| Abstract: | For the last few years, I have been planning to write a book called Unwrapped Past and Empty Present: GDR Culture in Retrospect . The post-unification process has not been easy, and the other day I even came across a statement in the press that "other postcommunist countries did not seem to have faced the same difficulties as the former GDR". Although this is a highly questionable comment, ignoring the plight of large sections of the population under "successful" postcommunist governments and the far higher living standards of the GDR population, despite de-industrialisation and massive unemployment, it contains a grain of truth. The more I read about and discuss the East German situation before and after 1989, the more I become convinced that there were vital differences, not only in Soviet policy towards the GDR and other Warsaw Pact states, but perhaps more importantly, in the attitudes of the East German party, the intellectuals and the population at large to the idea of "nation", to the Soviet Union and even to "socialism as it existed in reality". After a stint in Potsdam cramming post-1989 memoirs, I should like to address these issues in a first try at a possible introduction to my planned book. |
