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LIBRARY
Michigan State
University

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This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

LOCATING THE LESBIAN SOCIALIST SUBJECT: ABSENCE
AND PRESENCE IN EAST GERMAN FICTION, SEX
MANUALS, AND PERSONAL NARRATIVES

presented by

DARA KAYE BRYANT

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for the

PhD degree in German Studies

 

 

.- ’77

0 Major Professor's Signature

I 0 Ram? 9005'"

Date

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MSU is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

 

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PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record.
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DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE

 

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2/05 p:lCIRC/DateDue.indd-p.1

LOCATING THE LESBIAN SOCIALIST SUBJECT:
ABSENCE AND PRESENCE lN EAST GERMAN FICTION, SEX DISCOURSE,
AND PERSONAL NARRATIVES
By

Dara Kaye Bryant

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Linguistics, and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages

2005

ABSTRACT
LOCATING THE LESBIAN SOCIALIST SUBJECT:
ABSENCE AND PRESENCE IN EAST GERMAN FICTION, SEX DISCOURSE,
AND PERSONAL NARRATIVES
By
Dara Kaye Bryant

Locating the Lesbian Socialist Subject: Absence and Presence in East German Fiction,
Sex Discourse, and Personal Narratives, explores two distinct lesbian discourses in GDR
culture that existed in the 19803 and continued through the political upheaval of 1989 and
1990. The first discourse is visible in the dominant culture in the form of East German
sex manuals and women’s fiction; it appropriates same-sex images for a variety of
reasons, ranging from negative social reinforcement to portraying a utopian space
symbolizing a political and social sisterhood. The other discourse comes from GDR
lesbians attempting to naturalize lesbianism in socialist society. In reports documenting
demonstrations at the Ravensbriick KZ memorial site and in interview literature, lesbian
authors begin to create an “authentic” lesbian presence based on the material reality of
their own lives and events. Their writing creates a sexual identity that challenges the
images propagated by mainstream GDR culture. This study draws from approaches
developed in queer theory and cultural studies that allow an investigation of how lesbian
and socialist identities are intertwined in a variety of literary as well as extra-literary

texts.

Copyright by
DARA KAYE BRYANT
2005

This dissertation is dedicated with love to my mother, Ruth Ann Wood.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1n the course of writing this dissertation l have benefited from the support,
generosity, and intellectual community of more people than can be named here. My
advisor, Elizabeth Mittman, has provided me with unsurpassed academic leadership. Her
critical reading skills and readiness to allow me to develop as a scholar have facilitated
the writing of this dissertation in ways that perhaps even she cannot know. She has also
been a friend and our frequent meetings to talk about work and life will be missed
greatly. I could not have imagined a better advisor.

I also wish to thank the members of my committee, Dagmar Herzog, Karin Wurst,
and Patrick McConeghy, for their guidance. The classes with Dagmar Herzog in gender
history and the history of sexuality Changed my personal and scholarly life. Karin Wurst
has provided excellent professional guidance and Patrick McConeghy provided
invaluable advice when I entered the program at Michigan State. I would also like to
thank members of my writing groups, Crista Lebens, Elizabeth Priester, and Mark
Hoolihan for gentle and timely feedback as well as an often much-appreciated sanity
check.

I have received timely support from the Michigan State University in the form of
a Special College Research Abroad Monies grant and a Dissertation Completion
Fellowship to allow me to conduct research in Germany and concentrate on finishing my
dissertation in the US. I would also like to thank the F riedriCh-Schiller-Universitat in
Jena, Germany, for the stipends in the Winter semester of 1999-00 and the Winter and

Summer semesters of 2000—01 that facilitated research and writing in Germany. I am also

indebted to Samirah Kenawi at the GrauZone archive in Berlin for hours of help finding
documents. Ursula Sillge at the Lila Archiv in Berlin also provided me with a variety of
information. The friendly, helpful, and patient librarians at MonaLiesa in Leipzig will
hold a special place in my academic heart and I heartily thank the librarians at the
Spinnboden and the ZiF library at the Humboldt Universitat.

I would also like to thank my family and friends. My mother has provided me
with immeasurable support my whole life and without her, this would never have been
possible. I also thank my second mom Judy as well as my sister Dana and my nephews,
Josh and Nik, for their friendship and fun. There have been many friends who have
supported and helped me in numerous ways and I appreciate especially the extra-
scholarly activities I’ve been able to pursue with Caroline McKenzie, Katrin Dreier, Eva
Schimek, Anke Seegel, and Doreen Bauschke. Last, but not least, I appreciate those
friends, Amy Stone and Cindy Rogers, who stepped in at the bitter end, when it cannot

have been easy.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION _ 1
Theoretical Underpinnings 5
Legal Status and Historical Context 8
Social Positioning of Lesbian Groups II
Dissertation Overview 14
CHAPTER 2
UN—SICHTBARE FRA UEN: EAST GERMAN SEX DISCOURSE AND THE
OCCLUDED LESBIAN 17
The Socialist/Capitalist Sara-Political Binary 21
Sexual Revolution 24
Nature 28
The Frigid Woman 30
Gender Roles 33
Ontological and Cultural Sexual Differences 39
Sex Roles 45
Harnessing Sex Drive __ 52
Reproduction as Sexual Goal 57
Special Role of the Family ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 60
Socialist Sexual Morality 62
Heterosexual Monogamy 66
Masturbation 66
Orgasm _ 69
Work _______ 74
Birth Control 76
Sexual Classism/Social Hierarchy 78
Discourse on Homosexuality 79
CHAPTER 3
THE IDEALIZED LESBIAN IN EAST GERMAN WOMEN’S FICTION 84
GDR Literature ____________ 86
Women’s Fiction and the Function of “the Lesbian” 91
The Case of Kassandra___ 10]
Lesbian Utopia in the Women-Centered Community 102
Intimate Friendships and Sexual Alternatives to Heterosexual Patriarchy
106
The Symbolic Lesbian __ 112

 

Queering the Heteronarrative - _ -_ _ 113

vii

CHAPTER 4
QUEERTNG THE ANTIFASCIST STATE: RAVENSBRUECK, SOCIAL DRAMA,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICAL REPRESENTATION 119
Hegemony, Civil Society, and Discipline 124
Breach or the “Fear of the Queer” 133
Crisis: Challenging the State 141
Redress: Establishing the “Outsider” Lesbian 143
Reintegration/Recognition of Schism: Which is it? 146
Creating a Socialist Subjectivity/Subject Position 148
Subverting Object Position into Subject Position 151
CHAPTER 5
PERSONAL NARRATIVES AND THE RECLAMATION OF EAST GERMAN
LESBIAN PLURALITY 158
Protokolliteratur 160
Political Projects and Narrative Structures 165
Ich anhungsloser Engel 166
...viel zuviel verschwiegen l 68
Un-Sichtbare Frauen: Lesben und ihre Emanzipation in der DDR ,,,,,,,,, 170
Subjectivity 172
Experience/Authenticity I 78
Narrating Diversity _ 188
CONCLUSION ................. 198

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY , __ __ 202

viii

Chapter One

 

Introduction

When I began working on my doctorate, I was interested in integrating questions
of sexuality into feminist and gender analysis. My first experience with queer theory and
the history of sexuality led me to the early question of how homosexuality in the German
Democratic Republic (GDR) fit into histories of sexuality and specifically what was
different in a socialist context from a Western, capitalist context. My first research
project on homosexuality was something of a reconnaissance mission. Though I was well
acquainted with East Germany and its literature, it was my goal to find as much primary
material as I could on homosexuality specifically and track how it was portrayed in those
documents. My first experience with this topic did not bear much fruit. There was very
little that counted as a primary document from or by homosexuals that I was able to
locate, but I did find the occasional thread, such as post-Wende articles on homosexuality
in the GDR (Gay News Germany 1977, Gerlind/Schaab 1994, Lemke I993, Schoofs
1994, Murray 1993, Soukoup 1990), basic articles on women’s lives in the GDR (Funk
1992, F erree 1993, Wierling 1993), a smattering of first—hand accounts from lesbians and
gay men (Sillge I991, Lemke 1991, NGC 1981), and a monograph from an East German
sexologist about gay men in the GDR (Starke 1994). Though the information was
somewhat hodge-podge in nature, it did provide me with some basic historical. facts about
homosexuality in the GDR as well as first insights into how East German homosexuals
viewed their position vis-a-vis socialist society and the state and how they were portrayed
by outside sources. I was unable to escape that a relatively positivist narrative was
developing about the progress of homosexuals in the GDR.

A seeming lack of information whetted my curiosity, encouraging me to pursue
the topic further. Specifically, I was interested in lesbian life in the GDR, but still on a

content-based, material level. As I continued this line of research, I encountered two

collections of interview literature by lesbians (Ich ahnungsloser Engel, Gutsche 1991;
vie] zuviel verschwiegen Kartstfidt/Zitzewitz I996), lesser-known counterparts to the
Lemke collection of narratives by gay men, ganz normal anders. As I continued to focus
my energy on unearthing as much material as I could about East German lesbians, I
realized that material on gay men was much easier to locate, while information on
lesbians was somewhat more difficult. I also realized that, while there had been a limited
amount of scholarship on the topic from Germanists (Paul 1994, Hillhouse 1990, Sweet
1994) none of it took a critical stance and examined how lesbians were portrayed or how
they portrayed themselves. This scholarship was more concerned with proving that
lesbians and homosexuals were on a teleological path toward emancipation in the East
German system.

As a reaction to this, I became concerned with showing how two lesbian voices
dominated East German lesbian discourse as well as attempting to uncover other stories
that conflicted with the teleology. I found in the interview collections, that individual
lesbian voices created a non-monolithic portrayal of GDR lesbianism with personal
experience as varied as the number of voices. Thus, my first attempts to contribute to
GDR homosexual scholarly discourse were frustrated and frustrating at best, though the
germ of my dissertation project was contained in these early attempts. Though early
presentations were able to show that these few personal narratives disrupted the teleology
they were supposedly a part of, I became interested in finding more documentation from
lesbians themselves as well as pursuing the question of the lesbian groups that appeared
in 1982/ 1983 and eventually led to the publication of an underground newspaper frau
anders by the Jena/Weimar group in January of 1989, shortly before the Wende. In
addition to texts about the lesbian movement of the 19805, I hoped to find other
representations of lesbian life, especially from the first thirty years of the GDR. The

search for ever more documentation was fueled by American scholarship on US. lesbian

personal narratives that encouraged creating a more differentiated lesbian identity
(Zimmerman 1984, Martin reprinted 1998).

