Ostalgie and Identity
Ina’s stories about her experience growing up in the DDR uncover memories that are often lost when we study German reunification and the fall of the Berlin wall in academic spaces. Her stories of growing up in East Germany were a combination of nostalgic and painful, highlighting the concept of Ostalgie (longing for the good parts of East German life without thinking about the negative political implications). When we learn about the end of the Cold War in American institutional settings, the fond memories of life under communism are often overlooked and disasters and horrible experiences are prioritized. Ina’s reflection on the down-to-earth life in East Germany with home gardens and nostalgia-inducing consumer products challenges the oversimplified understanding of Cold War history.
When Germany was reunified, many aspects of regular East German life disappeared or changed — products, institutions, people, social order, etc. Ina discusses how the food, furniture, and even traffic lights that she was used to seeing began to disappear as people chose new products from the West. This experience probably had profound effects on East Germans’ understanding of national identity. Life as they once understood became a memory as the two states became one. Ina’s story about being greeted by West German strangers touches on this point. She explained that when entering a nearby West German city for the first time, strangers that had been separated by a border became unified, simply from the disappearance of the constructed border. This poses a compelling understanding of nationalism and borders. The physical symbol of division between two entities no longer assigned people different national identities, and East Germans living under communism became integrated into a national community operating under a completely different system.
This concept of created and erased national identity is interesting when thinking about the persisting differences between West and East Germany. Lasting differences between the two parts of Germany remain even though they have become integrated into one state. Inequalities between East and West remain rampant, and many believe have contributed to the rise of extremity in German politics. Today, as Ina mentioned, the AfD right wing political party holds a significant base of support in East Germany. This party politicizes the new border that defines Germany and spreads xenophobic rhetoric about migrants and national identity, even though there are no migrants in their regions. This nationalism is intriguing and harmful, and I am curious about its connection to East German life and identity.
