{"id":8282,"date":"2024-03-11T16:48:38","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T20:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/?page_id=8282"},"modified":"2024-03-25T15:24:37","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T19:24:37","slug":"twark-selling-ostalgie","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/glossen\/archive\/glossen-50\/twark-selling-ostalgie\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling Ostalgie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> as a Tragicomic Salesman\u2019s Tale of German Unification<\/h3>\n

by Jill Twark<\/p>\n

The novel Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> (1995) by Jens Sparschuh belongs to a large group of humorous and satirical texts, films, songs, cabaret performances, and cartoons created as reactions to the unification of East and West Germany.[1]<\/a> The best-selling novel Helden wie wir<\/em> (1995; Heroes like us<\/em>, 1997) by Thomas Brussig, the popular film Sonnenallee<\/em> (1999) directed by Leander Hau\u00dfmann, and the graphic novel Kinderland<\/em> (2014) by Mawil represent the wide spectrum of these comical responses to the Wende<\/em>.[2]<\/a> For a good laugh, one can also listen to the wacky pop eulogy \u201cErfurt & Gera\u201d by Nina Hagen, from her 1991 album Street<\/em>, in which the singer mocks the way East Germans threw themselves into West German consumerism after the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989.[3]<\/a> Along with the more abundant, \u201cserious\u201d autobiographies, novels, and historiography that record life in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and after unification,[4]<\/a> humorous artworks testify not only to the hardships people faced in the East and in unified Germany, but also to the pleasure derived in hindsight from recognizing the many ironies of life under socialism and after its failure as an immense political experiment in Eastern Europe.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

When two distinct cultures, such as those of East and West Germany, come into contact with each other, their differences produce incongruities that can sometimes seem funny. After the fall of the Wall, East and West Germans traveled freely across the former border, and even though they had shared a common history until 1945 and spoke the same language, they discovered a lot of sometimes unexpected differences. One tangible contrast was in the clothing they wore. In the East, clothing production could not keep up with the demand for fashionable designs, and synthetic fibers like polyester and the GDR version of nylon, called Dederon\u2014combining the acronym for \u201cDeutsche Demokratische Republik\u201d (\u201cDDR\u201d) and \u201cnylon\u201d\u2014predominated.[6]<\/a> Fashion trends in the East thus lagged behind the West, from the Western point of view, so Westerners often smiled\u2014or cringed\u2014when they saw how Easterners dressed.[7]<\/a> After unification, differences in clothing fashion persisted for several years, as many eastern Germans with low post-Wall incomes[8]<\/a> purchased the outdated sales apparel flooding the eastern German market from the West in the 1990s. The unemployed eastern German protagonist in Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> describes the heaps of ridiculously ugly clothing he purchased compulsively, on sale, following unification: \u201cseit der Wende hatten sich pinkfarbene Blousons, giftgr\u00fcne Jogginghosen und andere Sonderangebote bedrohlich und von selbst in den F\u00e4chern meines Kleiderschranks vermehrt.\u201d[9]<\/a> Cultural contrasts like this, in clothing fashion, workplace environments, and attitudes toward East and West Germany, are often treated with humor in Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em>.<\/p>\n

By provoking laughter at such differences, Sparschuh helps us understand how and why eastern Germans have clung to their disappearing culture, in the 1990s and the decades that followed, for consumer products play a strong role in constructing our collective identities. Such products \u201ccommunicate messages that contribute significantly to the creation and articulation of social identity patterns,\u201d and \u201cby no means reflect purely economic matters.\u201d [10]<\/a> Thus, Sparschuh\u2019s novel helps us understand why eastern Germans developed Ostalgie<\/em>\u2014a feeling of nostalgia for East Germany and its shared consumer culture and identity. When they came in contact with a western German culture and mentality, as Sparschuh\u2019s protagonist does when working for a western German company in the early 1990s, many eastern Germans reflected on their biographies and began to appreciate aspects of the past that they had earlier taken for granted. This nostalgia fuels the comical plot of the novel, as the protagonist exploits the eastern Germans\u2019 \u201chomesickness\u201d for their past lives by selling them an otherwise useless, gimmicky consumer product that reminds them of the GDR.<\/p>\n

Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> is not only comical, however, as it also conveys the traumatic psychological effects of life in East(ern) Germany before and after German unification. Written by eastern German author Jens Sparschuh (who was born in East Berlin in 1955) and published in 1995, several years after the initial excitement of unification had worn off and the difficult reality of adjusting to the new circumstances had set in, the novel provokes both laughter and compassion toward the protagonist and his efforts to cope. Sparschuh prompts us to ask fundamental questions of this maladjusted protagonist as he describes his difficulties in finding employment after unification and loses the ability to interact with other people, including with his own wife. With irritation, the reader may wish to shout at the main character: \u201cWhy won\u2019t you talk to your wife? How can you neglect your dog?\u201d The bigger questions this book encourages us to ask, however, revolve around common East German and post-unification experiences such as these: What was it like to work for the socialist GDR government? How might unemployment affect citizens from a socialist society where employment was considered a civil right, and unemployment did not officially exist? What coping strategies were adopted by eastern Germans to maintain their mental health for an extended time in unemployment after unification? What perceptions and stereotypes of East(ern) and West(ern) Germans were propagated following unification and why? How does Sparschuh\u2019s novel feed into these stereotypes, and how does it challenge them?<\/p>\n

Giving his forty-something protagonist a voice as the first-person narrator of Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em>, Sparschuh shows how East Germans could be traumatized by their workplace conditions in the GDR, as well as by unemployment and the need to adopt new careers after unification. The reader must look beyond this narrator as an individual to understand what his biography means in the wider context of the post-unification period of German history. Sparschuh packs tightly\u2014and also unpacks\u2014the experience of living in the GDR and in eastern Germany after unification from the perspective of the middle generation of East German citizens who were born into and grew up in the GDR\u2019s socialist regime. The author\u2019s satire assists in interpreting the distinctly Eastern European sociopolitical transformation since the fall of the Iron Curtain. This transition is still taking place to this day, although other Eastern European countries did not enjoy the economic and political benefits of having a Western counterpart. Over 400 million people from the former Soviet Bloc experienced the transition from a repressive socialist society to an imperfect free-market situation\u2014around 16 million of them from the GDR. In revisiting Sparschuh\u2019s novel three decades after its publication, I first present the historical context in which Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> was written, which includes a discussion of how the author deals with the important subjects of unemployment and differences in East(ern) and West(ern) German workplaces and attitudes toward work. Next, the strategies of humor employed to entertain and educate readers are explained, along with the author\u2019s approach to Ostalgie<\/em> (nostalgia for the east) and use of intertextual references, so that readers understand how the novel\u2019s main messages are conveyed. The final section provides some compelling reasons for the novel to be read today as a means of passing on the cultural-historical memory of the GDR and the post-Wende<\/em> period.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hinrich Lobek as fictional case study of the unemployed East(ern) German<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>Understanding Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> requires some background information on the history of East Germany, unification, and what happened when West Germany absorbed its eastern neighbor.[11]<\/a> In the early 1990s, many easterners, including the protagonist in Sparschuh\u2019s novel, were thrust into unemployment, which grew from less than 1 percent in the GDR to 10.2 percent in 1991, to 19.2 percent by the year 1998, in the eastern region of unified Germany.[12]<\/a> Eastern Germans were forced to reorient themselves or to stagnate. This shift in employment status had a demoralizing psychological effect on many by lowering their social status and marginalizing them socially,[13]<\/a> as well as driving them to live in greater poverty than in the western part of Germany, as extensive sociological research has shown.[14]<\/a> Mentality differences between eastern and western Germans, deriving from their divergent educational backgrounds[15]<\/a> and professional experiences, exacerbated the difficulties these two distinct cultural groups encountered as their societies were merged. Having his eastern German protagonist, Hinrich Lobek,[16]<\/sup><\/a> describe his respective professions in the GDR and in unified Germany, as well as three years of unemployment, Sparschuh helps us understand some fundamental differences between life under socialism and in a free-market economy. Under socialism, for example, the state ensured that all people of working age had steady employment, and combined with nationwide government housing-construction initiatives, eliminated homelessness. In capitalist countries, by contrast, unemployment levels fluctuate with the strength or weakness of the global and local economy, and workplaces in both the public and private sector can be quite competitive for applicants and jobholders. Thus, workers have to display greater initiative in seeking and maintaining jobs. Homelessness is also widespread in capitalist nations for various reasons, including unemployment, a lack of affordable housing, or mental illness. In the year 2022, for example, 262,200 people were living in Germany without a steady residence, either in temporary private housing, in homeless shelters, or on the street.[17]<\/a> Sparschuh bookends Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> with these two socioeconomic ills by opening it with his protagonist living in long-term unemployment and ending it with him living for several weeks among the homeless people at the Bahnhof Zoo, a western Berlin train station that symbolized for decades the social problems found in free-market economies like the Federal Republic of Germany.[18]<\/a><\/p>\n

