Tag Archives: Germany

Reviews

GOOD BYE LENIN (2003): THE VISION OF ECONOMIC CHANGE

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Goodbye Lenin is a satire film played during the German reunification. It quickly became a big success in German cinema and attracted worldwide recognition. The set brought the viewer back into the days of the German Democratic Republic, 13 years after the collapse of socialism and the fall of the wall. While it doesn’t glorify the past, the film is an excellent account of the country’s rich history. 

 

The Economic Aspect

The success of “Goodbye Lenin” brings attention to the uproar of Germans who feel the need to rediscover their socialist history and relieve the changes. Many people wonder why Germans want to restore a system they already lost, but it’s a part of their collective identity. 

The new marketing structure has seen a spike in the economy of East Germany. Easterners felt like their world changed at an extremely high speed that other ex-socialist societies didn’t undergo. They were overwhelmed by the intensity of western laws, consumer products, popular culture icons, and institutions. Their identity was torn between The socialist East and the capitalist West. 

The film portrays the east’s assimilation into the western culture, resulting in the dissolved identity of the East Germans. The ultimate question is, “Should the major social changes and the “peaceful revolutions xxx” that followed be re-evaluated?” They may have been traumatizing events that were not treated with the utmost care they deserved. 

 

The Rundown of Goodbye, Lenin

Wolfgang Becker directs the movie. He narrates the events in 1989 that all Germans can relate to. The story is based on Christiane Kerner, who devotes her life to teaching in the socialist state after losing her husband. She would later witness her son participating in a violent protest against the socialist state and suffer a heart attack due to the shock and pain. 

Christiane wakes up eight months later, having missed a large chunk of the fundamental changes that occurred in Eastern Berlin. When her son, Alexander, realizes the changes could have on the mother, he recreates the past and makes her believe that the former communist world still exists. As the show progresses, his efforts to keep up with the reconstructed reality become more complicated. From convincing family members to keep up with the lie to re-labeling groceries and remodeling their apartments, the lies slowly catch up with Alexander.

During the final cast show, it becomes evident that Christiane understands what the son has been doing. Although the mother passes on, the ending is on a positive note. Christiane dies gracefully and happy, knowing that the son would go to whatever lengths to protect her. 

 

Communism has been made to look like an ideal situation that cannot survive the current economy. Sometimes it is used to describe Eastern Germany or the Soviet Union. Considering that the typical definition of communism is unattainable, it is incorrect to use it as an interchangeable word for socialism. Goodbye, Lenin shows the other side of the story that is often assumed. Not everyone was pleased with the economic changes in Germany, and their voices shouldn’t be silenced.

Historical context

The Prussian Tradition

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Prussia and Germany have been confused in the minds of the simplifiers of history. The adjective “Prussian” is frequently used as an epithet, a weapon of denunciation, a condemnation of militarism and conservative repression. The Germans are supposed to have perfected this technique of government in modern times.

But Prussia was not even a German territory in the beginning, as we have seen. Prussia became a part of Germany through conquest and colonization, during the Middle Ages and in early modern times. Certain features of government and public life which developed in this frontier region became a significant part of German life. The Prussian kings eventually made themselves the masters of Germany. So, it might be wise to analyze the Prussian tradition, which became an obviously important factor in modern German history.

I. The Reformation

To trace the development of Brandenburg-Prussia, the nucleus of the Prussian tradition, we have to begin with the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty-Years War. There is no need to treat these events in great detail, since they are a significant part of Western Civilization. We are all familiar by now with the circumstances that led to Luther’s revolt from Rome:
the abuses and corruption that prevailed in the church;
the attempt of reformers to purify the church and their failure;
the event that led to the break with the papacy, symbolized by Luther’s nailing of the 95 theses to the door of the church at Wittenberg in 1517;
the attempt of the emperor Charles V and other princes to force Luther to recant and his heroic refusal at the Diet of Worms;
Luther’s temporary isolation in a castle and his translation of the Latin Bible into vernacular German;
and finally the establishment of the Lutheran and other Protestant churches.

