The culture of East Germany varied throughout the years due to the political and historical events that took place in the 20th century, especially as a result of Nazism and communism. A reflection on the history of arts and culture in East Germany reveals complex relationships between artists and the state, between oppositional and conformist art. In four decades, East Germany developed a distinct culture and produced works of literature, film, visual arts, music, and theatre of international acclaim. Popular culture specialities included among others a high popularity of nudism in Eastern Germany.
Censorship in East Germany controlled any aspect of culture.
Socialist realism In the 1950s the officially encouraged form of art was known as socialist realism. This was intended to depict everyday life under socialism in a way that showed the benefits of living and working in East Germany.
Literature
Any text published in the GDR was governmentally controlled.
Erich Honecker coined the term Leseland DDR (Reading Nation GDR) in 1981.
Press The main newspaper was Neues Deutschland, the official newspaper of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). The official newspaper of the Free German Youth was Junge Welt.
Das Magazin survived the unification of Germany.
The Soviet magazine Sputnik in German was considered too liberal for GDR in 1988.
Music
Pop and rock Influences from the West were heard everywhere, because TV and radio that came from the Klassenfeind (enemy of the working class) could be received in many parts of the east, too (an exception being the area around Dresden, with its geographically disadvantageous position in the Elbe valley, giving it the nickname of "Valley of the Clueless" despite some Western radio being available). As rock music became increasingly popular around the world following the meteoric rise of bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and others, new bands began forming throughout East Germany. However, fearful of "degenerate Western values [corrupting] the young people who listen to [rock]"Juliane Brauer, 'Clashes of Emotions: Punk Music, Youth Subculture, and Authority in the GDR', Social Justice, 38 (2012), 54. as well as rock music's tendency to criticize establishments and governments, GDR officials set out to regulate much of the new music. The steps taken to control music included requiring rock bands to sing entirely in German and produce songs of educational value that promoted socialist ideas.Georg Maas and Hartmut Reszel, 'Whatever Happened Too…: The Decline and Renaissance of Rock in the Former GDR', Popular Music, 17 (1998), 267–9. Another problem for the authorities was having to check song texts very carefully for anti-state tendencies. The band Renft, for example, fell foul of the authorities, which eventually led to its being banned and disbanded.Klaus Renft – 'Bad boy of East German rock'n'roll', 13 – 10 – 2006
State-sanctioned bands such as Puhdys were given an "Auftrittserlaubnis" (Performance permission) that allowed them to play in East German (and occasionally even West German) clubs, festivals, etc. Failure to obtain this card before a performance could result in the forced separation of a band or even imprisonment.Georg Maas and Hartmut Reszel, 'Whatever Happened Too…: The Decline and Renaissance of Rock in the Former GDR', Popular Music, 17 (1998), 269. The Puhdys, Stern-Combo Meißen and Karat were popular mainstream bands, managing to hint at critical thoughts in their lyrics without being explicit. Like other mainstream acts, they appeared in youth magazines such as Neues Leben and Das Magazin. State-sanctioned recorded rock and other popular music was produced and distributed by the state enterprise Amiga Records.
Despite the heavy censorship, regulation, and repression imposed by the GDR leadership over the East German rock community, the government did, to a certain degree, aid the development of the new music. This included allowing the import of illegal instruments via bands that desperately needed foreign equipment,Edward Larkey, 'GDR Rock goes West: Finding a Voice in the West German Market', German Politics and Society, 23 (2005), 59. as well as significant airtime given to female artists. The latter allowed for what historians consider growth in the expression of female identity and sexuality.Uta Poiger, 'Rock n Roll, Female Sexuality, and the Cold War Battle over German Identities', The Journal of Modern History, (68) 1996, 577–616. The state also accepted the formation of more "underground" groups with a decisively western-oriented sound. Most notably, a number of punk and new wave bands such as Sandow and Feeling B could produce records with the official company AMIGA.
Several East German rock stars left the GDR. Nina Hagen who published her first hit Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen in 1974 emigrated in 1976. Veronika Fischer emigrated in 1981.
Schlager Schlager, light popular music with roots in the nineteen and early twentieth century, which was very popular in the west, also gained a foothold early on in East Germany, and numerous musicians, such as , , and gained national fame. Frank Schöbel was very successful. From 1962 to 1976, an international schlager festival was held in Rostock, garnering participants from between 18 and 22 countries each year. The city of Dresden held a similar international festival for schlager musicians from 1971 until shortly before reunification.Götz Hintze: Rocklexikon der DDR. 2. Auflage. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, , Eintrag zum Internationalen Schlagerfestival Dresden There was a national schlager contest hosted yearly in Magdeburg from 1966 to 1971 as well.Informationen zu Chris Doerk, retrieved 23 December 2010
Classical Several prestigious ensembles had roots in the pre-War period. Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra was led by Kurt Masur since 1970. The Staatskapelle Dresden was led by Herbert Blomstedt since 1975. Jean Kurt Forest established the Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Chamber Orchestra in 1969, and Hartmut Haenchen led the ensemble.
