Historian Korneel De Rynck wins Flemish Thesis Award
The GDR today: ‘Ostalgie’ and ‘Ostidentität’
“East Germans are not currently in a very powerful position economically or with respect to political representation. As long as this situation remains unchanged, Ostalgie will undoubtedly continue to exist.” In his thesis, historian Korneel De Rynck investigates East German nostalgia for the GDR and he has received the Flemish Thesis Award for his contribution.
Korneel is very interested in what Germans call Zeitgeschichte; examining how a current situation can be explained from a historical perspective: “Moreover, Germany has always interested me because of its dark history. One of my great ‘dreams’ is that Hitler is still alive and that finally I can ask him: why? But a great deal has already been written about the war period. That is why, when Professor Verbeeck mentioned that there is still nostalgia for East Germany, I knew I had found my topic.”
“East German nostalgia is partial-nostalgia, because nobody actually wants to return to the dictatorship of former years. But East Germans do long for a return of the welfare state, social security, the atmosphere in company life, etc. In my thesis, I explain this using the interaction of socialisation and situation.”
“The government of the GDR constantly attempted to impose an identity on the population, but they were never successful. Thus, many authors conclude, there is no such thing as an East German identity. But living in such an oppressive, stifling society for forty years did indeed affect people. Even if you resist such a society, you cannot help adopting certain elements from it. For example, one characteristic of Ostidentität (or ‘east-identity’) is employment. All women went to work, which resulted in completely different family life.
“After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990, everyone was euphoric. Finally there was one Germany, one people. But all this came down to in practice was that West Germany imposed its model for success on the East Germans and in turn, the material expectations of East Germans were far too high. Quickly, people began to speak of Besserwessis and Jammer-Ossis (better-West and poor-East). The West Germans also employed demonising rhetoric: the GDR was a Stasi-state (the Stasi was the East German secret police) and East Germans were Deutsch sprechende Polen (German-speaking Poles). But the GDR was no less of a society; the lives of the people who lived there didn’t stop for forty years. The West German discourse seems to have been oblivious to this reality.”
“The East Germans found themselves in a completely different situation, which was characterised by unemployment, individualism, degradation and the motto: time is money. This put a great deal of pressure on their identity, which in turn resulted in the nostalgia that is still felt by East Germans today. This nostalgia has become commercialised, often even by West German companies. There are Trabants on the roads again and the Ampelmännchen (literally: little traffic light man), with their little hats and fatter stomachs, appear on traffic lights again. East Germans are not currently in a very powerful position economically or with respect to political representation. As long as this situation remains unchanged, Ostalgie will undoubtedly continue to exist.”
Not just for good results
“I made very grateful use of the interlibrary loan system for my research because this subject is almost entirely unknown in Belgium. Besides that, I joined last year’s Historia trip, which was heading to Berlin, so I was able to partake of the atmosphere there as well. Through my promoter I was given the opportunity to interview the historian Winfried Dolderer during my stay in Berlin. I spoke to him for four hours at a literary café looking out over the Brandenburg Gate, very close to various embassies and the Reichstag; a place that literally made and makes history.”
“Even though I hadn’t given any thought to the Thesis Award at the time, I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to do something further with this thesis. I didn’t only write it for the results and the archive. I would like as many people as possible to learn something from it. And of course I also wanted to test how well my work would do in such a competition. I can’t complain (laughs). And of course I would very much like to be able to develop my thesis into an article or maybe even a book.”