When I had completed research in Berlin archives GrauZone and the Lila Archiv,
and Spinnboden as well as the library at the Humboldt University’s Zentrumfiir
interdisziplina're F rauenforschung, I had amassed a sizeable collection of original
documentation from different church-based lesbian groups as well as articles by and
about GDR lesbians from a number of German feminists’ and queer magazines. In
discussions with Elizabeth Mittman, it became clear that, though I was prepared to
investigate lesbian representations that they themselves generated, I was unfamiliar with
other representations, which led to the Choice to investigate literature by GDR sexologists
as well as women’s fiction. It was clear to GDR literary scholars that there was no lesbian
literature that had been published in the GDR, just as it was clear that homoerotic images
were ofien a part of women’s texts. The question had not yet been asked or answered
why lesbian images were used in women’s fiction and why exactly East German
literature that contained lesbian characters, especially when some of those characters are
central to the plot, such as Waldtraut Lewin’s short story “Dich hat Amor gewiB. . .” or
Christa Wolf’s Kassandra, could not be considered lesbian literature. It was with
reservations about the predominant story of a homosexual teleology in the GDR as well
as a curiosity about mainstream representations of lesbians and how they conflicted
with/or reinforced lesbian’s representations of themselves that I began working on the

dissertation proper.

The first paragraph to Ursula Sillge’s book about lesbians in the East Germany,
Un-Sichtbare Frauen, relates the following anecdote. In 1989, a woman is interviewed on
the street, and asked how she would react if her children were homosexuals. She answers,
“That can’t happen. I have daughters” ( 10). This story is indicative of how lesbians in the

German Democratic Republic (GDR) felt about their social and political position.

Starting in the early 19803, large cities like Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig had lesbian
groups that met under the protection of the Protestant Church. They networked with other
non-sanctioned groups meeting in the church, such as feminists and peace advocates, and
with other gay and lesbian groups in East Germany. East German controls on copying
and paper had previously made any kind of underground paper or large-scale written
communication, i.e. fliers, posters, newsletters, impossible. The church groups had new
freedom to disseminate bulletins and other materials but had to stamp all of their copied
material “for in-church use only.” The groups that formed outside of the church in the
mid-19803 faced a 2-3 month runaround every time they wanted 100 copies of a program
for their meetings.1 Despite these controls lesbians started documenting their actions, and
in January 1989 the first lesbian newsletter, frau anders was created. Though it was
circulated among the lesbian groups meeting in the churches and their friends,2 the
formation of a lesbian movement remained largely unnoticed. Lesbians created a
networking system, but access to Civil society was still denied them.

This dissertation explores two distinct lesbian discourses in GDR culture in the
19803 and around the Wende. The one originates from non-lesbians and appropriates
same-sex images to serve a specific purpose within the larger heterosexual discourse.
This discourse is most evident in women’s fiction and GDR sexology. The other comes
from GDR lesbians. It is an attempt to naturalize lesbianism in socialist society, i.e. to
make lesbian presence an everyday, unquestioned element of society. Only when lesbians
themselves write do they begin to create a lesbian “reality.” Their writing attempts to
convey “authentic” lesbian images based on the material reality of their lives and events.
Reports documenting demonstrations connected with Ravensbriick, a Nazi concentration

camp for women, and personal narratives are core examples of how GDR lesbians

 

'Sillge, Ursula. Lecture on lesbians in the GDR. MonaLiesa, Leipzig. October 4, 2001.
2 Paper shortages meant that they could only make 100 copies. These tended to be passed around groups of
friends.

authenticized themselves. Their writing creates a sexual identity that is distinctly different

from the images propagated by GDR culture.

Theoretical Underpinnings

 

The overarching critical framework for this dissertation is forged from cultural
studies and queer studies. In a cultural studies approach, instead of concentrating on the
traditional ‘high’ cultural forms of literature, the relationships between high culture and
the more common ‘everyday’ culture—-including forms of social interaction—are
examined. The redefinition of the meaning of text expands and explodes the category
‘literature’—as well as the canon—by allowing for a far greater range of analyzable
material. In the East German context, the high/popular culture split takes on a new
dimension, as high culture was easily accessible. Furthermore, popular culture was highly
regulated by the state and either treated as a luxury item or discouraged altogether, as in
the banning of some outside forms of popular music. Despite the line between “high” and
“popular” that was defined along a different set of parameters in the GDR, cultural
studies still allows literary analysis to examine a variety of literary and extra-literary
texts, such as books and articles by prominent GDR sexologists, women’s fiction,
documentation of public events, and personal narratives.

Though the Birmingham school privileged popular culture as a potential site of
resistance in direct contrast to the Frankfurt school, which believed that mass culture was
a site of potential danger, neither provides clear boundaries for East German text
production. IF or example, though sex manuals fall on the side of popular culture in
Western cultural contexts, in the GDR they formed one branch of state-controlled
rhetoric defining parameters of socialist behavior. Life writing, in the form of
Protokolliteratur in the East German context, is clearly a popular form hoped to counter
socialist rhetoric. The keeping of minutes and report writing on group activities, a state-

leamed activity, is reclaimed by lesbians to record their own history, thus problematizing

a textual form usually directly aligned with the state. The reification of state ideology in
state-sanctioned sex discourse is thus reasonably apparent, whereas how and whether that
ideology gets replicated in other forms of discourse is not. To what extent does state
ideology shape lesbian discourse as well as in what ways do lesbians, by creating their
own discourse, create their own site for resistance to state ideology while also
perpetuating it? Cultural studies allows for the analysis of how popular language and
“common sense” were used to manipulate the populace and contribute to a larger
hegemonic agenda: that is, cultural studies is concerned with how subject and ideology
are mutually constitutive. Despite the apparent contradiction, cultural studies can both
investigate popular culture as a vehicle for manipulating the “unwashed masses” as well
as a site for resisting dominant ideology.

As text production is blurred in its correlation to the ideological project of the
GDR, so is the creation of the lesbian subject. Just as cultural studies examines how
subjects are formed within a dominant ideology, this dissertation examines what kind of
lesbian subjects are constituted in a variety of texts. The texts will demonstrate that there
is a shift from “the lesbian” as she is imagined in texts not created by lesbians to a plural
subject in texts created by lesbians themselves. In multi-vocal lesbian-created texts,
subjectivity is fluid and flows from group-identified to multiple individual subjectivities,

depending on the context.

Queer theory reveals the unstable binary opposition of homosexuality and
heterosexuality in which the dominant term, heterosexuality, depends upon the
subordinate term, homosexuality, for its meaning. Moreover, this binary of
sexuality/sexual orientation, even though it is a benchmark of identity in 20th century
society, is revealed to be inadequate to contain the fluidity of sex/sexuality, or, for that
matter, identity. It is the task of queer theory to expose the social constructedness of

sexual identity and to disrupt the naturalized conflation of gender, sexuality, and identity.

Queer theory demonstrates that sexuality cannot be contained by the category of gender,
since - as Judith Butler would argue - there is no clear correlation between genitalia and
sexual practice or gender identity, other than that which is culturally prescribed. In
essence, this breaks down assumptions about the necessary interdependence of sexual
orientation, gender identity and sexuality by demonstrating that these categories are
arbitrary constructions that contribute to the formation of post-19th century, capitalist,
Western social and cultural structures. In East German socialism, a mutually constitutive
binary between socialism and capitalism in the GDR subtended and delineated gender
and sexuality.

The analysis of mechanisms of normativity proposed by queer theory allows this
dissertation to examine how the construction of sexual identity is perpetuated in a variety
of texts. It examines not only the fact that unmarked identities, such as male and
heterosexual, are simultaneously created by and create marked identities, such as female
and homosexual, but perhaps more importantly how this has been accomplished in
various historical settings. West German anti-homosexual laws are based on a narrative
of productive heterosexuality in which male homosexuals are in the long run more
dangerous to the health of the state than lesbians who retain their status as mothers. This
is based on the bourgeois myth/binary opposition that men are sexually active while
women are passive/receptive. Thus, lesbianism remains unnamed in anti-homosexual
legislation (Moeller 1994). In East Germany however the anti-homosexual discourse
centered on a narrative of vulnerable youth. In this narrative, though based on a similar
masculine/feminine binary as in the West, there is also the fear of the masculinized,
sexually active lesbian. Both homosexual men and masculinized lesbians posed a threat
to the social body through the potential seduceablility of youth, that led to setting the age
of consent at eighteen for homosexual sex acts while it was sixteen for heterosexuals.

In addition to queer theory, the history of sexuality also poses interesting questions

to any study dealing with socialism and homosexuality. Despite the repressive practices

of the state, it cannot be ignored that, especially compared to the Federal Republic of
Germany, laws regarding homosexuality were relatively progressive. Early on, the GDR
completely repealed the Nazi additions to §175,3 the law from the turn-of-the-century
German monarchy that outlawed male homosexual behavior, and then completely
repealed the paragraph a year before West Germany decriminalized homosexual acts
between consenting men age 21 and older. Even the addition of §1514 despite the
problems that it created for homosexuals, in this case both gay men and lesbians, was in a
legal sense less extreme than Western anti-homosexual legislation. Socialism has a
history of contradictory responses to homosexuality. The Socialist Party in the Weimar
Republic supported Magnus Hirschfeld’s studies on sexuality as well as his campaign to
decriminalize male homosexuality, while within the early years of the Nazi regime,
Socialist rhetoric against the Nazi party conflated the Nazis’ perverse political goals with
a sexual perversion evidenced in ROhm’s power and the supposed infiltration of the Nazi
party with gay men. These are two extremes that are not easily reconciled. This
dissertation will also examine the contradictions in East German socialist dealings with

lesbians and find them to be, though not nearly as extreme, also problematic.

