64865283

Cola in the German Democratic Republic.
East German Fantasies on Western Consumption

MILENA VEENIS
Coca Cola is frequently used to signal the large-scale transformation from socialism to capitalism in eastern and middle Europe, which began in East Germany in the autumn of 1989. In the famous German Wende-movie Goodbye Lenin,1 the caffeinated drink figures prominently. The main character in this movie is a middle-aged woman who has fallen into coma during one of the mass demonstrations in Berlin, in November 1989. When she finally wakes up, about one year later, her country no longer exists. Her children successfully hide this fact from her, surrounding her with the material remnants of the past. One day, when she gets out of bed, she sees people attaching a huge banner of Coca Cola to the large flat in front of her apartment
The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press, [on behalf of the Business History Conference]. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com doi: 10.1093/es/khq139 Advance Access publication February 13, 2011 Contact information: University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: m.veenis@uva.nl. The research on which this paper is based took place within the international research project European Ways of Life in the American Century (EUWOL), supported by the European Science Foundation, and financed by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). The Amsterdam School of Social Science Research (ASSR) financed an earlier research project, the materials of which have been used in this article as well. Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the SHOT conference in Lisbon (2008) and the EUWOL workshop in Sigtuna (2010). The author wishes to thank the participants of both conferences and Suzanne Kuik, Mattijs van de Port, Phil Scranton, and three anonymous reviewers for their thought provoking, constructive comments, and Ruth Oldenziel for her support.
1. The designation Wende (literally: turnover) refers to the period and developments between autumn 1989, when the first mass demonstrations in East Germany took place, and autumn 1990, when East and West Germany were officially united.
489
490
VEENIS
bloc. The scene marks the beginning of her awareness that the world in which she used to live is definitively gone. Coca Cola is well-chosen to play this role. The brand deserves its worldwide fame primarily from being one of the main icons of American-inspired consumer culture and capitalism.2 Even though the American drink was not available in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), it was extremely popular. So much so, that from the end of the 1950s East Germany produced its own brands of cola. Their appeal, however, never even came close to the western brands. East Germans proudly displayed empty cans of Coca Cola in their livingroom cabinets as visible emblem of western consumer society, the iconic status of which can hardly be overstated. The popularity of western Coke is a clear example of a concealed process of Americanization that has taken place in the socialist GDR.3 This paper describes and analyzes this process, examining the history of cola in the former GDR. It aims to explain why the socialist state emulated the capitalist consumer culture, while vehemently condemning it at the same time. It claims that East German leaders had no other option but to copy elements of their political opponents material world, in order to seize eastern Germans in the economy of their desire. In as far as scholars have analyzed the appeal of western consumer goods in the socialist bloc, they have interpreted the strong desire for these objects as an implicit critique of socialist society, or as an expression of peoples desire for change.4 Katherine Verdery, for instance, formulated it quite pointedly: Acquiring consumption goods and objects conferred an identity that set one off from socialism.5 Although I subscribe to this interpretation, I think it is too narrow. Positing socialist states inhabitants in opposition to the states in which they lived, unwillingly confirms a bipolarized frame of reference with regard to the socialist world as inhabited by clearcut categories of oppressors and oppressed. This perspective is not only wrong6 but also tends to victimize the people living under socialist rule, representing them as being passively inscribed by dictatorial rule. In my view, life in the GDR and the other countries of the socialist bloc is better understood if we focus on what political
2. German historians Axel Schildt and Detlef Siegfried chose Coca Cola and Karl Marx to frame their recent work on European youth cultures (2005). 3. For relations between the GDR and the USA (both on the government level, and bottom-up), see Balbier & Rsch (2006). 4. See for instance. Crowley (2000). 5. Verdery (1992: 26). 6. For discussions on the relation between state and society in the GDR, see for instance Jarausch (1999), and the contributions in Bessel and Jessen (1996) and Kocka and Sabrow (1994).
Cola in the German Democratic Republic
491
scientist Lisa Wedeen, writing about Syria, has aptly called the ambiguities of domination.7 In her analysis of the situation in Syria, she describes how people have internalized their own surveillance to such an extent, that it is imperceptible where compliance ends and coercion begins.8 This is an extremely relevant insight to understand the dynamics of power and the relation between state and society in the former GDR. In spite of widespread dissatisfaction among the population, East German state hegemony was firmly established and, as I will show in this paper, consumption played a vital role in this. The governments visions of a socialist utopia were explicitly materialist and one of the ways in which compliance was orchestrated was by providing East Germans with the copied icons of western consumer culture. East Germans desire to participate in the western world of consumer affluence, which is usually regarded as a form of critique and dissent towards the state, is better understood as the indirect outcome of the states own materialist politics. These politics were characterized by contradictions between wide-ranging promises that were never realized.9 The history of East German cola production offers a telling illustration, showing that the states far reaching promises to satisfy the populations material needs, which dominated the public domain, were never realized. In my view, the almost magical powers that East Germans ascribed to the perfect-looking western consumer world were the direct result of the tensions between the states promises and everyday reality. Illustrating the widespread attempt to uphold the utopian visions as such, they should be interpreted as a (statesupported) collective fantasy. My use of the term fantasy is inspired by a number of recent works in which philosophers and social scientists show the fruitfulness of applying the main tenets of Jacques Lacans legacy to historical and social scientific theorizing.10 Their work is based on the premise that no perfect match is possible between on the one hand the interpretative frameworks that enable people to organize their experiences and give meaning to their lives and on the other their everyday experiences, sensations, and perceptions.
7. Wedeen (1999). 8. Idem: 147. 9. According to historian Corey Ross, the GDR was primarily characterized by what he termed constitutive contradictoriness (Ross, 2002: 65). 10. Stavrakakis (1999), iek (1990), Hell (1997), Port (2005), Eagleton (2009), and Veenis (2008).
492
VEENIS
Whereas people need to categorize, classify, and draw boundaries in order to discriminatebetween just and unjust, dirt and cleanliness, us and themeveryday life confronts people continuously with the fallibility of this undertaking. How, for instance, to delineate us in multi-ethnic societies? How to account for female leaders when competitiveness is classified as a male characteristic? How to uphold that solidarity is one of our main characteristics, when the fear to be denunciated by ones neighbors is omnipresent? The intrinsic inadequacy of the agreements people live by (usually referred to as a peoples culture, by Lacanians confusingly called the symbolic order) is particularly threatening when a society is confronted with episodes or events that are impossible to comprehend within the existing interpretative frames. When, for instance, a society is struck by unexpected outbursts of interethnic violence, the story of us (being a society, a nation, living peacefully together) loses its credibility. In such circumstances, when the symbolic order is unable to meaningfully assimilate peoples experiences, it threatens to be revealed for what it is: not self-evident, seamless, and smooth as glass, but man made, messy, and characterized by gaps and cracks. Once people are being confronted with the make-believe of what is usually called a society, hard work awaits them to restore their confidence in the symbolic order as a meaningful discursive framework that supports social structure and allows for mutual recognition. Frequently used solutions in such circumstances are the invention of a scapegoat, blaming an intruder for all that went wrong,11 or the construction of a fantasy: a perfected representation of what-life-could-be, as an image worth striving for. A fantasy derives its propelling force from its capacity to cover up the imperfections in the shared discursive framework, thus upholding the existing symbolic orderfor instance by creating an extra category in order to successfully frame the other as part of us, or by inventing new ideas on typically female leadership in order to uphold the dichotomy between male and female. This is what Lacanians mean when they state that fantasy supports reality by (temporarily) closing its gaps and cracks.12 By promising that reality could be perfect, fantasies play a crucial role in sustaining the fundaments of peoples discursive constructions of reality. The history of the GDR, with its dramatic succession of totalizing stories and their complete corruption, offers a perfect example to
11. See for instance iek (1990). 12. Resp. Stavrakakis (1999: 62) and Port (2010: 5).
493
show the relevance of these general theoretical assumptions. In this essay, I want to analyze the American-inspired western consumer cultures role in East German history as a fantasy space, allowing to (temporarily) close the gaps in East Germanys symbolic order, by offering East Germans an imaginary space with the aims of which they could collectively uphold unattainable ideals. Cola is not just one of American consumer cultures most outstanding icons; the drinks history in the GDR also offers a good illustration of the impossibility to realize the ideals that dominated the East German symbolic order. The reason why I deem fantasy to be an important concept to understand the western consumer worlds irresistibility for the inhabitants of the GDR is that its strong and widely shared appeal is hard to understand unless regarded as the indirect byproduct of the socialist states hegemonic project. The history of East German Cola production is an illustration of the problems the GDR encountered in realizing the ideals it kept on proclaiming. The discrepancy between promise and reality formed the breeding ground of East Germans widespread desire for the western consumer world, which I regard as a fantasy space. Providing a theoretically more elaborate and more ambivalent exploration of this concept, I hope to enrich the discussion on the way individuals use America as a screen onto which they project parts of their own self-images: their wishes and desires, and alsoalbeit implicitly the unspoken, less-presentable parts of their collective selfrepresentations. Although East Germans were certainly not alone in ascribing far reaching powers to the western consumer world, the particular characteristics of East Germanys position as the socialist twin of the Americanized Federal Republic of Germany,13 allowed for a form of mirror-imaging between East and West Germans that was unthinkable of elsewhere in the socialist bloc.
Making Cola in the GDR

