, the book has been sold in 90 copies, and a feature film is now being made based on the novel. Leo works five months a year as a columnist in the Berliner Zeitung, and the rest of the year with his own projects. He is currently making success in Germany as the author of crime novels, and his second crime with the police investigator Voss has just come out.
The myth of Nazi-free GDR is shattered. Particularly interesting is Leo's story about the entrepreneurial generation in the GDR. Two of his grandparents stood on opposite sides during the war: “Gerhard fled Germany and joined the French resistance movement, while Werner was a soldier in the Third Reich and put in French captivity. Both returned and became convinced champions of the GDR, "says Leo.
"The disappearance of an entire state was a drastic experience for many."
It was long argued that East Germans, unlike West Germans, started clearing the ground for Nazis in the state to be built after the war. The resistance hero Gerhard measurable this presentation – as it says in the book: "In the west, he had seen war criminals in government and mass murderers who received high pensions. "Such a thing had never happened in the GDR," he said.
Leo's family history shows that this was not the case: Also in the GDR, old Nazis got a chance, something his other grandfather Werner is an example of. The scheme worked effectively. Everyone kept quiet, and the Third Reich was a non-issue. While Gerhard's history of resistance is always known, Leo did not hear about Werner's Nazi past until 2008, when he began collecting background material for the story. "Hitler made the small big and the big small. The big-city son Gerhard had to flee the country, while the working-class son Werner got to taste the sweet life, "he writes in the book.
A wave of GDR family novels. Leo's book was published in German as early as 2009. In the wake of Red love In recent years, many generational novels about the GDR era have been published. Examples are Eugen Ruges In times of decreasing light (2011), Uwe Karsten Heye and Bärbel Dalichows We wanted a different country (2010) and Marion Braschs From now on it is calm. Novel of my fabulous Family (2012). Birk Meinhardt's novel Brothers and sisters (2013) deals with the period 1973–1989. Peggy Girls The legend of human happiness (2011) and Sergei Lochthofens Black Ice: My Father's Life Novel (2012) can also be mentioned. Saskia Fischers Oyster thunderstorm (2012) move more into the psychiatric field and describe the late injuries in the «popular upbringing» in the GDR. Before all these books came an academic brick edited by Schüle, Ahbe and Gris in 2006: GDR in generational historical perspective.
Leo says that there is an organization called Third Generation East Germany. "It is a network of former East Germans who come together and work on the past. It is worse to deal with the past for those who are five years younger than me, "he points out. He himself was 19 years old when the wall fell, and thinks it was a good timing for his own part. The members of the third generation network were mostly born between 1975 and 1985, and thus have childhood experiences from the GDR. They saw their parents, teachers and guardians standing there helpless as the GDR began to go up in limbo. "What was then political is now perceived by this generation as a personal problem," says Leo. "Everyone seemed to be helpless in the GDR in the years before the wall fell, and the aftermath of this among those who were young at the time is shown by the fact that they have difficulty making decisions in their own lives: They experience insecurity and mental problems."
Ostalgia? Is the relationship between East and West Germans still tense? Leo thinks it has become rather indifferent – that there is a lack of interest. "The boom Berlin is now experiencing is not an east-west problem," he said. "Through gentrification, Berlin becomes, so to speak, a victim of its own attractiveness. The city was long secluded, but has now come to life again and become a dynamic capital. "
Leo believes that much of the so-called ostalgia – the nostalgic longing for the old GDR – is primarily driven by the urge to remember his youth and a past in a state that no longer exists. "The disappearance of an entire state was a drastic experience for many. "The grandparent generation, which had supported both Hitler and later the GDR regime, could not bear the recognition of having made a mistake twice," says Leo.
Three-generation law. It is said that in business there is a law that the first generation builds a company, the second generation makes it a success, and the third generation ruins it. We are witnessing something similar in Maxim Leo's account of the GDR. After the third generation, the entrepreneurial energy has been used up. The book says: “What do I remember from the big dream? Petty bans, embarrassing principles and jeans that looked like extended FDJ shirts, the uniforms of the socialist youth organization. Over the course of three generations, the state's profits were used up. The GDR remained the land of the ancients, the founders. Their logic made no sense to anyone but themselves. "
Good translation into Norwegian. Espen Ingebrigtsen has translated Red love to a flexible Norwegian that makes the book a good reading experience. One mistake should be pointed out, however: "Jacket" in German means suit jacket, as opposed to "Jacke", which can be, for example, a cardigan. The word thus does not mean the same as the Norwegian "jacket", which is a gala outfit for the morning with long seams.
Leo confirms that his father Wolf, who was both an artist and a rebel, wore a suit jacket and not a jacket when he tried to imitate Bill Haley and the Comets, who appeared in red suit jackets. Then we know it.
Tjønneland is Dr. philos. and regular writer in Ny Tid. e-tjoenn@online.no.
