(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
German studies professor Dirk Oschmann's (b. 1967) book The East: a West German invention ("East Germany – a West German invention", 2023) exposes and criticizes West German stereotypes about East Germans: Oschsmann himself feels reduced and confined by an ascribed imaginary "Eastern identity". East German compatriots are portrayed in a cynical, condescending, self-righteous, ahistorical and self-righteous manner.
It went hard beyond that previously DDR after the reunification. Jobs disappeared, industry was shut down, West Germans took over management and care, and university employees were largely replaced by West Germans. The merger took place on West German terms. Inspired by historian Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk's book The takeover ("The Takeover", 2019) about how East Germany became part of West Germany, Oschmann describes the reunification as colonization.
According to Oschsmann, the differences between East and West are maintained by stereotypes about East Germany. The Germanist and literary scholar provides a rhetorical analysis of these templates. The East German or "der Ossi" is perceived as a creature from another planet, primitive and different. Ossien is a right-wing populist, perhaps a neo-Nazi, and likes to vote AfD. He is cowardly, lazy and xenophobic. These templates threaten democracy, according to Oschmann. He is surprised that those who are hypersensitive to discrimination of sexual orientation and ethnic minorities have no problems talking condescendingly about East Germans.
Ignored and underrepresented
The weekly magazine Der Spiegel (24.08.19/XNUMX/XNUMX) asked how "der Ossi tickt" – how the East German thinks and feels, how he is screwed up. Nowhere do people feel more disadvantaged and neglected, even though most people are doing better than ever, it was stated in the preamble. Oschmann uses the Spiegel report as an example of widespread West German prejudice against the Ossians.
It is indisputable that the citizens of the states that made up the former GDR have a lower average income (over 20 per cent) than in the West. East Germans have less wealth, and they are very little represented in leading positions in companies, institutions and universities. They have less money and power than the West Germans. These facts are not some West German invention.
Old Nazis
The problem with Oschmann's book lies in the tension between the rhetorical and the socio-economic perspective: What is rhetoric, and what are facts? Because there are limits to what the "discourse" can "construct" or "invent", as the title says. Aren't many East Germans still marked by having been brainwashed by Erich Honecker and monitored by the Stasi? Oschmann himself mentions that growing up in the GDR is perceived as a dictatorship socialization: Collectivist and communist dressage created subservience and an inability to think independently. It is typical of the book that he does not discuss whether this might be of any use, but immediately strikes back:
Oschmann himself mentions that growing up in the GDR is perceived as dictatorship socialization.
"How would it be if, as a counter move, I switched to permanently confronting the West Germans with the fact that they were socialized in a country where old Nazis, until reunification, decided on many sub-areas of society, and from that drew corresponding analogical inferences?" (p. 46)
Attack is the best defense! And the question is certainly relevant. Many old Nazis continued in management and care West Germany after the war, not least in NATO. On the occasion of NATO's 75th anniversary, we can remind you that e.g. Hans Speidel (1897–1984), Johannes Steinhoff (1913–1994) and Adolf Heusinger (1897–1982) moved without difficulty from service in the Wehrmacht to top positions in the defense alliance.
However, Oschmann does not mention that this way of arguing was also a common strategy in the GDR, which defined itself as an anti-fascist state: West Germany, unlike the GDR, had not properly dealt with Nazism! Recent research shows, however, that de-Nazification in the GDR was not as thorough as was advertised: Many old NSDAP members went straight to the SED after the end of the war without friction (cf. Historical Social Research no. 3 2010, theme issue on former Nazis in the GDR) .
Understanding of democracy and age
The West Germans' failure to come to terms with Nazism does not make the question of what impression the GDR dictatorship left on its citizens irrelevant. Here it may seem as if Oschmann is mechanically repeating a figure of thought he learned in his first 22 years in the GDR.
He counters the criticism that those who have been socialized in a dictatorship lack an understanding of democracy, by pointing out that a people who have forced a dictatorship to its knees need no explanation of what democracy is: "The East has fought for democracy, while the West got it a gift from the Americans.”
Oschmann grew up in Gotha in Thuringia. However, very little is known about how the GDR regime affected him. Instead, he emphasizes that this is a Protestant core area. He assures that he neither suffers from nostalgia nor nostalgic fondness for the old East Germany, so-called Ostalgia.
Nevertheless, he suddenly states that the East German's age at the time of the wall's fall was decisive. Those who were born approx. 1970, according to Oschmann, has developed an increasingly strong resistance to prevailing narratives and the West's projections. This despite the fact that the reunification gave Oschsmann's generation new opportunities which they took advantage of (pp. 152–153). We do not get to know the reason for this.
The East German identity is of course age-related. The 80-year-olds, who have spent most of their lives in the GDR, have a different attitude than Oschmann and his generation. And those who were children when the wall fell will have a different perspective again. These different East German identities are not Western inventions.
Oschmann fails when it comes to elucidating the GDR's role in East German identity formation and only refers to the "die Wende" revolution in 1989.
The European Parliament elections on 9 June were an electoral landslide for the AfD in East Germany. This review has been written before the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia on 1 September and in Brandenburg on 22 September. Although one might hope for the opposite, there are many indications that the AfD will repeat the success from the European elections.
These election results will not be a West German invention.
