Coming to Terms with the Stasi: History and Memory in the Bautzen Memorial

Abstract

This paper examines the role played by the encounter of history and personal memories in the difficult process of coming to terms with the Stasi in present-day eastern Germany. While historians have made substantial progress over the last two decades in accounting for the wide range of ways in which the German Democratic Republic (GDR) is remembered by East Germans, the memorials and museums of the reunified Germany remain unable to integrate memories of dictatorial oppression and happiness in everyday life. Sites commemorating state repression are thus often assumed to lack impact on former GDR citizens whose memories differ from official versions of history. These assumptions are tested for the Bautzen Memorial, formerly known as the ‘celebrities’ prison' of the East German Ministry of State Security. Focusing on the differing receptions of GDR memorial sites, this article draws on interviews with two former political prisoners and with visitors to the Memorial who grew up in socialist East Germany. It argues that the open approach of the Memorial, which leaves visitors to draw their own conclusions from the exhibition, allows different stakeholders to find ways of personal engagement with the past at the site despite the disparities with their own memories.

Keywords:

• Stasi
• history
• memory
• controversy
• memorial
• Bautzen

Acknowledgements

Special thanks go to Pedro Ramos Pinto, whose advice and encouragement proved invaluable for this project. The author would also like to thank Josie McLellan, Tom Beaumont, Peter Coates and the two anonymous reviewers for their extremely helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes

  1. For a detailed overview of the history of Stasi imprisonment in Bautzen, see Fricke and Klewin, Bautzen II.

  2. Interview with Silke Klewin (manager of the Memorial), Bautzen Memorial, 3 January 2012. It is particularly interesting to note that the exchange of the traffic signs was never mentioned in the media.

  3. Klewin, “Bautzen,” 43.

  4. Faulenbach, “Diktaturerfahrungen und demokratische Erinnerungskultur in Deutschland,” 15. All translations from the original German by the author.

  5. Sabrow, “Die DDR erinnern,” 16–21.

  6. Mitter and Wolle, Untergang auf Raten, 7.

  7. For an overview of this immense debate, see: Jesse, “Die Totalitarismusforschung im Streit der Meinungen.”

  8. Saunders and Pinfold, “Introduction,” 4–7. For a discussion of how historians can deal with these diverse memories, see: Fulbrook, “Histories and Memories.”

  9. Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship, 59–63; Jarausch, “Care and Coercion,” 60–64. Important more recent works include: Fulbrook, The People's State; Pence and Betts, Socialist Modern; Fulbrook, Power and Society in the GDR.

 10. An inventory of these sites can be found in: Kaminsky, Orte des Erinnerns.

 11. Ludwig, “Representations of the Everyday,” 37–48. A more optimistic view that identifies tendencies to reduce this binary opposition can be found in: Paver, “Colour and Time in Museums of East German Everyday Life.”

 12. Jones, “At Home with the Stasi,” 221.

 13. Exemplary in this case is the so-called GDR Museum in Pirna – see its website at: http://www.ddr-museum-pirna.de [Accessed 1 March 2012].

 14. The debates around the commission are documented in: Sabrow et al., Wohin treibt die DDR-Erinnerung?

 15. Clarke and Wölfel, “Remembering the German Democratic Republic in a United Germany,” 11–12.

 16. Sabrow, “Empfehlungen der Expertenkommission zur Schaffung eines Geschichtsverbundes ‘Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur,’” 21.

 17. Ludwig, “Representations of the Everyday,” 46.

 18. Benz, “Die DDR als Museumsobjekt,” 1007.

 19. Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, 78–84.

 20. A brilliant overview of the upsurge of memory in historical writing can be found in: Klein, “On the Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse,” 127–50.

 21. Nora, “General Introduction,” 1–6.

 22. Assmann, Der lange Schatten, 34; Assmann, “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity,” 126–33.

 23. Cubitt, History and Memory, 20–2; LaCapra, History and Memory after Auschwitz, 19–20.

 24. Cubitt, History and Memory, 61.

 25. Wineburg, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts, 248.

 26. See, for example: Ulrich, Geteilte Ansichten; Haustein, Geschichte im Dissens.

 27. Portelli, “What Makes Oral History Different?,” 36–8.

 28. Fricke and Klewin, Bautzen II, 113–20.

 29. Hattig, Klewin, Liebold and Morré, Stasi-Gefängnis Bautzen II, 150–1.

 30. Fricke and Klewin, Bautzen II, 15–23.

 31. Gedenkstätte Bautzen, Besucherzahlen 2011, 12.

 32. Klewin, “Konzeption,” 5.

 33. Klewin, “Konzeption,” 18.

 34. Klewin, “Konzeption,” 7.

 35. Interview with Silke Klewin.

 36. Interview with Silke Klewin.

 37. Klewin, “Konzeption,” 19, 30.

 38. Landsberg, Prosthetic Memory, 149–50. See also: Jones, “At Home with the Stasi,” 217.

 39. Interview with Silke Klewin.

 40. Quote from the first lines of the section entitled “Abuses” in the introductory Stasi exhibition room.

 41. Lennon and Foley, “Interpretation of the Unimaginable,” 46–7.

 42. Klewin, “Konzeption,” 12.

 43. For a detailed discussion of the Hohenschönhausen Memorial, see: Jones, “At Home with the Stasi.”

 44. A permanent exhibition which will allow visitors to explore the site partly independently is currently under construction and scheduled to open in the autumn of 2013.

