Reckoning with the GDR past

The post-communist transformations of the property ownership is a topic less attractive than other issues connected with the society and politics reconstruction but it has a fundamental dynamic for the social and political evolution. Although I am very much familiar with the legal and personal aspects involved by the restitution processes in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania, I wasn´t very much aware of the milestones of a similar process in the former GDR.

Alter Adel - Neues Land? by Dr. Ines Langelüddecke is based on the author´s doctoral researches. It covers three specific regions in the county of Brandenburg, through the perspective and changes brought over by the return of former nobel owners.

Brandenburg, formerly part of the GDR, a region with small villages and pristine nature, a beloved place for the Red Army soldiers who used former castles and palaces, as their headquarters or holiday residences, is currently undergoing a return of members of old nobel orders. Their former family properties are integrated into a new social and economic eco-system - like hotels - or used for private residence. Historically, there may be a continuity after the communist césure, but the social structure and human networks, as well as the economic framework is fundamentally different.

The book is based on extensive interviews and sociological and anthropological observations and research, offering not only date, but also an idea of the clash of mentalities - if any - and the new constructions being set.

It was a new topic for me that I hope to be able to deepen, especially as someone tho extensively explored the region of Brandenburg, particularly small villages and the micro-societies they represent. The book is only available in German so far.

The Kinder of Hoy

Hoyerweda is a relatively small, once industrial town in Saxony, then a pearl of the industralization progress of the former DDR. Brigitte Reimann made the town famous as she, alongside with other authors at the time, went there and wrote several literary imbued reports that were published in the media at the time. I personally keep at high esteem such reports, because put aside the ideological passion, it turned the interest on people and their story, introducing a new style of journalism that nurtured a lot my own writing. It is a genre that deserves more consideration and appreciation, in my opinion.

Once communism was dismantled and Germany reunited, Hoyerweda, as many other densely industrialized places, went through several crisis: identity but especially economic crisis. Actually those two crisis, and many other who followed, were intermingled and outsourced each other. In 1991, several riots ignited by far right individuals and entities put the relatively unknown city - including within Germany - on a newly set up map of extremism and xenophobia, often afterwards associated with this part of the country - Saxony.

Grit Lemke, author, documentarist and film director, went back in time and collected various testimonies of people born and bred, or settling in Hoyerweda at certain moments of time, including former immigrants from ´friendly´ communist countries like Vietnam and Angola. Structured on historical stages, she collected an impressive amount of oral histories shedding light not only on the personal experiences, but in perspective, offers a global outlook on German history, particularly during the communist times.

For historians of recent history with a focus on the history of mentalities, this method although may be lengthly in time - including as establishing a level of trust with the subjects is needed in advance of starting the project - and requiring a considerable amount of resources, it is one of the best, in my opinion, for illustrating sudden social and political changes. Through personal testimonies the attentive and experienced eye of the researcher can figure out so many small details that may further help to reconstruct an era, one small piece at a time.

Kinder von Hoy is a recommended read to anyone looking to understand communist and post-communist Germany, by hearing the voices of first hand subjects of history. I would continue this year to explore more about this specific history that decades after the unification remains very much present in the structure of mentalities in the former Eastern but also Western Germany.

Rating: 5 stars

Religiosity in the IIIrd Reich

There are not too many available studies in English language about the involvement of German churches on behalf of the Nazi ideology. The German approaches are, for various reasons (loyalty towards their faith being one of them), outlining the diversity of situations therefore, the impossibility of an unique verdict. Frequently, the dissent among the Protestant denominations - like the case of the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer - is mentioned, with many example of priests that actually ended up in the concentration camps.  

The recent book by Manfred Gailus, a researcher in this domain, Gläubige Zeiten. Religiosität im Dritten Reich - which I will freely translated as Worshipping Times. Religiosity in the Third Reich - outlines the various nuances and different directions that were followed or changed during those times. 

1933 represented for many of the German-speaking religious nominations a time of challenge. Some religious interpretations pledged the cause of a Messianic leader  while some through the very lenses of religious thinking openly rejected the religious interpretation of political events. There is definitely a chore anti-Semitic red thread in various interpretations - from Luther onwards or even earlier - that may continue until today and that were serving as encouragement for political persecutions. 