We all know that the causes for this great religious schism were social and economic as well as religious, although Luther was no social revolutionary, as his encouragement of the peasant suppression revealed. Yet the break with the universal church was permanent and Protestantism became established in Germany and several other northern European countries. But the conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and the princes, which contributed to the Reformation, continued, despite the so-called compromise of 1555, which satisfied no one. There was a revival of Catholicism at the Council of Trent, which brought about belated reform in the Catholic Church and set Catholicism off on a counter-offensive. Catholicism remained the predominant force in Austria, Bavaria and the Rhineland.

There was a constant quarrel over the church lands which had been secularized in the process of the Reformation. What about churchly princes who had been converted to Protestantism? What should be done with their territorial possessions? After the so-called Ecclesiastical Reservation of 1552 the churchly princes were supposed to give up their lands. But many princes claimed that this rule was not binding. A variety of incidents continued to escalate ill feelings and growing tensions. The emperors tried very hard to paper over the increasing series of crises. By 1600 Germany was really divided, and not only between Catholics and Protestants. The Calvinists and Lutherans were also in a state of disarray, even within the Protestant Union which was organized in 1600. During the next decade the opposition organized itself into the Catholic League. War now seemed to be all but inevitable.

II. The Thirty-Years-War

The so-called Thirty-Years-War really began as a civil war between German Protestants and German Catholics, but it soon turned into an international conflict. The contestants were not exactly divided along religious lines, but rather along power-political lines. The combat actually began in Bohemia, where John Hus had earlier started a religious revolt against the established church. Hus was basically a Protestant although he was also a great Czech national figure. There bad been a genuine cultural revival in Bohemia in the l4th century and during the l4th and l5th centuries Bohemia had managed to retain a measure of independence from a reluctant Habsburg regime.

In 1517 Bohemia received a new king, who happened to be a Catholic Habsburg-Ferdinand II. This event led to immediate conflict between the Bohemian nobility and people on the one hand and the new Catholic ruler on the other hand. It culminated in the famous “defenistration of Prague”, when an official of the king was thrown out of the window of a public building by Czech patriots. The Bohemians then made Frederick, duke of Palatine, a Protestant, king of their country. The war was on. In the famous Battle of the White Mountain in 1620 the Czechs were defeated by the armies of the emperor and Frederick had to flee, receiving the name of the “winter king.”

This war continued for some thirty indecisive years, eventually involving a number of foreign countries, most notably France (strangely enough on the Protestant side) and Sweden. In the end Germany lay in ruins, severely depopulated and spiritually devastated. The results were predictable. This war sealed the political decentralization of Germany and established the authority and power of the local princes. The many princes of Germany claimed, for the first time, political sovereignty in the French sense and the final treaties recognized that sovereignty. They could have their own armies, money, treaties and make their own economic legislation. However, they could make no alliances against the emperor himself, whose authority nevertheless was severely eroded. His only power base was found in his own lands-Austria, Hungary and Italy.

The Swedes got a hold of Pomerania and the French retained Metz and Verdun, thus further penetrating to the Rhine frontier. Prussia was a gainer since it received Hither Pomerania, and the son of the Count of Palatine acquired new video pornografici plus an electorate but lost the Oberpfalz. Saxony, Bavaria and Prussia were greatly enlarged and became significant powers in Germany after 1648, the date of the Treaty of Westphalia.

Religiously the Calvinists received the same rights as the Lutherans. However, one could hardly speak of religious liberty for the people, since the princes determined the religion of their subjects. The religious division of Germany was now permanent, the Northeast being Protestant, the West half and half, and the South Catholic. Central Europe was the only place where the Reformation did not produce clear religious majorities. This had a tremendous effect on politics in the succeeding centuries.

