Ostalgie

Ostalgie is a complex term that should not be described as a simple emotion of nostalgia. As Ostalgie relates back to the history of the Cold War, it is better to examine this term in the context of history and current influence in Western society; in doing so, the meaning of this term becomes clearer.

The division of Germany into East and West for over 35 years engendered the formation of distinct identities between the two regions. Despite their shared language and history, the capitalist FRG and socialist GDR differed in many obvious political, economic and cultural respects; thus, their respective societies cultivated cultural identities distinct to each region. These pre-existing differences were then exposed during and after the reunification process.[4]

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the following German reunification a year later, many of the symbols of the German Democratic Republic were swept away. The process of unification gave rise to feelings of resentment and nostalgia amongst former GDR citizens. They felt short-changed by a unification process which they equated to a colonial take over.[5] One particular focus of Ostalgie centred around unemployment. Officially, unemployment had not existed in the GDR, but this employment security disappeared with reunification and unemployment became endemic at around 20% of the workforce.[6] The social security provided by the work place in the GDR was a great focus of Ostalgia. Kolinsky presents reunification as characterised by Easterners' disaffection.[7] The mass experience of unemployment emerged as a key tenet of a re-forged East German identity based on the collective experience of employment-loss and the perceived economic destruction of their region. Subsequently, many constructed a retrospective image of the GDR as a stable and caring environment. Unification was felt to have been to their disadvantage and to have isolated them as second-class citizens.

Reunification presented a particular challenge to women. This was particularly true for working women who had enjoyed organised healthcare and equal pay in the GDR and who faced the greatest unemployment post-Wende. Approximately 70% of East German women lost their job after 1990. Women were laid off faster than men, as well as suffering the consequences of the collapse of state-run childcare facilities and traditional ideals of female domesticity and consumerism were reinvoked, having been challenged by the state in the GDR.[8]

Ostalgie was also felt for commodities of the GDR. Almost all GDR brands of products disappeared from the stores and were replaced by Western products. However, after some time many Eastern Germans began to miss certain aspects of their former lives (like culture or the known brand marks). Ostalgie particularly refers to the nostalgia for aspects of regular daily life and culture in the former GDR, which disappeared after reunification.[9]

Old Trabant cars still can be found on streets, as here on a parking lot in Hungary in May 2015.

Leckermäulchen ("sweet tooth"), an East German dairy curd treat, from Leipzig

Ostalgie is expressed in present day Germany through commodities and products reminiscent of the East-German era.[10]

Many businesses in Germany cater to those who feel Ostalgie and have begun providing them with artifacts that remind them of life under the GDR; artifacts that imitate the old ones. Available again are brands of East German food, old state television programmes on video tape and DVD, and the once widespread Wartburg and Trabant cars.

Another example of commercially memorialising East Germany would be the musealization of Halle-Neustadt. Halle-Neustadt, a city constructed by the East German Government, is now a kind of living museum for East German memory. But more than the meaning of living museum, tourism in Halle-Neustadt is evidence of commercialisation of Ostalgie. In this case, musealization of Ostalgie is somehow connected with a consumerist attitude. Ostalgie in this sense is not a realistic or pragmatic term. It is the artifacts, rather than the social life of East Germany, that play the main role in this commercialization. If the social life of East Germany is more complex than artifacts and symbols, it would be fair to say that musealization of Ostalgie in Halle-Neustadt creates a stereotype of East German life. That is to say, reflection of Ostalgie in Halle-Neustadt should not be considered as an accurate representation of East Germany.[11]

An Ost-Ampelmännchen crosswalk light

Those seeking the preservation of East German culture banded together to save the "Eastern Crosswalk Man" (Ost-Ampelmännchen), an illuminated depiction of a man wearing a "perky", "cheerful" and potentially "petit bourgeois" hat (inspired by a summer photo of Erich Honecker in a straw hat)[12] in crosswalk lights.[13] Many German cities in and near the former East German border, including Berlin, Lübeck and Erfurt, still retain the use of the Ampelmännchen at all or some pedestrian crossings due to its cultural relevance, and many souvenirs sold in the new states and in Berlin make use of the icon.

Life in the GDR has also been the subject of several films, including Leander Haußmann's Sonnenallee (1999), Wolfgang Becker's internationally successful Good Bye, Lenin! (2003), and Carsten Fiebeler's Kleinruppin forever (2004).

Ostalgie could be inspired by the longing of the Ossis (German for "Easterners", a term for former GDR citizens) for the social system and the sense of community of the GDR. When Der Spiegel asked former GDR-inhabitants whether the GDR "had more good sides than bad sides" in 2009, 57% of them answered yes. To the statement of the interviewing journalist that "GDR inhabitants did not have the freedom to travel wherever they wanted", respondents replied that "present-day low-wage workers do not have that freedom either".[14]

• Culture of the German Democratic Republic
• DDR Museum – Berlin museum about life in East Germany
• Net shopping bag – Open netted bagPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Nostalgia for the Soviet Union – Retrospective fondness for USSR
• PRL nostalgia – Retrospective fondness for average life in Communist PolandPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Vita Cola – Cola beverage produced in Germany
• Yugo-nostalgia – Nostalgia for Yugoslavia among ex-Yugoslav populations

Music

• Die anderen Bands – alternative musical groups during the 1980s in the GDRPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
• Ostrock – Overview of music traditions in GermanyPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets

Movies

• Do Communists Have Better Sex? – German documentary filmPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
• Go Trabi Go – 1991 film by Peter TimmPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
• The Lives of Others – 2006 German film by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

• Banchelli, Eva: Taste the East: Linguaggi e forme dell'Ostalgie, Sestante Edizioni, Bergamo 2006, ISBN 88-87445-92-3.
• Banchelli, Eva: Ostalgie: eine vorläufige Bilanz, in Fabrizio Cambi (Hg.): Gedächtnis und Identitat. Die deutsche Literatur der Wiedervereinigung, Würzburg, Koenigshausen & Neumann, 2008, pp. 57–68.
• Berdahl, Daphne: On the Social Life of Postsocialism: Memory, Consumption, Germany Archived 6 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine (2009)
• Rota, Andrea: Testi pubblicitari ostalgici: una breve analisi semiotica, In Linguistica e filologia 24/2007, pp. 137–152, ISSN|1594–6517.
• Pence, Katherine and Paul Betts. Socialist Modern: East German Everyday Culture and Politics, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008
• Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall (2018), video game by Kremlingames, where the playground is East Germany during the late Perestroika and the dissolution of Warsaw Pact.[17]

Look up Ostalgie in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• "Ostalgie", post from The New York Times
• "Ostalgie" discussion on H-German
• Kristen R. Ghodsee, "Red Nostalgia? Communism, Women's Emancipation, and Economic Transformation in Bulgaria."