Premium
The Continuities of an East German Heimat: Gender and Technological Progress in Du bist min. Ein deutsches Tagebuch.
Author(s) -
Fritzsche Sonja
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the german quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.11
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1756-1183
pISSN - 0016-8831
DOI - 10.1111/j.1756-1183.2010.00078.x
Subject(s) - german , ideology , narrative , communism , politics , aesthetics , beauty , sociology , gender studies , history , art , literature , political science , law , archaeology
East Germany adopted past notions of German Heimat and rearticulated them to fit the contemporary political situation. Annalie and Andrew Thorndike's 70mm film Du bist min (1969) reconciles the tension between a traditional, timeless notion of German Heimat and the ideologically driven, future‐oriented communist vision. However, it ultimately fails to question adopted patriarchal continuities with the past. Instead, the film's personal narrative serves more as the authentic objective voice of a disembodied woman who is placed outside of history, and retains the comfort of home and the beauty of nature found in past conceptions of German Heimat. The women remain in rural or small town settings, and work in traditional, non‐mechanized industries. At the same time, the new socialist Heimat of the future remains masculine in both the film's content and form.