Being unemployed is difficult for most people, but in the aftermath of the fall of the Iron Curtain, it came as quite a shock to Eastern Europeans from socialist countries where the \u201cright to work\u201d was written into the Constitution as a civil right.[19]<\/sup><\/a> Because of this constitutional guarantee, unemployment remained insignificant in the GDR and did not officially exist, although underemployment was also not recognized by the government as a problem.[20]<\/a> When easterners began losing their jobs by the hundreds of thousands in the early 1990s, reaching a peak of 1.3 million by 2003,[21]<\/a> they thus suffered a kind of \u201cculture shock\u201d along with becoming unemployed. Another major reason why unemployment burdened eastern Germans so heavily was because easterners developed closer relationships with their coworkers than westerners, and thus losing these relationships meant more to them as it marginalized them socially as well as economically.[22]<\/a> This social marginalization deriving from unemployment is a crucial topic in Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em>, because it affects the male protagonist in ways that his wife does not experience, for she is able to stay employed in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n

In reading and discussing Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em>, it is important to understand the origins of this unemployment wave that struck eastern Germany throughout the 1990s and continues to this day to be higher in the east.[23]<\/a> Its devastating effects stem from the speed with which West Germany took over the political and economic institutions in the east, along with macroeconomic investment mistakes western politicians made in dealing with this huge financial burden.[24]<\/a> By the time East and West Germany were unified officially on October 3, 1990, GDR society had already begun to evolve from its original format as a socialist state, protected under the economic and political umbrella of the Soviet Union since the end of World War II, to a free-market economy. The first major economic change took place in July 1990, when the currency of West Germany, the Deutsche Mark, became the official currency in East Germany. At this time, many East Germans lost some of their savings, as not all their money was replaced one-to-one with the much stronger Deutsche Mark currency, and many East German industries began to orient themselves toward the West. Because most East German production methods, machines, and products were not up to western standards of quality, style, and environmental safety, and eastern Germans tended to prefer western products over eastern ones, many factories were soon shut down and\/or sold at very low prices\u2014sometimes for just one symbolic Deutschmark\u2014to western German and foreign investors. Many such sales were arranged, in hindsight, too quickly by the Treuhandanstalt<\/em>, an agency created in 1990 to facilitate the economic transition in the East.[25]<\/a> After they were sold, most factories were shuttered, and this rapid closure led to mass unemployment. During the process of unifying the two separate nations in fall 1990, the GDR government was also dissolved, and its territory reconfigured as six new Bundesl\u00e4nder<\/em>\u2014Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Brandenburg, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern\u2014along with Berlin, which became its own Bundesland <\/em>when East and West Germany merged.<\/p>\n

These and other economic and political shifts meant that eastern German citizens had to adapt to a completely new life situation: western laws and government agencies; restructured educational institutions; and, at first, a further decaying infrastructure before massive waves of new construction and renovation, permanently changed their urban environments. The protagonist in Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> reflects on these changes:<\/p>\n

Ohne auch nur den Fu\u00df vor die T\u00fcr zu setzen, hatte ich mein altes Heimatland verlassen (bzw.\u2014es mich). Eines Tages stand, wie von einem Flugzeug abgeworfen, der Container einer neuen Versicherung auf der grauen Wiese vor unserem verwitterten Neubaublock (das \u201cBasislager\u201d, wie ich es in meinem Protokollbuch nannte). Von dort aus schw\u00e4rmten die Missionare in die umliegende Gegend aus. Auch die Sparkasse war eine andere geworden, sie nannte sich jetzt Bank und schickte mir diskret, nach einem unergr\u00fcndlichen Bankgeheimnis, immer neue Geheimnummern f\u00fcr mein fast leeres Konto zu […]. Sogar die Postanschrift hatte sich von heute auf morgen ge\u00e4ndert […] heimlich, \u00fcber Nacht sozusagen, waren wir aus unserer Stra\u00dfe umgezogen worden. Sie trug jetzt einen anderen Namen.[26]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The biggest shift for Lobek, however, consists in losing his career. In the GDR, he had worked for the government for many years as a case worker in the Communal Housing Administration. This job required him to visit tenants in their pre-WWII or GDR government-built, centrally managed apartments to assess and record housing repair complaints from his assigned district in East Berlin. He describes in the novel\u2019s ninth chapter, \u201cAlle Jahre wieder! Countdown<\/em>,\u201d[27]<\/a> how he typed up the complaints in his tiny basement office and reported them based on urgency to the Housing Administration, which then neglected to make the necessary repairs, as the repairmen were not held accountable for doing their jobs.[28]<\/a> When the GDR ceased to exist, Lobek lost his position, as it was delegated to new government agencies, run by the FRG, and to private landlords who purchased formerly state-owned properties. Most likely because Lobek is middle-aged in an ageist job market[29]<\/a> and worked for the GDR government, he is not hired anywhere else for several years, despite submitting applications. People who worked for the GDR state in any capacity were considered to have been ideological \u201cconformists\u201d to an unjust, repressive government, whereas many had also received special privileges in what was supposed to be an egalitarian, socialist society. Citizens like Lobek, who had worked for the state, often faced prejudices from both westerners and some easterners after unification, on top of lacking the educational degrees and work skills necessary to acquire and perform successfully in western careers.<\/p>\n

The novel Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> begins in media res<\/em>, after Lobek has been unemployed for three years, feeling trapped in his apartment and reflecting on his vastly different past and present circumstances. Being unemployed has taken a toll on his mental health, as he spends \u201cendlose Tage \u2026 von morgens bis abends in unserer Neubauwohnung,\u201d becoming \u201cschweigsamer,\u201d because \u201c[e]s gab ja nichts zu erz\u00e4hlen!\u201d[30]<\/a> Although he does not say much to others throughout the novel, Lobek does get to know several western Germans when he accepts a position working for an indoor fountain company from an unnamed city in the Upper Rhine region of Germany. Having Lobek interact with western Germans allows Sparschuh to document how harsh western judgments and stereotypes of eastern Germans could be in the 1990s. Not only do western Germans call easterners names such as \u201cdie beleidigten Zonend\u00f6dels\u201d (the insulted [eastern] zone idiots)[31]<\/a>\u2014putting them down for criticizing the difficult unification process and for appearing socially \u201cbackward\u201d\u2014but they also believe life in East Germany did not constitute \u201cliving\u201d at all. Lobek\u2019s western colleague, Uwe Str\u00fcver, sums up these judgments: \u201cDas war ja kein Leben bei euch! Die Zeitungen waren keine Zeitungen. Die Wahlen waren keine Wahlen. Die Stra\u00dfen keine Stra\u00dfen. Nicht mal die Autos waren Autos.\u201d[32]<\/a> This focus on the measurable, material aspects of life in East Germany derives from the fact that the Federal Republic of Germany was wealthier and offered more freedoms than the German Democratic Republic. Citizens in the FRG had a higher standard of living, along with freedoms of speech, press, religion, and travel. GDR newspapers were censored strictly to conform to the socialist ideology and to government propaganda and thus were not considered in the West to be \u201creal\u201d newspapers presenting objective facts. In national and local elections, unlike in West Germany, East German voters were not offered a true choice of parties to vote for, as all political parties and state-supported, political organizations were bundled together into a \u201cblock party\u201d coalition called the \u201cNationale Front.\u201d All voters were pressured to vote for the \u201cNationale Front,\u201d so that it received an undemocratic 99% or more of the votes in every election. Because the Socialist Unity Party (SED) held the most power in the \u201cNationale Front,\u201d as well as a majority of seats in parliament, it dominated the GDR government throughout its existence.[33]<\/a> Along with these authoritarian, \u201canti-modern\u201d governmental and mass media institutions,[34]<\/a> the infrastructure of East Germany also lagged behind the West. Many streets and highways had been built before WWII, or later of substandard paving material, and were thus in a state of bad repair, and the East German Trabi and Wartburg cars were vastly inferior to the West German Volkswagens and Mercedes. Differences like these formed the basis for many western prejudices against eastern Germany, and vice versa, which Sparschuh documents in his novel so that his readers see how each side of Germany viewed the other and how insulting such statements like Str\u00fcver\u2019s could appear, whether they were objectively true or not.<\/p>\n