Legal Status and Historical Context

 

Though an understanding of lesbianism in the GDR cannot be reduced to its
documentable history, it is necessary to understand the basic legal and social context that
East German lesbians were a part of. Within six months of the formation of the GDR
state, the Nazi Anti-Homosexual Law, §175a, was repealed. §175 was fully repealed in
1968. However, §151 of GDR law was ratified in the same year making the homosexual
legal age of consent eighteen, while the age of consent for heterosexuals was sixteen.

With the ratification of §151, lesbians were first legally recognized in the GDR, albeit

 

3 During the Nazi regime, §l75 was newly applied 30 that seemingly harmless acts, such as “erotic glances”
or mutual masturbation were treated as criminal. The paragraph was also modified into §l75a so that it
added crimes like the abuse of a situation of dependency (e.g., employer/employee or teacher/student).

4 In the GDR, it set the age of consent for homosexuals higher than for heterosexuals.

negatively. This law was in fact the legal basis for imprisoning many homosexuals in the
GDR after homosexuality was ostensibly legalized: “Ein Erwachsener, der mit einem
Jugendlichen gleichen Geschlechts sexuelle Handlungen vomimmt, wird mit
Freiheitsstrafe bis zu drei Jahren oder mit Verurteilung auf Bewahrung bestrafi”
(Strafgesetzbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik). Despite the “legalization” of
homosexuality in the GDR, it would be the mid-1980’s before homosexual clubs were
officially recognized and §151 would not be repealed until December 1988. Up to the
Wende, homosexuals were for the most part denied access to public space as
homosexuals (Paul 1994, Sweet 1998, Sillge 1991).

One way that gays and lesbians found each other was through personal ads.
Theoretically, any person could put a personal ad in a newspaper, like the Wochenpost, to
meet peOple suitable for marriage or long-term relationships. The only restriction was
that the ads could not be printed if they contained any “F orrnulierungen wider die
sozialistische Moral und Ethik” (Sillge 1991 132). Depending on the year and political
Climate, this public venue was more or less useful. In order to place ads, lesbians used
code words like nette Brieffreundin, Sappho, Gleichgesinnte, etc. (Sillge 1991 72; Miiller
1988 104). At times when homosexuality was virtually invisible, like in the 703, these
types of ads were reasonably easy to place and the responses were numerous. However,
as homosexual groups became more visible to the state and attempted to enter civil
society actively as gays and lesbians, it became increasingly difficult to place a personal
ad. Homosexual relationships were still considered contrary to the socialist moral code.
Homosexuality was tolerated, but not encouraged and certainly homosexuals were not to
be given a public forum.

As early as 1973, gays and lesbians attempted to form state-recognized
Arbeitskreise. The first was the Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin. However,
after being denied a permanent meeting place and requisite state funding, this group lost

membership and eventually folded. Many other groups were formed in the next ten years

and they also attempted to gain state recognition, but without any lasting success.
Homosexuality may have been legal, but homosexuals were told in no uncertain terms
that their attempts to organize would continue to be denied by the state (Sillge 1991 125).
In many cases, those who applied for meeting permits were often “invited” in by the
police for questioning. They were also followed and harassed by the police and Stasi
(Sillge 1991 138-139).5

In the years between the first attempt to gain licenses to meet publicly and the
recognition of lesbian, gay and mixed homosexual groups, the state carried out
psychological and medical studies to solve the encroaching homosexual “problem.” Early
studies were predictably negative. For example, scientist Giinther DOrner claimed that he
had isolated a homosexual hormone and further hoped to cure homosexuals of their
sexual desires. His scientific studies at the Haus der Gesundheit initially drew a large
number of gay men and lesbians. However, as soon as it became apparent that they would
be subjects for DOmer’s experiments, many did not return and those who did used the
chance to “networ ” (Karstiidt/Zitzewitz 60, 79, and 138). In the mid-803, there appeared
studies that were more positive as well as the first book about homosexuality.6 These may
not have been well publicized, but they added legitimacy to requests for access to public
space by GDR homosexuals.

While this was going on, in several cities such as Berlin, Leipzig, Halle, and
Dresden, groups of homosexuals chose not to wait for state recognition and turned to the
Protestant church. Under the protective umbrella of the church, groups were able to meet
on a regular basis as early as 1982. Most of these groups split into separate lesbian and
gay male groups that shared a common space and time slot. Although these groups were
small, they created a vital network. By 1985 the Sonntags-Club, the first “secular” group

formed. Although the Church groups dominated, more secular groups were able to form,

 

5Of course, this was not only due to lesbian sexuality, but also to the state’s need to control and/or squelch
any organization considered beyond its control.

10

especially after the dropping of §151 in 1988. The secular groups tended to be mixed,
although there were concerns from lesbians that gay men dominated the groups, creating
power struggles to maintain parity. 1989 saw a surge in the formation of secular and
church groups, so that by the Wende every Bezirk in East Germany, with the exception of

two (there were a total of fifteen), had either the one or the other.

Social Positioning of Lesbian Groups

 

In this section, I will look at how the lesbian movement is situated within the
social context of the GDR: specifically, how it relates to the GDR state, the type of
movement it was, and the alliances it formed. Lesbians in the movement were building
their own community against the socially and politically accepted heterosexuality of the
GDR, fighting for visibility, constructing a lesbian history and, consequently, placing
traditional ideals of womanhood in question. Throughout German history in the late 19th
and 20th centuries, compulsory heterosexuality was strongly undergirded by aggressive
pro-natalist strategies of the various governments. Although each government strove to
differentiate itself from the previous state (the Weimar Republic strove to differentiate
itself from the monarchy, the Nazis strove to differentiate themselves from the Republic,
etc.), women in each case continued to be reduced both socially as well as politically to
their reproductive abilities.7 This was no different in the GDR. Although women were
encouraged in the first 20 years of the GDR to take an equal role in the construction of
the new German socialist state as workers, by 1972 they were once again encouraged to
embrace the role of (working) mothers. In that year, Erich Honecker and the central
committee passed a package that was unofficially termed Muttipolitik (mommy politics)

which contained the initiative to legalize abortion and provide working mothers with a

 

6Reiner Wemer’s book Homosexualita‘t largely deals with the term homosexuality as a universal for gay
male sexuality, but does include a somewhat short chapter on die weibliche Homosexualita't (133-137).
7For in depth discussions of pro-natalism in Wilhemine Germany see F out, in the Weimar Republic see
Grossman (1983), in Nazi Germany see Bock and Grossman (1991), and in the Federal Republic see
Moeller (1989 and 1994).

ll

paid year to care for a newborn (Baby-Jahr) and extensive Child care (Ferree 1993).
Under these socialist initiatives, men were in no way legally responsible for children, as
long as the mother was alive and deemed fit. These rights for women, while arguably
regarded as progressive--for example, they were often used by Western feminists to
prove socialist women’s emancipation in relation to themselves--also served to bind GDR
women to child care and the reproductive process as well as limiting working women
(approximately 94% of GDR women) to a limited range of stereotypically “feminine”
jobs (e.g., teacher and health care worker).8 Moreover, mommy politics served, in some
ways, to make lesbianism in the GDR inconceivable, since the concepts of mother and
lesbian were mutually exclusive to the East German public (Sillge 1991). The emergence
of the lesbian movement in the 803 was in and of itself a form of resistance to the GDR’s
(hetero)sexua1 politics.

By building a community centered around their sexuality, lesbians took a
necessary first step in breaking away from hegemony of the state since it negated
accepted ideology (in this case implicit heterosexuality) integral to the GDR. However,
the counterhegemonic ideology formed by lesbian communities contained many of the
pitfalls of the original dominant structure. Lesbian communities created their own codes
of behavior that affected all aspects of everyday life from clothing to naming and how to
describe sexual practices, though not all members necessarily conformed to these codes
(Karstadt/Zitzewitz 1994, Gutsche 1991). Yet as the members of the lesbian movement
created their own boundaries and set modes of behavior, they asserted themselves as
agents within a social system which does not necessarily acknowledge that agency.

The position of the lesbian movement is further complicated by its unclear
connection with the women’s movement, both of which grew out of peace initiatives

inside the Protestant Church. Lesbians in the movement were able to legitimize their

 

8Both Harsch and F erree explain how women in the GDR suffered under the double-bind of workers and
homemakers/child-care providers, Harsch by describing the context for abortion laws in the GDR and
F erree by explicating how the laws for mothers reified a pro-natalist GDR agenda.

12

position within the GDR social and political structure by claiming their rights as women
and, to some degree, by basing their own activism on those rights (i.e., abortion rights,
equal work for women and child care laws). In the GDR, the women’s movement focused
on women’s equality and improving women’s status vis-a-vis socialism. GDR women
avoided—and many still dry—the term feminist because it was too Western, too radical
and did not represent their goal of equal partnership with men in childrearing and on the
job. While remaining critical of the patriarchal structure of the socialist regime, the GDR
women’s movement promoted a vision of a society in which men and women were able
to be “truly equal” in the workplace as well as in the care of the home and family. These
goals did not support sexual separation; to a large degree they supported the pro-natalist
rhetoric of the state. With such an emphasis on the family as well as Childcare, the
women’s movement created an implicit structural homophobia—even though many
members of that movement were lesbians. Heterosexual women’s goals that centered on
childrearing issues as well as the preservation of a nuclear family unit undercut lesbian
goals to be, at least in the home, separate from men. Of course, this relationship is
muddied even further by the fact that many lesbians are also mothers, demonstrating the
unstable pairing of the lesbian movement with the women’s movement.

By examining the lack of clarity regarding any of the aforementioned positions of
the lesbian movement—-the counterhegemony, the special-interest group seeking
inclusion, the blurred alliance with the women’s movement and the illusion of larger
support from the complete lesbian population-—it becomes clear that to speak of the
lesbian movement as a single, uncomplicated entity is in and of itself problematic;
however not to speak of it as an entity at all would be equally problematic. Therefore, the
narratives by the participants of that movement will also contain contradictions and
complications as each narrator not only negotiates her own memories of her participation,
but also her fluid location within society, her gender, the lesbian community and the

lesbian movement.

