The Wages of Germanness: Working-Class Recomposition and (Racialized) National Identity After Unification

Abstract

This anti-racist, historically informed analysis of the transition process in East Germany in the early 1990s challenges dominant approaches, which-occluding taken-for-granted notions of ethno-racial “belonging” to the nation and the ethno-racial coordinates of Germany's citizenship and immigration policies – frame racism in post-unification Germany as an exclusively East German problem. I argue that the shift from a democratic revolution to the liberal project of unification was absolutely crucial: as working class people in East Germany relinquished their claims to radical democracy, they were compensated by the wages of Germanness, i.e. membership in the unified state and the “whiteGerman” nation.

Notes

Notes

1. This shift was fuelled, for example, by revelations of how deep the crisis in the GDR really was as well as by the dominance of West German politicians and capital.

2. Theorists of everyday racism and institutional racism have unveiled many of the intricate ways in which racism materializes. (Carmichael and Hamilton “Black Power”; Essed “Understanding Everyday Racism”; Gullestad “Plausible Prejudice”; Kilomba “Plantation Memories”; Miles 17–33). Joel Kovel's concept of metaracism seems particularly useful for understanding the intricate relationship between the state and people's cultural reservoir. He argues convincingly that racism materializes increasingly through impersonal technocratic means and that the state is a key agent reproducing a racist society. See Kovel (xxxiii), particularly the introduction.

3. Perhaps it could also express the contradictory position of other social groups – but that would be a different paper.

4. Ellen Meiksins Wood's careful historical work illustrates that the formal separation of “economic” and “political” power is specific to capitalism and conceals the intrinsic connections between both spheres (Wood “Democracy Against Capitalism”).

5. The theses are also available at <www.zzf-pdm.de/papers/thesp.html> and a slightly changed version has been published as Poutrus, Behrends and Kuck (15–21).

6. As quoted in Essner (“Wo Rauch ist”, 150, 152 (my translation and emphasis)).

7. Fatima El-Tayeb and Cornelia Essner draw attention to the fact that the status of colonial subject was ascribed in an infinite manner. See El-Tayeb (“Schwarze Deutsche”, 159), Essner (“Border-line”, 34; “Wo Rauch Ist”, 152).

8. Article 1 of the 1968 constitution speaks of the GDR as “socialist state of the German nation” (sozialistischer Staat deutscher Nation). Verfassung der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik vom 6. April 1968, <http://www.documentarchiv.de/ddr/verfddr1968.html#0> (23 July 2009). The revised constitution of 1974 used yet another phrase: “the GDR is a Socialist state of workers and farmers”. Any combination of German and nationhood is eliminated. There is mentioning of socialist national culture (sozialistische Nationalkultur) while the term German is used almost exclusively as part of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik. Verfassung der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik vom 6. April 1968 (in der Fassung vom 7. Oktober 1974), <http://www.documentarchiv.de/ddr/verfddr.html> (22 September 2009).

9. Deniz Göktürk, David Gramling and Anton Kaes have included this common reference to “our socialist friends” in the title of the chapter on foreigners in East Germany. See chapter 2 of Göktürk (65–103).

10. In 1989, 190,000 foreigners – who had come under various circumstances – were registered to reside in the GDR. On the largest group of labour migrants, Vertragsarbeiter, who had come to the GDR (on a temporary basis) as a result of bilateral agreements with Poland (1965/1966 and 1988), Hungary (1967 and 1973), Bulgaria (1973) as well as with Algeria (1974), Cuba (1978), Mozambique (1979), Vietnam (1980), Angola (1984) and China (1986) and migrants (from Greece, Spain and Chile), who were granted asylum see Bade and Oltmer (S. 90–6); online as Migration, Ausländerbeschäftigung und Asylpolitik in der DDR: 1949–1989/90. <http://www.bpb.de/themen/VWFLFT,1,0,Migration_Ausl%E4nderbesch%E4ftigung_und_Asylpolitik_in_der_DDR.html#art1> (July 10. 2009). For labour migrants as well as people who came for vocational and/or further training programmes, see Jasper (151–89). For children and adolescents from Greece, Korea, Vietnam and Namibia, see Göktürk (70–2) and Kenna (“DDR-Kinder”). For a brief overview that also discusses the legal framework; see Trommer (“Ausländer in der DDR und in den neuen Bundesländern”).

11. Paul Mecheril and Thomas Teo connect the hegemonic idea that the Volk was exclusively “white” to the lack of adequate terms for “non-white” Germans. The latter are all too often not perceived as “belonging” to the nation. The basis for exclusion is the hegemonic conflation of “German” and ”white”, which leads the two authors to speak of “non-white” Germans as “other Germans”. See Mecheril and Teo (15).

12. The words of a woman from Mozambique who lived and worked in the GDR express precisely this: “I have always liked living in the GDR. But now it has become very upsetting with the hostility towards foreigners; I did not expect this. Maybe it really would be better if they just send all of us home; better than being killed one day.” In Kehler (50). A similar sentiment is expressed in Ayim (211), Kocklemus-Jochum (17–29) and Helwerth and Schwarz (18).