Instead of using satire in this interaction between Str\u00fcver and Lobek, Sparschuh uses realism to document both perspectives and encourage reflection on them. As Lobek agrees with Str\u00fcver, he also calls the western perspective into question: \u201cInnerlich mu\u00dfte ich ihm in allen Punkten recht geben. Aber, was zum Kuckuck war es dann, was wir die ganze Zeit getrieben haben? Wer wei\u00df. Man mu\u00df es schon selbst erlebt haben, um es nicht zu verstehen . . ..\u201d[35]<\/a> Lobek\u2019s admission here that what East Germans experienced is \u201cnot understandable,\u201d even to him and his fellow eastern Germans, supplies a thought process that reveals how hurtful western German insensitivity could be. In having Lobek not respond directly to Str\u00fcver, but only \u201c[i]nnerlich\u201d to the reader, Sparschuh conveys the feeling of easterners being \u201csilenced\u201d by the West. His speechlessness parallels the inability of many eastern Germans to express the \u201cAngst,\u201d \u201cOhnmacht,\u201d und \u201cAusweglosigkeit,\u201d which \u201cbezeichnen Spuren der Erinnerung an die DDR, f\u00fcr die es kaum einen kommunikativen Ausdruck im \u00f6ffentlichen Gedenken gibt.\u201d[36]<\/a> These eastern and western reactions to each other\u2019s perspectives, expressed in Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em>, teach us today how each side experienced the other\u2019s culture and the process of unification. Westerners took it for granted that easterners would welcome their assistance wholeheartedly in transitioning from a socialist dictatorship to a free-market democracy, but easterners experienced this transition as a \u201ccolonization\u201d that coerced them into adopting nearly all western institutional, legal, and educational structures and many sociocultural expectations.[37]<\/a><\/p>\n

Specific differences between eastern and western German occupational expectations and attitudes are displayed in Lobek\u2019s first-person account of re-entering the workforce as a salesman for the western German indoor fountain company. To the na\u00efve eastern German Lobek, who has no experience with working in the West, the expensive training seminars and high-powered sales strategies of the indoor fountain company are, at first, perplexing and embarrassing.[38]<\/a> His nearly word-for-word notetaking from a training session for \u201cStandardsituationen\u201d turns the role-playing scenarios designed to practice sales pitches with customers into a comedy of errors\u2014a situation \u201cso full of mistakes and problems that it seems funny.\u201d[39]<\/a> The language westerners use to describe high-pressure sales tactics is furthermore rendered in complex, metaphorical terms, often derived from military campaigns (\u201cFrontberichte\u201d; \u201c\u00dcberaschungsangriff\u201d; \u201c\u00dcberfallkommando\u201d) or relationship conflicts (\u201cder \u2018klassische Dreieckskonflikt\u2019\u201d).[40]<\/a> From Lobek\u2019s first encounter with \u201ccapitalist\u201d business strategies and practices, and as he gradually acclimates to working as a door-to-door salesman, the reader becomes aware of major differences between socialism and capitalism. Under socialism, for example, production quotas were set by the government in Five-Year Plans. Because workers did not receive adequate pecuniary or promotional incentives to exceed these quotas, they either did not or could not increase their salaries or standard of living up to the western standards that they saw while sneaking peeks at western television shows, whose broadcasts reached across the guarded border. In the free-market economy, Lobek struggles miserably at first to sell his required quota of indoor fountains, a decorative and thus \u201cuseless\u201d product, and when his ingenuity and increasing product sales lead to great success, he is promoted to regional sales representative for eastern Germany by justifiably, yet cruelly, displacing his mentor. Lobek\u2019s ability to \u201coutwest\u201d his western colleague gives positive agency to an easterner that is both comical and ominous, as Lobek comes to embody the cut-throat characteristics of capitalism and loses the \u201chuman\u201d side of his life in East Germany.<\/p>\n

As Lobek gradually acquires and eventually excels at western German sales tactics, Sparschuh turns him into an object of mockery\u2014\u201cder neue Mensch\u201d[41]<\/a> of capitalism instead of socialism\u2014by having him internalize these new sales strategies too deeply. Lobek appears foolish applying high-powered sales tactics to an interaction with his wife, when she criticizes him for failing to take responsibility for their shared household, pet dog, and relationship.[42]<\/a> Instead of engaging in a spoken dialogue with her as she pelts him verbally with accusations, he remains silent, quoting mechanically from the sales training manual in his mind, as if she were a customer to whom he is trying to sell a product: \u201c\u2018Unterbrechen Sie Ihren Kunden nicht. Sie k\u00f6nnten sonst wichtige Hinweise verpassen. Haben Sie Geduld!\u2019 riet Punkt 4 an dieser Stelle.\u201d[43]<\/a> Sparschuh depicts Lobek satirically, in absurd interactions like this, to give him both a comical and a tragic side.[44]<\/a> He thereby calls attention to the often confusing and humiliating position in which eastern Germans found themselves while reorienting themselves to their new, post-Wall circumstances and internalizing a western professional and social alienation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Strategies of satire and humor in Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

The satire in Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em>, as displayed above in Sparschuh\u2019s caricatured portrayal of Lobek\u2019s disjointed conversation with his wife, derives from the incongruity and hyperbole exhibited in four main modes of humor: epic humor, situational irony, slapstick, and verbal humor. The predominant mode in the novel is what literary historian Wolfgang Preisendanz refers to as \u201cepic humor,\u201d which is produced whenever there is a tension between a text\u2019s subject matter and the way this subject matter is narrated.[45]<\/a> It is \u201cdie (scheinbare) Unangemessenheit von Vorgang und Vortrag.\u201d[46]<\/a> We perceive \u201cepic humor\u201d when we notice that the way an author writes does not correspond to the way a participant might actually experience an event. \u201cEpic humor\u201d appears on two levels in Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em>. From the perspective of the author, Sparschuh, Lobek\u2019s biography is often presented in an exaggerated, satirical way that is more entertaining to read about than a person would experience it in reality. But Lobek himself is also an \u201cauthor\u201d who uses writing as a coping strategy to deal with his life in the early 1990s. By recording his thoughts and experiences as if he were documenting Stasi (GDR secret police) observations of himself and the people around him, he appears comically megalomaniacal. Referring to his embedded, autobiographical texts as \u201cProtokolle,\u201d meaning \u201crecords,\u201d or \u201clogs,\u201d similar to his case worker reports for the Communal Housing Administration, he gives them a heightened importance that produces epic humor. These \u201cprotocols\u201d mimic Stasi reports when Lobek calls his wife, Julia, \u201cObservationsobjekt J.\u201d and proclaims that he is adding his latest document to his stored files: \u201cab damit zu den Akten!\u201d[47]<\/a><\/p>\n

In GDR times and to this day, any mention of \u201cAkten\u201d can connote the state security reports derived from spying on East German citizens, which could condemn anyone who spoke or acted out against the government to persecution or imprisonment. Thus, when the \u201caverage guy\u201d Lobek refers to his writing as \u201cprotokollieren,\u201d[48]<\/a> it appears hyperbolic. He is portrayed as a caricature of an eastern German with a heightened sense of self-importance and a backward, \u201csurveillance state\u201d approach to life, who \u201cprotocols\u201d instead of just \u201cwriting\u201d as other diarists and autobiographers generally do. Considering the actual trauma he faced in the GDR and afterward, and the fact that he is writing after the Stasi was dissolved, this writing method appears to be an ironic way to cope with his new life situation. The sad irony of this narrative technique only becomes apparent at the end of the novel, however, when Lobek finally reveals the origin of his urge to write \u201cprotocols.\u201d This compulsion derives from his prior experiences with isolation in his basement office while writing pointless housing repair complaints, which fostered in him an inability to speak to other people: \u201cWorte halfen da nicht. Ich wu\u00dfte auch nichts zu sagen und begann, mich in Schweigen zu h\u00fcllen. Ich verschanzte mich immer mehr in meinem B\u00fcro, war verzweifelt und nahe daran, mein Leben, zumindest mein Berufsleben, dem Alkohol zu widmen.\u201d[49]<\/a> Though depicted comically, Lobek\u2019s speechlessness prompts us to seek reasons for it, thus creating a suspense that propels the narrative. Caused by his powerlessness to achieve the fulfillment of his carefully prepared repair requests at work in the GDR, even those marked as urgent with a \u201cDringlichkeitsvermerk,\u201d[50]<\/a> and carrying forward after unification, his speechlessness symbolizes an inability to communicate one\u2019s needs, regardless of whether one lives in socialism or in a free-market democracy. As a manifestation of Lobek\u2019s demoralization, this feeling of lacking agency echoed out from the powerlessness of the residents whose housing repair needs were not met in the GDR. This powerlessness is then matched by the irritable reactions of many of the isolated individuals to whom Lobek later attempts to sell indoor fountains after unification, who similarly lack agency, living in isolation and suffering from unemployment and\/or alcoholism.[51]<\/a> Whereas Lobek\u2019s protocol approach to recording his life and speechlessness are often depicted using \u201cepic humor,\u201d the alienation of the socially marginalized in eastern Germany balances out the comedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSituational irony\u201d is another humor mode induced when Lobek interacts with others, including his wife, his western German work colleagues, and even his frisky dog, who plays a significant role as his only consistent companion and as a comical, canine provocateur. Some of these situations result from Lobek\u2019s speechlessness and generally weak interpersonal skills, and others from the aforementioned \u201cculture clash\u201d when he meets western Germans.[52]<\/a> \u201cSituational irony\u201d is \u201ca literary technique in which an expected outcome does not happen, or its opposite happens instead. Situational irony requires one\u2019s expectations to be thwarted and is also sometimes called an irony of events. The outcome can be tragic or humorous, but it is always unexpected.\u201d[53]<\/a> The central plot of Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> constitutes situational irony, as it traces Lobek\u2019s unexpectedly fast, upward trajectory from being long-term unemployed to suddenly finding success as a door-to-door salesman of a luxury good in a time of financial hardship for many people in eastern Germany. Lobek\u2019s situation can furthermore be seen as ironic because, as his career blossoms, his marriage withers and eventually dies out altogether when his wife leaves him. The situational irony in Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> also focuses attention on the cultural conflicts between eastern and western Germans, teaching us about them while making us smile, and deflating the anger and frustration they often produced in real life.<\/p>\n