German production of Coca Cola started in 1929. Its popularity rose rapidly after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, when local Coke sellers recognized the Nazi mass meetings as powerful opportunities to market and sell the drink. Coca Cola became so popular that when production stopped in 1942, even the Nazi regime recognized it as a
13. The official designation of West Germany was Federal Republic of Germany (in German the Bundesrepublik), further referred to as FRG.
494
VEENIS
significant part of the mythic Volksgemeinschaft.14 After the war, the drink was reintroduced in Germany by the American occupying powers, as part of an extremely well-orchestrated marketing strategy. The story of Cokes worldwide postwar expansion may be wellknown, but the German situation offers such a telling account of the close cooperation between the American administration and corporate interests that it deserves to be told here at length. Thanks to the outstanding relations between Coca Cola Companys (CCC) president Robert Woodruff, and the Washington administration, 148 Coca Cola representatives, dressed in military uniform and holding the status of Technical Observer, were allowed to follow the American army wherever the war brought them.15 Their aim was to see that every man in uniform gets a bottle of Coca Cola for five cents, wherever he is and whatever it costs our company, as Woodruff had stated in 1941.16 The companys aim was two-fold: to associate the drink with servicemen, in order to become an indelible part of their lives, and to lay the foundation for cokes postwar expansion. Both ambitions were realized quite successfully. Satisfying military thirst, the Coca Cola men succeeded in establishing 63 extra bottling plants around the globe during the war. Thanks to this form of business-government cooperation in its highest incarnation, and at its most efficient,17 the worldwide dissemination of the American soft drink was a fact. One of the new Coca Cola plants was built in Germany right after the war,18 which made the total of Coca Cola production units in Germany as forty four.19 Although the drink had not been sold in Germany for three years, Coca Cola had such a firm place in the German diet, that many Germans were surprised to see that the members of the United States armed forces had Coca Cola toothey believed it to be a German drink.20 This probably played a role in the drinks popularity in postwar Germany, which rose fast after production in Germany re-started in 1949, but it cannot account for the beverage to turn into one of the main symbols of the recovery in Germany.21
14. Schutts (2007). 15. For details on the relations between the U.S. government and the CCC, see Weiner (1996: 113). 16. Idem. 17. Idem: 114. 18. The German Coca Cola plant, which was in Frankfurt, must have been built after German surrender. Although strictly speaking after the war, I agree with Weiner who sees it as part of CCCs war efforts (Weiner 1996: 114). 19. Pendergrast (2000). 20. Idem: 213. 21. Scholz (2008) and Schutts (2003).
495
The question why this was so, and why Cola turned into one of the main icons of West Germanys 1950s and 1960s economic miracle, will be dealt with further on in this essay. Representing the American influence in Europe and West Germanys capitalist resurrection, which became visible mainly after 1955, is not surprising that the drink came to have quite different connotations in the Soviet Bloc. There, it turned into an emblem of the horrific American civilizationcriticized as such in Polish poet Adam Waiks 1952-poem Piosenka o Coca Cola (song of Coca Cola).22 It is therefore remarkable that the GDRs government, standing out as the Soviet Unions most loyal satellite, urged for the production of a Coca Cola-like drink in the autumn of 1957.23 The summer of 1957 was extremely warm,24 but when East German consumers tried to quench their thirst they came home empty handed. Beer was available, but nonalcoholic beverageslemonade and soft drinkswere hard to obtain. The beverage producing industries were not able to produce enough to satisfy consumers demands.25 The problem was mainly due to a severe shortage of fruit. A governmental report on the expansion of the production of non alcoholic beverages, written in November 1957, makes clear that that years fruit harvest had been extremely bad.26 In his letter to the chairman of the council of ministers, the leader of the department of agrarian produce (part of the food production department) states that the [drink-producing] industry in our republic does not have enough fruit at its disposal to ensure the sufficient production of drinks in 1958.27 The governments planning commission took the problem very seriously, partly because fruit drinks and lemonades were seen as the healthy alternatives (liquid fruit)28 to alcoholic beverages and
22. Crowley (2000: 28). 23. SAPMO, DE1/28941, Entwurf Beschlub zur Verbesserung der Versorgung der Bevlkerung mit Getrnken, n.d., p. 2. 24. SAPMO, DE/1, 28941, Programm zur Erweiterung der Produktion von alkoholfreien Getrnken der HV Pflanzliche Erzeugnisse, p. 4. 25. After the war, most large companies on the GDRs territory were nationalized. Private production companies still existed (by 1960, about 9 percent of industrial production capacity was privately owned), but they were strictly regulated and subject to national planning. See Ross (2002: 6997). 26. SAPMO, DE/1, 28941, Programm zur Erweiterung der Produktion von alkoholfreien Getrnken der HV Pflanzliche Erzeugnisse. 27. Idem, Vermerk fr Herrn Klevesath, November 9, 1957. 28. Idem, Diskussionsbeitrag VEB Kelterei Lockwitzgrund, Dresden, zur Techn.-Wissenschaftlichen Konferenz der Industriezweige der HV Pflanzliche Erzeugnisse, September 21 and 22, 1956, p. 1.
496
VEENIS
considered to be capable to add to peoples creative urges and thus to increase labor productivity.29 The GDR ordered extra imports of fruit juices and syrups from the other volksdemokratische countries,30 large factories had to build fruit-plantations on their territories,31 and all corporations were obliged to take initiatives to increase the availability of wild fruits.32 But it was all to no avail. In order to prevent comparably critical conditions next year, the government formed committees to study the causes of this years failure and to offer solutions. The main suggestions were that the GDR had to invest in the production of fruit, and in the development of a high-quality Cola-drink before the end of November 1957.33 In January 1958, the manufacture of a titillating nonalcoholic drink (such as Coca Cola) was announced to the minister of food-producing industries.34 It appears not to have been a problem to develop a cola-like drink in the GDR. Beginning in February 1959, the governmental Institute of Fermentation and Drinks Industry obtained innumerable requests from beverage producing companies, asking permission to produce caffeine containing syrups and drinks.35 By the beginning of 1960, East German consumers could choose between many different cola varieties: Quick Cola, Vita Cola, Efro-Kristall, Cola Gold, Colette, Sport Cola, Coco, Kruterkola, Kopola, Klaus Cola, Fricola, Kaffee Cola, Peccoli, Lipsi, Mokkaperle, Copola, Colaro, and Exquisit.36 This diversity was not in line with the basic principles of the socialist plan economy, and after performing a taste test, members of the zentrale Fachkollektiv alkoholfreie Getrnke, Biere, Fruchtsfte und Moste [central organization for nonalcoholic beverages, beers, and fruit juices] decided that only two cola brands were fit to become the Standardgetrnke in the GDR.37 The history of these Standardgetrnkes production shows an ongoing sequence of tiny little problematic details. Looking back, the production of cola turns out to be one of the many nails in the East German coffin called consumption.
29. Idem, Programm zur Erweiterung der Produktion von alkoholfreien Getrnken der HV Pflanzliche Erzeugnisse, p. 1. 30. Idem, Aktenvermerk HV Pflanzliche Erzeugnisse, January 28, 1958. 31. Idem, letter from the leader of the department of agrarian produce to the minister of food-producing industries, January 17, 1958, p. 2. 32. Idem, Anweisung ber die durchfhrung der Verarbeitungskampagne in der obst- und gemseverarbeitenden Industrie im Jahre 1957/58, p. 3. 33. Idem, Entwurf Beschlub zur Verbesserung der Versorgung der Bevlkerung mit Getrnken, n.d., p. 2. 34. Idem, Vermerk fr Herrn Minister Westphal, January 13, 1958, p. 2. 35. SAPMO, DE4-AV-29842; 10/2/59. 36. Idem. 37. Idem.
497
