Difficult stories: Public discourse and narrative identity in Eastern Germany

Abstract

Whilst former political prisoners of the socialist state are considered to be important witnesses of the past socialist rule by governmental authorities, able to testify about the ‘regime’, the eastern German public seems rather uninviting to their telling their life-stories. At the interstices of a demand for talking and a refusal of being listened to, the creation of narratives which would serve to portray one's experiencesis difficult. Following scholarship, narratives are furthermoreintertwined with individual identity. The article explores how in this situation of tension a group of former prisoners work together at constructing metaphors and narrative structures for the telling of individual stories, which will both communicate experiences well to a public, and be flexible enough for habitable individual identities.

Keywords:

• Narrative
• identity
• suffering
• East Germany

Acknowledgments

The research and writing of this article was made possible by a fellowship from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) in 2004 and a studentship from the University of Durham 2000–2002. I also owe thanks to the members of the victims' associations in Magdeburg and the staff of the Gedenkstätte für die Opfer politischer Gewaltherrschaft in Magdeburg, whose support and collaboration is invaluable to me. Furthermore, I am grateful for the comments of the members of the Public Culture in Theory and Practice research group at the department of Anthropology at Durham (UK) on an earlier draft and for the comments and suggestions of the editors and anonymous reviewers of Ethnos.

Notes

1. This number is taken from the exhibition Im Namen des Volkes at the Gedenkstätte für die Opfer politischer Gewaltherrschaft in Magdeburg (visited June 2004).

2. From the observations during my fieldwork in 2000 and since, I conclude that Ostalgie has turned from a communal practice to a commodity which is also increasingly marketed towards tourists (see Wolle 1999b : 642).

3. There are a number of Zeitzeugen organisations in Germany, some of which have websites (shoa.de; holocaust.juden-in-europa.de).

4. Gedenkstätte für die Opfer politischer Gewaltherrschaft.

5. Translation by the author.

6. Zersetzung refers to the ‘dissolution of hostile political powers’, through psychologically informed measures of confusion and social isolation (Cf. Behnke & Fuchs 1995).

7. Reworking and managing the past are strategies which go beyond legal retribution. The latter has been discussed by Borneman (1997).

8. On the federal level this ‘Stasi Document Centre’ is also colloquially known as the ‘Gauck-authority’ (Borneman 1997: 75–78).

9. This is not only a self-realisation but was also put forward by West Germans after 1989, some of whom seem to believe that every East German spied for the Staatssicherheit.

10. It appears that some guests from Göttingen at an event organised by the Commissioner contradicted the argument that most people who were imprisoned during the 1950s for political offences had been innocent citizens; i.e. not Nazis as state propaganda had it.

11. Despite its focus on suffering, Langer's moving account Holocaust Testimonials illustrates the multifaceted character of memories of these atrocities (1991). It is also clear that some prisoners will have committed incriminating acts during imprisonment, like spying for the Staatssicherheit and similar. This is evident in documentary material but the related stories are rarely told by individuals.

12. There is actually a ‘competition of victims’ (Opferkonkurrenz) (who suffered the most) in Germany which contributes ever more to the already numerous tensions (cf. Boll 2001: 419).