‘Becoming Transmission Belts’: The Role of the Konsum as a Retailer and Mass Organization and the Manipulation, Internalization, and Propagation of the Language of East Germany

Abstract

This paper is an examination of East Germany's Union of the Consumer Co-operatives (Konsum). The core contribution of this paper rests in the blending of archival material, secondary sources, and interviews in light of the ideas associated with the concept of totalitarianism. What is more, these documents evince that the continuous presence of propaganda, slogans, acceptable terms, and the language of socialism became at least partially internalised. This internalisation of ideology was a requisite for functioning in the ideologically charged daily interactions in East Germany. My thesis, therefore, has three primary components. First, the Konsum became a totalitarian space and a political mass organization in which employees were both propaganda targets all the while being trained to become propagandists themselves (transmission belts); these workers were under constant surveillance and pressure to conform to various political demands, such as joining the party, partaking in political meetings, undergoing Marxist–Leninist educational courses at Konsum schools, and proselytizing customers to the political slogans of the GDR. Second, the raison d'être of the Konsum was to integrate women into the world of work and politics and establish the ideal category of women: fully employed mothers. Third, the antifascist narrative, symbolism, and GDR language were often appropriated to further one's own self-interest in the form of Eigen-Sinn.