Rebuilding the past: East German preservationists as ‘time activists’

ABSTRACT

This article examines how political time in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was shaped and contested by architectural preservation during that state’s formative years. In particular, it investigates the role of historic preservationists in the GDR as ‘time activists’ who both contributed to and challenged the construction of an ideologically informed ‘order of time’. It argues that preservationists in the GDR helped mould, solidify and reinforce ideas of history and time in the physical environments of East German cities, sometimes to the great frustration of the ruling Socialist Unity Party, but at other times in accordance with the party’s general objectives.

KEYWORDS:

• German Democratic Republic
• heritage
• preservation
• architecture
• time

Acknowledgements

I would especially like to thank Andrew Demshuk, Quinton Gardiner, Rhys Jones, John Maciuika and Marcel Thomas for their helpful feedback on earlier versions of this article, as well as my anonymous peer reviewers. Part of the research for the article was undertaken as a Visiting Fellow at the Leibniz-Forschungsverbund ‘Historische Authentizität’ at the Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam, and for this opportunity I am immensely grateful to Achim Saupe.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Hoffmann, H.-J. “Aufgaben und Arbeitsweise des Nationalen Rates der DDR zur Pflege und Verbreitung des deutschen Kulturerbes.” Sonntag 40 (1980): 1.

2. See Koshar, “On Cults and Cultists,” 45–78.

3. See Ciccone, “Space, Time, and Preservation,” ix–xi.

4. The role of architecture in shaping Cold War-inflected identities was not, of course, limited only to how they portrayed the past, but also in how buildings and urban environments conveyed certain values in the present. This has been well documented in the context of Berlin by Pugh, Architecture, Politics, and Identity.

5. Clark, Time and Power, 1.

6. Martin Sabrow argues that ‘it is perfectly clear that time as a point of reference played a bigger role in the dictatorships of the twentieth century than in the democracies’; Sabrow, “Time and Legitimacy,” 353. But Clark’s efforts to identify a distinctively National Socialist ‘regime temporality’ must – as he himself acknowledges – be tempered by the evident presence of ‘ideological variations’ within the Nazi leadership; Clark, Time and Power, 208. My contention is that the GDR regime’s historicity was much clearer and consistent than that of the dictatorship it superseded. Stephen Hanson also argues that communism itself should be seen as nothing less than a ‘revolutionary experiment in reordering the human relationship to time’; and Hanson, Time and Revolution, 10.

7. See Alex Paulin-Booth’s and Matthew Kerry’s introduction to this edition.

8. Clark, Time and Power, 171–201; and Chapoutot, “L’historicité nazie,” 43–55.

9. See Colla, “The Politics of Time,” 223–51.

10. This is elucidated in the Soviet context by Yurchak, Everything was Forever, Until It Was No More.

11. See for instance Demshuk, Demolition on Karl Marx Square.

12. Fulbrook, “Popular Discontent,” 266.

13. Demshuk, Demolition on Karl Marx Square; and Heckart, “The Battle of Jena,” 546–81.

14. Campbell, “Resurrected from the Ruins, Turning to the Past,” 398ff and 531ff. Campbell points out, however, that, as with so much protest within the GDR, these groups often acted ‘in the corporate interest of their city in a way that corresponded with socialist principles’; ibid., 536 (my emphasis).

15. See Fulbrook, “Structures and Subjectivities in GDR History,” 277–90.

16. ‘Visual identity’ (‘optische Identität’) is a term used by von Beyme, Der Wiederaufbau, 13–24.

17. Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism, 17.

18. Palmowski, Inventing a Socialist Nation.

19. Till, The New Berlin, 9; see also James, Preservation and National Belonging in Eastern Germany.

20. Molnár, Building the State.

21. Some recent examples include Daria Bocharnikova and Harris (eds), “Second World Urbanity”; Kulić (ed.), Second World Postmodernisms; Stanek, Architecture in Global Socialism; Demshuk, “A Polish Approach for German Cities?” 88–127; Spurny and Ladd, “The Stifled Renaissance of Urbanity.”

22. This literature is extensive; examples include Sandler, Counterpreservation; and Saunders, Memorializing the GDR.

23. See for instance Hoscislawski, Bauen zwischen Macht und Ohnmacht; many of the contributions to von Beyme, Durth, Gutschow, Nerdinger and Topfstedt (eds), Neue Städte aus Ruinen.; Flierl, “Städtebau und Architektur im Staatsozialismus der DDR,” 876–903; the contributions to Betker, Benke, and Bernhardt (eds), Paradigmenwechsel und Kontinuitätslinien im DDR-Städtebau; Bernhardt, Flierl and Welch Guerra (eds), Städtebau-Debatten in der DDR; and Zervosen, Architekten in der DDR.

