InGerman culture,Ostalgie (German:[ˌʔɔstalˈɡiː]ⓘ) isnostalgia for aspects of life in CommunistEast Germany. It is a portmanteau of the German wordsOst (east) andNostalgie (nostalgia). Itsanglicised equivalent,ostalgia (rhyming with "nostalgia"), is also sometimes used. Another term for the phenomenon isGDR nostalgia (German:DDR-Nostalgie).
The term was coined by the East Germanstandup comicUwe Steimle [de] in 1992.[1] Social scientist Thomas Ahbe argues that the term "ostalgia" is often misunderstood as a lack of willingness to integrate, an attempt to reverse German reunification and reinstate the GDR.[2] However, Ostalgia is rather an integration strategy used by East Germans who wanted to retain their own original experiences, memories and values incompatible with those of the West German majority.[3]
As with other cases ofCommunist nostalgia, there are various motivations, whether ideology, nationalism, wistfulness for a lost sense of social status or stability, or even aesthetics or irony.
In 2023, a poll found that while 52% of Germans living in the former East Germany identified as Germans, 40% identify as East Germans.[4][5]
Ostalgie is a complex term that should not be described as a simple emotion of nostalgia. As Ostalgie relates back to the history of theCold War, it is better to examine this term in the context of history and current influence in Western society; in doing so, the meaning of this term becomes clearer.
The division of Germany into East and West for over 40 years engendered the formation of distinct identities between the two regions. Despite their shared language and history, the capitalist FRG and socialist GDR differed in many obvious political, economic and cultural respects; thus, their respective societies cultivated cultural identities distinct to each region. These pre-existing differences were then exposed during and after the reunification process.[6]
After the fall of theBerlin Wall in 1989 and the followingGerman reunification a year later, many of the symbols of the German Democratic Republic were swept away. The process of unification gave rise to feelings of resentment and nostalgia amongst former GDR citizens. They felt short-changed by a unification process which they equated to a colonial takeover.[7] One particular focus of Ostalgie centred around unemployment. Officially, unemployment had not existed in the GDR, but this employment security disappeared with reunification and unemployment became endemic at around 20% of the workforce.[8] The social security provided by the workplace in the GDR was a great focus of Ostalgia. Kolinsky presents reunification as characterised by Easterners' disaffection.[8] The mass experience of unemployment emerged as a key tenet of a re-forged East German identity based on the collective experience of employment-loss and the perceivedeconomic destruction of their region. Subsequently, many constructed a retrospective image of the GDR as a stable and caring environment. Unification was felt to have been to their disadvantage and to have isolated them as second-class citizens.
Reunification presented a particular challenge to women. This was particularly true for working women who had enjoyed organised healthcare and equal pay in the GDR and who faced the greatest unemployment post-Wende. Approximately 70% of East German women lost their job after 1990. Women were laid off faster than men, as well as suffering the consequences of the collapse of state-run childcare facilities and traditional ideals of female domesticity and consumerism were reinvoked, having been challenged by the state in the GDR.[9]
Ostalgie was also felt for commodities of the GDR. Almost all GDR brands of products disappeared from the stores and were replaced by Western products. However, after some time many Eastern Germans began to miss certain aspects of their former lives (like culture or the known brand marks).Ostalgie particularly refers to the nostalgia for aspects of regular daily life and culture in the former GDR, which disappeared after reunification.[10]
Ostalgie is expressed in present day Germany through commodities and products reminiscent of the East-German era.[11]
Many businesses inGermany cater to those who feelOstalgie and have begun providing them with artifacts that remind them of life under the GDR; artifacts that imitate the old ones. Available again are brands of East German food, old state television programmes onvideo tape andDVD, and the once widespreadWartburg andTrabant cars.
Those seeking the preservation of East German culture banded together to save the "Eastern Crosswalk Man" (Ost-Ampelmännchen), an illuminated depiction of a man wearing a "perky", "cheerful" and potentially "petit bourgeois" hat (inspired by a summer photo ofErich Honecker in a straw hat)[12] in crosswalk lights.[13] Many German cities in and near the former East German border, includingBerlin,Lübeck andErfurt, still retain the use of theAmpelmännchen at all or some pedestrian crossings due to its cultural relevance, and many souvenirs sold in the new states and in Berlin make use of the icon.
Life in the GDR has also been the subject of several films, includingLeander Haußmann'sSonnenallee (1999),Wolfgang Becker's internationally successfulGood Bye, Lenin! (2003), andCarsten Fiebeler'sKleinruppin forever (2004).
Ostalgie could be inspired by the longing of theOssis (German for "Easterners", a term for former GDR citizens) for the social system and the sense of community of the GDR. WhenDer Spiegel asked former GDR-inhabitants whether the GDR "had more good sides than bad sides" in 2009, 57% of them answered yes. To the statement of the interviewing journalist that "GDR inhabitants did not have the freedom to travel wherever they wanted", respondents replied that "present-day low-wage workers do not have that freedom either".[14]
According toDominic Boyer, the concept ofnostalgia has been described for several centuries. Nostalgia is connected with nationalism; longing for the former homeland generates love for everything associated with it. This evokes negative feelings toward "foreign" products, customs or cultural influences. Boyer says thatostalgie is more than East German nostalgia, examining nostalgia in the context of theSecond World War andVergangenheitsbelastung ("the burden of the past"). The division ofEast andWest Germany was not punishment for Germany'swar crimes.Nazi Germany had made the German postwar generation shameful and anxious about its past. West and East Germany claimed that the other side was more "German", and was therefore more responsible for war crimes; this created a symbiotic relationship, which was eliminated by German reunification.
According to Boyer, West German opinion dominates the discourse about the West-East relationship and refuses to take the opinions of former East German members seriously. Boyer writes thatostalgie has created a "no-place" East Germany, which is only "realistic" from a West German perspective. The East German perspective (despite its individual history, policy, structure, way of life, and outlook) is invalid, and unable to challenge the "Western" image of East Germany.[15] Enns Anthony wrote that understandingostalgie should go "beyond the simple question of whose representation of the GDR is more valid or authentic"; what matters is theactual situation of former residents of the GDR.[16]
He's dorky and thought a bit sexist, but 'Ossie' endures as a sign that not all things East should go kaput.