The governments institute for market research, for instance, warned about the quality of crown caps that did not close well enough, due to their paper coating.38 After investigating the machinery, the Volkswirtschaftsrat (governments economic council) makes clear that the Czech bottle-filling machines were not able to deal with the proper amount of carbon dioxide, so that the cola was sold without the right amount of gas and bubbles.39 The quality of sugar appears not to have been good enough; because the production plans for sugar beets were set on amounts, the quality of sugar diminished, and the sugar percentage decreased, so that the soft drinks had to be artificially sweetened.40 There were never enough natural and artificial ingredients to make the syrup: the necessary citrus concentrates had to be bought on the international market, which was dominated by currencies of which the GDR was always in short supply.41 An internal report, made in 1963 by the Staatliche Plankommission (national planning commission), stated that, as far as developments in the field of nonalcoholic beverages were concerned, the existing electrical appliances do not enable us to guarantee proper care of the population, especially during the summer period.42 One of the problems was that over 30% of all machinery dates from before 1930. Often, the different machineries, such as those for clearing, filling, and labeling [the bottles], are simply threaded together, with no real connection between them.43 Although the report stated that the quality of East German soft drinks had improved, it was nevertheless essential to take important steps with regard to the control and improvement of organoleptic indicators (especially taste).44 Furthermore, it was generally known that there was a severe lack of carbon dioxide cylinders, but apparently nobody feels responsible for repairing them.45 Furthermore, there was not enough glue to put the labels on the bottles, and the industry did not have
38. SAPMO, DL 102-234, Die Analyse der Entwicklung des Verbrauchs von alkoholfreien Erfrischungsgetrnken in der DDR fr den zurckliegenden Zeitraum (1959-1966), p. 14. 39. SAPMO, DE4-AV-29842. 40. SAPMO, DE4 AV 2650, according to a note written on November 1, 1961. 41. Idem. 42. SAPMO, DE1 49574, Technisch-konomische Konzeption fr die Entwicklung der Erzeugnisgruppe alkoholfreie Getrnke in den Jahren 19641970. 43. Idem. 44. Idem. 45. SAPMO, DE4 VA 6411, Bericht ber die Getrnkeversorgung in den Bezirken fr die Zeit vom 21.5. bis zum 31.5. 1962 und Pfingstversorgung.
498
VEENIS
enough trucks to deliver its output throughout the country in a timely way.46 Apart from the plain economic shortages that caused the above mentioned problems, the outward appearance of the East German beverages was also a cause of concern. Comparing the East German and American colas, bureaucrats from different organizations came to the conclusion that the taste of the East German products was good enough, but the beverages appearance came across as extremely primitive and filthy.47 The color and graphics of the East German labels were considered to be absolutely unsatisfying.48 The fact that the aesthetics and outer appearance of the bottles was compared and had to be on an equal par with western standards, is intriguing, since this was completely at odds with the official policy and socialist thinking on advertising and marketing. Whereas in capitalist countries, advertising is meant to entice people to buy as much as possible, this was not the aim of advertising in socialist countries. In socialist countries, the main goal of advertising was to inform people and to enrich their knowledge about consumer goods.49 Peoples needs were to a large extent considered to be fixed and know-able, and it was the states task to fulfill them. In as far as people wanted more, or different things, these were labeled as luxury and when their production was possible, they were priced accordingly.50 There was no need to charm people into buying. And since the design of objects had to account for their practical function, an objects looks had to be in line with its practicality. The role of packaging was also completely different than was the case in capitalist countries. It was merely meant to inform and educate people: about the function, aim, contents, and preferred use of a product.51
46. Idem, letter (January 5, 1961) by the Staatliches Getrnkekontor to the Volkswirtschaftsrat Abt. Lebensmittelindustrie, Gruppe Genubmittelindustrie. 47. SAPMO, DE4 AV 29842, Protokoll ber eine vergleichende Verkostung alkoholfreier Erfrischungsgetrnke aus der DDR und Westdeutschland am 23.8.1960 im Institut fr die Grungsund Getrnke-Industrie. 48. Idem. 49. Discussions on advertizing in the GDR took place in the journal Neue Werbung. The first issue, which appeared in 1954, opened with an article under the telling title Do we still need advertising today? (1954/1:2). 50. For East German discourses and discussions on design, material culture and the relation between socialist citizenry and the material world, see the journals Kultur im Heim, and Form und Zweck. There is a vast East German literature on this topic, a good summary (that also shows the many parallels between West and East German theories of design) can be found in Hirdina (1988). 51. Also see Patterson (2003) on advertising in socialist Yugoslavia.
499
To what extent did these deliberations indeed play a role in the design and marketing of East German cola? This question is hard to answer because the look of East German products was only partially influenced by discourses and ideals on socialist design, marketing, and advertising. The main factor that shaped the appearance of everyday East German objects was the availability of resources. Basic economic factors largely determined the production process in the GDR, which was characterized by continuous attempts to minimize the use of raw materials. Butter was mixed with water, beer was made from artificial ingredients, and furniture consisted of chipboard. As far as the production of soft drinks was concerned, as we know, raw materials were inadequate for good crown caps, bottles, and glue. The all-pervading need to conserve raw materials also characterized East German packaging. There were not enough pigments to produce strong colors, and most paper had such a loose structure, that the colors simply seemed to disappear into the pores. East German packaging therefore generally looked all alikecharacterized by the same insipid colors, which slightly reminds one of todays ecologically sound toilet paper. Even if the soft drink-producing industry would have decided to pay more attention to the looks of its products, or would have tried to copy the western packaging in order to offer their citizen consumers something comparable to western brands, the enterprises could not have succeeded. Ideological convictions that form follows function and the urge to incessantly educate consumers toward their real and proper needs and desires found reinforcement in outright economic factors. The result was a relatively straightforward, poor-looking consumer world, which contrasted sharply with the bright and colorful images East Germans perceived in the other Germany.52 The general characteristics of East German packaging and wrapping also accounted for the looks of East German colasas even governmental controllers recognized.53 Although the taste and quality of East German colas could be very good, one could
52. Before the wall was built, in 1961, East Germans could relatively easy visit the FRG. After 1961, information on West Germany was primarily obtained through West German television, which almost all inhabitants of the GDR could watch and which was far more popular than East German TV. 53. Our packaging shows a considerable deprivation compared to other countries. Since optical effects play an especially important role in the field of food and refreshments, they are decisive for the expression of a products quality, according to a report by the Department of Technique and Production of FoodProducing Industries, May 23, 1966. SAPMO, DG5 088, Erhhung der Qualitt und Verbesserung der Sortimente an Nahrungs- und Genubmitteln, p. 4. Also see Gries (2004), who states that East German colas were a poor imitation of Cola-West (184).
500
VEENIS
not count on it, because standardization of the drinks proved impossible.54 Their taste was largely dependent on factors beyond the control of the producing plants. Even the quality of the drinking water, one of the soft drinks main ingredients, was not consistent.55 The combination of colas dull looks and unpredictable taste was certainly an important reason why western cola brands became so popular in the GDR. Their quality was standardized and predictable, and the colors and looks of the western labels were more vivid. Yet these factors alone cannot account for the widespread appeal of western Coke in the GDR. Possession of Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola carried enormous esteem and status, and western products were generally referred to as das Echtethe real stuff (Diesener and Gries 1992:60).56 In this regard, Cola is an example of a phenomenon that was widespread in the GDR: the recognition of western goods as the real stuff. Western objects were clouded in an almost magical aura and an irresistible power of attraction emanated from them. Of course, part of the East German population was not particularly concerned with obtaining western goods and some people were outspokenly critical about their country(wo)mens strong longing for western goods. However, by far the majority of East Germans shared an obsession with things western. So the question is why. How should this power be understood? What did western consumer goods refer to?
The Consumption Battle between FRG and GDR

