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Germanic Collections

Cultural History of the GDR

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Collections on Recent and Contemporary German Culture and Politics: Cultural History of the German Democratic Republic

by Henry Lowood, Curator of Germanic Collections (1990-2008), Stanford University Libraries

The Stanford University Libraries (SUL) have, beginning in 1990, actively acquired recent and contemporary primary sources, including special collections in German cultural, literary, and social history. These collecting activities have not only been stimulated by research directions linked to the reunification of Germany, but also by the opening of new channels for acquiring materials. In response to these opportunities, we have built a collection of primary source materials that emphasizes the theme of culture and cultural politics in the former German Democratic Republic. The collection is divided under the following headings:

Theaterverlag Autoren-Kollegium (Special Collections. M637)
Mitteilungen des Deutschen Schriftstellerverbandes, 1963-1989
Theaterprogramme (Special Collections. M644)
Willi Bredel (Special Collections. M665)
New Literary Publishers in East Germany
Other New Publishing Ventures in East Germany
The Book Arts Scene of the 1980s in East Germany and Its Continuation after 1989
DEFA and East German Film
Dokumentationsbibliothek DDR Kunst: Books on the Fine Arts in East Germany (Special Collections, M0772)
Poster Collections
East German Popular and Material Culture

Other collections, such as the APO (Extraparliamentary Opposition) and Student Movement Collection (Special Collections. M613); and the collections of the The Hoover Institution; document related topics or provide important comparative perspectives to SUL's GDR collections.

The descriptive notes that follow have been culled from a variety of sources, including vendor listings, memoranda and newsletters. In most cases, more detailed finding aids are available in the Department of Special Collections.

Theaterverlag Autoren-Kollegium (Special Collections. M637)

Autoren-Kollegium formed 1988/89 in East Berlin by some 25 playwrights, most of whom were relatively young and had been unable to find a creative outlet through the established theaters and publishers in East Germany. Of the 110 or so typescript plays completed between 1978 and 1991 in this collection, the only titles to have been published as of 1991 appeared in Jörg Koerbl's Gorbatschow, Fragment; Zauberstein & sprach/kommentar. Zwei Stücke (Berlin: Autoren-Kollegium, 1990). Harald Müller, who managed the Autoren-Kollegium, edited several plays for publication, including two by other members of the Autoren-Kollegium, in: DDR-Theater des Umbruchs. This collection offers most of the unpublished Schubladentexte of the Autoren-Kollegium in the versions as they would have been sent to theaters. (Libraries generally are unable to acquire plays in this format.) A short description of the project is available in the collection, along with a good descriptive catalog of the plays available from the Autoren-Kollegium in 1991, which includes biographies and short bibliographies of the members; the catalog lists most of our holdings (but not all), as well as some plays which we did not get. An article on the Autoren-Kollegium appeared in TAZ (16 Feb. 1991), which is held by the Hoover Library.

With this material, one could work on the "alternative" theater scene in East Germany and compare these texts to, say, the "official" plays published by Henschel. There was also a curious relationship between the Kollegium and Herbert Schirmer, the last cultural minister of the GDR.

Mitteilungen des Deutschen Schriftstellerverbandes, 1963-1989

After 1973, this organization was known as the Schriftstellerverband der DDR. The Mitteilungen were the internal publication of the organization, which published Neue Deutsche Literatur and sponsored the Schriftstellerkongresse. Anna Seghers was president until 1978, when she was succeeded by Hermann Kant.

Theaterprogramme (Special Collections. M644)

"Die Sammlung enthält 222 Exemplare von Theaterprogrammheften aus Ostberliner Theatern im Zeitraum 1951-1970. Der Schwerpunkt liegt in den 50er Jahren. Die Sammlung dokumentiert viele wichtige Aufführungen aus dieser Zeit ... Alle Programmhefte mehrseitig, mit Abbildungen und Beiträgen zu den Stücken und zur Zeit, etc." (From the dealer's description.)

