Consuming Germany in the Cold War

ISBN: 9781859737668 出版年：2003 页码：223 Bloomsbury Publishing

Sitting in the ruins of the Third Reich, most Germans wanted to know which of the two post-war German states would erase the material traces of their wartime suffering most quickly and most thoroughly. Consumption and the quality of everyday life quickly became important battlefields upon which the East-West conflict would be fought. This book focuses on the competing types of consumer societies that developed ovtwo Germanies and the legacy each left. Consuming Germany in the Cold War assesses why East Germany increasingin this competition and how the failure to create a viable socialist "consumer society" in tlead to tBerlin Wall in 1989. By the 1970s, East Germans were well aware that the regime's bombastic promises that the GDR would soon overtake the West had become increasingly hollow. For mocitizenconsumer society set the standards that East Germany repeatedly failed to meet. By exploring the ways in which East and West Germany have functioned as each other's "other" since 1949, this book suggespossibilities for a new narrative of post-war German history. While taking into account the very different paths pursued by East and West Germany since 1949, the contributors demonstrate the importance of competition and highlight the connections between the two German successor states, ways in which these relationships changed throughout the period. By understanding the legacy that forty-plus years of rivalry established, we can gain a better understanding of the current tensions between the eastern and western regioGermany.