In war-ridden Germany, matters of consumption were of vital importance. The country was destroyed, and the material ruins were an apt symbol for the mental and social situation. The circumstances were horrible, especially in the eastern part of the country. Until 1949, the territory of the future GDR was afflicted by famines, many people died from hunger, and life was reduced to the barest form of survival. People fought over a loaf of bread or a pair of shoes, and the hunger-inflicted tensions were further deteriorated by the large-scale economic transformation of the country, which was used by both politicians and ordinary East Germans to settle old accounts, and
54. See p. 23 of the report by the governmental Institute of Fermentation and Drinks Industry, written in autumn 1965. SAPMO, DE1 51552. 55. Personal communication with East German consumers. 56. Diesener and Gries (1992).
501
get rid of (political) opponents.57 Deep mistrust and animosity reigned. Even without the macro-political division, Germany would have been a deeply divided nation.58 Daily life was dominated by denunciation, feelings of mistrust, hunger, and the awareness that one mans death could mean another mans breadpainfully illustrating the complete breakdown of the former symbolic orders main promises on the harmonious Volksgemeinschaft that the National Socialists would realize. Many commentators were struck by the way in which the German population (East and West) responded to the social and moral crisis: issues from the past were completely silenced, and all energy was directed toward recovering and rebuilding the (material) world as soon as possible. The frantic industriousness of the population is widely recognized as a collective attempt to work away the social, mental, and moral traumas which the war had caused, in order to cover up the lack in their society (socio: to unite).59 In this context, the legitimacy of the two German states mainly came to depend on the ways in which their respective governments would be able to realize the countrys material reconstruction. The leaders of the two states-tobe dealt differently with this exigency, as a result of the occupying powers divergent economic conditions and policies. The success story of the postwar reconstruction in the western part of the country is well-known. Between 1948 and 1951, the Federal Republic of Germany received three billion dollars for its economic recovery through the Marshall Aid program.60 This program, which was realized by the American administration in close cooperation with American corporations, was meant to deracinate the breeding ground of communist sympathies. Its main aims were to rebuild the war-ridden economies and to weaken the support for communist and nationalist causes and movements. It tried to do so by nurturing and disseminating a secular and commercial culture that cut across cultural differences and forged a unity of interests.61 The main idea was that when people would learn to primarily define themselves as
57. On postwar denunciation in the future GDR, see Plato (2001) and Bessel (2005). 58. Pritchard (2000: 26). 59. On the relation between the concrete material reconstruction of (western) Germany on the one hand and the social-psychological urge to deny the recent past, see for instance Mitscherlich and Mitscherlich (1975), Slle (1986), Hallwirth (1987), and Kaes (1989). 60. Maier (1991: 4). 61. Haddow (1997: 23).
502
VEENIS
consumers, a democratic vision of consumer abundance, widely referred to as the American Way of Life, would develop, undercutting existing distinctions and tensions. In its promotion campaigns of mass production and the consumer society, the Marshall Aid Plan nourished the populations of war-ridden Europe with food and goods that were in fact props in a morality play.62 It goes without saying that the collaborative (Federal Republic of Germany and United States) state policies corresponded perfectly with the needs and desires of the majority of the West German population. Although it is difficult to precisely define Americas role and share in Germanys postwar social and psychological reconstruction, American Marshall Plans main actors agreed that Germany was the best pupil in class where it concerned learning to produce and consume the American Way.63 In less than two decades, West Germany recovered from ruins to become one of the most affluent European societies. The famous West German Wirtschaftswunder was more than a powerful illustration of economic recovery and the FRGs founding myth. Its role in countering the material, social, moral, and psychological consequences of the war can hardly be overestimated. The American-inspired consumer society offered the West German population an imagined cultural space where they could distance themselves from the Nazi past.64 Providing its citizens with new and better material and consumption possibilities, thus directly responding to West Germans sense of injured citizenship,65 the new West German state obtained legitimacy and popular support. The new symbolic order that was built up between 1945 and 1960 in West Germany was centered around material well-being and consumption as a means to forget about the past. German historian Michael Wildt concluded that the loyalty of the West Germans to their new republic was based on the development of an affluent society. The perspective of more welfare, economic growth, and a gradual but steady rise in the standard of living created not only
62. Idem: 54. Also see the contributions in Oldenziel & Zachmann (2009) on the role of the kitchen in USA (and SU) Cold War propaganda. 63. Castillo (2008: 8). Leaders of J. Walter Thompson, Americas largest advertising firm during the postwar period, cooperating in the Advertising Council, and one of the main actors cooperating with the U.S. administration in disseminating both Americas consumer cultures concrete products and their concomitant ideological underpinning, also regarded the FRG (together with Japan) as the best pupil in American consumer capitalisms class. See for instance: Duke University, John W. Hartman Center, Vergil D. Reed Papers, Box 3. 64. Schutts (2003: 14). 65. Wiesen (2003: 168).
503
consumers but also democrats. (...) West Germans became democrats through consumption; they did not fight for democracy but rather struggled for prosperity.66 It goes without saying that the GDRs economic course and its approach toward peoples materialist desires and dispositions were completely different than in West Germany. This was partly the result of the fact that the postwar policy in the eastern part of the country was decided and orchestrated in close cooperation with the Soviet occupying powers. One of the most decisive factors for the GDRs future development was the Soviet Unions demand for reparations.67 In the first eight years after the war, the GDR was forced to pay the highest known level of reparations in the twentieth century.68 About 14 billion dollar in reparations was paid, largely in kind. The Soviet occupiers simply dismantled everything they could, and transported it to the Soviet Union.69 During the war, about 45 percent of East Germanys productive capacity was destroyed. After the war, the Soviet occupying powers took another 25 percent.70 Apart from these economic features, the postwar material restructuring of eastern Germany was also influenced by political and ideological factors. The general Marxist axiom, that material characteristics play a decisive role in a societys social and mental development, was employed in postwar East Germany in several ways, in order to mentally and socially restructure society. In the first years after the war, a radical social and economic transformation was realized, which was thought not only to generate higher economic output but also to enable citizens to invest all their energy, hope, and trust in the guarantee of utmost affluence for all and in the free, all-embracing development of all members of society.71 The largescale economic transformation was considered to have a deep and lasting influence on the moral and mental climate in East Germany. Because common ownership of the modes of production was said to bring about a community of equals, jealousy (recently experienced quite traumatically during the first hunger-stricken postwar years, by GDR politicians explained as one of the main hallmarks of life in capitalist societies) would disappear and society would be dominated by mutual respect and social involvement.
66. Wildt (1998: 315). 67. But see Ross (2002: 738), who discusses historians controversies on this issue. 68. Idem: 84. 69. Laufer (1999: 76). 70. Pritchard (2000: 96), also see Weber (1991: 25) and von Plato (2001). 71. Hager (1981: 11).
504
VEENIS
To a certain extent, these promises accommodated to the widespread needs and strivings on the part of the population to take on material and economic tasks to tackle deficits in the social and psychological realm. An even more direct match between socialist ideology on the one hand, and the widespread desire to materially work away the metaphorical ruins of the past on the other, is discernable in the virtues that were prominently propagated by the socialist regime. The guilt was to be worked away and suffered for. Industriousness and modesty became politically propagated state virtues. They formed the main angles of the GDRs later ideological self-image (. . .). The new society, which was to be a society of social equals, characterized by mutual solidarity, was born (...) out of [this postwar] industriousness.72 Work as the basis for future solidarity, and a radical change in the means of production as the foundation for a society that was to be characterized by mutual help and solidarity; the new symbolic order that was being construed in the GDR was characterized by a stern materialist thread. Because its main tenets, as propagated by the new East German regime, also responded to widespread popular needs, an unspoken bond between state and society developeda bond in which the material realm was credited with problem-solving capacities in other spheres. This is not to suggest that the (majority of the) East German population supported the East German regime or statesupport and dissent changed over time and they differed along lines of age, gender, and social-economic position. I merely want to reiterate that state and population by and large inhabited the same ideological realm, characterized by two main features: opting for a materialist approach to solve all pastime and future problems, while at the same silencing the really experienced social, mental, and moral traumas of the (post) war period, except in as far as they fitted in the Marxist theoretical framework, because then they were, or would in due time be solved.73
72. Merkel (1994: 365, my translation). 73. The question about the GDRs (il)legitimacy is too complex to be dealt with in the context of this paper. For a thorough analysis, see especially Ross (2002), who states that it is only by recognizing the coexistence of consensus and refusal that we will be able to paint a more nuanced picture of popular political behavior [in the GDR] (124), also see Jarausch (1999), according to whom the relation between East German citizenry and the state was primarily characterized by forms of reluctant loyalty (62). On the silencing of ideologically unwelcome elements and experiences from the recent past in the GDR, see for instance Herf (1997), Ross (2002), Trommler (1994), and East German writer De Bruyn (1996).
505
The Consumption Battle between FRG and GDR