24. Ladd, “Socialist Planning and the Rediscovery of the Old City,” 584–603.

25. Campbell, “Resurrected from the Ruins.” The importance of citizen activism in transformations in East German preservation cultures towards the end of the GDR stands at the centre of the new ‘Stadtwende’ project being undertaken by a number of German research institutions and spearheaded by the Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung (IRS) in Erkner; see http://stadtwende.de. See also the forthcoming “Special Section.”

26. Flierl, “Städtebau und Architektur im Staatsozialismus der DDR,” 884. See also Flierl’s writings in his Architektur and Kunstand Architekturtheorie und Architekturkritik.

27. Brandt, Geschichte der Denkmalpflege in der SBZ/DDR. Dargestellt an Beispielen aus dem sächsischen Raum 1945–1961; Campbell, “Resurrected from the Ruins.” See also the current series Forschungen zum baukulturellen Erbe der DDR issued by Hans-Rudolf Meier and the Bauhaus-Institut für Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur und Planung at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Additional local studies include Keltsch, “Stadterneuerung und stadtebauliche Denkmalpflege in der DDR zwischen 1970 und 1990”; and Wüllner, ‘Hinter der Fassade – Das institutionelle System der Denkmalpflege in der DDR untersucht am Beispiel der thüringischen Städte Erfurt, Weimar und Eisenach’ (Unpublished PhD Thesis, Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus-Senftenberg, 2015). Critical aspects of East German preservation are also addressed in Ladd, The Ghosts of Berlin; and Demshuk, Bowling for Communism.

28. See also Mëhilli, “The Socialist Design,” esp. 641–3.

29. See Swenson, The Rise of Heritage in France, Germany and England, 124ff.

30. Campbell, “Resurrected from the Ruins,” 33.

31. Rudy Koshar, Germany’s Transient Pasts, 247.

32. Campbell, “Resurrected from the Ruins,” 19–20, 26.

33. Brandt, Geschichte der Denkmalpflege, 14.

34. Such as the 1952 Decree on the Maintenance and Conservation for National Cultural Monuments (Verordnung zur Erhaltung und Pflege der nationalen Kulturdenkmale) and the consequent formation of the Institute for Monument Conservation (Institut für Denkmalpflege); Campbell, “Resurrected from the Ruins,” 76–7.

35. Ibid., 37.

36. Ibid., 95.

37. Quoted in Ibid., 95.

38. Bundesarchiv Lichterfelde (BArch) DO 4/883, ‘Bericht. Betr.: Unterhaltung mit dem Kunsthistoriker, Nationalpreisträger Dr Schubert, Magdeburg,’ March 2, 1958.

39. Quoted in Campbell, “Resurrected from the Ruins,” 104.

40. Ibid., 92, 96–7. See also the Festschrift for Schubert produced for his sixtieth birthday in 1963: Hütter, Löffler, and Magirius (eds), Kunst des Mittelalters in Sachsen.

41. “Briefmarke: Historische Bauten der DDR, Magdeburger Dom (DDR),” https://www.suche-briefmarken.de/marken/ddr/ddr55049.html, accessed 20 July 2019. On stamps as propaganda weapons see Margarete Myers Feinstein, State Symbols, 186.

42. Goralczyk, “Denkmale und Denkmalpflege in Berlin und in der Mark Brandenburg,” 47.

43. BArch DH 1/38813, Schubert to Ulbricht, August 28, 1950.

44. Brandt, Geschichte der Denkmalpflege. See also Hoscislawski, Bauen zwischen Macht und Ohnmacht.

45. Quoted in Campbell, “Resurrected from the Ruins,” 43. See also the discussions in Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, 64–8 and 190–204.

46. Quoted in Henriette von Preuschen, Der Griff nach den Kirchen, 29.

47. For example BArch DH 1/38813, Dean of the Faculty for Construction at Technische Hochschle Dresden to Grotewohl, September 27, 1950. On historic preservation in the Soviet Union, see Qualls, From Ruins to Reconstruction; Maddox, Saving Stalin’s Imperial City; and Kelly, Socialist Churches.

48. Gerhard Strauss, “Fortschrittliche Denkmalpflege,” Neues Deutschland, March 24, 1948, 3. For a brief overview of his life and offices he held see Preuschen, Der Griff nach den Kirchen, 235.

49. Strauss, “Fortschrittliche Denkmalpflege,” 3.

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid.