The slapstick scenes in Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> complement the situational irony in drawing the reader\u2019s sympathy toward Lobek, highlighting his bad luck, good luck, and fallibility. \u201cSlapstick,\u201d which has a long history in Europe but is best known from film comedies that include it,[54]<\/a> is a form of physical humor that involves the infliction of pain or violence on protagonists who \u201cget back up again\u201d and carry on as if they had not been injured. Sparschuh describes Lobek\u2019s experiences of physical pain as actual pain and embarrassment in great detail,[55]<\/a> provoking a visceral reaction in the reader and revealing the protagonist\u2019s vulnerability. Because Lobek is a tragicomic figure who is often not presented sympathetically by the author, however, his suffering comes across as humorous and may even provoke some Schadenfreude<\/em> toward him as an object to be laughed at.<\/p>\n

Slapstick scenes in Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> occur when Lobek chokes on a piece of prosciutto (\u201cSchwarzw\u00e4lder Schinken\u201d) at the buffet when he first meets his new boss, Alois Boldinger, at the orientation convention in Baden-W\u00fcrttemberg; when he gets sprayed in the face by a fountain during a sales training course at the same convention; and when he falls unwittingly into the clutches of a professional sado-masochist who treats him to a good whipping when he attempts to sell her an indoor fountain.[56]<\/a> Alan Dale discusses slapstick as a universal, existential experience for the victim as well as for spectators like ourselves: \u201cThat\u2019s the appeal of the slapstick outlook, even in life\u2014we have to laugh at the loss of our dignity, which is what makes the constant recurrence of such losses bearable.\u201d[57]<\/a> Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em>, like much eastern German literature produced since 1989, depicts the humiliation of East Germans in the GDR and, after unification, by western Germans. Coming from a nation with a \u201cfailed\u201d ideology, government and economy, with its accompanying lower standard of living, and then facing westerners who constantly pointed this out to them, humiliated eastern Germans. Sparschuh deals with this indignity cleverly by giving Lobek resilience\u2014\u201cthe insistent regularity by which characters condemned to fail at the world are able to get back up and move on, using humor as a strategy to overcome hardship.\u201d[58]<\/a> Such resilience and stoicism enable Lobek to accept western criticism without renouncing his eastern German identity and to seize opportunities when they are offered.<\/p>\n

In all three aforementioned cases of physical incapacity, in fact, Lobek not only gets past the humiliation, but he emerges more successful than before. In the first case, his inability to speak while choking allows him to listen to his new boss\u2019s thoughts and plans, which impresses Boldinger, who places him into the sales seminar led by the successful western salesman, Uwe Str\u00fcver. Str\u00fcver then mentors Lobek, helping him with his career. Despite Str\u00fcver\u2019s occasional displays of insensitivity toward eastern Germans, he is generally open-minded and gives Lobek a chance to prove himself in selling indoor fountains. In the second case of slapstick humor, when Lobek gets squirted in the face by the indoor fountain in Str\u00fcver\u2019s seminar, this mishap is praised loudly by Boldinger as the perfect sales technique to garner customers\u2019 sympathy and compel them to purchase an indoor fountain.[59]<\/a> After having been beaten up by the sado-masochist in the third slapstick scenario, Lobek again progresses forward in his career, as his boss, Boldinger, calls the next day to offer Lobek the promotion to eastern regional representative for the indoor fountain company.[60]<\/a> Lobek\u2019s career then takes a steep, upward trajectory, in contrast to the downward trajectory of his marriage, thereby exhibiting slapstick\u2019s capacity \u201cto give voice to tragedy and comedy at once\u201d and to serve as \u201cstarting points for commentaries about the political.\u201d[61]<\/a> Lobek\u2019s \u201cunstoppable rise\u201d from an unemployed \u201cJ\u00e4ger in den eigenen vier W\u00e4nden<\/em>,\u201d fascinated by a housefly,[62]<\/a> to a respected regional representative for indoor fountain sales, can be seen as \u201cpolitical\u201d in showing how much good luck and effort it takes to pick oneself up from a political and economic situation from which one has been structurally excluded.<\/p>\n

As slapstick scenes punctuate the flow of the narrative, so does verbal humor, which Sparschuh gives Lobek as a self-defensive weapon; it is a coping mechanism and a means to highlight the absurdities in his life. While unemployed and feeling trapped in his apartment, Lobek cynically renames the birds he watches from the window \u201cInsektenvertilger.\u201d[63]<\/a> He expresses his dissatisfaction with western German consumer culture by calling the expansive, new clothing section at the department store a \u201cSpiegelkabinett\u201d (a hall of mirrors from an amusement park fun house), and the new, fluffy bread rolls at the bakery \u201cdie importierten Luftikusse.\u201d[64]<\/a> Lobek uses language as a means to protest against these inevitable changes, but also sometimes to his advantage, as when he turns the description of his political views from his GDR resum\u00e9 into desirable professional experience: \u201cBin seit meiner Schulzeit \u00fcberzeugter Vertreter der sozialistischen Ordnung,\u201d is rewritten as the attractive phrase: \u201cLangj\u00ad\u00e4hrige Erfahrungen im Vertreterbereich.\u201d[65]<\/a> This shift in language use to fulfill western German expectations brings Lobek success immediately, when he is hired as a salesman, though it later leads to the opposite results in arguments with his wife. Overall, Sparschuh\u2019s use of multiple forms of humor to depict Lobek\u2019s monotonous life while unemployed, as well as the stress he faces as a salesman and failing husband, enables us to laugh at Lobek while sympathizing and identifying with him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Selling Ostalgie<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ostalgie<\/em>, referring to the nostalgia or longing of eastern Germans for aspects of their past lives in the GDR, became highly politicized in Germany following unification and persists to this day, reflected most visibly in its commercialized form. Like the other stereotypes and insults hurled at each other, with westerners being called \u201cBesserwisser,\u201d \u201cBesserwessis\u201d or \u201cSuperwessis\u201d[66]<\/a> and easterners labeled \u201cZonend\u00f6dels\u201d or \u201cSensibelchen,\u201d[67]<\/a> the term Ostalgie<\/em> was initially used as an insult to dismiss categorically any positive feelings eastern Germans had toward their former lives. It indicated a lack of understanding, on the part of those who used it disparagingly, that one\u2019s identity is constructed holistically and not \u201cbackward-looking or eternally stuck in the past.\u201d[68]<\/a> As Rainer Gries writes: \u201cThe decision by eastern Germans in favor of the traditional products of their home and the profession of loyalty to these products by their potential consumers can [\u2026] by no means be devalued as a nostalgic yearning for a socialist past.\u201d[69]<\/a> The author Sparschuh confirmed this statement in an interview with me in January 2000, when asked what the word \u201csocialism\u201d meant to him:<\/p>\n

Die DDR war f\u00fcr mich eine Gesellschaft, mit der ich nichts anfangen konnte. Ich habe an dem Rand der Gesellschaft meine Existenz gesucht, und das klappte ja. Wenn ich mir jetzt im Nachhinein klarmache, dass Sozialismus f\u00fcr viele Leute etwas mit Sicherheit zu tun hatte, ist das ein positiver Aspekt. Wenn ich mir im Nachhinein klarmache, was mir damals in der ganzen Tragweite nicht klar war, n\u00e4mlich dass viele Leute eingesperrt waren und auf ganz schreckliche Weise behandelt worden sind, bekommt er [der Sozialismus] einen kriminellen, negativen Aspekt. Und so ver\u00e4ndert sich die Semantik eines Wortes, was mir vorher eher gleichg\u00fcltig war. Es bekommt nach der Wende mehr Power auf beiden Seiten, im Plus- und Minusbereich.[70]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tied to the\u2014in many ways justly vilified\u2014socialist past in which they lived, the word Ostalgie<\/em> can nevertheless be seen, in its creation and initial use in the early 1990s, as an attempt to coerce eastern Germans into letting go of their past and thereby to erase this past so that they conform to western concepts of politics, economics and society.<\/p>\n