13

Dissertation Overview

 

The next two chapters, Two and Three, focus on representations of lesbians by
non-lesbians. The second Chapter shows how sex manuals in the GDR established and
maintained gender divisions within the anti-fascist national narrative. Sex discourse,
produced by the (male) scientific gaze, based socialist gender differences on the binary
opposition of masculine/feminine. Moreover, it reinscribed gender based on a
socialist/capitalist9 binary. Woman’s sexual emancipation was, thus, a physical marker of
difference between socialism and capitalism/fascism. Within this context, male
homosexuality underwent a shift from being a sign of capitalist perversion to a sign of
socialist tolerance and superiority. Since women’s roles were tied to (re)production,
women who fell outside of “normal” sexual practices were as invisible as “abnormal”
sexual practices themselves were. Thus, as male homosexuality gained a certain level of
tolerance in the GDR, lesbians fought to gain any recognition at all.

Chapter Three deals with representations of lesbians in GDR women’s fiction.
“The Lesbian” served a variety of functions in literature largely by creating a utopian
space for heterosexual women who want to explode the social constraints created by
GDR women’s roles. Lesbianism is not about sexuality and this women’s fiction is not
about creating a dialogue centered on the practices and experiences of a community;
lesbianism in this idealized form is an escape from the masculine/feminine binary. Thus,
when women authors invoke “the lesbian,” they are invoking their own imaginations
thereof to deal with heteronormative practices under patriarchy.

Chapters Four and Five concentrate on personal articulations of lesbian
subjectivity. In the fourth chapter, the dissertation shifts its focus to the first significant
attempt by lesbians to enter Civic space: creating themselves as both public and textual

subjects. This Chapter deals with demonstrations by the Berlin group Lesben in der

l4

Kirche at Ravensbriick. Documents about the Ravensbriick demonstrations show the
group was trying to escape the “sub”—the hidden subculture of lesbian life in the
GDR—and break into Civil society. In order to do this, they attempted to publicly honor
the lesbians who were imprisoned and killed there. They were blocked from making this
public “spectacle,” therefore they created their own space by recording these events.
Their writing forms an Ersatzoffentlichkeit by creating an abstract space that replaces the
material space to which they were denied entry.

The fifth and final chapter concentrates on life writing that emerged around the
Wende. It demonstrates how lesbians, when they do publish, resort not to fiction, but
rather to “authentic” writing. In their narratives, they create a multivocal lesbian
subjectivity based on the wide scope of lesbian experience as portrayed in
Protokolliteratur, a form that had attained a certain popularity and respect in the GDR.
By drawing Protokolliteratur, lesbians were making two claims: that lesbians existed as a
social group and that their lives complicated homosexual myths. Not only were lesbians
taking advantage of a common literary form in the GDR, but also calling upon a tradition

of lesbian writing created mainly in the U.S.lo

It is the goal of this dissertation to deal with representations, not to make any
claims about actual practice. By covering the wide scope of sex discourse, women’s
fiction, lesbian personal narratives, and documentation of group activities, this
dissertation reveals conflicting images of the lesbian and, in some cases, reveals that the
lesbian simply does not exist. The following four chapters move through lesbian absence,
the idealized lesbian, the creation of a lesbian group identity, and lesbian plurality.
Analytically, it is a shifi from absence to presence, though, except for the publication of

the narrative collections after the Wende, these representations occurred simultaneously.

 

9 In GDR sexology, a slippage occurs between the terms bourgeois, capitalist, and fascist in which the one
can be substituted for the other and using the one implies all three terms.
'0 GDR lesbians, due to connections in the West Germany, had access to translated US lesbian writing.

15

Gertrude Stein may have claimed that a rose is a rose is a rose, but it is not the case with

lesbians.

l6

Chapter Two

 

Un-Sichtbare Frauen: East German Sex Discourse and the Occluded Lesbian

 

On June 28, 1985, a group of East German sexologists and homosexuals met in
Leipzig for the first conference on “Psychosoziale Aspekte der Homosexualitéit.” This
was the first conference of its kind in the GDR. The purpose was to create an atmosphere
of trust and communication between sexologists and the homosexual community that was
supposed to lead to a further understanding and tolerance of homosexuality in the GDR
and to the striking of §151 of the East German penal code. There were only 3 women of
26 participants who took part in the conference: Lykke Aresin, sexologist at the
University of Leipzig who was also hosting the conference, and Christine Schenck and
Ursula Sillge, both scholars and lesbian activists. Ursula Sillge delivered the paper “Zur
psychosozialen Situation der Lesben in der DDR.” She had long been politically active as
a lesbian and above all, she was concerned with the visibility of lesbians in the GDR, as
indicated in her post- Wende account of East German lesbian life in Un-Sichtbare Frauen.

Though the title of the talk and subsequent article implies a discussion of lesbians
in the GDR, it is actually a general statement—as opposed to a discussion——of situations
that homosexuals of both genders faced in East Germany; her opening declaration claims
that she would like to see an improvement in the situation of “homosexuelle Biirger.”
Sillge discusses the problem of searching for the origins of homosexuality, negative
stereotypes of homosexuals, institutional discrimination, how to deal with coming out,
etc, while using the gender-neutral term “Person.” In only one instance does she discuss a
gender-specific, albeit hypothetical, situation—that of being closeted. This example is of
a gay man:

Wie das Verheimlichen in der Praxis aussieht, dazu ein Beispiel: Ein
junger Mann, der weiB, daB seine Eltem ausgesprochen negativ fiber

Homosexualitat urteilen, erzahlt ihnen, er sei impotent, damit sie ihn nicht

l7

standig bedrangen, er solle doch heiraten. Den Kollegen, die sich fiber
Impotenz lustig machen wfirden, spielt er eine heterosexuelle Rolle vor.
Zu diesem Zweck bittet er eine lesbische Frau, mit der er befreundet ist,
ihn zu den betriebsfesten zu begleiten, damit sie fiir ein heterosexuelles
Paar gehalten werden. Er ist aus seiner Kleinstadt nach Berlin gekommen,
weil das alles nur in der Anonymitiit der GroBstadt mOinch ist (Sillge “zur
psychologischen“ 75).
Though a lesbian is mentioned in this hypothetical situation, she is literally serving the
needs of the young gay man. She provides his camouflage. It is not until the last two
paragraphs of the nine-page article that Sillge briefly and vaguely mentions gender-
specific problems that lesbians deal with, such as being underpaid while having to raise
children from a previous married life.

Why would a lesbian activist concerned with lesbian visibility give a talk
ostensibly about lesbians and then speak only in gender-neutral terms or about gay men?
The answer to that question lies in part in the forum—a relatively public event consisting
mainly of sexologists and men, gay or straight—that seemingly forced Sillge to conform
to mainstream East German sex discourse itself.

This chapter will show how mainstream East German sex discourse tied
heterosexuality to the socialist subject in East Germany by exploring four popular East
German sex manuals from the 19803. Two of these are single author works, Mann und
Frau intim. F ragen des gesunden und des gestb'rten Geschlechtslebens by Siegfi‘iend
Schnabl and Denkst du schon an Liebe? by Heinrich Briickner. The other two are
collections: Liebe and Saudi“)? bis 30 edited by Kurt Starke and Walter Friedrich and
Unsere Ehe edited by Wolfgang Polte. The Schnabl publication was the East German
standard that families were most likely to have on their bookshelves and although it was
originally published in 1968, it was reprinted every year through the 19803 in the same

form. This was also the monograph that Children might “sneak a peek at” when they

18

became sexually curious. Because there was no formal sex education as a part of the East
German curriculum, Briickner wrote his monograph to guide Children in discovering
sexuality as well as adults in talking to children about sex. Starke and Friedrich’s
compilation addressed questions of sexuality for younger adults, and Polte’s collection
directly addresses married couples, containing a significant section on sex. Each of these
books was relatively well known in East Germany in the 19803 and taken together they
represent a cross section of official East German sex discourse.H

A textual analysis of these four texts demonstrates how sex discourse contributed
to the rhetorical maintenance of sexual and gender roles and established a code of East
German sexual morality.12 As Ann Stoler eloquently states in Carnal Knowledge and
Imperial Power, “the task is to identify the regimes of truth that underwrote such a
discourse” (2). The goal of this chapter is to determine what “regimes of truth” were
created by East German sex discourse, that is what fictions were created and maintained
by sex discourse, not to what extent they were borne out in everyday East German
practice. In this discourse, heterosexuality as a construct was a marker for social
interaction within the larger opposition between socialism and capitalism. Being properly
(hetero)sexua1 and integrating socialist sexual mandates meant making a clear break from
German fascist/bourgeois history as well as denying contemporary Western
capitalism/fascism. The binary of capitalism/socialism informs all aspects of East
German socialist sexual formation ranging from gendered sex roles to the connection
between sexuality and work. The state imposes its own sexual revolution from above that
intertwines socialist sex roles with oppositions between nature and nurture as well as
frigidity and orgasm. Whereas sexuality permeates obvious discourses such as birth

control, monogamy, the female orgasm and masturbation as well as less obvious

 

” In my analysis, I concentrate on trends of signification that are supported by all of the texts, though the
details presented by each text vary.

'2 This Chapter, indeed my whole dissertation, deals specifically with representations of lesbians. For a clear
discussion of the different audiences of sex discourse in the GDR, please refer to Sex after Fascism by
Dagmar Herzog, Chapter Five “The Romance of Socialism.”

l9

discourses such as work and an emerging class system that is not directly based on
economic advantage, the former discourses are also saturated by socialist rhetoric.

Due to the overwhelming dominance of heterosexuality as a constitutive element
of socialist identity, the position of homosexuality as a socio—political construct is
blurred, at best. On the one hand, East German sex discourse associates homosexuality
with perversion, both sexual and social, making the homosexual suspect as a socialist
Citizen. Sexual perversions are directly tied to Western fascism, making the homosexual a
sign of infection in the socialist body. This fear is played out especially in conjunction
with East German boys, the site of potential infection as revealed in GDR sexology and
penal code'3 (Brfickner, Schnabl). On the other hand, the acceptance or rather the
tolerance of homosexuality is a public marker of socialist progress. Under socialism, the
draconic laws against homosexuality were lifted relatively early: the Nazi version of the
anti-homosexual law, §175a, was repealed in 1951 and §175, the holdover from the
German monarchy, was repealed in 1968. Though there was a new paragraph added that
established a higher age of consent for homosexual contact (§ 151), laws in the GDR were
more advanced than those of their Western counterpart. The GDR established a forgiving
tone toward homosexuals: homosexuality was not encouraged and it was certainly
policed, but it was tolerated on some level. Despite this tolerance, homosexuality still is
grouped together with other “perversions” in books about sexuality and children are
warned of homosexual predators.

