The Twilight of the Idols: East German Memory and Material Culture

Abstract

By now it is commonplace to assert that the events of 1989 have radically and irreversibly transformed the face of Central European politics and culture. Where only a decade ago the political topography of Europe seemed to be set in cold war concrete for years to come, the speed and sweep of the East Bloc revolutions recast everything anew. Empires fell, walls were breached, and dictators toppled in what amounted to perhaps the greatest of all bicentennial tributes to the “spirit of 1789.” Even though the late French historian Francois Furet disqualified the upheavals as truly revolutionary on grounds that they produced no new political idea, there was no stopping the rush of millennial fervor attending the so-called annus mirabilis, or “year of miracles.” Indeed, the events were hailed as nothing less than the long-awaited renaissance of civil society, the emancipation of the second world, the “rebirth of Eastern Europe,” the “rebirth of history,” and even the “end of History.”1 While it is true that the wellsprings of reform lay in Poland, Hungary, and former Czechoslovakia, Germany enjoyed a preeminent place in this historical drama. Not only did the sudden dismantling of the cold war’s most potent political monument provide the most memorable media event symbolizing those wildfire revolutions; in addition, its unfolding Reunification saga effectively framed global discussion about the fate of post–cold war Europe. That the political map of Central Europe was splintering into ever smaller geopolitical units while Germany was consolidating and enlarging its territory was not the only cause for concern. Recollections of the German past and, in turn, the international anxiety about its bullish political future predictably invited widespread