In the years following unification, however, as entrepreneurs came to see the money-making potential of reproducing and marketing consumer products from the East, Ostalgie <\/em>soon began to assume more positive connotations. These positive connotations derive from the realization by people of all nationalities that viewing tacky, campy and\/or retro GDR products when commodified in shops, at the DDR-Museum, or in the Ostel Hotel in Berlin, can be a lot of fun. Living in a post-socialist society lacks the surveillance and fear of persecution formerly prevalent in the Eastern Bloc, while enabling each nation\u2019s socialist-style consumer products to still be enjoyed.<\/p>\n

Sparschuh\u2019s Zimmerspringbrunnen <\/em>helps us understand the complex nature of Ostalgie<\/em> because it depicts both the serious and the \u201ccampy\u201d sides of the eastern German longing for the past. Lobek\u2019s appreciation for the GDR, although his life was difficult there, comes into focus three years after unification, while he attends the indoor fountain company conference in the West:<\/p>\n

Mein Gott! Ich st\u00f6hnte auf. Ich dachte an Julia, an Zuhause. Und auf einmal, ich wu\u00dfte nicht, wie, kam es \u00fcber mich, und ich mu\u00dfte hier, im Aufenthaltsraum des \u201cF\u00f6hrentaler Hofs\u201d, unter dem imitierten Holzbalken der Decke, eingerahmt von Schwarzwei\u00dffotografien des Schwarzwalds, vor mir auf dem Tisch einen verj\u00e4hrten Fahrplan, dem l\u00e4ngst alle Z\u00fcge davongefahren waren \u2013 musste ich pl\u00f6tzlich, ohne mich dagegen wehren zu k\u00f6nnen, wie zwanghaft, einen Satz sagen, der mir so bisher noch nie in meinem Leben von den Lippen gekommen war: \u201cIch liebe meine Heimat, die Deutsche Demokratische Republik.\u201d[71]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The images that Sparschuh includes in this monologue, leading Lobek to the sudden compulsion\u2014\u201cwie zwanghaft\u201d\u2014to admit that he loves his home country after all, constitute an ingenious counterargument to the western prejudice against eastern Germans for being \u201cbackward.\u201d The fake wooden ceiling beam, black-and-white photographs of the Black Forest, and out-of-date train schedule point to the \u201cbackward,\u201d kitschy appearance of some places in western Germany that parallels the retrograde appearance of much of eastern Germany.<\/p>\n

The feeling of Ostalgie<\/em> later receives a quite different, comical treatment in Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em>, when it drives Lobek\u2019s success as a salesman. Although trying to sell indoor fountains to unemployed or low-income eastern Germans should be nearly impossible, Lobek\u2019s invention of a new model that feeds into their emotional attachment to their lost nation generates record sales, catapulting his career. The new fountain, which Lobek produces by reconfiguring an existing model, displays a pen in the shape of the Berlin TV tower, rising up from a volcano-shaped centerpiece bearing a copper plate sawed in the shape of the GDR. By selling quickly, this uniquely tacky product demonstrates the power of eastern German nostalgic feelings while mocking their bad taste. Calling the fountain \u201cAtlantis,\u201d Lobek equates the GDR hilariously to a mythical, lost island rising from the sea, and the title of the chapter in which he achieves this success, \u201cHaifischbecken der Gef\u00fchle<\/em>,\u201d[72]<\/a> emphasizes his shark-like, predatorial capturing of his eastern German customers\u2019 emotions in turning them into profit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Digging for a deeper meaning behind Sparschuh\u2019s intertextual references<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sparschuh prefaces his book with a quote from the British author Oscar Wilde (1854-1900): \u201cNur die Oberfl\u00e4chlichen kennen sich gr\u00fcndlich.\u201d In English this quote reads: \u201cOnly the shallow know themselves.\u201d Starting Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> with this assertion gives the reader a preview of the novel\u2019s protagonist as someone who is not a profound thinker and yet is capable of seeing his own self and situation clearly\u2014as is the case with Hinrich Lobek. This literary quote foreshadows the many other intertextual references embedded in the novel, ranging from literary masterpieces and philosophical treatises to biblical quotes and parables, to commonly used marketing and sales approach methodologies. Including abundant intertextual references in their texts provided a way for GDR authors, dramatists, and other artists to communicate with their readers, viewers, and listeners while circumventing censorship. No longer needing to fear censorship after unification, yet continuing to recognize the power of intertextual references to invoke multiple layers of meaning, Sparschuh inserts them into his novel to connect his protagonist to other literary and historical figures in similar situations, while increasing the comic impact of the epic humor and situational irony.<\/p>\n

The predominant, comical intertextual reference in Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> equates Lobek\u2019s isolation, in his honeycomb-like, high-rise apartment in East Berlin, to that of Robinson Crusoe on a deserted Caribbean island as depicted in the eponymous eighteenth-century novel by Daniel Defoe. Lobek nicknames his dog \u201cFreitag,\u201d alluding to Crusoe\u2019s native companion, and calls their partnership \u201cunseren h\u00fcbschen kleinen Robinson-Club.\u201d[73]<\/a> This incongruous comparison of Lobek\u2014living in a densely populated district of Berlin, the biggest city in Germany\u2014with Crusoe, who lived for 28 years on a deserted island in the Caribbean Sea near the coast of Venezuela, is, on the surface, ironic. The analogy nevertheless helps us understand the emotional isolation Lobek feels in his East German basement office; later while unemployed; and even after finding success as a salesman, because he loses his wife.<\/p>\n

