Sociologyindex

BERLIN WALL

Sociology Books 2007

“Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!” –Ronald Reagan (1987)
Ryan Bobst, International Affairs and German Senior Seminar, Fall 2006 Communism suffered a constant decline beginning with Poland, then East Germany in 1989, and finally the Soviet Union in 1991. The implementation of Solidarity in Poland, a political party wanting sovereignty from the Soviet Union, led to future separation from the USSR. The application of Glasnost in the Soviet Union, a political policy allowing freedom of speech, permitted non-Communist governments, such as Hungary and Czechoslovakia, to break away from Soviet domination. Gorbachev, the Soviet President, urged Honecker, the East German President, to accept reform and allow certain freedoms in East Germany. After many peaceful demonstrations by the East and West German people, East Germany collapsed thus leading to the fall of the Berlin wall and the reunification of East and West Germany.
The film Das Versprechen (The Promise) [1995], delineates some of these historical aspects, fictionalized, dramatized and yet realistically portrayed in a modern German movie. The building of the Berlin wall in 1961, the ensuing escape attempts, the tunnels under the Berlin wall, and the later collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 are all highlighted in this movie using a love story plot to symbolize the separation between East and West Germany. The movie illuminates the microcosm of the love between Sophie and Konrad as well as the macrocosm of East and West Germany, the latter having promised their fellow countrymen in the East never to lose hope towards unification. - muskingum.edu/~modern/german/Abstract.pdf

The Economics of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall 
MANFRED TIETZEL, Universität Duisberg 
MARION WEBER, Universität Duisberg 
Rationality and Society, Vol. 6, No. 1, 58-78 (1994) DOI: 10.1177/1043463194006001005 © 1994 SAGE Publications
The rise and fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain are explained in the context of an exit-voice framework presuming rational actors. It is shown that the prohibition of exit by establishing what we call "political costs of individual mobility" was a conditio sine qua non for the effective suppression of internal political opposition in Eastern Europe, and in East Germany in particular. The analysis of the costs of emigration and of political protest as instruments of autocratic rule (mobility politics) leads to interesting and surprising implications as to the general stability of dictatorial regimes. - rss.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/6/1/58

Remembering the Berlin Wall: The Wall Memorial Ensemble Bernauer Strasse, Gerd Knischewski and Ulla Spittler - German Life and Letters 59 (2), 280–293. doi:10.1111/j.0016-8777.2006.00350.x 
Abstract: Remembrance and commemoration of the National Socialist past have always been contentious issues within the political culture of West Germany. After unification this process of 'coming to terms with the past' began to include the 'second German dictatorship' in the form of the GDR. In the 1990s, GDR remembrance projects mushroomed, mainly centring on the border and the activities of the 'Stasi'. It is tempting to view these remembrance debates in a Left versus Right, or anti-fascist versus anti-totalitarian, analytical framework. A case study of the Berlin Wall Memorial site and 'Documentation Center' in Bernauer Strasse shows that remembrance of the Wall indeed has high potential for instrumentalisation in political-ideological conflicts. However, several other factors have also contributed to the development of this remembrance of the Wall, and its improvised form and content. Apart from an added East–West dimension, there are: the sheer number and diversity of participants and interested parties, the institutional fragmentation of competencies and responsibilities, a 'psychology of resentment', the scarcity of resources, the controversial aesthetics of remembrance, accidental factors such as post-unification property legislation and the opposing roles of two church parishes, shifting political agendas and, finally, the demands of the tourism industry. - blackwell-synergy.com