Because of the specific and sensitive weight that the German population (East and West) ascribed to consumption developments after 1945, people held a close watch on the material developments that took place in the different occupational zones. As soon as there was something extra or special for sale in the eastern part of the country, people from the western part rushed in, and vice versa. When it became clear that the reconstruction of the western part of the country developed faster and more successfully than in the eastern part, East Germans began to lose faith in the socialist project. When in the summer of 1948 the rationing cards were abolished in western Germany, and the shops were filled overnight with food and goods, it meant the beginning of the long-expected return to normality, security and welfare for West Germans.74 For the inhabitants of Eastern Germany, it was an important watershed as well, be it in a negative way. Many concluded that in the West things developed much better.75 In spite of the above-mentioned mutual ideological goals of citizens and state, most members of the East German government underestimated the populations down-to-earth material and consumption needs. Strictly speaking, there was enough food for people to survive and the government by and large agreed that economic improvement was best served by investing in (heavy) industrys recovery. As a result, from the beginning of the 1950s, more and more East Germans left the GDR and moved to West Germany. The government tried to turn the tide, but it remained internally divided on the importance of provisioning the population.76 The emigration figures reached a height in 1953. The East German government was unable to improve the material situation, and only reacted with a further raise of productivity requirements. This was the direct cause of the only widespread popular uprising that ever took place in the GDR, on June 17, 1953. Under the slogan butter instead of canons, demonstrations and strikes broke out all over the country.77 The uprising was beaten down by the Soviet forces, but [t]he lesson of the power of consumer opinion in sowing concord or dissent had been drummed into the minds of the new elites in Eastern
74. Wildt (1998). 75. Gries (1991: 133). 76. Landsman (2005: 50). 77. Idem:118.
506
VEENIS
Germany.78 From that moment on, the East German government began to realize that both its own legitimacy and the viability of the new state depended upon its ability to fulfill peoples material needs. Urged by a population for whom the material resurrection from the ruins of the war was not just a means of survival but also used as a means to recover and work away social and mental tensions, indirectly pushed by the American government that used West Germany as a showcase to demonstrate the inhabitants behind the iron curtain what could be accomplished by the American way of life, the East German government, in desperate need of popular support, pursued a social contract in which the full realization of communism was equated with rising consumption.79 The GDRs socialist policy, which until then was primarily materialist in the more theoretical and philosophical sense of the term, now began to engage itself in a more down-to-earth materialist competition with the American way, which dominated West German reconstruction politics. Both the FRG and the GDR thus came to subscribe a discursive framework and symbolic order in which material well-being was the key to a wellfunctioning society. In an attempt to increase the amount of food and consumer goods as soon as possible, the socialist party80 attributed more opportunities and liberties to the remnants of private industry. The strategy worked: an abrupt improvement of the material situation was the result and the number of people who left the country reduced significantly.81 Whereas over 317,000 people had left the GDR in 1953, in 1954 this number was reduced to 114,000. By this time, the two German states were involved in an outright consumption battle, in which not just material survival but also peoples faith in the future, their state, and society were at stake. The outcome was to be decisive for the legitimacy of and popular support for the new German states. Apart from the inter-German legitimacy competition, the FRG and GDRs battle was the main arena for the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. From a present-day perspective, the Marshall Aid Program was the beginning of the materialist track the battle eventually took. Meant to combat the nationalist and communist forces that had so strongly effected European history, the program
78. Zachmann (1999: 1). 79. Castillo (2005: 18). 80. In full: Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands), further referred to as SED. 81. Merl (1997: 176).
507
was at heart an economic and political effort to remodel (Western) Europe in the image of the United States.82 When the Marshall Aid program was terminated, its success was so overwhelming, that the U.S. government and American business decided to continue to offer the world a comparable mission of trade policy within a narrative of progress and universal prosperity. A broad program was developed in which the U.S. Information Agency, the semi-private Advertising Council, the Department of Commerce and the Department of Economic Affairs were cooperating with American businesses to export the American way of life abroad. In the period between 1954 and 1956, the representatives of the Trade Mission Program encountered over 78,000 businessmen in nineteen countries, in order to promote American consumer capitalism.83 Apart from this personal approach, numerous exhibitions were organized in different (European and Asian) countries. At these exhibitions, the main ingredients of the American way of life were shown in such a way as to convince the visitors of the desirability of the social-economic environment in which the products were made and sold. One of the reporters of the American journal House Beautiful, stated, after having visited one of the American exhibitions abroad: Europeans will understand the basic dignity of separate bathrooms, hot and cold running water, an abundance of sunlight and electric light, air, space, and green surroundings. And theyll understand, as some of our own intellectuals do not, the freedom offered by washing machines and dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, automobiles, and refrigerators.84 As sketched above, the economic recovery of the East and Middle European countries that fell into the Soviet Unions sphere of interest had been less easy and fast as was the case on the western side of the iron curtain, but their economic situation had improved significantly as well.85 Although the socialist states were built on unambiguous promises of material progress,86 the Soviet Union had initially been reluctant to enter the consumption battlefield with the United States. When Khrushchev came to power after Stalins dead in 1953, he recognized the increased significance of rising living conditions for the legitimacy of the socialist cause, now that the world was
82. Krige (2006: 16). 83. Haddow (1997: 59). 84. Idem: 44. 85. Merkel (1999: 3204). 86. Crowley (2000: 26).
508
VEENIS
confronted with Americas aggressive victory march on the field of consumption. You cannot put theory into your soup or Marxism into your clothes he stated in an interview in 1958.87 When he eventually accepted the American challenge to combat each other by means of materialist promises, the initial struggle over economic, military, and political influence between the two superpowers was recast in terms of consumption. By the end of the 1950s, the main question seemed to be whether the capitalist or the socialist empire was able to provide better material circumstances for its citizens.88 Although the GDR assigned itself a hard task, promising to realize its package of material and social well-being, the material and consumption situation in the GDR had improved significantly. Rationing was abolishedin 1958, ten years later than in the FRG and party leader Walter Ulbricht announced a plain and all-out battle on material and consumerist terms with the FRG. The goals were ambitious: the aim was to win the consumption battle between capitalism and socialism within three years in order to show our superiority towards West Germany in mastering the main economic tasks.89 Since many East Germans were inclined to judge the socialist state on the basis of the consumer possibilities it offered them,90 the exit numbers diminished with 30 percent in 1959. At a conference dealing with the states plans on the development of living standards, held in Berlin in 1960, one of the participants contended optimistically that socialism was about to prove that it was able to provide a level of material prosperity, which the most technically advanced capitalist countries were unable to offer their populations.91 This is the context within which the East German state decided to call for the development of a domestic cola-drink in the summer of 1957. The governments nervous reaction, when officials confronted a grumbling population in search of soft drinks, was the direct result of the inter-German competition for popular support and legitimacy. In both German states, the postwar symbolic order was characterized by
87. Haddow (1997: 214, n. 29). 88. See, among others Castillo (2005), Haddow (1997), Reid (2008), Crowley (2000), and Hamilton (2008). 89. Gries (1991: 335, my translation, mv). In 1956, Khrushchev contended that the economic battle between socialism and capitalism was being fought out on German soil, there, the comparison is made; which [social] order creates better material conditions: that in West Germany or that in East Germany (Landsman, 2005: 144). The assumption that the socialist states would win the economic race was no hollow rhetoric, but based on really existing growth-figures. At that time comparable conclusions were subscribed by western economists (Merl, 1997: 180). 90. Heldmann (1999: 137). 91. Merl (1997: 180).
509
policies and promises that, in spite of their differences, were both structured around material improvement in order to work away societal tensions and accomplish social well-being. Whereas their western competitors, struggling for state legitimacy, were able to offer the population all the Wirtschaftswunders refreshing fruits, which were (subconsciously) associated with redemption,92 GDR ministries had to explain their citizens that there was nothing wrong with plain tap water. In order to prevent even bigger problems next year,93 government commissions turned an eye to the situation in West Germany, where fruit juice and cola were very popular, and they decided to develop a Coca Cola-like beverage in their attempts to win the consumption race with their West German competitors. The consumption-centered legitimacy battle between the two German states, and the territorial and emotional closeness of the FRG, which enabled East Germans to criticize their regime by identifying with the western world, forced the East German government to adjust more strongly and overtly to the western consumer model than it would probably have done otherwise.94
Western Goods Appeal in the GDR