III. The Emergence of Prussia

This general background brings us to the emergence of Prussia as a great power in German and European affairs. As I have already said, Prussia was one of the main gainers in the outcome of the Thirty-Years-War. Two men made Prussia into that power and may be called not only the creators of the Prussian state but the founders of the Prussian tradition in German affairs. These men were Frederick William, the Great Elector, and his grandson, Frederick II, the Great.

Frederick William, the founder of the Prussian state, ruled for almost a half century, from 1640 to 1688. He was the first great Brandenhurg ruler, even overshadowing Albrecht the Bear, who first established himself in the territory around Berlin. Frederick William’s accession ended five centuries of relative complacency. He played a far larger role in the Westphalian Congress than his state deserved, both in terms of size and role played in the war. The reason was that he had a large army and displayed certain spiritual qualities which impressed European rulers. Frederick William was determined to defend his three widely scattered possessions:
the Duchy of Prussia, surrounded by Poland and part of it encumbered by feudal law;
Cleve-Mark, subject to Dutch pressure;
and Brandenhurg, subject to Swedish pressure in West Pomerania.

Historical context, Reviews, Wolfgang Becker

A Journey from Two to One Germany through the Eyes of Alex

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Good bye Lenin! Rewarded as the Best European Film at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival is the most commercially successful German movie in history. The film provides the glimpse of one of the major European historical event and revolves around during the collapse of Berlin wall .The movie depicts the effect of German reunification on the people and highlights many social and political issues. The Film is based on the story of a young boy named Alex and his fragile mother and his struggle to keep his avid communist mother alive and explores the reunification of East and West Germany through his life.
Alex’s mother, Christiane Kerner, is an avid follower of the Socialist party and a strong political activist, when she sees her son Alex being arrested in an anti-government protest, suffers a heart attack and falls into a coma shortly before the fall of the Berlin’s Wall. During her unconscious stage Germany faces many changes from the fall of Berlin wall to German reunification. But for Christiane, this news might turn to a shock and a relapse. Alex being aware of the fact that even slightest shock could become threat to his mother’s life, Alex hides the fall of the GDR from his mother and maintains the delusion that things are pretty normal in the German democratic republic. He tries to create the GDR again for her in their apartment by decorating the flat in its previous decor, replacing old clothes, and feeding his mother in old labeled jars as earlier. But like all deception, gradually it becomes complicated and even more difficult to maintain.
Despite everything, Christiane seldom witnesses strange incidences, such as a huge Coca-Cola ad banner spreading out on a building outside the flat on which Alex portrays his own story regarding the claim of patent dispute of Coca Cola’s invention to GDR from West. Even Alex and his buddy creates their own fake special reports by editing old tapes of news broadcasts, pretending to his mother to be a live broadcast. Thus Becker enfolds the Alex’s heart touching attempts to save his mother in every possible way and its is more of coming of age with sub-plots including the development of Alex’s relationship with Nurse Lara and Ariane’s job at Burger king after she quits her university study.
But one day Christiane ventures out from that tiny fictional world, sees a changed world herself. She learns that the streets are flooded with Westerners and is perplexed by all the ads for Coke. Alex and Denis again construct a fictional story to her that Westerners are fleeing to the East and produce fake newscasts reporting that the West is facing collapse and the Coke’s right has reverted to the communist nation.
Good bye Lenin is an idiosyncratic comedy, because it never utterly says the self deception which leads Christiane to support the Communist Party. In the end of the movie it is surprisingly suggested that she may have replaced her spouse with that of communist party as an act of compensation to her emotional trauma as in the earlier part of the movie it is learnt that his father abandoning his family behind flee over the Berlin wall to the west.
The film has many ups and downs and is a nostalgic as it is reflects and represents how the societies’ significant changes can adamantly affect people. The movie is marvelously entertaining, witty and occasionally poignant, tragic-comedy dealing with issues related with relationships, bonds to those of political, social and cultural. It gives a great insight of how the whole transition of communist to western world democracy influenced people.