The last section of this chapter will demonstrate that lesbians were largely obscured in
nearly all levels of sex discourse. In discussions about homosexuals”, the German term

schwul always refers to a gay man, though it is often universally equated with

 

'3 Although the wording of § 151, the law that sets the age of consent for homosexual acts at 18, is gender
neutral, in practice, sexual acts between men/boys were much more policed than those of women/girls.
Though it is only one example, a close examination of all criminal cases at the Erfurt Staatsanwaltschafr
between 1968 and 1989 showed that of those who were prosecuted under §151, only one was a woman.
She and her husband were convicted of several sexual crimes against youth at their lnternat (personal
research May-July 2000).

20

homosexuality. It cannot be applied cross-gender as the term “gay” can and often is in
English. Lesbians were barely present in the public version of East German homosexual
activism or any discussion of homosexual sex. In addition, sexologists’ portrayal of
lesbian sex further obscured the lesbian by imaging it as a simulacrum of heterosexual
sex in which one woman, the kesser Vater—a term that can be equated with the English
term butch—takes on the role of the man and the other lesbian remains in practice a
heterosexual woman, being guided and penetrated by her K V lover. ‘5 Furthermore, East
German (re)productive sexual politics, or “mommy politics,” obscures any sex, especially
that of women, that does not lead to reproduction as a woman’s sexuality is inextricably
tied to motherhood. A woman’s pleasure in sex is also tied to the man, who is thought to
awaken her sexually—erasing thoughts of sexual pleasure not arising from heterosexual
vaginal intercourse. Thus, the female socialist (sexual) subject is for all intents and

purposes impossibly lesbian.

The Socialist/Capitalist Sexo-Political Binary

 

A pervasive thread throughout all East German sexology is an either implicit or
explicit comparison to either previous fascist/bourgeois or contemporary
Western/capitalist social sexual practices. GDR sexual discourse was always setting itself

in opposition to either the seen or the unseen present and past; overt examples of this crop

 

‘4 Homosexualita't by Rainer Werner, the 1988 landmark text on East German homosexuality, contained
only 5 pages on “die weibliche Homosexualita't bzw. Lesbizita't” in a 184-page text; seemingly relegating
the marked term lesbianism to approximately 3% of homosexual experience.

'5 This is not to claim that no East German lesbians played out butch/femme roles, but rather to critique the
assumption that lesbian butch/femme relationships necessarily replicate heterosexuality. Boots of Leather,
Slippers of Gold by Elizabeth Kennedy and Madeline Davis (1993) as well as The Persistent Desire: A

F emme-Butch Reader edited by Joan Nestle (1992) both provide more than enough evidence to
demonstrate that sex as well as personal relations tended to work differently between two women than
between a man and a woman. There are no clearly gendered divisions that fall along the same lines as
male/female.

'6 In my analysis, I concentrate on trends of signification that are supported by all of the texts, though the
details presented by each text vary. Anecdotal evidence is used to reveal the trends themselves.

'7 Although the wording of § 151, the law that sets the age of consent for homosexual acts at 18, is gender
neutral, in practice, sexual acts between men/boys were much more policed than those of women/ girls.
Though it is only one example, a Close examination of all criminal cases at the Erfurt Staatsanwaltschaft
between 1968 and the Wende showed that of all who were prosecuted under §151, only one was a woman.

She and her husband were convicted of several sexual crimes against youth at their lnternat (personal
research May-July 2000).

21

up even in the most unlikely of places. Brtickner’s sex education book, Denkst du schon
an Liebe?, dedicates a whole Chapter to reproduction as the natural consequent of love.
As he discusses the East German chemical advancements that aid in procreation, he
becomes mired in a discussion of the evils of capitalist'8 Chemical research.
Unkrautbekampfungsmittel (Herbizide) sind wertvolle Helfer in der
Landwirtschaft und zur F reihaltung von WasserstraBen. Aber mit den
gleichen Stoffen haben US-amerikanische Militéirs riesige F lachen
vietnamesischer Wilder und Reisfelder vemichtet, den dort lebenden
Menschen ihre Existenzgrundlage zerstOrt und vorséitzlich Schaden
verursacht, die in ihren Auswirkungen noch gar nicht zu fibersehen sind.
lch will damit nur andeuten, daB es nicht von den F orschem oder den
Ergebnissen der Wissenschaft abhéingt, was fiir die Menschen daraus folgt,
sondem von der Art und den Zielen der herrschenden
Gesellschaftsordnung, die bestimmte F orschungen wiinscht, finanziert und
ihre Ergebnisse nutzt (145).
In this example, Briickner wanted to show how scientific discoveries in the wrong
(Western, capitalist) hands could lead to destruction, whereas science in socialist bands
was useful. He argues further for the importance of genetic research carried out by the
GDR to eradicate disease and social problems, but shows that Western outsiders would
use such knowledge to further refine class society. On this view, Western genetics would
predispose all children to serve a particular Class function, (see: Huxley’s Brave New
World) whereas socialist genetics would eradicate disease, creating a healthier socialist
body both literally and figuratively. What this pervading fear of the West, which was
often covertly or overtly conflated with the bourgeois or even fascist past accomplished
was, first, to occlude the similar practices in the GDR, be they social or environmental, as

well as provide examples for the separate, progressive nature of GDR society.

 

'8 In GDR sexology, a slippage occurs between the terms bourgeois, capitalist, Western, and fascist in

22

In GDR sex discourse, much emphasis was put on a fi'eedom from class structure
in socialism caused by the disruption of bourgeois social/sexual systems (Polte 35).
Women in the GDR were also not viewed as property, but were independent (Briickner
120, 196). Furthermore, the fact that women were no longer forced to marry for social
standing or economical security, since they were able to work in the GDR and earn their
own money, was also repeatedly mentioned by sexologists. Focusing on these outside
threats, from either the past or the West, created a smokescreen over a variety of socialist
social sins, such as young people in the GDR marrying to be able to get apartments and
also to get the marriage loan", the latter of which was not available to single mothers.
Moreover, it did not allow for the new class system built in the GDR that centered on
political standing, education, and a pure socialist heritage.

For the most part, the West and the fascist/bourgeois past created the other side of
the binary that supported GDR sexual and social morals. For example, Western
advertising, pornography, and perverted sexual practices, such as group sex, are
considered decadent capitalist practices, even though they did exist in the GDR. Children
were warned against such practices, because they not only went against socialist sexual
morality, but also hindered socialist goals, such as the preservation of the family unit as a
socialist haven for children. The open secret of the prostitution industry in the GDR20 was
not acknowledged because it was seen to be “ein Erbe des Kapitalismus und der jfingsten
Kriegsvergangenheit” (F alck 59). Since in prostitution, sex was undeniably a commodity,
neither (re)productive nor an act of love, it was contrary to GDR sexual emancipation

rhetoric. The fact that many GDR prostitutes felt financially and socially empowered as

 

which the one can be substituted for the other and using the one implies all four terms.

‘9 When young couples married for the first time, they were able to borrow 5,000 DM from the state to
establish their household. If they had one child within three years, 1,000 DM was forgiven, two children in
the payback period meant that 1,500 DM would be forgiven, and three children meant that the remaining
balance was forgiven.

2° The embodiment of this industry was easily found around any ports, as well as bars frequented by
businessmen, especially those visiting from the West or other Eastern countries. The most evident site of
prostitution surrounded the Leipzig fairgrounds, especially when large international trade fairs were in
session.

23

well as excited by the diversity of sexual contact (F alck) is spatially as well as morally
obscured by placing prostitution outside the borders of GDR social life.

Western sexuality also signified the socialist fear of cultural infection, the fear
that West would gain a foothold on socialist society through its sexual practices, which
would then corrupt the whole social order. For example, the Western flee love sexual
revolution that overcame capitalist countries one by one, such as the US and England as
well as Northern European countries (countries that had been too influenced by
puritanical, bourgeois sexual practices) threatened to overtake the whole world (Brfickner
198-99). The insidious concept of sex without social responsibility cut at the heart of
socialist sexual politics. In addition to the general examples listed above, the dichotomy
created by socialist/capitalist sex practices is carried throughout sexology by three

returning tropes: the socialist sexual revolution, natural sex, and the frigid woman.

Sexual Revolution

It is commonly thought that the GDR did not go through a sexual revolution like
many Western countries did in the 703. There are many arguments for this point of view
and it is certainly true that there are no cultural examples of a free love movement that
corresponds in any way to the Western movements. There was however a type of sexual
revolution that was strongly tied to the social revolution represented by the ideals of the
GDR socialist government. If the West German sexual revolution grew out of “the
commercialization, liberalization, and politicization of sex” (Herzog Sex 141), the East
German sexual revolution was a top-down revolution of propaganda entrenched in
socialist ideals and far from spontaneous.

Open sexuality in the GDR was a direct response to its bourgeois/fascist history
and the contemporary West. Women were encouraged to break free from the prudery of
their bourgeois heritage by learning to be sexually open; the female orgasm itself

evidences this sexual shift. GDR sexuality was supposed to let loose the bonds of

24

“falsche [biirgerliche] Hemmungen” (Brtickner 12). A healthy sex life was fitrthermore a
sign of healthy socialism, whereas a bourgeois/fascist heritage was, especially for
women, the greatest boundary to sexual pleasure, since they were, more so than men,
“durch veraltete Sittengesetze gepragt” (Polte 145). Not only East Germany’s past
threatened to infect the socialist sexual body, the GDR belief system, in real and
imagined ways, was constantly under assault from outside culture, especially from West
Germany. There was always the danger that natural GDR sexuality would be
affected/infected by the “Vermarktungsmechanismen” of the West (Falck 141). The
sexual revolution in East Germany was yet another marker in the GDR’s attempt to
separate itself from outside influence, in this case the artificial sexual freedom practiced
in the West.

