3.1 The “New Great Transformation”

The years 1989/1990 represent the third major caesura in the 20th century, after 1918 and 1945. In time-lapse-speed, they mark the beginning of a profound process of throwing over nearly all the political, economic, cultural, media and social standards of the old system and forcing the nearly 16 million people in GDR to acquire and adopt to a new system and consequently change their everyday lives. This has been called the “New Great Transformation,” and we define it in the project as a profound overthrow by peaceful revolutionary processes, resulting in fundamental structural breaks or transformations.

3.2 Media and the Cultural Memory

Through their audio-visual representation and distribution, media transmit and translate between the individual and the socio-cultural dimension of collective memory. The cultural anthropologist Aleida Assmann examined Memory Culture.³ Media such as fictional, documentary film and, as here, in our project, local television programmes, form a living memory that transforms personally experienced memories into a cultural memory. More than ever before in history, the very specific mediatisation of the processes and outcomes of a key historical event has the potential to provide “impulses and trigger stimuli”⁴ for the cultural memory of the future. Over time, this appropriated media memory enters the experiential memories of present and future individuals, groups and generations and is “re-incarnated.”⁵ This takes place both among contemporary witnesses (pre-transformation generation) and among those, who were just born during the time of the mediatised events (transformation generation) or not yet born at all (post-transformation generation). Thus, memories of the 1990s are omnipresent as part of a memory of an experiental memory. Assmann defines this omnipresence as the “still-present of the past.”⁶

Local television of the Transformation era re-vitalizes rsp. coins the cultural memory of these three different generations (Figure 1).

3.3 The Understanding of “Heimat”

“Heimat” had certainly been a topic in the GDR – as “Socialist Heimat” –, but it was used by the SED and the state leadership to develop and intensify a sense of national identity among the citizens. The emotional attachment to the close homeland/Heimat was to be extended to the state entity and the social order. The individual understanding of “Heimat”, however, was different. Increasing political paternalism encouraged a retreat into the private sphere. Away from everyday political life, people did not live in a socialist way, but rather in a petty-bourgeois world, and regardless of the national consciousness desired by the state, there was a longing among the population for regionality, the formation of local traditions, customs and culture, that had for long grown historically. Long-lost Heimat traditions re-emerged after 1989. At the same time, from the early 1990s onward, parallel to or as part of “Heimat,” a “GDR identity” emerged, because it was mainly in retrospect that the country was perceived as a Heimat, a feeling that SED propaganda was never really able to evoke. The reason for this lies in the original nature of Heimat: It is only addressed when it is in danger.

These developments are also reflected in the local television programmes which we analysed; reports on local traditions and customs, the use of dialects, the beauties of the landscapes are juxtaposed with the acute threats, losses and profound changes in the closer Heimat in the Transformation in the first half of the 1990s. In addition, idealizations of the GDR and a nostalgic longing for socialist times can be found in the programs.

3.4 Television Programmes as Archival Sources

Written (archival) sources are part of the standard repertoire of historians; in memory research today, (audio-)visual sources are considered to be already fully integrated: “In fact, the importance of visual culture for remembering can hardly be overestimated.”⁷ At the same time, in the age of media and internet publics, and of the non-written fixed interpersonal as well as dispersed mass communication, the importance of written records as sources has already diminished.⁸ Television is a “memory machine.”⁹ It is not only a medium, not only an uninvolved (super-)mediator, but it also contributes significantly to the “instrumentalisation of ‘memory.’”

In media and communication sciences, the ingredients of the instrumentalisation by media must always be analysed, including the socio-cultural context conditions of their emergence in the process of memory formation. In our “Heimat” project, the (re)construction of this media dispositif¹⁰ was based on these elements and corresponding research methods. Furthermore, the structures of the respective media systems as centralised vs. federal, as state/party vs. public (or commercial or citizens’) media must always be critically evaluated.

