Berkeley Undergraduate Journal

The German Democratic Republic (GDR) collapsed in November 1989, just one month after celebrating its fortieth birthday. “Rising from the ruins” of the Second World War, East Germany—as it is more commonly known—had always boasted that socialism was the future. But by the end of 1989, German socialism was defunct. The reasons for its disintegration are often discussed, but this study proposes new explanation: the GDR collapsed as a result of the collapse of time. By studying the propaganda surrounding the four decennial anniversary celebrations, the author traces how time in the GDR became characterized by stagnation and futurelessness, a far cry from the optimism of the state’s earlier years. Analysis of newspaper articles, speeches, television specials, posters, advertisements, and an interview shed light on the temporal progression of the GDR toward its final end. Spurred by the perestroika and glasnost reforms proposed by the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev, people in the GDR began to see a vision of a viable future, and left the extended, stagnated present behind. But the state—also knowledgeable of the deficiencies of the present—took a different approach, and retreated into the past. The present became nonexistent. And finally, the GDR collapsed in that void, a temporal implosion heralded by sledgehammers on the Berlin Wall.