This collection of East German theater programs documents plays performed at the Deutsches Theater (Intendant: Wolfgang Langhoff), 1951-1973; Theater am Schiffbauerdamm (Fritz Wisten), 1950-1954; Maxim Gorki Theater (Maxim Vallentin), 1952-1956; Volksbühne (Fritz Wisten, u.a.), 1954-1963; Berliner Ensemble (Bertolt Brecht, u.a.), 25 plays; and many others.

Willi Bredel (Special Collections. M665)

These papers were preserved by Bredel's secretary and include his correspondence and other documents produced between 1953 and 1964. The collection comprises some 560 individual items. The main topic is the Bibliothek fortschrittlicher deutscher Schriftsteller, an anthology of German writers who were "politically correct" in the context of the GDR in the mid-1950s. The correspondence touches on matters such as authors' royalties and publishing rights in the GDR and documents certain aspects of Bredel's fall from favor in the GDR, as well as such trivial matters as his efforts to repair his Western automobile. The collection includes two literary manuscripts.

New Literary Publishers in East Germany

Browse the titles, enter the virtual gallery, and read more!

Smaller publishers in West Berlin, such as the Mariannenpresse, were linked to trends from the "Prenzlauer Berg scene" that flowered at Galrev. Other writers were published both by the new post-1989 literary publishers and by independent presses in the pre-1989 East German book arts scene (see below), such as Johannes (Jot) Jansen or Flanzendörfer (Frank Lanzendörfer), and we have many examples from both groups of publishers. Research on the transition from the GDR to the post-reunification Bundesrepublik in literary publishing also requires materials on West German publishing prior to 1989, as well as West German countercultures and underground publishing. Stanford holds important reference materials on West German alternative culture before 1989, as well, such as the Verzeichnis der alternativMedien, the catalogs of the Minipressenmessen, the Verzeichnis linker lieferbarer Bücher, and so on. The APO collection includes many examples of underground literary publishers from West Germany.

Other New Publishing Ventures in East Germany

Along with the independent literary publishers, there have been numerous new publishing ventures such as newspapers, newsletters, literary magazines, etc., since the late 1980s. We have a good collection of representative and important titles of magazines and weeklies from the new Bundesländer. Examples: Freitag, Die Andere, Reiterin, Kreuzer, Telegraph, etc. These publications supplement the alternative and literary publications, such as magazines, that we have in Hoover and in Department of Special Collections for the post-1968 scene in West Germany (quite a few are in the APO and Student Movement Collection.

The Book Arts Scene of the 1980s in East Germany and Its Continuation after 1989

Browse the titles, enter the virtual gallery, and read more!

As in the case of Druckhaus Galrev, we have in Special Collections material relating to a few of the small presses in East Germany. These include Trümmerpresse (F. Jacobi), Katzengrabenpresse (Jan Silberschuh), and others. We have acquired some interesting items (1989-1995) directly from the Corvinus Presse (Hendrik Liersch), which (as the name suggests) has been much influenced by the old Rabe Verlag (V. O. Stomps). This material includes postcards, handmade books (including a rare tribute to Stomps called Verleger für VauO in the form of a handmade Festschrift; the East German automobile, the Trabant, is featured in one set of postcards. As noted above, the collection of ephemeral items from the Corvinus Presse is held in Special Collections (Misc 297). Other interesting examples of the creativity and continuity of the East German book arts scene include Uwe Warnke's Found Poetry (Berlin: 1991), printed in part on colored "DDR-Verpackungspapier," and Serielle Texte (1989).

For the subjects of counterculture, underground book arts, etc. in the DDR, there are now several good references: the exhibition catalog by Jens Henkel and Sabine Russ, DDR 1980-1989: Künstlerbücher und originalgrafische Zeitschriften im Eigenverlag, eine Bibliographie. Gifkendorf, 1991; non kon form: Künstlerbücher, Text-Grafik-Mappen und autonome Zeitschriften der DDR 1979-1989 (Kiel, 1992). Eigenart und Eigensinn: Alternative Kulturszenen in der DDR 1980-1990 (Bremen, 1993). Mail Art Szene: DDR 1975-1990 (Berlin, 1994).