According to sex discourse, East German childrearing practices contributed
greatly to the further development of an open socialist sexuality. “Das einheitliche
sozialistische Bildungssystem und die gesamtgesellschaftliche Situation in der DDR
ermOgliCht alle Jugendlichen, Wissen auf alle Gebieten einschlieBlich der Sexualitiit zu
erwerben” (Starke 253). Since GDR schools offered no organized sex education, the East
German social system itself was supposed to perpetuate healthy socialist sexuality. In
addition the real existing women’s emancipation in 19803 East Germany supposedly
provided the impetus for a progressive, productive sexual attitude.

Erklart werden kOnnen solche, den alteren Untersuchungen
widersprechende Ergebnisse wiederum nur aus den veranderten sozialen
Lebensumstanden der Madchen und jungen Frauen unserer Gesellschaft.
Die soziale Lebensweise, das Denken und Werten von Studentinnen und
jungen Arbeiterinnen gingen vor Jahrzehnten noch erheblich auseinander.
Ein grOBerer Teil der Studentinnen verstand sich damals auch auf erotisch-
sexuellem Gebiet als Avantgardisten, war selbstbewuBter, anspruchsvoller

und setzte sich energischer als andere Madchen mit herkOmmlichen

25

Moralanschauungen auseinander. Heute ist das anders. In unserer
Gesellschaft wurden diese friiheren Divergenzen im Denken, Werten und
Verhalten der Heranwachsenden fiberwunden. Das schlagt sich eben auch
im Bereich des Sexualverhaltens nieder (Starke 189).
Socialist activists from the early years of the GDR were by association considered
sexually emancipated because of their commitment to socialist values, but over time all
women and girls raised under socialism were supposedly more confident and active,
making them sexually confident as well.

Specifically, the legislated emancipation of women was thought to result in the
GDR’s new sexual order. “Mit der Veranderung der gesellschaftlichen Stellung der Frau
verandert sich auch deren konkreten Sexualverhalten” (Starke 77). Since socialism is to
have conquered the patriarchal order, women gained equality and society was
reorganized according to this principle; all aspects of a woman’s life were affected
(Briickner 213). Old stereotypes were eradicated and women were living, not only the so-
called real existing socialism, but also real existing sexual and relationship-oriented
emancipation (Starke 203). There were several social signs of the new sexual
emancipation: young people were having sex earlier, women were having their first
orgasms earlier, sexual positions were more varied, other non-intercourse sexual acts
were finding more favor, the double standard was disappearing, tolerance of masturbation
and homosexuality was growing, sexual openness became less dependent upon education
and social standing, nakedness in the home and on beaches was considered normal, the
female orgasm was more common, and multiple orgasms were more frequent (Starke
348)

The female orgasm, for example, continued to designate socialist progress in

comparison to a supposed Western regression.21

 

2' Katrin Rohnstock’s Erotik maeht die Hit/ilichen schon: Sexueller Alltag im Osten is a collection of
“Ostalgic” texts about East German sexuality. It is dominated by wistful images of sexual freedom from the
GDR. There is an overwhelming emphasis on the openness of East German couples compared to West

26

Was ein Orgasmus fur junge Frauen bedeutet, welch berauschende
Erlebnisqualitat er fiir sie hat, das kOnnen sie nur selbst ausdriicken. Und
sie sprechen sehr freimiitig dariiber. Sie nehmen sich kein Blatt vor den
Mund. Warum auch? Sie sind gewohnt, selbstbewuBt Liebesglt'ick zu
fordem, auszukosten und dariiber zu reflektieren — sie tun es in
bemerkenswert feinsinniger Weise (Starke 202).
Socialism itself was the catalyst for female (sexual) emancipation, which revealed itself
more and more as generations were raised in the socialist system and were no longer
dependent upon their constrictive past. Furthermore, as socialism continued to develop, a
growing number of its citizens embraced its freedoms that were also naturally evident in
the sexual realm (Starke 350).

Perhaps the most visible physical marker of East German sexual emancipation
was the naked body.22 The fact that children often saw their parents naked, that they were
allowed to see each other naked, and that East Germans commonly were naked at the
beach23 are used as rhetorical indicators of the revolutionary attitude toward the body in
the GDR. An acceptance of the naked body not only demonstrated a break with outdated
taboos, but was also a sign of socialist progress in many realms.

Wie unsere erste Partnerstudie ergab, ist ein hervorragender Indikator fiir
die familiéire Gesamtsituation die Einstellung zur Nacktheit. In vielen
Familien ist es heute normal, daB sich Eltem und Kinder voreinander

nackt zeigen. Das héingt neben einer freien und ungezwungenen

 

German couples. For example, writers claim that East Germans had sex more frequently and at a younger
age. After the Wende, East German couples also visited sex shops like Beate Uhse together, sharing the
pornography they were denied access to under socialism. As further texts such as Liebe, Ehe, Sexualitc'it in
der DDR: Interviews u. Dokumente by Barbara Bronnen

(1975) and Nackter Osten by Uta Kolano (1995) demonstrate, many East German women felt empowered
by the sexual lives they experienced in the GDR and after the Wende, as Rohnstock’s text demonstrates,
this was a point for a certain “Ostalgie” on their part.

22 As an interesting side note, “municipal authorities” wanted to halt the practice of nudism in East
Germany in the 19603 and it was the mobilization of the public that stopped the harassment. For a full
discussion of the advent of FKK in the GDR, and the state’s reaction to this practice, see Dagmar Herzog’s
Sex after Fascism, pp 203-204.

3 Even today, F KK or F reie Korper Kultur (nude beaches, etc.) is more common at the ocean and lakes in
the new German states than in the old German states.

27

Einstellung zu allem KOrperlichen auch mit den Lebensbedingungen
zusammen. Insbesondere in gut beheizten Neubauwohnungen und
haufigem, oft tiiglichem Duschen oder Vollbad gethnen sich die Eltem
(und die heranwachsenden Kinder sowieso) an das Nacktsein (Starke 251).
Nakedness thus signified normality or naturalness in GDR culture, given that the naked
body was considered a natural state. Furthermore, it demonstrated not only revolutionary
sexuality, but also that economic progress, symbolized by central heating and hot
showers, was fully integrated in GDR sexuality. Thus, it was impossible to be correctly
sexual without all of other progressive developments that socialism provided.
Schnabl also attempts to create women’s bodies as positive sites of sexuality. This
takes on the form of socialist reeducation as he introduces female genitalia.
An den auBeren Geschlechtsorganen der Frau fallt zunachst der behaarte
Schamberg auf, auch Venushiigel genannt. (Die Bezeichnung ‘Scham’ fiir
die auBeren Geschlechtsorgane hat sich bis heute aus einer Zeit erhalten,
in der die Namengebung der Wissenschaftler noch durch vorherrschende
Moralvorschriften verwirrt war) (31).
This was a valiant attempt on his part to free women in the GDR from the shamefulness
of their bodies. The German word most connected with female genitalia is Scham, or
shame; Schnabl chooses to replace this prefix with “Venus.” Foremost however is the
attempt to separate GDR sexuality from bourgeois German history and body imagery by
emphasizing the naturalness of the body and removing any connections to shame and

prudery.

Nature
GDR sexual discourse also proclaimed that the socialist sexual revolution was a
natural revolution, in comparison to the Western sexual revolution that was induced by

power struggles and market capitalism. Thus, the concept of the natural in GDR sexual

28

discourse is juxtaposed against the Western artificial sexual model. A telling example of

this comes from GDR prostitutes. In general, they believed that Western businessmen and

politicians much preferred them to their Western counterparts because socialist

prostitutes were thought to be more understanding, pleasant, and independent, but above

all, more natural than Western prostitutes (Falck 17).

Natural sexuality in East German sex discourse was demonstrated on many levels:

B

Sexual equality, equal sexual satisfaction, and escaping sexual
objectification24 were considered a natural demand from women (Polte
145). Women deserved to have this sexual demand met and socialist
rhetoric promised it to them.

Naked bodies were natural (Polte 255). They were supposed to be visible
and not hidden away; the naked body broke taboos, and contributed to
women’s sexual emancipation.

It was natural to fall in love and have long-lasting relationships that would
hopefully be life long (Starke 16).

The physical and emotional attraction between men and women was
natural as well as the desire to engage in sexual activities, such as kissing
and “andere Zéirtlichkeiten” (Polte 152).

Genital intercourse was the most natural of these sexual activities (Polte
159)

Above all, it was natural to want to conceive and produce children (Polte

178).

Though GDR sexologists acknowledged that sexuality was culturally influenced in

Western countries, East German sexuality supposedly embodied the epitome of a natural

sexual evolution, in which women’s emancipation guaranteed the heterosexual formation

 

2‘ Below I will show that East German women were also sexual objects, though this objectification took on
more subtle forms than the neon pornography of the West.

29

of families with Children. This was understood to be contrary to the artificial, perverted,

taboo-filled so—called sexual freedom guaranteed in the West.

The F rigid Woman

According to East German sexology, women who exemplified socialist ideals
(such as political activism, participating in the workforce, having an active family life,
reproduction) were more likely to have orgasms and enjoy sexual life. Confident
participation in socialism guaranteed sexual confidence for women. The opposite side of
this socio-sexual coin is that frigid women were potential sites for corrupting the socialist
body. F rigid women were either trapped by bourgeois taboos, proving that they had not
overcome their bourgeois fascist inheritance, or they were lured into the perversions
offered by Western capitalism.

GDR sexual discourse repeatedly compared socialist sexuality with historical
bourgeois sexuality in order to demonstrate that contemporary socialist values had
outstripped outdated bourgeois ideals.