As I have shown while sketching the first years of East German colas production, and the states attempts to outdo the western world of affluence were actually doomed to fail from the start. A certain level of prosperity was certainly reached, which allowed East Germans to live a decent life amidst a modest form of affluence. Much has been written on East German economics continuous shortages.95 Although the consumption problems East Germans struggled with were real enough, the nuisance about them was extra intensified by the governments never-ending glorification of economic developments on the one hand, and the beautiful images of life at the other side of the Wall on the other. Both Germanys subscribed to a symbolic order which was centered on material wellbeing and consumption, but only one seemed able to realize what it promised. If it is annoying to stand in line for relatively ordinary consumer goods, it is even more so when that days newspaper claims
92. Schutts (2003). 93. SAPMO, DE1/28941, Begrndung des Beschlusses zur Verbesserung der Versorgung der Bevlkerung mit Getrnken, p. 17. 94. Merl (1997: 138). 95. See, for instance Zatlin (1999), Ciesla and Poutros (1999), Merkel (1999), and Veenis (1999).
510
VEENIS
a new round of economic successes. It tends to become really problematic when the TV every night shows ones erstwhile fellow country (wo)men who are apparently able to buy whatever they want, whenever they want. As long as the GDR existed, its public sphere was dominated by exuberant promises about economic success as the basis for social solidarity and equality, which were never realized in practice. A social worker in the village where I did my fieldwork explained it as follows:96 In our country, the schizophrenia between promises and reality became more visible everyday. If we looked out of the window and then read the newspaper, it was clear that some things did not fit: the stories in the newspaper were all equally rosy, but everybody could see the drabness, poverty, and decline that characterized our world. The western material world nested itself in this gap: we thought that in the west reality and ideal were not so far apart as was the case here. We thought that people over there were happier, because there was no schizophrenia there. And western visitors confirmed that image. They looked like the advertisements, they laughed like the people in the advertisements, and they even smelled like them. They confirmed the image that we saw on our TV screens everyday. And on the basis of that, we really thought that the inhabitants of West Germany and their ideal selves were one and the same. In this merger, consumer goods played an important role. Because of their presence, western life was what it looked like. If only we could have those goods, the schizophrenic situation in our country would come to an end, and the gap between the ideal and the real would be closed in our lives as well.97 The beautiful-sounding-but-never-realized promises about material improvement as the road to social paradise nourished East Germans material and consumption desires,98 subscribing and encouraging the development of an outspokenly materialist symbolic order. By ascribing a problem-solving capacity to material factors, while denying the historical tensions on which they were based, the socialist state had unwillingly encouraged an explicitly materialist politics of identity, due to which many East Germans came to recognize material comfort as the basis of personal and social wellbeing. This was the foundation for the development of a collective
96. Anthropological fieldwork was carried out between September 1993 and October 1994 in a middle sized town in Thuringia. 97. Interview with Stefan X., social worker, by the author, April 26, 1994. 98. Crowley (2000: 26).
511
fantasy on the material as a means for collective redemption. Material improvement was associatively linked with an allencompassing form of harmony, with no room for the (historical and actual) antagonisms that constituted the ferment of this desire. No matter how hard the East German regime tried to ban the western worlds power of attraction by vehemently condemning its exploitative and competitive socioeconomic basis and its kitschy looks, no argument could disenchant the images of western affluence. Everything from the West was special. It always had this special aurathis shine, which distinguished it from our stuff. The parcels that so many people obtained from their West German families around Christmas time were cherished as small shrines, a woman of about forty told me, when I was doing fieldwork in a medium-sized town in Thuringia.99 Her story is telling. For the majority of East Germans, the material world of the west was The Place to Be and even West German plastic shopping bags had a high barter value. Apart from the western worlds quantitative affluence, outer characteristics appear to have played a significant role in this. The above quoted woman explained that everything from the west was equally miraculous. It came from another world, a world we endlessly looked up to, a world we worshipped to the skies. The main difference between the looks of western and East German goods was that, contrary to East German goods, those from the west seemed to be explicitly made to seduce people. With their pimped-up outlook, characterized by an overabundance of the advertising spin that usually accompanies brand products in competitive free-market economies,100 they provided a seductive dream of another, probably better, world. One man, who (both during the GDR era and after 1990) worked in a shop where household goods were sold, explained it as such:
Our products were merely meant to do what their function demanded. Take for instance our washing-powder: that was meant to clean and nothing else, whereas West German washing powder was completely different: it was meant to entice. Or take the fragrance of soap: the scent of western soap promised that life was more than mere functionality and purposiveness, whereas our soap ... well, it didnt stink, but its only raison dtre was to clean. And that was it. The same principle applied to everything. Our salt was
99. Interview with Mrs. X (local government official) by the author, June 15, 1994. 100. Cook (2007: 213).
512
VEENIS
salt and thats what it said on its packaging: it was a plain white packaging with salt written on it: stincknormal. And the same with cabinets: our cabinets were meant to store and that was all. Whereas the West German cabinets had this little ridge here and a small adornment there.101
East German designers were explicitly forbidden to feed consumers dreams and desires. They were taught that good design was to be in line with, and to express present-day reality and production processes. Ornamentations were generally unnecessary and thus unwelcome, and designers were instructed to develop forms that emphasized goods function. Form follows function, an equally popular proverb in western design, was strictly observed to in the GDR. The concrete production of objects was further determined by the relative shortage of raw materials from which the GDR suffered. Asked what the ridges and adornments, the enticing smells and bright colors of western goods stood for, what it had represented for East Germans, a student told me that he and his countrymen completely lost sight of reality when they saw westerners. When we saw them, with their beautiful clothes and their heavy cars, we almost forgot that they also had to go the bathroom and eat in order to survive. They seemed another, a better, a more perfected kind of people. And that image, that assumption was associated with certain outer appearances. Until the Wende, we believed that people in the west were better, because they looked better.102 This story is crucial for understanding western consumer goods appeal. It makes clear that, in many East Germans perception, life at the other side of the wall seemed to be unhindered by the sort of problems that characterized East German life. A comparable conclusion was drawn by West German historian Lutz Niethammer. When he was allowed to perform a large-scale oral history research project in the GDR (in 1987), he could not escape the impression that inhabitants of the GDR had nearly reduced the fullness of life to a material-goods affair.103 He recognized this reduction as an officially licensed valve, through which other frustrations and discontents were expressedfrustrations and discontents that thus remained unmentioned. This understandable reduction of the fullness of life to the straightforward material, had become a lingua franca in the GDR, into which all feelings had to be translated.104
101. Interview with Heiko X (salesman of household goods), 1 June, 1994. 102. Conversation with East German student, 22 June, 1994. 103. Niethammer (1991: 39). 104. Idem.
513
Niethammer makes clear that the GDRs inhabitants and the regime consented to a purely materialist outlook on existence in order to silently smother and repress other issues. In the next paragraph, I will try to suggestively answer the question what these issues might have been. Here, I merely want to stress that, by criticizing the state for not fulfilling its materialist promises while collectively longing for the place where promise and reality seemed one, East Germans still subscribed the ideological realm they shared with the state. Of course, the situation in 1985 cannot be equated with the period around 1960, but the basis of the unspoken bond between the inhabitants and the regime of the GDR was laid after the war, when materialist strivings and desires were used to smooth away the painful social antagonisms that at that time violently came to the fore. In the last section of this paper, I want to deal with the question of what exactly was hidden under the collective desire for a life amidst (western) abundance. As I hope to make clear, the answer is directly related to the influence of dictatorial rule on the social climate in the GDR.
Painful continuities
Dictatorial power was exercised rather subtly in the GDR. There were hardly any open displays of force. The socialist regime was able to convince most people that they were powerless to change the situation, and most people decided that there was no other option than to follow the rules. This resulted in a remarkable relationship between rulers and ruled, which was well analyzed by historian Corey Ross. He makes clear that the relationship between the domains we usually designate separately, as regime and society, should in East Germany be regarded as areas of overlap, or better still as fields of negotiation, where a process of interaction and mutual dependence between rulers and ruled took place.105 Employing different mechanisms to enmesh East Germans in the states rituals of legitimation, the dictatorial state seems to have been able to coerseduce (a contraction of coerce and seduce)106 its inhabitants to a form of what anthropologist Achille Mbembe (writing about postcolonial Africa) has called the illicit cohabitation between
105. Ross (2002: 623). 106. The term coerseduction is used by Elteren (2006) in order to understand the hegemonic force and power of the United States on European societies.
514
VEENIS
dictatorial states and their inhabitants.107 The use of the term antifascism as the states official label has played a central role in this, just like the attempts to provide East Germans with the main icons of global consumer culture. It is impossible to pin down to what extent these mechanisms worked and were effective,108 but many East Germans (even those with an outspokenly critical attitude towards the socialist state) have afterwards recognized that their former existence was characterized by a widely shared symbiosis of refusal and conformity109a difficult to grasp form of loyalty to a simultaneously unloved state. Although many East Germans afterwards contended that this seeming conformity was merely a formal act that should not be taken seriously, this was not publicly expressed. However, as Wedeen makes clear, power often not only [resides] in orchestrated displays of obedience, but also in the silence about domestic politics that characterizes daily life.110 Discreetly laughing about the outer signs of conformity they displayed, East Germans exactly in this way reinforced and diffused the power of the authoritarian socialist regime.111 The main consequence of conformitys exonerating function was that the minority of people who chose not to conform ... experienced a complete lack of understanding from those around them, who felt provoked or even threatened by the civic courage of others.112 Those who showed the guts not to conform experienced painful consequences, they usually not only had to give up their career- and professional prospects but also encountered repudiation and social marginalization.113 A general climate of vigilant alertness was the result. People learned that it was wise not really to trust others, outside the close circle of relatives and friends. Whereas claims of social solidarity and loyalty dominated the public sphere, the experiences of homo homini lupus est,114 which Germans had suffered so bitterly during and after the war, continued in a very diluted and disguised form in everyday life in East Germany.
107. Mbembe (1992: 4). 108. In my dissertation, I describe these mechanisms in more detail, see especially the last paragraphs of chapter 4, 5, and 6 (Veenis, 2008). An English version is going to be published in 2011 (Veenis, 2011). 109. Ross (2002: 107). Also see Meuschel (1992) and Tormey (1995). On the GDR, also see East German writer (Simon, 1995: 48 and 62). 110. Wedeen (1999: 146). 111. Idem: 153. 112. Ross (2002: 107). 113. Also see (Fink, 2001:110). 114. Literally: man is a wolf to his fellow man.
515
The gap between ideological promises and everyday reality, which characterized material life in the GDR, also typified the social climate. This could have had a destructive impact on East Germans collective self-representations, but I contend that the widespread dreams of the golden West played an important role in resisting this. The west seemed the place of fulfillment and ultimate arrival,115 with consumption and consumer goods as its main fetishes. If only we would have those goods, our life would simply be perfect several East Germans explained to me. Both the images in magazines and on television, and the mere sight of western people visiting the country, suggested that people in the west lived in complete harmony. Consumer goods and consumption possibilities were the main constituents of this representation. The central importance of western consumer possibilities was even recognized at the official level of state policy. Officially, the western world was despised, but some of the most loyal state functionaries and party members obtained part of their pay in western currencies.116 In this way, the state unwillingly acknowledged a feeling that was widespread in the GDR: that East German identity was best expressed in the language of western commodities. Idealizing life on the other side of the wall and identifying with this idealized portrayalas the representation of what life would have been like if history had followed a different trackallowed East Germans to ascribe the failure of the realization of their own societys ideals to far away factors outside their control. This allowed the collective maintenance of unattainable social idealsa perfect escape route to cover up those elements within East German society and history that were at odds with this idealized condition. The Americaninspired consumer paradise seemed to offer the ultimate fulfillment, das Echte. Although the realization of this ideal identity occurred in the west, the specific location of this imaginary space was irrelevant. Rather than being concrete, it was a fantasya state-legitimized fantasy. Western consumer goods were the referential incarnations of
