Driving Remembrance from below: Civil Society Initiatives and the Memory of the German Democratic Republic

Much has been written about efforts to commemorate both the sites and victims of the East German regime as well as the peaceful revolution of 1989. However, the role of grassroots actors – who I argue are the driving force behind most of these projects – has been neglected. Using a social movement theory lens, I investigate here many important initiatives to commemorate the GDR in diverse ways and from various political vantage points. Drawing on interviews with activists, government officials, and observers, as well as press and government reports, I paint a picture of the key actors involved in the building of the memorial landscape in the past 25 years. In particular, I detail the roles played by former GDR oppositionists, victims groups, West German memorial professionals, for-profit memory entrepreneurs, and state actors. Despite this complex memorial “scene,” I argue that that without civil society action, the landscape of memory in the Berlin Republic would look very different today – both in design and in governance. Moreover, I contend that the remembrance of the GDR must be viewed in the context of the norms and structures that have developed in the course of the struggle to commemorate the Holocaust. Thus, the antecedent history of civil society engagement in the field of memory politics cannot be divorced from current contention.