The local television programmes of the early transformation period (1990-1995), which were the subject of our “Heimat” project, preserved the experiences and feelings of the people in this period very authentically and far beyond written, photographic, auditory and oral history sources – and this for three reasons: 1. They were created at the local human base of the experienced transformations of everyday life, in small and medium-sized and a few conurbation communities; 2. in a bottom-up process by citizens and neighbours who were professionalising themselves by and in the media; 3. in programmes that were (still) largely unadulterated and unabridged by television formatting, characterised by unbiased media interaction (of makers and of the presented people), and still little commercialised.

The local television programmes of the transformation period 1990 to 1995 enjoyed a high degree of credibility: they were produced by neighbours for neighbours, who were connected by proximity in a common everyday life, characterised by trust between communicators and recipients. The programmes were also credible because of the proximity of the viewers to the spaces and events. And finally and generally, the interweaving of moving image and sound has a high presumption of authenticity. “Credibility is at the beginning of all remembering.”¹¹

The local television programmes have a special model character. They are characterised by an extreme contrast to the period until 1989: While GDR television served as a state instrument of political information, orientation, education and entertainment for the working class and as a weapon in the Cold War¹², the local television programmes were established independently of each other, as well as of the state or external investors. They were initiatives of the citizens (in part even of so-called antenna communities already in GDR times), for quite different motives.

4.1 Research Questions & Thematic Categories

General Research question: What do the many Saxon private local television programmes of the early years after the Peaceful Revolution (1990-1995) contribute to the understanding of the transition to a unified Germany and today’s explosive topics of European integration?

RQ 1: To what extent can life experiences as well as buried or suppressed contexts and feelings of this transformation period be re-actualised in today’s viewers by the encounter with these historical programmes?

RQ 2: To what extent can current social and political discourses in united Germany be traced back to their origins and be explained?

Thematic categories: In the “Heimat” project, we developed thematic categories from historical, political, sociological, media studies and oral history literature: 1. system transformation, understood in an overarching way, 2. political transformation: building new political, democratic and constitutional structures, 3. economic transformation, 4. cultural life, 5. working life, 6. social and general human situation, 7. dealing with the past, 8. Heimat, 9. (transport) infrastructure, (landscape and city) architecture, ecology, 10. one’s own and the foreign (East-West as well as foreigners), 11. phases of experience with unification, 12. new media structures and experiences.

4.2 Research Modules

We developed a special mix of methods, in order to meet best the values and importance of the sources, not to only analyse them as relicts of the past and in their historical context, but also to re-feed them into the presence by confronting present viewers, their experiences and memories, with the historical media sources.

Our mix of steps and research modules: 1. Preserving, i.e. finding, digitizing, indexing of programmes. 2. Analysis of programme contents, formats, topics. 3. Presenting to and discussing with people throughout the country; analysing theses feedbacks. 4. Interviews with contemporary witnesses as well as with the pioneers of local TV. 5. Public touring exposition with TV clips, photos, posters and other exhibits of the historical, analogue TV production at the city of Torgau by river Elbe, Marienberg in the Ore Mountains (and other places): A Country in a radical Change (Land im Umbruch). 6. Producing educational material for school and adult further education: text, sound and TV clip compilations.

Here you will find a photo gallery of some our presentations.

6.1 Context of video clip (Mid March, 1990 of Studio Leipzig / Stadtfernsehen Leipzig

From the sources, it is not exactly dateable, probably on 13^th March 1990. It is one of the first programmes of this newly established local TV programme; it is four months after the opening of the Berlin Wall and the whole frontier between West and East Germany, and it is at the beginning of the Leipzig Trade Fair (13^th March) and only a few days before the first - and last - free elections of the GDR Parliament, the Volkskammer (18^th March). The state of GDR is still existing and functioning to a certain extent; it is three months before the currency union of both German states (1^st July), and it is not quite seven months before the unification of Germany (3^rd October 1990).

All this takes place on Leipzig’s historical market square and in front of the historical townhall. Merchants from West Germany are selling fruit, vegetables and other goods. Western brands invade the market, in the beginning as free gifts. Newspapers from West Germany have flooded the market since early March 1990, even if – formally – this is still illegal. Their free copies are meant to introduce brands and feed the demand for information.