Other ensembles located in East Germany included the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Berlin State Opera, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin (Berliner Symphony Orchestra) and the Staatskapelle Halle.
Classical music recordings were recorded issued on the Eterna Record label, a unit of the VEB Deutsche Schallplatten state music company. Many of the recordings have been issued in the 21st century on the Berlin Classics label.
Johann Sebastian Bach On a more traditional level, the East German government celebrated the fact that Johann Sebastian Bach was born in East German territory, and spent a great deal of money converting his house in Eisenach into a museum of his life, which, among other things, included more than 300 instruments from Bach's life. In 1980, this museum received more than 70,000 visitors.
In Leipzig, an enormous archive with recordings of all of Bach's music was compiled, along with many historical documents and letters both to and from him. Werner Neumann founded the Bach-Archiv Leipzig in 1950.
Every second year, school children from across East Germany gathered for a Bach competition held in East Berlin. Every four years an international Bach competition for keyboard and strings was held.
Thomanerchor recorded a number of Bach's works for the GDR's Eterna label.
Jazz German jazz was divided after World War II, with the East German regime having an ambivalent attitude to jazz, which it initially resisted as an American influence on culture,Ruth Hohmann: the first lady of East German jazz sings again, The Guardian, 2 December 2011 but later accepted as a form of "people's music". The Amiga record label began issuing American jazz recordings in 1963.
Klaus Lenz directed a number of bands. Manfred Krug sang jazz till his emigration in 1977.
Recording establishments There were state recording companies. In 1947 Ernst Busch established Eterna Records for classical, folk, jazz and church music. For popular music there was Amiga Records. These operations became state-directed in 1953.German wikipedia article for Eterna Records :de:Eterna (Plattenlabel)
Visual art Artists were members of the communist "Verband Bildender Künstler der DDR".German Wikipedia article :de:Verband Bildender Künstler der DDR
Visual propaganda
Political propaganda shaped GDR – monuments of communist leaders including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, banners with political slogans.
Feminist art Critical feminist artists were Gabriele Stötzer, Tina Bara, Cornelia Schleime, Doris Ziegler, Mita Schamal, Karla Woisnitza, Christine Schlegel, Else Gabriel, Yana Milev, Angela Hampel, Gundula Schulze Eldowy, Janet Grau.
Political manifestations and secular ceremonies International Workers' Day was obligatory for millions. The Tag der Republik (the Day of the Republic), 7 October, was the anniversary of the creation of the GDR.
The Jugendweihe was a secular coming-of-age ceremony which replaced Lutheran Confirmation.
Theatre
East German theatre was strongly dominated in its early years by Bertolt Brecht, who brought back artists from the antifascist resistance and reopened Theater am Schiffbauerdamm with his Berliner Ensemble. On the other side some streams tried to establish "Pure Workers Theatre", played by workers and performing plays about workers.
After Brecht died, there was a lot of conflict between the artists and the family (around Helene Weigel) about the Brecht heritage. Heinz Kahlau, Slatan Dudow, Erwin Geschonneck, Erwin Strittmatter, Peter Hacks, Benno Besson, Peter Palitzsch and Ekkehard Schall are counted among Brecht's scholars and followers. In the 1950s the Swiss Benno Besson had success with "The Dragon" by Jewgenij Schwarz. As a result, he travelled with Deutsches Theater around Europe and Asia (and also in Japan). He became the Intendant at Volksbühne in the 1960s and often worked with Heiner Müller.
Because of censorship, many artists left the GDR from 1975 onwards. A parallel development was that some artists moved out to small city theatres, to create theatre beyond Berlin. For example, Peter Sodann founded the Neues Theater in Halle/Saale and Frank Castorf worked at a theatre in Anklam. Theatre and cabaret had a very important status for the people in the GDR and it was a very active and dynamic scene. This was the cause of some contention with the state. Benno Besson was quoted as saying about the relationship between cabaret and the state: "At least they took us seriously."
The Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin is the last major building erected by the GDR. Here, Berlin's great revue tradition lives on, today bringing viewers state-of-the-art shows.
Cinema
In East Germany the movie industry was very active. Besides folk movies, the East German movie industry became known worldwide for its productions, especially for its children's movies (Das kalte Herz and cinematic versions of the Grimms' fairy tales, and also modern productions like Das Schulgespenst).
Movies about the persecution of Jews in the Third Reich, such as Naked Among Wolves, Jakob the Liar, and the resistance against fascism, such as Fünf Patronenhülsen, (both directed by Frank Beyer), became internationally famous. Movies about problems of daily life like Die Legende von Paul und Paula (directed by Heiner Carow) or Solo Sunny (directed by Konrad Wolf and Wolfgang Kohlhaase) were also very popular.