52. Rosenfeld, Munich and Memory, 25.

53. Strauss, “Fortschrittliche Denkmalpflege.”

54. Ibid.

55. Campbell, “Resurrected from the Ruins,” 46.

56. Ibid., 44.

57. Palmowski, Inventing a Socialist Nation; also Pugh, Architecture, Politics, and Identity, 108ff.

58. Campbell, “Resurrected from the Ruins,” 109.

59. Ibid.

60. Sigrid Brandt reminds us that monument conservation in both post-war Germanies was always incorporated into the ‘clash of systems’; Brandt, Geschichte der Denkmalpflege, 8.

61. Tuma, Denkmalpflege am Berliner Schloss.

62. BArch DC 20/3034, Gerhard Strauss, ‘Denkmalpflege, Museen und Kunstwissenschaft an den Universitäten’, pp. 25–30; Barch DH 2/21212, Gerhard Strauss to Urbschat, 16 October 1950, 96. On the central role of Strauss to East German preservation during the years 1945–61 see Brandt, Geschichte der Denkmalpflege, 13–102. See also Brandt’s overview of Strauss’ attitude to built utopias in her Stadtbaukunst: Methoden ihrer Geschichtsschreibung, 269–72.

63. Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv (BLHA) Re401/4938, Hanke to Wittig, Blum and Puchert, November 24, 1966.

64. BLHA Re401/4938, ‘Ideologische Aufgabenstellung und Konzeption für die Arbeit der Einrichtung, Leitungstätigkeit und Kaderfragen, Unterstellungsverhältnis,’ November 21, 1966.

65. Campbell, “Resurrected from the Ruins,” 96.

66. Ibid., 411ff.

67. Brandt, Geschichte der Denkmalpflege, 110.

68. ‘Bericht von Dr. Hans Nadler über die Rolle und Bedeutung der Kreishelfer, 1954 oder 1955,ʹ reproduced in Magirius, Die Geschichte der Denkmalpflege Sachsens, 1945–1989, 179–80.

69. Brandt, Geschichte der Denkmalpflege.

70. Koolhaas, Preservation is Overtaking Us, 16.

71. Koshar, Germany’s Transient Pasts, 255.

72. Ibid.

73. Ibid., 256–7.

74. See for instance ‘Das neue Berlin’; ‘Gewissenhafter Abbau des Schlosses. Anglo-Amerikaner haben es zerstört,’ Der Morgen, September 10, 1950. The Strauss quote is from Brandt, Geschichte der Denkmalpflege, 65.

75. On the post-war fate of the Dresden Frauenkirche, see Lerm, Abschied vom alten Dresden: Verluste historischer Bausubstanz nach 1945.

76. Fritzsche, Stranded in the Present, 1.

77. Schönle, Architecture of Oblivion, 223.

78. Hell and Schönle, “Introduction,” 6.

79. Eshel, “Layered Time,” 137.

80. Fritzsche, Stranded in the Present, 97.

81. Eli Rubin, Amnesiopolis, 6.

82. On the views of Marx and Engels on obsolescence, see Urban, “From Periodical Obsolescence to Eternal Preservation,” 27.

83. ‘Krokodilstränen um Ruinen: Zu den Aufräumungsarbeiten am Schloß,’ Berliner Zeitung, September 10, 1950.

84. Demshuk, Demolition on Karl Marx Square, 110.

85. ‘Bürger unserer Stadt!’, Das Volk (Gotha), July 25, 1958.

86. Urban, “From Periodical Obsolescence to Eternal Preservation,” 30.

87. In an intriguing formulation, Mikhail Yampolsky describes monuments in the Soviet context as ‘islets of eternity in the movement of time’; and Yampolsky, “In the Shadow of Monuments,” 97.

88. “Kulturdenkmal oder Ruine? Dr. Strauß: Erhaltung um jeden Preis.” Der Morgen, 8 May 1948.

89. Quoted in Gerd-H. Zuchold, “Der Abriß der Ruinen des Stadtschlosses und der Bauakademie in Ost-Berlin,” 183.

90. Koshar, Germany’s Transient Pasts, 269.

91. See Ladd, “Local Responses in Berlin to Urban Decay,” 263–84.

92. On these movements see the work of the ‘Stadtwende’ project at http://stadtwende.de.

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Notes on contributors

Marcus Colla

Marcus Colla is Departmental Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Oxford. He is currently completing a monograph on the ‘historical culture’ of the late German Democratic Republic. His previous work has appeared in Central European History, Journal of Contemporary History, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, German History and Contemporary European History.