Mehr als 30 Jahre nach der Wende scheint der Deutungskampf um das Ende des DDR-Rundfunks nicht beigelegt zu sein. Einerseits werden die mangelnden Einflussmöglichkeiten Ostdeutscher bei der Gestaltung des Rundfunks nach 1989 kritisiert. Andererseits wird die Eingliederung in das westdeutsche Rundfunksystem als Erfolg gefeiert, wobei die verschiedenen Identifikationsmöglichkeiten hervorgehoben werden, die die neu gegründeten Landessender von Anfang an boten. Dieser Beitrag fragt, wie Ostdeutsche den DDR-Rundfunk und seine Abwicklung heute erinnern. Gestützt auf die Strukturations- und Identitätstheorie von Anthony Giddens und auf der Basis von 37 biographischen Interviews wird ein Spektrum von Deutungen aufgezeigt, die Menschen aus Ostberlin rückblickend mit dem Medienstrukturumbruch verbinden. Die Studie zeigt, dass neben einer Gruppe von Befragten, die den späten DDR-Rundfunk kaum oder gar nicht in ihre Selbsterzählungen eingebunden haben, die Vergegenwärtigung dieser Einrichtung über unterschiedliche Biographien hinweg im Modus einer Selbstvergewisserung stattfindet. Dabei werden Zuordnungen und Abgrenzungen zur DDR-Herkunft vorgenommen. Die DDR-Rundfunkgeschichte wird mit Identität aufgeladen, was zum einen auf die medial dominanten DDR- und Ost-Diskurse zurückzuführen ist, zum anderen auf die verschiedenen (Kollektiv‑)Erfahrungen und Lebensbedingungen der Ostdeutschen nach 1989.
More than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall the debate about the end of the GDR TV and radio stations seems to have not been settled. On the one hand, it is criticized by scholars that East Germans lacked influence in the shaping of broadcasting structures and programmes after ’89, that their ideas were neglected and that decision makers had detached the GDR population from their past. On the other hand, the integration into the West German broadcasting system is celebrated as a success, emphasizing the numerous opportunities for East Germans to identify with the newly founded broadcasting stations. This article asks how East Berliners view the dissolution of GDR broadcasting and its end in retrospect. What are they thinking today about the programmes that were realized shortly after the wall came down?
East Berlin is a fitting example for exploring the connections between East German memory and identity work and the media. Berlin was the central location of GDR broadcasting, and the person responsible for the dissolution and transfer was based in the Funkhaus on Nalepastrasse. Personal connections to people who worked in the media probably weren’t unusual. In Berlin television and radio programmes from the GDR and West Germany were in direct competition before the fall of the Wall, and media with roots in East and West were also in direct competition after ’89. This is why it is likely that debates about the media were particularly present in here.
As we understand media use also as dealing with one’s own individual and collective experiences, we examine how the memories of the dissolution of GDR TV and radio are connected to the self-narratives and life contexts of people from East Berlin. We show how, 30 years after its end, GDR broadcasting still functions as a place of memory, or perhaps has only now become one. As a theoretical background we relied on Giddens’ theory of structuration and theory of identity. Giddens describes identity as one of the central problems in Western societies. Due to the reflexivity of life in the modern age and the numerous disembedding mechanisms, individuals are constantly confronted with the question of how they see themselves. In order to develop a somewhat stable identity, we have to incorporate certain events into the ongoing story about the self in a meaningful way. Identity therefore means the capacity to keep a particular narrative going. We assume that the media, not only specific contents, but media institutions themselves, are a means to do this. To keep the story about the self going, we require a certain continuity of experience, which we create by connecting the past, present and future. This means we remember the past in a way that it makes sense to us from today’s perspective. Our memory is an aspect of presencing. How the GDR TV and radio is made present today depends on various factors: past media experiences, frames of meaning, public media discourses and conversations with family/friends as well as the rules of social life and the resources we apply in the context of everyday life—which vary according to our social position.
To answer the question about the presencing of GDR television and radio, we decided to conduct biographical interviews. The biographical approach allows us to contextualize individual memories of past media offerings, i.e. to analyze them in relation to their personal life path and thus in their social preconditions. Interviews give us access to structures of meaning and self-images. Interviews are subjective reflections of one’s own life and media history. Based on Giddens’ concepts of identity and structure, we developed a system of categories that guided the further research process. The interview guide derived from the system of categories consists of four sections: (1) Life course and attitude towards the GDR and FRG; (2) Life in the reunification/post-reunification period and today; (3) Media use, presencing of (post‑)GDR media offerings and the perception of media discourse on the GDR/East Germany; (4) Identity. The selection of interviewees was led by the goal of theoretical saturation. The sample includes 37 East Berliners who were born in or moved to the city, covering a range of different lifestyles. They were born between 1933 and 1970, most of them in the 1950s and 1960s.
Key findings include that not all our interviewees, but across a broad spectrum of different biographies and pre- and post-reunification experiences, the interpretations of late GDR broadcasting are integrated into self-narratives in which the interviewees reassure themselves of their collective identity. In doing so, they define themselves along the distinction between East and West. We also found that GDR TV and radio before their dissolution and the newly founded regional broadcasters are integrated into the respective experience of continuity. This happens in different ways. There are those who emphasize that they only watched West German television in the GDR and were never interested in any kind of afterlife of GDR broadcasting. Even 30 years after reunification, they maintain the distinction from the GDR and the association with the West because their self-narrative is based on this. Then there are others for whom the reformed media offerings after the fall of the Wall as well as parts of the GDR television before ’89, are sources of identity references and in their memory constitute collective accomplishments. We demonstrate that the references to identity made within in the memories of GDR broadcasting developed in reaction to the dominant media discourses on the GDR and East Germany—although this is not the case for everyone. Besides the discourses, structures of legitimation and domination also influence the specific position in the social structure from which people weave their self-narratives. Whatever memories East Berliners have of GDR broadcasting and whatever significance they attribute to its end in retrospect, they have in common that they either experienced status-related declassification themselves after 1990 or witnessed how people lost their jobs and faced existential insecurities in their immediate environment and via the media. These findings indicate how the media heritage of the GDR lives on by serving self-assurance. But our study also sheds light on the issue that this heritage for some East Berliners is unimportant. Some of them have not connected their self-narratives to the late GDR broadcasting. These people, not much interested in politics and media, had experienced after 1989/90 only little change regarding work, family life, leisure.