 45. Neiss, “Historisches Lernen durch Emotionen?,” 1027–8.

 46. Rudnick, Die andere Hälfte der Erinnerung, 731–5.

 47. Schmeidel, Stasi, 26.

 48. Bruce, The Firm, 131.

 49. Klewin, “Konzeption,” 10.

 50. Williams, Memorial Museums, 7–8.

 51. Williams, Memorial Museums, 88.

 52. Nora, “General Introduction,” 18.

 53. Klein, “On the Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse,” 145.

 54. See, for example: Crane, “Memory, History and Distortion in the Museum,” 44–6.

 55. Among the numerous former prisoners of Bautzen II, the two interview partners were selected because they are the only ones who still live in or near Bautzen. Contact was established through the Bautzen Memorial, for which I especially thank Cornelia Liebold. The interviews were led by a loose set of questions which started with the former prisoners' current relation to the Memorial and then led on to the comparison with their own recollections.

 56. Interview with Bernd Trommer, Hoyerswerda, 4 April 2012.

 57. Interview with Gerhard Schneider, Bautzen Memorial, 29 December 2011.

 58. Interview with Silke Klewin.

 59. Klewin, “Konzeption,” 31.

 60. Interviews with Bernd Trommer and Gerhard Schneider.

 61. Brown, “Trauma, Museums and the Future of Pedagogy,” 249, 258.

 62. Caruth, “Recapturing the Past,” 152–6.

 63. Roth, “Introduction,” xviii.

 64. Interview with Silke Klewin.

 65. Interview with Gerhard Schneider.

 66. Williams, Memorial Museums, 157.

 67. Interviews with Bernd Trommer and Gerhard Schneider.

 68. Bennett and Kennedy, “Introduction,” 11.

 69. Interviews with Bernd Trommer and Gerhard Schneider.

 70. Hooper-Greenhill, “Studying Visitors,” 367.

 71. Gedenkstätte Bautzen, “Besucherzahlen 2011,” 4; Klewin, “Zur Arbeit der Gedenkstätte Bautzen,” 161.

 72. The West German visitors were included as a reference point for comparison. All interviewees were aged between 35 and 65, with an average age of 52 years.

 73. Visitor 5 in Interview 3; Visitor 13 in Interview 7.

 74. Visitor 22 in Interview 10.

 75. See especially: Visitor 1 in Interview 1; Visitor 17 in Interview 8.

 76. Visitor 4 in Interview 3.

 77. Visitor 22 in Interview 10.

 78. See especially: Visitor 20 in Interview 9.

 79. Visitor 17 in Interview 8.

 80. I was only rejected once, for genuine reasons of time pressure.

 81. See especially: Visitor 2 in Interview 2; Visitor 13 in Interview 7; Visitor 6 in Interview 4.

 82. Particularly influential was: Fricke, “Im Haus der prominenten Staatsfeinde.”

 83. See especially: Visitor 2 in Interview 2; Visitor 6 in Interview 4.

 84. See, for example: Visitor 20 in Interview 9; Visitor 11 in Interview 6.

 85. See especially: Visitor 17 in Interview 8; Visitor 4 in Interview 3.

 86. Visitor 10 in Interview 5; Visitor 1 in Interview 1.

 87. Bruce, The Firm, 9–10.

 88. Knigge, “‘Weinen bildet nicht!’”

 89. Visitor 10 in Interview 5.

 90. Visitor 21 in Interview 10.

 91. Honnigfort, “Die schöne Stadt und ihr bekannt schlechter Ruf.”

 92. Leinemann, “Das deutschere Deutschland.”

 93. Liebold, “Zielgruppenarbeit in der Gedenkstätte Bautzen,” 228.

 94. Interview with Silke Klewin.

 95. Schwartz, “The Social Context of Commemoration,” 374.

 96. Sabrow, “Die DDR erinnern,” 22–3.

 97. Rosenberg, The Haunted Land, 355.

 98. See especially: Visitor 6 in Interview 4; Visitor 21 in Interview 10.

 99. Gedenkstätte Bautzen, Besucherzahlen 2011, 2.

100. As Silke Klewin stressed in the interview.

101. Adorno, “What Does Coming to Terms with the Past Mean?,” 115, 128.

102. Quoted in Knabe, Die Täter sind unter uns, 15.