«Zum Glück bauen wir keinen Trabant»

Abstract

Abstract «Fortunately we don’t build a Trabant». The East German shipyard industry between optimism about the future and the crisis, 1989/90 to 1994 The «Peaceful Revolution» led to a tremendous political, economic and social transition. The rapidly collapsing present with its very uncertain parameters had an impact on the social and cultural realities of everyday life. Especially the GDR shipyard industry, as one of the key industries, shaped specific experiences and formed the mentalities of the region’s people. By looking at the shipbuilding firm’s privatisation process after 1989, this article examines how the upheavals of the «Wende» opened a framework in which many actors operated in the context of their own experiences and their own points of view, which shaped their perceptions and actions. The article discusses how public communications and optimistic promises from politicians and economic actors prompted specific expectations. The difficulties that the shipbuilding industry actually faced after the end of the planned economy were known to those responsible and even debated within the Treuhandanstalt (THA), but seemed to take a back seat in public communication fields. Especially during the first phase of privatisation, which is defined here as the period from November 1989 to 1991, we can see how promises are made and by whom, as well as how and why this could lead to disappointment and disillusionment on the one hand and new beginnings and horizons on the other. This first phase reveals the contradictions of expectations and reality.