The fast trajectory he takes, rising to become the regional sales representative in eastern Germany and thereby displacing his mentor, also begs comparison with the play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui<\/em> (1941) by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht.[74]<\/a> Here, the comparison of Lobek with the gangster protagonist Arturo Ui, who represents Adolf Hitler, is, once again, absurdly ironic in its hyperbole. Lobek\u2019s admission, however, that he does not have a bad conscience about displacing his mentor, nor any conscience at all, makes this comparison less outrageous than it may seem at first: \u201cNein, ich hatte kein schlechtes Gewissen \u2013 \u00fcberhaupt kein Gewissen hatte ich, das war es!\u201d[75]<\/a> This statement fits the pattern of Lobek\u2019s obsession with succeeding like a good Westerner in his career, as well as the alienation of his wife. It also contradicts his earnest efforts in the GDR to help his fellow citizens get their run-down apartments fixed. The numerous biblical references that Lobek uses to describe his situation furthermore point to his inflated equation of himself with Jesus Christ. \u201cH\u00f6rt! Ich will mein Brot mit euch teilen,\u201d he proclaims to the homeless people at the Zoo train station at the novel\u2019s end, as if he were Christ performing the miracle of feeding a crowd with five loaves and two fish.[76]<\/a> This multitude of intertextual references, when placed into the mind and mouth of a comical figure such as Hinrich Lobek, serve to emphasize both the tragedy and comedy of his biography, preventing the reader from getting too emotionally connected to him. Sparschuh uses humor to avoid depicting his narrator as a helpless, plaintive victim and object of pity, thus countering western German stereotypes of eastern Germans as \u201cSensibelchen.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hinrich Lobek as awkwardly comical Zeitzeuge<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The tale of Hinrich Lobek, the tragicomic eastern German salesman, is locked in time, like all novels depicting a specific moment in history. Because it focuses on the \u201cHeimat\u201d or \u201chome\u201d that Sparschuh and his character Lobek know best\u2014(East)ern Germany\u2014it bears the subtitle \u201cEin Heimatroman.\u201d Referring to the novel as a \u201cHeimatroman\u201d can, however, also be seen as ironic, as the book focuses on the process Lobek undergoes in opportunistically pursuing a \u201cwestern\u201d careerist identity after the Wende<\/em>. To the novel\u2019s detriment, Sparschuh\u2019s quirky humor and awkward, at times unlikeable, protagonist have prevented some readers from appreciating the author\u2019s original contribution to post-Wall literature, and it received mixed reviews from mass media critics.[77]<\/a> Critic Andreas Platthaus, for instance, rejects the author\u2019s subtitle altogether: \u201c[a]ls Heimatroman\u201d, den der Untertitel verspricht, ist Sparschuhs Roman heimatlos.\u201d[78]<\/a> The novel\u2019s literary and documentary quality also suffer from the artificiality of Lobek\u2019s \u201cprotocol\u201d method of recording his experiences, the overemphasis on his speechlessness, and the superficial characterization of his wife. Lobek\u2019s replacement of verbal with written communication that takes the form of Stasi-like reports, instruction manuals, and legal briefs can be annoying and at times difficult to read. For these reasons, as well as a general consumer preference for new, trendy artworks, and for films rather than literature, Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> risks being forgotten. Even resurrecting its storyline in 2001 as a movie of the same title, directed by Peter Timm\u2014who made the popular Go, Trabi, Go<\/em> movies in the early 1990s\u2014did not contribute much to the novel\u2019s lasting popularity, as the film did not reach a wide viewership and received middling reviews.[79]<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>Despite its caveats, however, the novel and film versions of Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> remain insightful, painfully funny texts that teach us about life as an eastern German before and after German unification.[80]<\/a> As the political scientist Richard Rose writes: \u201cThe collapse of the Berlin Wall was an event, while transformation and its aftermath is a process of learning.\u201d[81]<\/a> Moreover, \u201c[t]ransformation is unsettling, because it introduces unpredictability.\u201d[82]<\/a> The biggest strength of Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> lies in how it shows the gradual, unpredictable learning process that easterners (and some westerners) went through in reflecting on life in East Germany and adjusting to the experience of unification. Sparschuh gives Lobek an ironic and cynical view of unification\u2019s effects as a way to critique them and to highlight Lobek\u2019s transitional status. Using humor, while taking a \u201cbottom up\u201d approach to unification history \u201cfrom the point of view of ordinary people,\u201d[83]<\/a> Sparschuh shows us what unification, and the culture clashes it brought, could mean for ordinary citizens in forcing them to reorient themselves. Because Lobek\u2019s profession as a door-to-door salesman brings him into contact with diverse eastern German residents, including the unemployed, an alcoholic and a lonely housewife,[84]<\/a> we receive a panoramic view of reunification\u2019s effects in eastern Germany.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, Sparschuh\u2019s humorous depiction of the awkward protagonist Hinrich Lobek creates an emotional distance that turns his successes and failures into an entertaining narrative about the personal experience of socialist inefficiency and the capitalist obsession with productivity and earning money. Lobek\u2019s fictional autobiography mocks the ways some easterners overcompensated for their perceived shortcomings to succeed in the West and to understand how a free-market democracy works. On the other hand, the protagonist\u2019s bumbling adjustment to various situations binds us to him as a victim, as we realize that such failures are human, and thus we sometimes share his pain. The author\u2019s depiction of Lobek and of many people he encounters after unification serves to condemn capitalism as destroying livelihoods, interpersonal connections, and relationships. The complexity of the narrative takes its readers on an emotional and intellectual rollercoaster ride as it interprets the unification process. It will certainly provoke divergent responses as it impresses this historical transition into our cultural memory, making this book fruitful for discussion as a Wenderoman<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Sparschuh, Jens. Der Zimmerspringbrunnen. Ein Heimatroman<\/em>. K\u00f6ln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1995.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Further examples of humorous and satirical texts written since 1990 include Thomas Rosenl\u00f6cher\u2019s Die Wiederentdeckung des Gehens beim Wandern. Harzreise<\/em> (1991), Erich Loest\u2019s Katerfr\u00fchst\u00fcck<\/em> (1992), Bernd Schirmer’s Schlehweins Giraffe <\/em>(1992), Matthias Biskupek\u2019s Der Quotensachse <\/em>(1996), Reinhard Ulbrich\u2019s Spur der Broiler <\/em>(1998), Ingo Schulze\u2019s Simple Storys: Ein Roman aus der ostdeutschen Provinz<\/em> (1998), and Kerstin Hensel\u2019s Gipshut <\/em>(1999). The many film comedies include Go, Trabi, Go I<\/em> and II<\/em> (1991 and 1992), Sonnenallee<\/em> (1999), Helden wie wir<\/em> (1999), the film version of Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> (2001), Good-bye, Lenin!<\/em> (2003), and NVA <\/em>(2005).<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Mercury Records, 1991.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> See, for example, Martin Sabrow, Erinnerungsorte der DDR<\/em>. Munich: Beck, 2009; Renate Rechtien and Dennis Tate, eds., Twenty Years On: Competing Memories of the GDR in Postunification Culture<\/em>. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2011; and Karen Leeder, \u201cAfter-images \u2013 afterlives: Remembering the GDR in the Berlin Republic.\u201d Rereading East Germany: The Literature and Film of the GDR<\/em>, edited by Karen Leeder, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 214-237.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Elemer Hankiss refers to the outward compliance coupled with inner resistance of many Eastern Europeans under socialism as \u201cironic freedom\u201d in East European Alternatives<\/em>, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990, p. 7. Roland Jahn discusses the strategies eastern Germans adopted to cope with living in a repressive, socialist dictatorship in Wir Angepassten: \u00dcberleben in der DDR<\/em>, M\u00fcnchen: Piper, 2015.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> \u201cDas trug der Osten: Ein Ausflug in die ostdeutsche Modewelt.\u201d In: Norddeutscher Rundfunk<\/em> 25. September 2022, https:\/\/www.ndr.de\/fernsehen\/programm\/epg\/Das-trug-der-Osten,sendung1285530.html<\/a> (cited on 17. Jul. 2023).<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> \u201cMode in der DDR: Der Westen war immer Vorbild.\u201d In: MDR.de<\/em> 10. Jun. 2011, https:\/\/www.mdr.de\/geschichte\/ddr\/alltag\/reisen-freizeit\/mode-in-der-ddr-102.html<\/a> (cited on 17. Jul. 2023).<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Wolfgang Voges and Olaf J\u00fcrgens provide statistics on poverty and income differences between eastern and western Germany and conclude that, from 1990-1996, \u201cas regards deprivation, the situation in the former East Germany was worse than that of the former West Germany\u201d (\u201cThe dynamics of social exclusion in Germany: solving the east-west dilemma?\u201d In: The Dynamics of Social Exclusion in Europe: Comparing Austria, Germany, Greece, Portugal and the UK<\/em>. Edited by Eleni Apospori and Jane Millar. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2003, pp. 63-86.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> The protagonist\u2019s wardrobe in the early 1990s consists of clothing items worn in the West in the 1980s, as documented by Ann-Kathrin Sch\u00f6ll in \u201cMode der 80er: Alle Trends und die besten 80er-Looks!\u201d In: gofeminin<\/em>, 11. Mar. 2019, https:\/\/www.gofeminin.de\/modetrends\/80er-mode-s355705.html<\/a> (cited on 8. Aug. 2023). Author citations of Sparschuh, such as this from p. 23, are taken hereinafter from the 6th<\/sup> edition of Der Zimmerspringbrunnen<\/em> (1995).<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Gries, Rainer. \u201c\u2018Hurrah, I\u2019m still alive!\u2019: East German Products Demonstrating East German Identities.\u201d Over the Wall\/After the Fall: Post-Communist Cultures through an East-West Gaze<\/em>. Edited by Sibelan Forrester, Magdalena J. Zaborowska, and Elena Gapova. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004, pp. 181-199, 182.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> For a more detailed history than can be provided here, see Peter C. Caldwell and Karrin Hanshew. Germany Since 1945: Politics, Culture, and Society<\/em> by New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018, and Horst M\u00f6ller. Deutsche Geschichte – die letzten hundert Jahre<\/em>, M\u00fcnchen: Piper, 2022.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> \u201cRegistrierte Arbeitslose und Arbeitslosenquote nach Gebietsstand.\u201d Statistisches Bundesamt, 2023, https:\/\/www.destatis.de\/DE\/Themen\/Wirtschaft\/Konjunkturindikatoren\/Lange-Reihen\/Arbeitsmarkt\/lrarb003ga.html<\/a> (cited on 2. Aug. 2023).<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Vogel, Bertold. Ohne Arbeit in den Kapitalismus:<\/em> Der Verlust der Erwerbsarbeit im Umbruch der ostdeutschen Gesellschaft<\/em>. Hamburg: VSA: Verlag, 1999. See, in particular, Vogel\u2019s final chapter, summarized in his journal article, \u201cArbeitslosigkeit in Ostdeutschland: Konsequenzen f\u00fcr das Sozialgef\u00fcge und f\u00fcr die Wahrnehmung des gesellschaftlichen Wandels.\u201d In: SOFI-Mitteilungen<\/em> no. 27 (1999), pp. 15-22, http:\/\/webdoc.sub.gwdg.de\/edoc\/le\/sofi\/1999_27\/vogel.pdf<\/a> (cited on 2. Aug. 2023).<\/p>\n