Das Auftreten von Gleichgfiltigkeit gegeniiber dem Partner und sexuelles
Mtierstehen hangen in erster Linie davon ab, daB sich viele Manschen
noch zuwenig mit diesen Problemen auseinandersetzen. Das Thema wird
als heikel bezeichnet, die Folge ist fehlendes Wissen. Ein Rit'ckblick auf
die Jahrhundertwende hierzulande besta'tigt das. Mann und Frau waren in
dieser Zeit sexuell vc’illig unvorbereitet. Frauen dieser Zeit haben
mitunter zehn und mehr Kinder zur Welt gebracht, aber viele, vielleicht
die meisten von ihnen, nicht einen einzigen Orgasmus, das Glficksgefiihl
der Liebesvereinigung, erlebt (Polte l44—emphasis mine).
...This quote not only makes the overt claim that socialists are more
prepared to deal with their sexual lives, but it also conflates love with orgasm, showing

that this is more likely under socialism. The understood implication is that though the

30

turn-of-the century family was reproductive, women suffered under a system that forced
them into loveless, unfulfilling sex lives.

Though the connection between bourgeois taboos and frigidity may seem fairly
evident, the connection between perversion, fiigidity, and the West is less transparent.
Brfickner dedicates a whole chapter to outside (read: West German) influences on
children and how capitalist images prey on developing socialists. He also demonstrates
that perverted sexual practices are created by artificial capitalist sexuality. This
connection of the perverted to the West is not accidental, since GDR sexuality is based on
natural sexual practices. Thus, frigid women, already suspect because of their unhealthy
sexual lives and other antisocialist faults such as gossip are also more susceptible to
perversions such as masochism or lesbianism (Schnabl 279-280, Polte 13525). Sexologists
also claim that these female perversions, while they may lead to masturbation, actually
make it less possible for women to experience orgasms during heterosexual intercourse.
However, when a man engages in any form of sexual perversion, it is usually described
as some part of his natural sexuality that has been indulged too far. For example, a man’s
sexual exuberance might lead him to becoming a voyeur.

Allerdings ist diese Schaulust noch nicht gleich als Deviation zu
verdammen. Es gibt keinen normalen Mann, den der Anblick einer
schfinen unbekleideten Frau nicht erfreut. Die Aktfotos in den Magazinen
fiberbléittert kaum ein Mann unbesehen, und viele geben zu, davon ein
wenig oder stark sexuell angesprochen zu werden. Auch erwartungsvolle
Blicke ins gegenfiberliegende F enster eines Jungmadchenschlafzimmers
und die Astlockguckereien im F reibad bereiten den Mannem — ziemlich
harmlose — Vergnfigen, fiber die man in der Karikatur und im Film
verstéindnisvoll schmunzelt, ganz gleich, ob sich junge schfichteme oder

altere, daheim zu kurz kommende Manner die Augen verrenken. Abwegig

31

wird die Sache erst, wenn sie starker erregt als der geschlechtliche
Verkehr (Schnabl 275).
Male sexual perversion is an extension of his sexual potency, whereas fiigidity is a sign
of female impotence, be it sexual or social.

Though frigid women were still able to fulfill their socialist duties as a sexual
partner on two levels, by providing the vessel for the male orgasm as well as continuing
to conceive and bear children, it was critical that women be cured of their (frigidity.
Otherwise, they could never become full members of East German society, thus cutting
off their unhealthy connection to Western sexuality. As long as women were frigid, they
would remain potential sites of socialist corruption.

Correcting female impotence was given over to men on two fronts: men had to
correctly understand and overcome the complicated woman’s body, and women had to be
fully committed to/in love with the man. The path to proper orgasm in sexual intercourse
was the realm of the man. It was his task to teach the woman how to have an orgasm.
Whether women were orgasmic or frigid, there is virtually no recommendation in
socialist sexology that women stimulate themselves in order to learn how to have
orgasms.26 The other advice was that women had to love the men with whom they had
sex: Schnabl dealt with this in the section of his book labeled Anorgasmie und Liebe.

Verstandnis der Anorgasmie ist so wichtig. Zwar lbst sich ein
Sexualproblem auch bei gegenseitiger Liebe nicht von selbst, aber sie ist
oft die wichtigste Voraussetzung, sexuelles Versagen zu fiberwinden -
insbesondere die Anorgasmie der Frau — und kOrperlichen Einklang zu
finden. F fir die orgastische Potenz der Frau ist es sogar fast noch
notwendiger, daB sie den Mann liebt, als daB er sie liebt (Schnabl 138,

emphasis mine).

 

1’ In the four sex manuals, this one reference by Polte is the only place that posits that frigid women could
be lesbians.

32

Oddly enough, it was not important necessarily that he love her back, but only that she
was able to make that emotional connection to him. As will be discussed in more detail
below, the orgasmic woman needs to be emotionally tied to a man; women are not
naturally orgasmic, they have to learn it.27 It was natural for men to find/define a
woman’s orgasm for her, both emotionally and libidinally. By doing this, he was
(re)initiating her into socialism and breaking the possible capitalist/bourgeois hold over
her sexual power. Lesbians—especially those who never were married nor conceived
children—are particularly suspect given that they are often hidden behind discourses of
frigidity. Though many lesbians has relationships with men, at least an equally high
percentage are either not interested in men, or they are not able to sexually perform with
men. They occupy a sexual space that mainstream society cannot acknowledge—one in

which sexual satisfaction is reached without a man’s guidance.

Gender Roles

 

As both Michel Foucault and Judith Butler have demonstrated, the connection
between biological sex, gender, and sexual roles is not natural, but rather culturally
determined. Given the similarities in Western, capitalist countries and the GDR (which,
though socialist is culturally very Western due to its history), it is only to be expected that
there are many similarities between gender roles in Western countries and East Germany:
In the contemporary U.S. context, self-help relationship guides are committed to helping
the two sexes understand each other as they claim that men are from Mars and women are
from Venus, and decry so-called biological reasons why women cannot parallel park (I
can!). Reading Masters and Johnson’s Human Sexual Response (1966) clearly reveals not
only similar roles that Schnabl outlines in Mann und Frau intim, but also shows how

indebted Schnabl was to the American sex study. It is not the similarity in gender roles

 

2" This seems an appropriate point to reiterate that this is part of socialist sex discourse and in no way
attempts to reflect any material sexual reality.

33

that is interesting for this study, but rather how the explication of those roles in East
German sex discourse is overlaid with socialist rhetoric, which tries to recreate these
sexual roles as natural and inherently socialist.

Socialist sex discourse reveals not only a heterosexist sexual ideal, but also an
inherently heterosocial interaction at all levels of society. Schnabl makes this connection
in the claim that, “Der Inhalt der sexuellen Partnerschaft [ist] die Beglfickung des
Menschen und [fOrdert] damit die harrnonische, ungehemmte Entwicklung seines Wesens
in der Gesellschaft und in Gemeinschaft mit einem Menschen des anderen Geschlechts”
(Schnabl 53). Sexuality and biological sex are both integral components of social
interaction. Furthermore, sex education is not only important in developing healthy
sexual lives, but is also its own kind of social education. “Sexualerziehung ist in erster
Linie der praktische Umgang miteinander” (Polte 254). Because GDR gender roles were
in a state of flux due to the expansion of the woman’s sphere beyond the home to include
the workplace, it was not always clear in emerging socialism where gender roles
continued to signify and where they dissipated. The state itself created much of this
fluidity in its insistence on women’s emancipation within the GDR—a necessary move to
pull the woman out of the home, at least for a few hours a day, to help build the growing
socialist economy. Sex discourse in the 503 thus had the task of allowing women to join
the workforce while encouraging them not to abandon their roles as wives and mothers.
In the 603 and 703, the formalization of “mommy politics” reinforced the woman’s bond
to the familial sphere, and 803 sexology seemed dedicated to maintaining sex divisions
and sex roles. Thus while sex discourse shifted focus as women’s constitutional rights to
abortion, child care, and state financial support changed in the early 19703, it’s role in
reinforcing and in part establishing gender roles never decreased.

The myth of a public and private sphere is also by needs exploded in socialist

practice. By the 19803, it was unavoidably evident as women returned home from work

 

27 Only in one case does any author make the suggestion that women were able to teach themselves to have

34

and were burdened with the same responsibilities that they had always had in the nuclear
family—Childcare and housework—that women’s emancipation in the material sphere, as
opposed to the rhetorical one, was questionable at best.28 This created a double-bind in
GDR ideology as well as women’s lives: How could women be doubly
(re)productive—in the home as well as in the workplace—and simultaneously exemplify
the ideals of the caring mother and wife as well as the emancipated woman as dictated by
Marx and Engels? In order to deal with this dichotomy, 19703 and 19803 popular sex
manuals reified gender and sex roles which allowed for women to break out of the
supposed private sphere of the home while leaving bourgeois gender roles based on the
nuclear family virtually unchanged, despite the rhetoric condemning them. Through
definitions of sexual norms and established codes of sexual morality, women’s roles only
increased their production levels (effectively doubling it by preserving sexual
reproduction and adding economic production).
Though much of the rhetoric about women’s changing roles was certainly just
that, there were some decisive shifts. It is important to remember, however, that the
emphasis on women’s active role in society, especially in the workforce and the
bedroom, was above all influenced by antifascist rhetoric.
Niemand kommt bei uns auf den Gedanken, [Frauen] “auflreben” zu
wollen oder Frauen [. . .] gering zu schiitzen. Die F orderung nach voller
Gleichberechtigung bezieht sich auf die gesellschaftliche Stellung der
Frau, auf die Gleichheit ihrer politischen, juristischen, sozialen Rechte und
Entwicklungsbedingungen. Dafiir bietet die sozialistische Gesellschaft
beste Voraussetzungen (Starke 59).

Throughout these texts we will see again and again that one of the major concerns is not

social freedom of women or their more active role in society, although that did play an

 

orgasms by doing Kegel exercises and masturbating (Aresin in Starke/Friedrich 336).
28 Evidence for this crops up in many places, especially interview literature such as Guten Morgen, du
Schb‘ne by Maxie Wander.

35

important role in the economy of the GDR, but rather that social as well as sexual
emancipation was a marked sign of socialist difference from fascism and capitalism.29
Being sexually and socially active assured women a correctly socialist role, without
actually relieving many household and/or childrearing burdens.