The influence of geopolitical change on the well-being of a population: the Berlin Wall
V Heon-Klin, E Sieber, J Huebner and MT Fullilove 
Medical University of Lubeck, Lubeck, Germany. 
American Journal of Public Health, Vol 91, Issue 3 369-374
OBJECTIVES: Social cohesion is recognized as a fundamental condition for healthy populations, but social cohesion itself arises from political unity. The history of the Berlin Wall provides a unique opportunity to examine the effects of partition on social cohesion and, by inference, on health. METHODS: This ethnographic study consisted of examination of the territory formerly occupied by the Wall, formal and informal interviews with Berlin residents, and collection of cultural documents related to the Wall. Transcripts, field notes, and documents were examined by means of a keyword-in-context analysis. RESULTS: The separation of Berlin into 2 parts was a traumatic experience for the city's residents. After partition, East and West Germany had divergent social, cultural, and political experiences and gradually grew apart. CONCLUSIONS: The demolition of the Wall--the symbol and the instrument of partition--makes possible but does not ensure the reintegration of 2 populations that were separated for 40 years. The evolution of a new common culture might be accelerated by active attempts at cultural and social exchange. ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/91/3/369

A different political forum 
East German theatre and the construction of the Berlin Wall 
Laura Bradley, University of Edinburgh 
Journal of European Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2, 139-156 (2006) DOI: 10.1177/0047244106064907 © 2006 SAGE Publications
Using new archive material, this article explores how East German theatre responded to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. East Berlin's theatres and opera houses faced serious logistical difficulties, as they had previously relied heavily on Western practitioners. Even so, dramatists, directors and actors rallied in a strong public show of support for the Wall. Behind the scenes, most dissenters fell silent, in contrast to other professionals in East Berlin. But theatre productions were ambivalent: the political context invited spectators to read subversion into loyal stagings, and the Berliner Ensemble presented strong arguments both for and against repression in Brecht's Days of the Commune. When cultural politicians refused to repay artists’ loyalty with trust, intentionally subversive productions would start to transform theatre into a more critical political forum. - jes.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/36/2/139

Driving the Soviets up the Wall: A Super-Ally, a Superpower, and the Building of the Berlin Wall, 1958-61 
Author: Harrison H.M
Source: Cold War History, Volume 1, Number 1, August 2000, pp. 53-74(22)
Abstract: For understanding the key events and dynamics of the Cold War, it is insufficient to study just the policies of the superpowers; the new archival evidence increasingly reveals the importance of the goals and policies of the superpowers' key allies, or 'superallies', in the Cold War. Based on archival research in Moscow and Berlin, this article examines the Berlin Crisis of 1958-61 during which a 'superally', East Germany, used direct and indirect means to persuade the reluctant Soviets to build the Berlin Wall. - ingentaconnect.com

A German ‘Heimat’ further east and in the Baltic region? 
Contemporary German film as a provocation 
Alexandra Ludewig, University of Western Australia 
Journal of European Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2, 157-179 (2006) DOI: 10.1177/0047244106064909 © 2006 SAGE Publications
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, unification and the subsequent reinvention of the nation, German filmmakers have revisited their country's ‘Heimatfilm’ traditions with a view to placing themselves creatively in the context of its intellectual and artistic heritage. However, German directors like Ute Badura, Volker Koepp, Andreas Dresen, Peter Welz and Andreas Kleinert, choose an Eastern setting for their films – rather than alpine or heath landscapes – as they ascribe symbolic value to the Baltic region and former German territories in the East. In many instances their films culminate at the sea which stands for the rough elements of nature as experienced in numero u s maritime disasters in the untamed tidal waters of Germany's limited coastline. The ocean drives home the message that the only certainty in life is change. But why did they choose the contested Eastern German territories and the Baltic Sea? Is this reorientation and paradigm shift in the Heimat genre from the west to the east a rapprochement or, rather, a territorial claim? Are the shores of the Baltic Sea perhaps expressing a yearning for former German territories further east that were lost after 1945? This article will probe several interpretations of the Baltic shore as a cinematic motif. - jes.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/36/2/157

Symbolic Uses of the Berlin Wall, 1961-1989. 
Bruner, Michael S. 
Source: Communication Quarterly, v37 n4 p319-28 Fall 1989 
Abstract: Examines samples from public discourse during the period 1961-1989, which reveal several different symbolic uses of the Berlin Wall. Suggests these differences reflect the never-completed struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. - eric.ed.gov

