German Language and Literature Commons^™

Hohenschönhausen As A Tangible Representation Of The German Democratic Republic’S Development Of Operative Psychology, Zoe Werth

Honors Theses and Capstones

Located in Lichtenberg, Berlin (part of the former borough of Hohenschönhausen), Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen stands today as a memorial for the thousands who were killed and imprisoned there, from its construction in 1939 until its closure in 1990. This paper will trace the evolution of Hohenschönhausen from a physical space of confinement, to a sophisticated psychological apparatus designed to exert control over its political prisoners through the development of “Operative Psychology” (OP). Through an architectural and historical analysis of the prison, alongside a review of prisoner testimonies, this paper works to reveal how the environment of Hohenschönhausen was methodically designed to …

The Thematic Changes In Defa Cinema, David Hillman

Honors Theses

This presentation examines the evolving themes in the films produced by the German Democratic Republic’s (GDR) film monopoly Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA) from its founding in 1946 through German Reunification in 1990. It analyzes ten films that span a variety of genres, including the ‘rubble films’ (Trümmerfilme), fairy tale films (Märchenfilme), and the GDR-American westerns (Indianerfilme). They are also reflective of the different periods of GDR politics in which they were made, such as the brief GDR ‘New Wave’, the banned films of the mid-1960’s, and the push for films addressing contemporary society (Gegenwartsfilme …

Gay Identity In The Gdr: The Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin Between Self-Expression And State Control, Susanna Cassisa

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin (HIB), the

first gay liberation group in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Specifically, it analyzes the demands and tactics of the HIB alongside London Gay Liberation Front activist Peter Tatchell at the tenth World Festival of Youth and Students (WFYS) in 1973. This study analyzes four primary sources: 1) the HIB’s banner from the WFYS, 2) the leaflet Tatchell distributed at the WFYS, 3) Tatchell’s placard from the WFYS, and 4) a 1978 letter from the HIB to the People’s Chamber arguing for a socialist information center geared toward a homosexual patronage. I …

Jean E. Conacher. Transformation And Education In The Literature Of The Gdr. Camden House, 2020., Evelyn Preuss

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Jean E. Conacher. Transformation and Education in the Literature of the GDR. Camden House, 2020. xiv + 293 pp.

Good Bye, Socialist Paradise: Representations Of Postreunification Nostalgia In Sonnenallee And Good Bye, Lenin!, Hannah L. Garver

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This thesis analyzes the experiences constituting the protagonists’ adolescence in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as portrayed in Thomas Brussig’s book Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee, Leander Haußmann’s film Sonnenallee, and Wolfgang Becker’s film Good Bye, Lenin!. These narratives challenge assumptions that the phenomenon Ostalgie indicates a desire to return to the actual conditions of life in the former East. Using Svetlana Boym’s work on post-communist nostalgia as a theoretical framework, I argue that the representations of life in the East as presented in these texts are the protagonists’ reinterpretations of the past. The protagonists develop nostalgia for their youth …

Bridging Contradictions: Socialist Actresses And Star Culture In East Germany, Victoria Rizo Lenshyn

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I argue that multiple stakeholders in East Germany (GDR)—the fans, artists, and state— adapted the star phenomenon to help validate GDR socialist culture at home and abroad, and to bridge seemingly contradictory elements within the dualistic context of the global Cold War: the individual and collective, the ordinary and extraordinary, idealism and reality, the past and present, tradition and progress, East and West. As public figures, GDR stars offered audiences multiple points of identification and helped the enlarged working class navigate its new dominant social position in GDR social life. Officially, stars offered an engaging performance of …

“Ewig ‘Schön’”: Politics And Poetics In The Work And Correspondence Of Sarah Kirsch And Helga Novak, Sophia J. Logan

Senior Projects Fall 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Children In Frank Beyer's Holocaust Films, Delene M. White

Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT CHILDREN IN FRANK BEYER’S HOLOCAUST FILMS SEPTEMBER 2016 DELENE CASE WHITE, B.A. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ALABAMA M.A. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ALABAMA Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Barton Byg This dissertation is about central functions children play in the Holocaust films of (East) German director Frank Beyer: Nackt unter Wölfen (Naked among Wolves, 1963), Jakob der Lügner (Jacob the Liar, 1974), and Wenn alle Deutschen schlafen (While all Germans Sleep, 1994). Beyer’s child characters contribute to resistance and challenge oversimplified ways the Holocaust and German division have often been remembered. Beyer’s …

Blitz Aus Heiterm Himmel: Monstrous Femininity And The Illusion Of Gender Equality In The Gdr, Sarah Bonoff