[14]<\/a> Voges and J\u00fcrgens, pp. 63-86.<\/p>\n

[15]<\/a> Lenhardt, Gero, and Manfred Stock. \u201cBildung der B\u00fcrger und Qualifikation der Arbeitskr\u00e4fte: Schulentwicklung in BRD und DDR in soziologischer Perspektive.\u201d In: Schule und Jugendhilfe: Neuorientierung im deutsch-deutschen \u00dcbergang<\/em>. Edited by Gaby Fl\u00f6sser, Hans-Uwe Otto, and Klaus-J\u00fcrgen Tillmann. Reihe Schule und Gesellschaft, vol. 12. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1996, pp. 54-62.<\/p>\n

[16]<\/a> Hinrich\u2019s Eastern European-sounding last name, \u201cLobek,\u201d was likely selected by Sparschuh to identify him as an eastern German. The suffix \u201c-ek\u201d is a common diminutive morpheme in Czech and Polish, used to describe an object as small or \u201ccute.\u201d Because the eastern part of Germany has shared a shifting border with the Slavic states of what are now Poland and the Czech Republic for centuries, and many Germanic and Slavic peoples immigrated back and forth, Slavic names that end in \u201c-ow\u201d or \u201c-ek\u201d are common in eastern Germany. Spelled slightly differently as \u201cHeinrich Lobeck,\u201d this character\u2019s name could also refer to the founder of the Berlinische Lebens-Versicherungs-Gesellschaft, Heinrich Lobeck (1787-1855), who has a street named after him in the western Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg. See \u201cHeinrich Ludwig Lobeck.\u201d Wikipedia, 15. Dez. 2018, https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Heinrich_Ludwig_Lobeck<\/a> (cited on 2. Jan. 2024).<\/p>\n

[17]<\/a> \u201cErstmals belastbare Zahlen \u00fcber Wohnungslosigkeit in Deutschland,\u201d In: Bundesministerium f\u00fcr Arbeit und Soziales 8. Dez. 2022, https:\/\/www.bmas.de\/DE\/Soziales\/erstmals-belastbare-zahlen-ueber-wohnungslosigkeit-in-deutschland.html<\/a> (cited on 2. Aug. 2023).<\/p>\n

[18]<\/a> The Zoo train station is the location of the true story of \u201cChristiane F.,\u201d a teenage drug addict who documented her decline into homelessness and prostitution in Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo<\/em>, written by Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck, published by Stern Magazin in 1978 and made into a film of the same title in 1981. The widespread success of the book and film cemented the Zoo station\u2019s symbolic status as a widely recognized locus of poverty, drug addiction, and social exclusion, as documented in articles such as Stefan Thomas\u2019s \u201cIdentit\u00e4t und Exklusion unter Postadoleszenten: \u2018Die Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo\u2019,\u201d Psychologie und Gesellschaftskritik<\/em> 35, no. 2 (2022), pp. 93-112, https:\/\/nbn-resolving.org\/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-389676<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[19]<\/a> \u201cConstitution of the German Democratic Republic (7 October 1949).\u201d United States Department of State. Documents on Germany 1944-1985, Washington: Department of State, Department of State Publication 9446, pp. 278-306, https:\/\/www.cvce.eu\/content\/publication\/1999\/1\/1\/33cc8de2-3cff-4102-b524-c1648172a838\/publishable_en.pdf<\/a> (cited on July 12, 2023). Whereas the GDR constitution guaranteed all citizens the right to work, as a way to achieve economic equality and social justice, many were also forced to work to fulfill the socialist ideal of full employment and to avoid being considered a criminal by engaging in \u201casozialem Verhalten,\u201d which was against the law in the GDR. This practice led to some underemployment\u2014professions held that were below the employee\u2019s skill set\u2014and to a shirking of duties. Sparschuh\u2019s protagonist describes the government-employed, residential building maintenance crews, for example, as intractable: \u201cUnsere marodierenden Handwerkertrupps zu bekommen, sie \u00fcberhaupt aufzusp\u00fcren, grenzte ans Unm\u00f6gliche. Ganze Bauwagen, samt ihren Besatzungen, galten tagelang als verschollen. Von wochenlangen undurchsichtigen Skatturnieren war die Rede, auch von mehrt\u00e4gigen Schwarzarbeitseins\u00e4tzen au\u00dferhalb der Stadt\u201d (137-38). The term \u201cright to work\u201d in socialist countries should, moreover, be taken literally as \u201cthe right to have a paid occupation,\u201d and not in its more limited meaning as legislated in half of the US states as \u201cthe right of persons to work\u201d that \u201cshall not be denied or abridged on account of membership or nonmembership in any labor union or labor organization or association.\u201d See, e.g., Steve Doyle, \u201cBill to cement \u2018right-to-work\u2019 status into North Carolina constitution filed by Rep. Jon Hardister.\u201d Fox 8<\/em> 14 April 2023, https:\/\/myfox8.com\/news\/north-carolina\/piedmont-triad\/bill-to-cement-right-to-work-status-into-north-carolina-constitution-filed-by-rep-jon-hardister\/<\/a> (cited on July 20, 2023).<\/p>\n

[20]<\/a> Hildebrandt, Axel. \u201cPolitics and Prekariat in Christoph Hein\u2019s Novels Frau Paula Trousseau and Weiskerns Nachlass.\u201d In: Envisioning Social Justice in Contemporary German Culture<\/em>. Eds. Jill E. Twark and Axel Hildebrandt. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2015, 145-164, pp. 148-49.<\/p>\n

[21]<\/a> Andr\u00e9, Tim. \u201cArbeitslosigkeit in den ostdeutschen Bundesl\u00e4ndern. Entwicklung seit der Wiedervereinigung und Stand heute.\u201d In: Zentrum digitale Arbeit, Arbeit und Leben, Sachsen e.V.<\/em> 11 May 2021, https:\/\/www.zentrum-digitale-arbeit.de\/en\/wissenspool\/demografie-und-arbeitsmarkt\/arbeitsmarkt\/arbeitslosigkeit-in-den-neuen-bundeslaendern<\/a> \u00a0(cited on 3 Aug. 2023). See also the statistics provided by Statistisches Bundesamt Destatis, which includes the entire city of Berlin and thus higher unemployment numbers.<\/p>\n

[22]<\/a> Vogel, 1999, pp. 114-136.<\/p>\n

[23]<\/a> Statistisches Bundesamt, Destatis, 2023.<\/p>\n

[24]<\/a> See J\u00f6rg Bibow\u2019s criticisms of financial policies in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1990s for macroeconomic reasons for the economic failures of the 1990s in \u201cThe Economic Consequences of German Unification: The Impact of Misguided Macroeconomic Policies.\u201d In: The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Public Policy Brief Series<\/em>, 67 (2001), pp. 1-36.<\/p>\n

[25]<\/a> For brief history of the Treuhandanstalt<\/em>, see the MDR report, \u201cZwischen Euphorie und Goldgr\u00e4berstimmung\u201d from 15. Jul. 2020, at https:\/\/www.mdr.de\/geschichte\/ddr\/deutsche-einheit\/treuhand\/betriebe-privatisierung-arbeitslosigkeit-schulden-100.html<\/a> (cited on 2. Jan. 2024). For a thorough assessment of the Treuhandanstalt<\/em>\u2019s \u00a0activities, see Constantin Goschler and Marcus B\u00f6ick, \u201cStudie zur Wahrnehmung und Bewertung der Arbeit der Treuhandanstalt im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums f\u00fcr Wirtschaft und Energie,\u201d Bundesministerium f\u00fcr Wirtschaft und Energie, 9. Nov. 2017: https:\/\/www.bmwk.de\/Redaktion\/DE\/Publikationen\/Studien\/wahrnehmung-bewertung-der-arbeit-der-treuhandanstalt-lang.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[26]<\/a> Sparschuh, p. 38.<\/p>\n

[27]<\/a> Because the book\u2019s chapters are not numbered, their titles are provided here, italicized as in original.<\/p>\n

[28]<\/a> Sparschuh, pp. 137-8.<\/p>\n

[29]<\/a> Frerich Frerichs and Gerhard Naegele document the prevalence of ageism in Germany in the 1990s in \u201cDiscrimination of Older Workers in Germany: Obstacles and Options for the Integration into Employment.\u201d In: Journal of Aging and Social Policy<\/em> 9, no. 1 (1997), pp. 89-101.<\/p>\n

[30]<\/a> Sparschuh, p. 16.<\/p>\n

[31]<\/a> Ibid. p. 100.<\/p>\n

[32]<\/a> Sparschuh, p. 112.<\/p>\n

[33]<\/a> See, e.g., Sigrid Meuschel. \u201c\u00dcberlegungen zu einer Herrschafts- und Gesellschaftsgeschichte der DDR.\u201d In: Geschichte und Gesellschaft<\/em>, Sozialgeschichte der DDR 19, no. 1 (1993), pp. 5-14.<\/p>\n