115. Spyer (1998: 9). 116. Only the most loyal East Germans were chosen to visit capitalist countries, when that was needed for business reasons. During my research in the local Stasi archives (StaatssicherheitsdienstMinistry for State Security), I noticed that the financial bonus they received for such trips was paid in West German currency. BstU (Bundesbeauftragte fr die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik), KD Rudolstadt (Gera), 003017: Berichterstattung zur Dienstreise Frankreich, 7.12.-16.12.86, p. 4.
516
VEENIS
an imaginary world, conjuring up not just an imaginary geography, but more importantly, an imagined collective identity. West German affluence was the bright epicenter of the East German politics of utopia,117 the main center of the states hegemonic project. By cherishing their fantasies as if they were dreams about our life in a more prosperous form, East Germans preferred not to recognize that the magical power of the western world was mainly determined by the fact that the unmentionable problems in their own country seemed to be absent there. This fantasy allowed them to collectively uphold a perfected self-representation from which all unwanted elements and experiences were eradicated. As icon of a world where symbolic order and reality perfectly seemed to coincide, cans of western Cola were displayed in East German living rooms. They were reminiscent of an imaginary world, where the stories of how life should be seemed to be one with everyday reality. Western goods were far more significant in the GDR than their status of ordinary consumer goods at home could ever suggest. They were the material symbols of the imaginative labor with which East Germans collectively tried to uphold and ensure the stories, categories, and structures they lived by, enabling them to produce meaningful worlds.118
Conclusions
In this essay, I have suggested that the aura of Coca Cola and other western consumer goods in the former GDR pertained to the role of the American-inspired consumer world as a fantasy space. By exclusively focusing on the internal factors in the GDR that were responsible for the appeal of the American consumer world, I might seem to suggest that the American consumption model was so irresistible, that it hardly needed any selling at all. This suggestion, which is frequently made in the Americanization literature, and which is implicit in most of the social scientific literature on consumption,119 passes over the enormous efforts that American actors, mainly after WWII, put into selling the American consumer model throughout the world.120
117. Stavrakakis (1999: 152). 118. For a beautiful (theoretical and ethnographic) elaboration of these processes, see Port (2010). 119. See for instance Merl (1997) and the title of Grazia (2005) is telling. 120. A beautiful example offers Hamilton (2008).
517
Many authors, addressing the development of western consumer societies and Americas global influence or processes of Americanization, have highlighted the fact that the U.S. power of attraction is in some way related to its role and position as a fantasy zone.121 The image of the United States as the place of unlimited consumer possibilities is frequently idealized, connoting a perfected place where people live perfect lives,122 and elements of American consumer culture have been appropriated in different contexts as the concretization of peoples idealized lives and self-images. In these idealized scenes, consumption and material comfort serve as the main props, and the United States is frequently described as a fantasy space that non-Americans design in the image of their own subjective desires.123 The term fantasy is then employed in its everyday formreferring to beautified representations and strong desires. Still, the image of the United States is also frequently used as a counter example; America then connoting everything that people do not want to be, or are afraid to be/become.124 In both cases, the image of America functions as a mirror in which people look in order to see aspects of themselves that they especially like or dislike. The U.S. global role, as many peoples significant other, is thus analyzed according to the well-known bipolar model of desire versus disgust, or like versus dislike. In my view, however, the role that the Americaninspired consumer world has played in the history of the former GDR invites us to criticize and elaborate this frame of analysis. The East German case makes clear that the western world was a fantasy space, in the Lacanian sense of the term. When East Germans fantasized about life in a western setting, they pictured themselves in a perfected waystripped of those elements that in their own society and everyday life frustrated this ideal. Although their fantasies about a life amidst western goods should certainly be understood as a form of critique on their own government, who failed to deliver what it promised, the critique as such remained within the state-sanctioned hegemonic frame. It was, as Niethammer rightfully pointed out, an officially licensed valve, through which frustrations and discontents were expressed that had to remain unmentioned. By silencing the extent to which central elements in East Germans symbolic order
121. Elteren (2006: 45). 122. Brinkley (2003: 11). 123. Elteren (2006: 47). 124. Kuisel (1993) offers a beautiful analysis on this for the U.S. role in French history.
518
VEENIS
(the claims of social solidarity and loyalty, which dominated the public sphere) were actually corrupted by experiences of mutual mistrust and alertness, East Germans helped to cover up the gap between the ideological promises on the one hand and everyday reality on the other. This is not to say that they thus supported the state. It is to say that in this way, they tried to close the gaps in their leaking symbolic systems, upholding the existing discursive order, which allowed for mutual recognition. Being the indirect result of the states main ideological promises, East German fantasies about the West helped to reproduce and sustain its utopian ideals amidst scenes of material well-being. This is why I suggested earlier in this essay that the purpose of fantasy is not to satisfy an (impossible) desire but to constitute it as such.125 In my view, studying consumption is impossible without using the concept of fantasy. As explained above, its main advantage is that it refers to an internally contradictory, layered phenomenon. While showing the ideals people cherish and strive for, fantasies derive their propelling force from plastering the symbolic orders vulnerable spots. They thus invite historians and social scientists not to take peoples desires at face value, but to unravel the tensions on which they flourish. By inviting us to both pay attention to what people express and silence, fantasys theoretical value is that it forces us to consider the expressed words of the actors, without ignoring what they did not want to articulate clearly, as well as what they found difficult to articulate at all. 126 It forces us to incorporate peoples irrational drives and motives into the stories they tell us. Exactly its capacity to function as the symbolic orders double agent makes fantasy the perfect concept to study the dynamics of coercion and seduction, of critique and compliance that characterized life in socialist societies. Cherishing fantasies on a perfected and ultimately harmonized social domain allowed people to criticize the state, while upholding the main elements of its hegemonic promises. It would be inaccurate to interpret East Germans dissatisfaction on the consumption possibilities in their own country (and the concomitant longing for the western consumer world) as a mere form of critique. It was a critique, but it was deeply utopian at the same time. The power of attraction of the American-inspired consumer world in postwar West Germany is generally analyzed in relation to West Germans sense of injured citizenship, with the imagined community of the social market economy [defining] consumption as
125. Stavrakakis (1999: 101). 126. Confino (2005, resp. 307, 310).
519
central to a new, post-Hitler conception of citizenship.127 The American consumer world, as represented at trade fairs and in advertisements served as orchestrated moments of forgetting.128 The irresistible power of attraction of western consumer goods in the socialist world was partly the result of a comparable desireto hide from view and repress from memory specific parts of East Germans society and history. But whereas the population of West Germany was digesting (and thus reworking) its history while drinking Coca Cola, the drink played a somewhat more ambivalent role in East Germans recent history. Criticizing the state for not fulfilling its promises, East Germans desire for the American drink and the world it seemed to represent, helped to uphold the states main promises as such, indirectly endorsing East Germans ambivalent relationship with the socialist state apparatuscharacterized an invisible entwinement of loyalty and disgust. In the GDR, the desire for, and identification with the Americaninspired consumer world functioned as a means to push aside the most displeasing elements from peoples self-representations. Due to both their self-enclosed ideological framework and the compliance their inhabitants were unwillingly forced to, dictatorial societies such as the GDR are characterized by specific dynamics, which are the perfect breeding ground for the formation of collective fantasies. In an enlarged form, however, these societies shed light on some of the main characteristics of present-day consumer societies, of which planned obsolescence, unfulfilled desires, and a permanent desiring mode are the main ideological cores.129
References Books
Bessel, R., and R. Jessen. Die Grenzen der Diktatur. Staat und Gesellschaft in der DDR. Gttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1996. de Bruyn, G. Vierzig Jahre. Ein Lebensbericht. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Fischer, 1996. Campbell, C. The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Eagleton, T. Trouble with Strangers. A Study of Ethics. Whiley-Blackwell: Oxford, 2009.
127. Wiesen (2003: 168). 128. Idem. 129. Campbell (1987: 95), also see Stavrakakis (2006).
520
VEENIS
van Elteren, M. Americanism and Americanization. A Critical History of Domestic and Global Influence. London: McFarland & Company, 2006. Fink, C. Living Silence. Burma under Military Rule. New York: White Lotus & Zed Books, 2001. de Grazia, V. Irresistible Empire. Americas Advance through TwentiethCentury Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. Gries, R. Die Rationen-Gesellschaft. Versorgungskampf und Vergleichsmentalitt: Leipzig, Mnchen und Kln nach dem Kriege. Mnster, Germany: Westflisches Dampfboot, 1991. Haddow, R. H. Pavilions of Plenty. Exhibiting American Culture Abroad in the 1950s. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997. Hager, K. Beitrge zur Kulturpolitik. Reden und Aufstze 1972 bis 1981. Berlin, Germany: Dietz Verlag, 1981. Hallwirth, U. Auf der Suche nach einer neuen Identitt? Zum nationalen Selbstverstndnis in der westdeutschen Presse 1945-1955. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Lang, 1987. Herf, J. Divided Memory. The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. Hirdina, H. Gestalten fr die Serie. Design in der DDR 1949-1989. Dresden, Germany: VEB Verlag der Kunst, 1988. Jarausch, K. Dictatorship as Experience. Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR. New York: Berghahn, 1999. Kaes, A. From Hitler to Heimat. The Return of History as Film. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Kocka, J., and M. Sabrow. Die DDR als Geschichte. FragenHypothesen Perspektiven. Berlin, Germany: Akademie Verlag, 1994. Krige, J. American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Science in Europe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. Kuisel, R. F. Seducing the French. The Dilemma of Americanization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Landsman, M. Dictatorship and Demand. The Politics of Consumerism in East Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. Merkel, I. Utopie und Bedrfnis. Die Geschichte der Konsumkultur in der DDR. Kln, Germany: Bhlau Verlag, 1999. Meuschel, S. Legitimation und Parteiherrschaft in der DDR. Zum Paradox von Stabilitt und Revolution in der DDR 1945-1989. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Suhrkamp, 1992. Mitscherlich, A., and M. Mitscherlich. The Inability to Mourn. Principles of Collective Behavior. New York: Grove Press, 1975. Oldenziel, R., and K. Zachmann. Cold War Kitchen. Americanization, Technology, and European Users. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. Pendergrast, M. For God, Country & Coca-Cola. The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It. New York: Basic Books, 2000. Pritchard, G. The Making of the GDR 1945-53. From Antifascism to Stalinism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.
521
Ross, C. The East German Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of the GDR. London: Arnold, 2002. Schildt, A., and D. Siegfried (eds). European Cities, Youth and the Public Sphere in the Twentieth Century. New York: Berghahn, 2005. Simon, A. Versuch, mir und anderen die ostdeutsche Moral zu erklren. Giessen, Germany: Psycho-Sozial Verlag, 1995. Slle, D. Ein Volk ohne Vision geht zugrunde. Anmerkungen zur deutschen Gegenwart und zur nationalen Identitt. Wuppertal, Germany: P. Hammer, 1986. Stavrakakis, Y. Lacan and the Political. London: Routledge, 1999. Tormey, S. Making Sense of Tyranny. Interpretations of Totalitarianism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995. Veenis, M. The Scent of Soap and Christmas Parcels. East German Fantasies on Western Consumer Societies. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press, 2011. Verdery, K. The Transition from Socialism: Anthropology and Eastern Europe. New York: University of Rochester, 1992. Weber, H. DDR. Grundrib der Geschichte 1945-1990. Hannover, Germany: Fackeltrger Verlag, 1991. Wedeen, L. Ambiguities of Domination. Politics, Rhetoric and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Articles and Essays