Inverting Images of the 40s: The Berlin Wall and Collective Amnesia. 
Loshitzky, Yosefa 
Source: Journal of Communication, v45 n2 p93-107 Spr 1995 
Abstract: Examines images of World War II invoked in two live, international music concerts (one rock, one classical) celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall. Argues that Western television's choice of imagery represented the Wall's demise as a marker of the end of the Cold War rather than a vanishing monument of Germany's conflicted struggle with Holocaust memory. - eric.ed.gov

Twelve Years After: The Berlin Wall as Will and Idea 
Journal Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless 
Robert J. Kelly1 and Robert W. Rieber, City University of New York, New York 
Abstract The Berlin Wall at different times in its ignominious history has been demonized by Western opinion less because of its real paltry role in the Cold War tension in Europe than because of the fears and frustrations it generated within Europe. This is the central theme and claim of this paper. We attempt to show through an excursion of personal and institutional events how the perceptions of Soviet communist realities were refracted through the icon of the Wall as a Cold War symbol. - springerlink.com/content/u5662w3687580452/

"The Fall of the Wall"
chronikderwende.de/_/english/index_jsp.html
A retrospective spanning the 163 days from the German Democratic Republic's 40th birthday to the first free elections to the People's Chamber. A tri-medial project by the East Germany Broadcasting Association (ORB)
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall the ORB has begun broadcasting one of the longest documentary series in the history of television. From the 7th October 1999 until the 18th March 2000 "The Fall of the Wall" recalls the events of the day in the GDR a decade previously. A retrospective spanning the GDR's 40th birthday to the first free elections to the People's Chamber. The first part of the series of 15 minute long documentaries covering the peaceful revolution was awarded the prestigious Adolf Grimme Prize in 1995 and honoured as a journalistic masterpiece.
Historical Data, Retrospectives and Biographies
The ORB has extended "The Fall of the Wall" into an ambitious tri-medial project involving television, the internet and radio. This provides a special opportunity for the ORB, a young east Germany station, to make a significant contribution to the recollections of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The expansive German language internet site, with over 2000 pages covering background information, documents and chat rooms, is without doubt the most comprehensive archive on the fall of the Berlin Wall available on the internet. Due to the phenomenal interest from abroad in the project and the events surrounding the fall of the Wall we are offering an abstract of out site in English. The English language version provides an insight to the events that changed global dynamics forever. 
Encyclopaedia containing the most important information
Here you will find an overview of important information and gain an insight into what happened on the most historically relevant days. The biographies of key figures and an encyclopaedia of the most essential information should help you understand the exciting events that moved the world in the months from October 1989 until March 1990.
Wolfgang Thierse, in autumn 1989 a civil rights activist and member of the New Forum, today president of the German National Assembly (Bundestag), has called for a "unification of memories." Germans, both in the east and the west, should overcome their divided past through increased awareness of their common history. With our chronicle we hope to contribute to this and with our English version of the events we may even help people outside Germany to understand this part of our history.

"The Wall organized Berlin and gave meaning to lives. In recognition of this, Joseph Beuys proposed that the Wall should be made taller by 5cm so that it might have better proportions. One Swedish woman, was so captivated by the Wall that she married it on June 17, 1979, taking Wall W. Berliner-Mauer as her name. Against those who saw the Wall as divisive, Wall W. Berliner-Mauer argues that the Wall allowed peace to be maintained between East and West. As soldiers looked over the Wall to the other side, they saw men just like themselves, with families they loved and wanted to protect. In allowing these human relationships to take place, the Wall created a bond between men who would otherwise be faceless enemies. But Berliner-Mauer’s love for the Wall is not abstract. On the contrary, she understands objects as alive and possessing souls and is sexually drawn to the Wall by its horizontal lines and sheer presence. Faced with the tragedy of the Wall’s destruction in 1988, she has created a technique she calls temporal displacement to fix her mind permanently in the period during the period the Wall existed even at the cost of creating new memories." - audc.org 

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