[34]<\/a> Rose, Richard. Understanding Post-Communist Transformation: A Bottom-Up Approach<\/em>. London and New York: Routledge, 2009, pp. 19-26.<\/p>\n

[35]<\/a> Sparschuh, p. 112.<\/p>\n

[36]<\/a> Sabrow, p. 13.<\/p>\n

[37]<\/a> The \u201ccolonization\u201d metaphor has been used since the early 1990s to refer to the unification process. See, for example, Wolfgang D\u00fcmcke and Fritz Vilmar, eds., Kolonialisierung der DDR. Kritische Analysen und Alternativen des Einigungsprozesses<\/em>, M\u00fcnster: agenda Verlag, 1995.<\/p>\n

[38]<\/a> Sparschuh, pp. 40-53.<\/p>\n

[39]<\/a> \u201cComedy of Errors, The.\u201d Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English<\/em>. Pearson, 2023, https:\/\/www.ldoceonline.com\/dictionary\/comedy-of-errors<\/a> (cited on Aug. 3, 2023).<\/p>\n

[40]<\/a> Sparschuh, pp. 56, 79, 79, 57.<\/p>\n

[41]<\/a> Ibid. p. 131.<\/p>\n

[42]<\/a> Ibid. pp. 63-66.<\/p>\n

[43]<\/a> Ibid. p. 64.<\/p>\n

[44]<\/a> See Sparschuh, qtd. in Jill E. Twark, Humor, Satire, and Identity: Eastern German Literature in the 1990s<\/em>. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007, p. 371.<\/p>\n

[45]<\/a> Preisendanz, Wolfgang. Humor als dichterische Einbildungskraft. Studien zur Erz\u00e4hlkunst des poetischen Realismus<\/em>, 2nd. ed. M\u00fcnchen: Fink, 1976, p. 11.<\/p>\n

[46]<\/a> Ibid., p. 15.<\/p>\n

[47]<\/a> Sparschuh, pp. 10, 11.<\/p>\n

[48]<\/a> Sparschuh, pp. 11, 40.<\/p>\n

[49]<\/a> Sparschuh, p. 138.<\/p>\n

[50]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[51]<\/a> Ibid. pp. 73-76, 80-82.<\/p>\n

[52]<\/a> E.g., Sparschuh, pp. 27-37.<\/p>\n

[53]<\/a> Kittelstad, Kat. \u201cExamples of Situational\u00a0Irony.\u201d YourDictionary, July 19, 2022, https:\/\/www.yourdictionary.com\/articles\/examples-situational-irony<\/a> (cited on July 20, 2023).<\/p>\n

[54]<\/a> Babiak, Paul Michael. \u201cThe Descent of Slapstick.\u201d In Slapstick: An Interdisciplinary Companion<\/em>. Edited by Ervin Malakaj and Alena E. Lyons. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2021, pp. 15-36.<\/p>\n

[55]<\/a> For example, Sparschuh vividly describes Lobek\u2019s choking repeatedly on a piece of gristle: \u201cIch sch\u00fcttelte atemlos den Kopf, wobei sich allerdings mein Schinkenklo\u00df in Erinnerung brachte \u2013 er war ein St\u00fcck in den Hals hinabgerutscht. Mit einem kurzen, kr\u00e4ftigen W\u00fcrger, ich musste die Augen fest zusammenpressen, brachte ich ihn wieder, ehe es zu einem Erstickungsanfall kam, in die Ausgangslage . . . Boldinger sah mich forschend an. Ich atmete schwer\u201d (35-36).<\/p>\n

[56]<\/a> Sparschuh, pp. 35-37, 52, 115-19.<\/p>\n

[57]<\/a> Dale, Alan. Comedy is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies<\/em>. Minneapolis, MN and London, UK: University of Minnesota Press, 2000, p. 11.<\/p>\n

[58]<\/a> Klinkowitz qtd. in Ervin Malakaj and Alena E. Lyons, \u201cIntroduction: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Slapstick,\u201d Slapstick: An Interdisciplinary Companion<\/em>, edited by Ervin Malakaj and Alena E. Lyons, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2021, pp. 1-7, p. 3.<\/p>\n

[59]<\/a> Sparschuh, p. 52.<\/p>\n

[60]<\/a> Sparschuh, p. 120.<\/p>\n

[61]<\/a> Malakaj and Lyons, p. 6.<\/p>\n

[62]<\/a> Sparschuh, pp. 9, 12; italics in original.<\/p>\n

[63]<\/a> Ibid. p. 13.<\/p>\n

[64]<\/a> Ibid. p. 39.<\/p>\n

[65]<\/a> Ibid. pp. 20-21.<\/p>\n

[66]<\/a> Kr\u00fcger, S\u00f6nke. \u201cWie man \u00fcberzeugte Wessis zur Wei\u00dfglut bringt.\u201d In: Welt<\/em> 20 Jun. 2014,\u00a0 https:\/\/www.welt.de\/reise\/article129282567\/Wie-man-ueberzeugte-Wessis-zur-Weissglut-bringt.html<\/a> (cited on 20. Jul. 2023).<\/p>\n

[67]<\/a> Seipp, Bettina. \u201cWie man geb\u00fcrtige Ostdeutsche zur Wei\u00dfglut bringt.\u201d In: Welt<\/em>, 13 Jun. 2014, \u00a0https:\/\/www.welt.de\/reise\/article129026967\/Wie-man-gebuertige-Ostdeutsche-zur-Weissglut-bringt.html<\/a> (cited on 30 Jul. 2023).<\/p>\n

[68]<\/a> Gries p. 195.<\/p>\n

[69]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[70]<\/a> Twark, 2007, pp. 381-82.<\/p>\n

[71]<\/a> Sparschuh, p. 55.<\/p>\n

[72]<\/a> Sparschuh, p. 83.<\/p>\n

[73]<\/a> Sparschuh, pp. 20, 146.<\/p>\n

[74]<\/a> Translated by Ralph Mannheim. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2001 (orig. 1941).<\/p>\n

[75]<\/a> Sparschuh, p. 122.<\/p>\n

[76]<\/a> Matthew 14: 17-19; Sparschuh, p. 152.<\/p>\n

[77]<\/a> See, e.g., Andreas Platthaus, \u201cNun pl\u00e4tschert es wieder. Aufbau Ost: Jens Sparschuh installiert einen Zimmerspringbrunnen,\u201d in: Faz.net<\/em> 14. Dez. 1995, https:\/\/www.faz.net\/aktuell\/feuilleton\/buecher\/rezensionen\/belletristik\/rezension-belletristik-nun-plaetschert-es-wieder-11310228.html<\/a> (cited on 3. Aug. 2023).<\/p>\n

[78]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[79]<\/a> For a positive, scholarly analysis of the film, see Roswitha Skare, \u201cText und Paratext und deren Remedierung im Film: Jens Sparschuhs Heimatroman Der Zimmerspringbrunnen <\/em>(1995),\u201d in: A Document Return<\/em>, edited by Roswitha Skare, Niels Windfeld Lund and Andreas V\u00e5rheim, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007, pp. 135-51.<\/p>\n

[80]<\/a> The pedagogical benefits of the novel are undisputed, as it has been didacticized for schoolchildren and university students by diverse educators and educational institutions. See, e.g., Sparschuh, Jens: Der Zimmerspringbrunnen. Text & Kommentar,<\/em> kommentiert von Wolfgang Reitzammer, Buchners Schulbibliothek der Moderne, no 27. Bamberg: C. C. Buchners Verlag, 2007. Reitzammer\u2019s book is listed as recommended reading, along with the novel, on the website of the Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur, 2024, https:\/\/www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de\/de\/vermitteln\/bildung\/bildungskatalog\/jens-sparschuh-der-zimmerspringbrunnen<\/a> (cited on 2 Jan. 2024). See also Annette van Rossum, \u201cDidaktisierungen von Der erste Fr\u00fchling<\/em>, Wie Licht schmeckt<\/em> und Der Zimmerspringbrunnen <\/em>im Rahmen des literaturdidaktischen Projekts \u2018Lezen voor de Lijst,\u2019\u201d Bachelor\u2019s Thesis, University of Utrecht, 2012.<\/p>\n

[81]<\/a> Rose, p. 2.<\/p>\n

[82]<\/a> Rose, p. 3.<\/p>\n

[83]<\/a> Rose, p. 2.<\/p>\n

[84]<\/a> Sparschuh, pp. 73, 76; 74-75; 80-82.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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