The reporter is a political cabaret artist of the well-known cabaret of former University of Leipzig students, “academixer”, the history of which dates back to 1966. Critically as they acted against GDR authorities and looked at manifestations of socialism, he picks up the presence of the very fresh and seemingly very open unification process. From the beginning, Christian Becher (1943-2013) worked for Studio Leipzig as a reporter as well as a live anchor in the studio.

The format of this clip (which was shortened by us) is far away from a classical journalist TV report. It contains a combination of critical, highly sophisticated interview questioning, bordering to displaying satirical reality and ironic commentary; and on the audio-visual level an observing as well as a commenting camera, and the use of original, atmospheric sound, which contributes to authenticity on the one hand and to sophisticated commentary on the other. All this forms the synaesthesia of a TV piece for which the test slogan of the western cigarette brand “West” (est. 1981) provides the critical motto: The West as a Test.”

Why “Test”? As at this early time in March 1990, it was not yet clear, whether the GDR would stay a separate, no longer socialist, but reformed state, or whether it would be integrated into rsp. united with the Federal Republic – as it came true within the next few months.

6.2 Contextualization

This local TV piece is in its depth not easy to understand for younger generations than the contemporary witnesses, and neither for non-Leipzig and non-GDR citizens. For these reasons, we provide some explanations: During our focus group discussions, some contemporary witnesses were thrilled by the synaesthesia of visual and audio commentary, when in a close-up hands of adult citizens are grasping for the free “Milka” chocolate gifts (TC 00:55-01:07). And by the text: “It looks as if we have only our hands. The hands, which a GDR citizen keeps always open.”

Seeing this in one of our focus group meetings, a contemporary witness started sobbing, mirroring this scene in her own experience, and transferring it to Görlitz, where she lived:

“I experienced it myself on Marienplatz with this huge truck of “Milka” distributing the chocolate bars for free. And as soon as one bar fell down, people were crawling on all fours and picked them up. I thought: What happened to people? Why are we demeaning ourselves like this? And collect ourselves (scil.: by western brands)?” (TC 0:14-0:35).

This contemporary witness felt a deep self-shame by the trigger of this TV clip - seeing it nearly 30 years later, and transferring it from Leipzig to Görlitz, and feeling emotions of self-shame for this general phenomenon of these experiences in the early transformation time.

Some more contexts: “Tutti Frutti”, Italian for “all/mixed fruits,” was a soft-porn show in the (West German) commercial TV programme of RTL, which had just started in January 1990 (150 shows 1990-93) and was also known and seen in GDR. In his off-text, reporter Becher uses the original sound of the fruit dealer (TC 01:19) for a wordplay (TC 01:23-01:27).

The chorus (TC 01:37-01:52): “An der Himmelstür, an der Himmelstür, da gelten ganz andere Regeln als hier (…) da sind die Menschen allemal gleich.” In the atmospheric sound we hear the song of West German pop singer Peter Alexander of 1977, which was well-known to East Germans, too.

Reporter Becher’s commentary: “Alles läuft wie am Schnürchen”: The party “Demokratischer Aufbruch” („DA“, „Democratic Breakup“), was established in the fall of 1989, and the lawyer Wolfgang Schnur became its best known member. For the Volkskammer elections he was the top candidate, and he had some chances of being elected the new Prime Minister of GDR. Only a few days before the elections, his work for Stasi from 1965 until March 1990 was made public by media, and he had to step back from all ambitions. In these months, this was only one of a lot of disclosures of that kind. In German, “Schnürchen” = “String” is a diminutive form of the word “cord.” And cord is the literal translation of “Schnur.” “Alles läuft wie am Schnürchen” – this pun on the name “string” = “Schnur” translates into “it goes like clockwork.” These are only some of the many wordplays, innuendos and comments in this clip.

6.3 To sum up

The “Test” motto fitted these – for all East Germans – uncertain times perfectly. With irony versus the West, the self-irony versus the East, with the long-term effect of humiliating and traumatizing experiences, as self-shame existing until today this was brought into an audio-visual, syn-aesthetical narration.