Paper short abstract:

Focusing on local policy-makers active in 'the re-appraisal of the East German past' this paper explores how the physical, bodily and ethical experiences of commemorative events creates strongly felt senses of the dictatorial past that heavily informs the production of government discourse.

Paper long abstract:

The policy discourse and practice of Aufarbeitung (the re-appraisal of the East German past), which treats the GDR as a dictatorship that requires commemoration, museumisation and research into state violence, is usually explored in terms of the historical narratives it produces. Drawing from ethnographic research among a group of local policy-makers, directors of memorial museums and administrators involved in this work (Gallinat 2017), this paper explores how the physical, bodily and ethical experiences of commemorative events create a persuasive power that produces a strongly felt sense of the dictatorial past that heavily informs the production of this government discourse.

I will focus on two particular events from 2008: The first is an annual commemoration of the building of the Berlin Wall, which was conducted at a local, open air, border memorial where the composition of the participants, the flow of ritual actions, music and commemorative silences direct attention to the suffering of victims that turns administrative work into ethical promises to prevent the reoccurrence of political violence. The second event is a ceremony conducted on the annual People's Day of Mourning, which took place at a former Stasi-prison, now memorial museum. Here the SED-dictatorship is once again reproduced through the ritual discipline imposed on bodies and the very 'being there' in the 'authentic place'. Moreover, the victim association used the event to cultivate links with relevant policy-makers, over coffee and gingerbread, and utilised the heavily laden ritual moment to influence the political work they do.