Balbier, U. A., and C. Rsch. Mehr als eine Fubnote. Das Verhltnis zwischen der DDR und den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, In Umworbener Klassenfeind. Das Verhltnis der DDR zu den USA, eds. U. A. Balbier and C. Rsch, 1126. Berlin, Germany: Christoph Links Verlag, 2006. Bessel, R. Hatred after War. Emotion and the Postwar History of East Germany. History and Memory 17 (2005): 195217. Brinkley, A. The Concept of an American Century. In The American Century in Europe, eds. R. L. Moore and M. Vaudagna, 721. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. Castillo, G. Domesticating the Cold War: Household Consumption as Propaganda in Marshall Plan Germany. Journal of Contemporary History 40 (2005): 26188. . The American Fat Kitchen in Europe: Postwar Domestic Modernity and Marshall Plan Strategies of Enchantment. In Cold War Kitchen. Americanization, Technology, and European Users, eds. R. Oldenziel and K. Zachmann, 3359. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008. Ciesla, B., and P. G. Poutros. Food Supply in a Planned Economy. SED Nutrition Policy between Crisis Response and Popular Needs. In Dictatorship as Experience. Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR, ed. K. Jarausch, 14363. New York: Berghahn, 1999. Confino, A. Fantasies about the Jews. Cultural Reflections on the Holocaust. History and Memory 17 (2005): 296322. Cook, R. F. Good Bye, Lenin!: Free-Market Nostalgia for Socialist Consumerism. Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies 43 (2007): 20620.
522
VEENIS
Crowley, D. Warsaws Shops, Stalinism and the Thaw. In Style and Socialism. Modernity and Material Culture in Post-War Eastern Europe, eds. S. Reid and D. Crowley, 2549. Berg: Oxford, 2000. Diesener, G., and R. Gries. Chic zum Geburtstag unserer Republik. Zwei Projekte zur Produkt- und Politikpropaganda im Deutsch-Deutschen Vergleich. Geschichtswerkstatt 25 (1992): 5669. Gries, R. Hurrah, Im Still Alive! East German Products Demonstrating East German Identities. In Over the Wall/After the Fall: Post-Communist Cultures through an East-West Gaze, eds. S. Forrester, M. J. Zaborowska and E. Gapova, 181200. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004. Hamilton, S. Supermarket USA Confronts State Socialism: Airlifting the Technopolitics of Industrial Food Distribution into Cold War Yugoslavia. In Cold War Kitchen. Americanization, Technology, and European Users, eds. Oldenziel and Zachmann, 13763. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008. Heldmann, P. Konsumpolitik in der DDR. Jugendmode in den sechziger Jahren. In Konsumpolitik. Die Regulierung des privaten Verbrauchs im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. H. Berghoff, 13559. Gttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999. Hell, J. History as Trauma, or, Turning to the Past Once Again: Germany 1949/1989. The South Atlantic Quarterly 96 (1997): 91148. Jarausch, K. Beyond Uniformity: The Challenge of Historicizing the GDR. In Dictatorship as Experience, ed. K. Jarausch, 318. New York: Berghahn Books, 1999. Laufer, J. From Dismantling to Currency Reform: External Origins of the East German Dictatorship, 1943-1948. In Dictatorship as Experience, ed. K. Jarausch, 7391. New York: Berghahn Books, 1999. Maier, C. S. Introduction: Issue then is Germany and with it Future of Europe. In The Marshall Plan and Germany. West German Development within the Framework of the European Recovery Program, eds. C. S. Maier and G. Bischof, 139. Oxford: Berg, 1991. Mbembe, A. Provisional Notes on the Postcolony. Africa 62 (1992): 338. Merkel, I. Leitbilder und Lebensweisen von Frauen in der DDR. In Sozialgeschichte der DDR, eds. H. Kaelble, J. Kocka and H. Zwahr, 35983. Stuttgart, Germany: Klett Cotta, 1994. Merl, S. Sowjetisierung in der Welt des Konsums. In Amerikanisierung und Sowjetisierung in Deutschland 1945-1970, ed. K. Jarausch, 16795. Frankfurt, Germany: Campus Verlag, 1997. Niethammer, L. Glasnost privat 1987. In Die volkseigene Erfahrung. Eine Archologie des Lebens in der Industrieprovinz der DDR, eds. L. Niethammer, A. v. Plato and D. Wierling, 976. Berlin, Germany: Rowohlt, 1991. Patterson, P. H. Truth Half Told: Finding the Perfect Pitch for Advertising and Marketing in Socialist Yugoslavia, 19501991. Enterprise and Society 4 (2003): 179225.
523
Plato, A. v. Denunziation im Systemwechsel. Verhaftete, Deportierte und Lagerhftlinge in der SBZ um 1945. Historical Social Research 26 (2001): 179203. Port, M. v. d. Circling around the Really Real: Spirit Possession Ceremonies and the Search for Authenticity in Bahian Candombl. Ethos 33 (2005): 14979. Reid, S. E. Who Will Beat Whom? Soviet Popular Reception of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959. Kritika 9 (2008): 855904. Scholz, N. The Modern Home During the 1950s. West German Cultural Reconstruction and the Ambivalent Meanings of Americanization. Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 121 (2008): 296311. Schutts, J. Born Again in the Gospel of Refreshment? Coca-Colanization and the Re-Making of Postwar German Identity. In Consuming Germany in the Cold War, ed. D. Crew, 12151. Berg: Oxford, 2003. . Die erfrischende Pause. Marketing Coca-Cola in Hitlers Germany. In Selling Modernity: Advertising in Twentieth-Century Germany, eds. P. E. Swett, J. Wiesen and J. R. Zatlin, 15182. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. Stavrakakis, Y. Objects of Consumption, Causes of Desire: Consumerism and Advertising in Societies of Commanded Enjoyment. Gramma 14 (2006): 83106. Trommler, F. The Creation of History and the Refusal of the Past in the German Democratic Republic. In Coping with the Past. Germany and Austria after 1945, eds. K. Harms, L. R. Reuter and V. Drr, 7994. Wisconsin, MI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994. Veenis, M. Consumption in East Germany. The Seduction and Betrayal of Things. Journal of Material Culture 4 (1999): 79112. . Longing for the Country of the True Germans: Covering Up Shared Lies by Comforting Scents. In Wildness and Sensation. Anthropology of Sinister and Sensuous Realms, eds. R. v. Ginkel and A. Strating, 32244. Antwerpen, Belgium: Het Spinhuis, 2007. Weiner, M. Consumer Culture and Participatory Democracy: The Story of Coca-Cola during World War II. Food and Foodways 6 (1996): 10930. Wiesen, J. Miracles for Sale: Consumer Displays and Advertising in Postwar West Germany. In D. F. Crew Consuming Germany in the Cold War. Oxford: Berg, 2003, 15179. Wildt, M. Changes in Consumption as Social Practice in West Germany during the 1950s. In Getting and Spending. European and American Consumer Societies in the Twentieth Century, eds. S. Strasser, C. McGovern and M. Judt, 30117. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Zachmann, K. A Socialist Consumption Junction. Debating the Mechanization of Housework in East Germany, 1956-1957. Technology and Culture 43 (1999): 73100. Zatlin, J. R. Consuming Ideology. Socialist Consumerism and the Intershops, 1970-1989. In Arbeiter in der SBZ-DDR, eds. P. Hbner and K. Tenfelde, 55573. Essen, Germany: Klartext Verlag, 1999.
524
VEENIS
iek, S. Eastern Europes Republics of Gilead. New Left Review 183 (1990): 5063.
Magazines
Form und Zweck. Kultur im Heim. Neue Werbung.
Unpublished Work
Port, M. v. d. Dat wat rest. Over sacralisering en de ongerijmdheden van het bestaan. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Free University. Inaugural lecture, 2010. Veenis, M. Dromen van Dingen. Oost-Duitse Fantasien over de Westerse Consumptiemaatschappij. PhD thesis, Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam.
Archival Sources
BstU (Bundesbeauftragte fr die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. KD Rudolstadt (Gera), 003017. SAPMO (Stiftung Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR), Berlin. DE1, 28941. DE1, 51552. DE4, AV-29842. DE4, AV 6411. DG5, 088. DL, 102-234.
Interviews
Mrs. X., local government official Rudolstadt, June 15, 1994, Rudolstadt. Heiko X., salesman of household goods, June 1, 1994, Rudolstadt. Student X, June 22, 1994, Rudolstadt. Stefan X., social worker, April 26, 1994, Rudolstadt.
Copyright of Enterprise & Society is the property of Oxford University Press / UK and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

64865283

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

64865283

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Cola in the German Democratic Republic.

East German Fantasies on Western Consumption

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Making Cola in the GDR

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

The Consumption Battle between FRG and GDR

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

The Consumption Battle between FRG and GDR

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Western Goods Appeal in the GDR

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

Articles and Essays

Cola in the German Democratic Republic

You might also like