Another generally useful title for several of the topics discussed above, is: Vogel oder Käfig sein: Kunst und Literatur aus unabhängigen Zeitschriften in der DDR, 1979-1989, ed. Klaus Michael and Thomas Wohlfahrt (Berlin: Galrev, 1991).

DEFA and East German Film

We have been actively collecting current and retrospective material dealing with DEFA, the state-run film production company. (Cf. Joshua Feinstein's recently completed Ph.D. dissertation in the History Department on DEFA, which made use of this material.) The videotape collection in the Meyer Library Media Collection is growing, and we have also been able to acquire film scripts (some annotated), documentary material, and an extensive collection of secondary sources. Consider the director Wolfgang Staudte; Stanford owns the a videotape of Der Untertan, a Werkbuch for Dreigroschenoper 63, and several studies of Staudte's work. We have acquired a few works by young East German filmmakers of the 1980s and early 1990s (e.g., Andreas Dresen, Sibylle Schönemann), many available in no other American collection, particularly those distributed by Ex Picturis in Berlin.

Filmscripts can be found in Special Collections under: DEFA. Studio fur Spielfilme. German filmscripts : 1949-1988. Special Collections M595. The most notable group of titles in this collection are the films by Frank Beyer, including Der Aufenthalt; Spur der Steine; Mama, ich lebe; and Einer trage des anderen last. Some are annotated by members of the production staff.

The latest acquisitions in the area of East German film have emphasized the film industry represented by DEFA. These include a collection of more than 320 movie posters from East Germany, 1955-1975, preserved by the owner of a movie theater who categorized them neatly by country of production. The bulk of these posters advertise films from East Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States, but DEFA was responsible for all of the graphic work, regardless of the country from which they were imported. The posters were used-and are often marked with information such as dates and times of showings. A related recent acquisition is a collection of roughly 1700 Filmprogramme of the VEB "Progress Filmvertrieb," the distribution arm of DEFA, issued from 1954 to 1977. These programs generally consist of 1 or 2 folded sheets and are illustrated. This collection includes an index of the programs published from 1969 to 1974, as well as a run (1970-1977) of the magazine Treffpunkt Kino published by Progress, roughly 40 film prospectuses published for distribution at film festivals, and publicity for Soviet films.

Some books on East German film and photography are also included in the Dokumentationsbibliothek DDR Kunst.

An important related source is the DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is a film archive, library, and study center devoted to research on DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft) and cinema in the former GDR.

Dokumentationsbibliothek DDR Kunst: Books on the Fine Arts in East Germany (Special Collections, M0772)

In late 1994, SUL acquired a documentary collection of more than 1000 books on the fine arts in East Germany. This collection consists primarily of exhibition catalogs, but also includes monographs and a small number of ephemeral items, such as brochures and small catalogs. The collection is housed in the Department of Special Collections, with a detailed finding aid and bibliographic database. View Finding Aid. Learn more about this collection.

Poster Collections

• Transnational Poster Art: Former East Germany (GDR) and Latin America,1970-1989
• Additional books and information about posters in the GDR are included in the Dokumentationsbibliothek DDR Kunst.
  

East German Popular and Material Culture

We acquired an East German collection that included several long runs of East German pictorial magazines and Frauenzeitschriften. Titles include: Neue Berliner Illustrierte (1962-1988); Eulenspiegel (1956-1986); Für Dich (1965-1987); Zeit im Bild (1954-1956, 1962-1967), Freie Welt (1965-1987); Filmspiegel (1954-1972), Magazin für Haus und Wohnung (1975-1983). The first three titles are probably the only complete runs in the United States, and all of these titles are quite rare in the U.S. These six titles alone represent more than 5000 individual magazine issues, with a vast collection of images, as well as articles.

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Last modified: June 19, 2009