13. At the same time, it was clarified that “[c]ontrary provisions of the Constitution of the GDR relating to its former socialist social and political system shall no longer be applied.” For example, “the principles of free world trade” were to be followed and “[t]he corporate legal structure” was to reflect “enterprises being free to decide on products, quantities, production processes, investment, employment, prices and utilization of profits.” This treaty also determined that “[w]ith effect from 1 July 1990 the Deutsche Mark shall be introduced as currency in the German Democratic Republic”. See Articles 1 (3), 2 (2), 10 (1), 10 (5), 11 (2) and 13 (1) of the Vertrag über die Schaffung einer Währungs-, Wirtschafts- und Sozialunion zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Staatsvertrag) (18 May 1990) and Vertrag zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik über die Herstellung der Einheit Deutschlands (Einigungsvertrag) (31 August 1990). Available in both German and English through <http://www.ena.lu/> (16 October 2008).

14. Yet this is not to suggest that there had been no discussion of these possibilities. For example, the GDR Minister of Economic Affairs (Christa Luft) had stated in an interview that a market economy would have to be combined with social property in order to guarantee a right to work. See Interview with Christa Luft (Luft 3/4).

15. In this period, citizens “directly influenced, and in many cases ran, the civil administration, through councils and grass-roots initiatives.” See Rosenberg (“Shock Therapy”, 140).

16. Andreas Pickel goes even further when he argues that “the transformation process has taken place under quasi-authoritarian conditions” (Pickel and Wiesenthal 41, 31).

17. In part, this conception draws on the more widely accepted trope of the East as “other”. See Brennan (“Wars of Position”) and Wolff (“Inventing Eastern Europe”).

18. § 1 (2) of the Aliens Law. See Gesetz über die Einreise und den Aufenthalt von Ausländern im Bundesgebiet.

19. Although the translation of deutsche Volkszugehörigkeit as “German ethnic belonging” is common, I prefer using the German term below. The English translation, in my view, does not capture the political dimension of Volk which could be translated as the nation or the people. The simultaneity of socio-cultural and political connotations seems lost with the English term.

20. Translation by Struck-Soboleva (64) as quoted in Schüpbach (79).

21. The legal interpretation of being “a refugee or expellee” was rather broad. On the one hand, the Federal Expellee Law granted status to the millions of Germans who found themselves rather suddenly outside of the state borders after World War II. On the other hand, the status of “refugee or expellee” was delinked from World War II as a result of the Cold War. Although §1 (2) acknowledged “the end of the general expulsion measures”, as refugees or expellees also qualified “deutsche Volkszugehörige” from a list of countries of the Soviet Bloc (i.e. Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Lithuania, the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia or Albania), for this group of people, the temporary aspect of the “right of return” was turned into an eternal right. The Bundesvertriebenengesetz (BVFG) is available here: 19. 5. 53 Gesetz über die Angelegenheiten der Vertriebenen und Flüchtlinge (BVFG) in Bundesgesetzblatt, Teil 1, Bonn, 22. Mai 1953, Nr.22. <www.17juni53.de/chronik/5305/mai53_gesetzblatt.pdf> (8 June 2009).

22. BVerfGE 77, 137 2 BvR 373/83 Teso-Beschluß GDR-Citizenship, 21 October 1987, <http://www.utexas.edu/law/academics/centers/transnational/work_new/german/case.php?id=569> (9 June 2009). The Federal Constitutional Court ruled in such manner on the grounds of “the reunification precept” (Wiedervereinigungsgebot) and “the precept of maintenance of the unity of German nationality” (Gebot der Wahrung der Einheit der deutschen Staatsangehörigkeit) as contained in the Basic Law.

23. Before 1993, the Basic Law stipulated that persons persecuted for political reasons have the right to asylum. With the amendment, Germany deems itself not responsible for applications from people who enter Germany via a so-called “safe country”. Thus, the respective asylum seekers can be deported. See Kühne, Öztürk and West (“Gewerkschaften und Einwanderung”) and Anil (459).

24. >The Kühn report is available in German here: Heinz Kühn, Stand und Weiterentwicklung der Integration der ausländischen Arbeitnehmer und ihrer Familien in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Kühn-Memorandum), 1979, <http://www.migration-online.de/kuehnmemorandum> (23 June 2009).

25. For the German version, see Einbürgerungsrichtlinien (vom 15).

26. As quoted in Koopmans (630).

27. As expressed in Articles 8 (1), 9 (1), 11 (1) and 12 (1) Basic Law. See von Münch (10); Mertens (41). Rainer Kosewähr argues that the initial intent of the GDR constitution was very similar, i.e. basic rights were reserved for citizens only. Later interpretations diverged in arguing for the extension of basic laws to non-citizens. But, Kosewähr argues that these interpretations remained a potential subject to appeal. See Kosewähr (119–20).

28. A similar number is mentioned in Pickel and Wiesenthal, where we read that by the end of 1991, the (in prices of 1991) had fallen below 60% of its 1989 level (Pickel and Wiesenthal 46).

29. Amongst the unemployed, the percentage of women rose from 40% in February 1990 to 65% in mid-1993. See Böckelmann-Schewe, Kulke and Röhrig (36). The percentage of long-time unemployed women amongst the unemployed in the former GDR was 40% in 1994 (compared to 24% for men). And while men are on average unemployed for 27 weeks, the time for women is 49 weeks (Maria Nickel 27). While women accounted for “two-thirds of the unemployed in East Germany” in the early 1990s, “they represent only forty percent of those who were awarded extra training or ‘short-time jobs’ by the state.” See Wierling (19). While Ursula Schröter speaks to the attempts to push women out of the labour market, there are many accounts of how women refuse to retreat. See Schröter (36). On insisting on their entitlement to a job, see Nash (100), Kolinsky and Maria Nickel (13, 15) and Behrend (221, 222).