Lawrence University Honors Projects

The anthology Blitz aus heiterm Himmel was published in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1975. It includes short stories written by both men and women in which the protagonist undergoes a miraculous gender change of sorts. While the various authors take different approaches to the concept of gender, there are themes that tie the stories together. In the stories that scholars have analyzed, their analyses generally focus on either the portrayal of men and the role of masculinity, or the discourse of women in science. I instead chose to focus on and analyze three of these short stories (“Selbstversuch: …

Thuringian Scenes, Utz Rachowski, Michael Ritterson

German Studies Faculty Publications

"Thuringian Scenes" is an ironic name for the twenty-five matter-of-fact statements by a teenage victim of political repression driven to the murder of his tormentor in juvenile detention. The setting is the picturesque Thuringian region of the former East Germany.

Be A Man, Comrade! Construction Of The ‘Socialist Male Personality’ In The Gdr Youth Literature Of The 1950s And 1960s., Joanna Broda-Schunck

Doctoral Dissertations

One of the main goals of the East German government was the education of its population towards Socialism, and the creation of the new type of human – the Neue Mensch. The belief in the possibility of molding the next generation was particularly strong in the first decades of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), – in the 1950s and the 1960s. At the same time, the leaders of the regime presented the new Socialist state as the rightful heir to the German cultural and historical traditions. Both claims were aimed at strengthening the legitimacy of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei (SED …

In Search Of Real Fathers: Plenzdorf's Die Neuen Leiden Des Jungen W. And Vater, Mutter, Mörderkind, Michelle Schwoebel

Theses and Dissertations

Plenzdorf's works, one written before the fall of socialism in the German Democratic Republic (hereafter referred to as the DDR), and one after, portray relationships between fathers and sons, which act as a metaphor to express a personal perspective of the state, revealing that the DDR was neither as repressive or as omnipresent for the average citizen as outsiders are often given to believe. The father, or Übervater, a figure deeply rooted in the German consciousness, is represented by the state and proves itself as an entity which gives the protagonists in both works little notice, despite their best efforts …

Die Darstellung Der Evangelischen Kirche Als Eine Neue Familie In Erich Loests Nikolaikirche, Beth A. Roberts

Honors Projects

Throughout the end of the 1980s the Lutheran Church in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) experienced a surge of attendance and social activism in an otherwise secularized society. Research shows that the church was the sole island of dissent within the communist GDR. St. Nicolas Church in the city of Leipzig became the prototype of social involvement; visionary pastors opened their doors to every citizen and provided a space for congregations to voice concerns, organize interest groups, and plan peace protests. The construction of an open environment in which citizens could speak and interact gave rise to a greater sense …

Reconceptualizing East German Popular Literature Via The Science Fiction Niche, Sonja Fritzsche

Sonja Fritzsche

No abstract provided.

A Literature Of "Truth": Writing By Gay Men In East Germany , Denis M. Sweet

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

In the last few years of its existence, the East German socialist state had initiated a campaign of tolerance and integration of its homosexuals into socialist society that seemed to cast the GDR in a more progressive light than West Germany. Breaking with the taboos of the previous era, gay literary works were allowed to be published for the first time. These works were in genres (a diary, representative interviews, a confession) that suggested unmitigated truth. Yet a closer analysis reveals them to be works not so much of 'truth' as of compromise and cooptation by a state policy of …

"An Affair On Uncertain Ground": Sarah Kirsch's Poetry Volume Erlking 'S Daughter In The Context Of Her Prose After The Wende, Christine Cosentino

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Translated by James Rolleston.

Sarah Kirsch, who in the wake of the Biermann scandal moved from East to West Germany in 1977, is arguably the most talented living German lyric poet. But she is also a prose writer. It seems that since her break with the GDR in 1977 and the breakup of the GDR in 1989, this particular genre has gained importance in her literary output. Her diary-like prose records and blends intense reactions to events of change or collapse, "German brouhaha": political, historical, environmental, existential, and personal. Critics have called Kirsch's prose "lyrical prose" and her latest poetry …

An Interview With Hermann Kant, Joan E. Holmes

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

In an interview with Joan E. Holmes (University of Kansas), Hermann Kant, novelist and current president of the Writers Union of the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany), discusses his own work, literary developments since 1949 in the GDR, and the changing concept of socialist realism. Central to all of these topics is the role of the writer and the function of literature in a socialist system, a question which resulted in a heated controversy during the summer and fall of 1979 in the GDR. The crux of the matter lies in the nature of Marxist theory and is …