Not few members of the elites of the IIIrd Reich were Catholic - Hitler himself, Himmler as well - and remained so until the end of the war although there were opinions among the German Church leaders who actually forbade any involvement on behalf of the political establishment. 

Mentioning facts and events, the book by Manfred Gailus helps to see the situation in a more diverse way. The level of involvement on behalf of and support for the Nazi regime should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. The geography, social structure and political history of the different German regions should be taken into consideration, as well as personal ambitions and personalities of some religious leaders, as well as their direct connections with the Nazi establishment. 

Last but not least, Christianity itself in Germany was under relative threat by the movement created by Jakob-Wilhelm Hauer - Deutsches Glaubensbewegung -  /German Faith Movement/ - incorporated ancient, pre-Christian practices and symbolism, suited for the emotionally appealing Nazi doctrine.

There is very much left to be said, and access to archives as well as a less-belief-based, more scientifically oriented research will lead in a more dramatic way to a more clear picture of the religious landscape during those times and eventually, the hidden global connections - for instance, the help provided by Catholic representatives in Latin American countries for Nazi fugitives.

Both the methodological approach of the book and the factual repertoire of the book can be used for new directions and topics of research. Personally, I was expecting more documents and proper references including through official publications and public declarations, among others. Those expectations put aside, the research can be used as an example in approaching other establishment-oriented religious encounters with politics, no matter the religion and no matter the colour of the politics.

German Women on the Home Front

The title of this book is largely misleading as the women whose testimonies are featured are wives yet are part- or full-time employed. They are working in small shops, bakeries and employed in secretarial work that once the manpower is short, do adapt for working on production lines.

Besides the testimonies and some basic historic research the author is using no archives and other published works on the topic. Therefore, from an academic perspective, the testimonies do have a limited impact.

However, after a well-deserved filter of too much irrelevant information for the topic - including about the everyday marital interactions - the book can be used as part of a wider research about the role and social function of women during the 1939-1945 Nazi Germany. It starts from the membership into various girls´ organisations whose membership was based, among others, on the proof of ancestry, and the highly political/propaganda whose educational chore was to project an ideal of womanhood which was ´fit, healthy and beautiful´. The young women were supposed to help the ´survival of the nation´ through childbearing and intensive homecare activities. 

Interestingly, the testimonies are offering insights not only into the daily lives of women, but equally proves the rift between the generations and the slow wearing away of the social fabric during the last years of Nazi regime. 

It is an informative read but should be understood within the limits of the choice of testimonies themselves.

Rating: 3 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Germany vs. Germany Espionage Histories

At the relatively recently new German Spy Museum in Berlin people passionate about Cold War spy stories can extensively listen to testimonies on the intensive intelligence war between the two Germanies. Both sides used parcimonously the available resources of the Reich and built up two systems aimed at each other´s destruction. It is an interesting perspective that leave the imaginative historian to think about what happened in this domain after the reunification of Germany.

Agentinnen aus Liebe. Warum Frauen für den Osten spionierten (Agents from love. Why women spied for the East) by German journalist Marianne Quoirin documents the cases of women working for the Bonn administration in relatively modest positions - secretaries particularly - that were convinced to spy for the Stasi - and implicitly for the KGB which was the allmightly force behind the East German secret services - following simple love traps. Ideology and a clear system of belief was rarely relevant - according to the accounts collected by the author; what mattered was the Romeo that trapped them for a long or shorter relationship.

The book consist of series of cases exposed in detail, revealing the details of the planning, the beginning of the relationships, and the further developments. Based mostly on information exposed during judicial proceedings of specific cases of espionage, it offers insights about the specific interests of the Soviet-manipulated intelligence services not only in the Federal Germany´s policies, but in the developments taking place within the Western Block in general. 

I personally find the title a bit misleading, as I am more than sure there were as well cases of men that fell for women agents - both from the East and the West. Love traps of any kind are part of the fishing system of any intelligence service, before, during and after the Cold War. 

I would have also expected to have, besides the details of the cases also some critical approaches and eventually a theoretical approach which includes political and historical background connecting the facts with the larger geopolitical picture of the time. Therefore, readers interested in the German episodes of the Cold War are recommended to include this book in their coverage of the topic but without having high expectations from the point of view of the theoretical and analytical depths. 

Rating: 3 stars