Even in childhood the female role was being shifted as girls were targeted to
conform to new ideals of gender roles as well. For example, parents were encouraged to
take their young girls and give them not only traditionally feminine toys, such as dolls,
but also more “aktivitéitsf‘drdemde” toys, such as building blocks, so that they could build
garages and houses for their dolls. In addition, parents were encouraged take their young
girls out to visit developments in the technological and scientific world (Polte 196). All
of this was targeted at making girls more willing to enter the work force and to take part
in heretofore non-traditional fields, such as construction or the natural sciences. On the
other hand, girls were not to forget their roles as future mothers; they were not supposed
to abandon play that encouraged nurturing, such as playing with dolls or playing house,
but rather supplement nurturing play with the active mental and physical play that mimics
the working world. Moreover, boy’s roles were not mentioned at all. There was no
attempt to encourage boys to engage in nurturing play. Sexologists did acknowledge that
women were overworked. For example, Starke writes about the problems that young
women have juggling being a full-time employee, young mother, and primary caretaker
in the house, especially when men do not pitch in with the housework (263). Both Starke
and Schnabl are however more concerned with how this affects the femininity of the
woman and causes her to lose pleasure during sex. Unfortunately, being responsible for
so many fields in the domestic and work spheres can lead the woman to lose all interest
in sex. Schnabl shows that when on vacation, briefly relieved of their double burden,

women often return—however briefly—to the role of the “zartliche Gattin” (129). The

 

2" This is evidenced in the lip service paid to equality while placing women in the double bind of
worker/homemaker. Were equality more than a rhetorical priority, more legal emphasis would have been

36

implication here is that any equal division of housework is necessary only so that the
woman can continue to do her proper duty as a loving wife. Thus, the new GDR woman
may have been able to fix a truck, but she was still tied to a socially and politically
passive role typified by texts that naturalized her as emotional (feminine = receptive) as
opposed to libidinal (masculine = active). Old stereotypes had been modified and some
lines had been redrawn, but in the end, the woman was similarly tied to and defined by
her motherhood.

There are also compelling connections between the socialist shift in women’s
roles and sexuality. Although boys were not being encouraged to develop cleaning,
nurturing, and cooking skills, they were expected as husbands to help around the house.
Sexologist applied a certain sexual pressure to men to ensure that they would help their
wives (although it hardly seems to have worked). Sexologists stressed that, because both
partners worked outside the home and came back with a full day already under their belts,
men were supposed to share in the housework (Starke 336). In fact, men who did not help
with housework while expecting their wives to slave for them—men with a certain
“Paschamanier”—could then hardly have expected their partners to be able to devote
themselves freely to fulfilling sexual desires (Starke 203-204, Polte 151). These men
were also accused of not socially satisfying their partners, which then led to their inability
to sexually satisfy. A sexually frustrated wife supposedly suffered from/engaged in all
sorts of unwanted (sexual) social behavior, such as frigidity and unfaithfulness (Starke
336-337). Therefore, sex was supposed to guarantee women a helpmate in the home as
well as at work and in bed. These spheres become inseparable.

Women were also encouraged to take on more “active” roles, in bed as well as in
the workplace. By the 803, women had supposedly achieved this sexual goal (Starke
240). Even though particularly Starke and his sexologist cronies often cited the tendency

that women were taking a more active role in lovemaking as well as initiating the sex act,

 

placed on achieving equal status in the home as well. For example, women would not have been completely

37

they also stress that men simply have not adjusted to women’s sexual emancipation.
Starke et a1. anticipate that there could still be some disparity between social and sexual
goals and actual practice, especially on the part of men (204). Not only sexual aspect of
emancipation is stressed within East German heterosexual relationships. By comparing
women’s sexual roles in bourgeois society with those under socialism, an additional
economic factor is evident in sex discourse. GDR women had supposedly broken out of
these bourgeois sex roles that would have forced them into a type of sexual
slavery/forced prostitution in which they had to care for household and children in
exchange for financial security provided by the male breadwinner. Sex under capitalism
is a commodity to be bought and sold on the market of the marriage bed, whereas
socialist sex is a product of love, supposedly devoid of economic binding. Of course, by
emphasizing this opposition between the socialist and bourgeois it was possible to further
obscure the fact that GDR women were equally tied to the unpaid roles of homemaker
and mother.

This leading discussion of bourgeois sexual roles, especially the “double
standard,” serves yet another purpose. It first demonstrates that bourgeois women’s roles
were not biologically determined, but rather socially constructed—largely by implicitly
contrasting them to those of GDR women. The sleight of hand comes when sexologists
elaborate the same kind of social constructions in the GDR, claiming that GDR sexual
differences (and thus gender roles) stem from natural differences in the sexes. Thus,
gender roles are reified by obscuring their social construction in the GDR context; this
builds a binary opposition between natural GDR roles and artificial (constructed)
bourgeois roles. This construction/nature binary is evident as Schnabl, for example, talks
about the differences between Westem/bourgeois Begehren (desire) and socialist ideals
of Liebe (love). “Einige Unterschiedlichkeiten im Intimverhalten von Mann und Frau

resultieren aus der entwicklungsgeschichtlich entstandenen und begrfindeten Polaritiit der

 

saddled with childrearing responsibilities.

38

Geschlechter” (49). What are then the naturalized sexual differences Schnabl and the

others establish?

Ontological and Cultural Sexual Differences

Although socialist rhetoric demanded that women were completely equal to men
(even that formulation shows the inequality of the supposition), it seems that there was
never any question about whether men and women were the same. “Die Zuerkennung der
leichten sittlichen Wfirde ffir jeden Menschen enthéilt auch die Anerkennung der
Gleichwertigkeit und die Gleichachtung der Geschlechter. Gleichwertigkeit ist aber nicht
zu verwechseln mit Gleichartigkeit. Die Geschlechter sind durchaus unterschieden”
(Schnabl 27-emphasi3 mine). Thus, GDR sexuality worked from the assumption that men
and women were equal, but different. In fact, they were diametrically opposed. Following
this line of reason, it is then easy to see how, although women were supposed to be equal
to men, they were still able to be oppressed based on their supposed ontological
differences.30 Furthermore, since sexual roles were accepted as oppositional, it follows to
reason that they were also represented as heterosexual, since men and women’s roles
were supposedly two sides of a coin that belong together. Thus, even though
homosexuality was the topic of comparatively brief discussions in mainstream East
German sex discourse, there was never any question of the prevalence or the ultimate
naturalness of heterosexuality. In fact, as is often the case with dominant, unmarked
terms, the term Heterosexualita't first is introduced after homosexuality is introduced.
“Den typischen Homosexuellen gibt es nicht. lmmerhin sind unter diesen Menschen
einige kr'irperbauliche Eigenheiten und vor allem manche Persdnlichkeitszfige verbreiteter
und ausgepriigter als beim Durchschnitt der Heterosexuellen — so nennt man die das

andere Geschlecht liebende Mehrheit der Menschen“ (Schnabl 285—emphasis mine).

 

30 An extreme example of the “separate but equal” fallacy is the treatment of blacks after slavery was
repealed in the US. Althou h it is no longer common to re uire that kind of racial differentiation. it is still
g q

39

The belief that there are inescapable ontological differences between men and
women is a thread that runs through most GDR sexology in telling and unsuspected
ways. In general, the scientific portrayal of women’s bodies is tainted with negative
associations. Recent historical and philosophical research has shown science is not the
unbiased field it was once thought to be. What scientists pursue as well as the language
they use to report their findings are culturally bound and filled with the sometimes most
subtle socio-political biases. It is not surprising that GDR sexologists also revealed much
about social prejudices toward women in their studies.

Perhaps the most insidious of these prejudices is the claim that women’s bodies
are simply more complicated than men’s, they are full of “viele Verstecke und
Schlupfwinkel” (Brfickner 188). They are also more likely to have a variety of problems
than men. Not only their bodies are complicated, but all processes connected to them are
as well. “In weit starkerem MaBe muB die Frau darauf achten, denn Bau und F unktion
ihrer Geschlechtsorgane sind viel komplizierter als die des Mannes” (Polte 126).
Unfortunately, it is not only their genitalia that are complicated and must be monitored,
but also all physiological as well as psychological processes connected with them. “Der
weibliche Orgasmus beruht auf einem Komplexen physiologischen Geschehen” (Starke
67). Already we have come to the heart of the point, men have a difficult time satisfying
women, so it must be due to women’s complicated bodies as the source of their
complicated orgasms. 3 ' Men must then learn to master these complicated women and
their orgasms as they would master intricate machinery or a difficult math problem. Of
course, the term complicated also carries with it the implication that they are more
difficult—men and women, but especially men must make grave efforts to understand

them. Complicated bodies predetermine women for pathologies specific to their physical

 

common to believe that men and women are still completely different which leads to the different treatment
of men and women.

3' This acts as a powerful example of Foucault’s premise that knowledge and power are mutually
constitutive. As the knowledge of women’s complicated bodies dominates sex discourse it is tied with the
power or the orgasm— namely who grants orgasms to whom.

40

and psychological complexity. “Die meisten Frauen sind aus psychologischen Grfinden
sexuell stdranfalliger als Manner. Uberdies erwacht ihr Geschlechtsverlangen nur
allmahlich. . .Ihre orgastische Fiihigkeit festigt sich langsam” (Schnabl 143). Thus,
women and their bodies are already physically as wells as psychologically suspect.32

Men, on the other hand, are simple. Whereas women are still a sort of “dark
continent,” full of unexpected nooks and crannies that function in mysterious ways and
lead them to psychological as well as physiological disorders, men are the opposite; their
simplicity is pitted against women’s complexity. “Die méinnlichen Geschlechtsorgane
sind in Barr and F unktion einfacher zu verstehen als die weiblichen (Brfickner 45). In this
quote, Brfickner introduces genitalia and sexual organs to youth; from the beginning, the
sexual lines are drawn. Furthermore, Starke also emphasizes man’s genital simplicity, not
at the biological, but rather at the functional level. “Das Orgasmusgeschehen des Mannes
ist einfacher zu objektivieren und darzustellen als das der Frau” (64). Of course, men are
not considered susceptible to psycho-sexual problems, since the one form of simplicity
(physical) implies the other (psychological).33

There are, of course, other differences, besides the level of complexity, that show
how women differ from men. Women are softer and rounder than men (Schnabl 42), they
have softer skin (Schnabl 43), their voices are brighter and more melodious (Schnabl 44-
45), and they have “[die] runden, weichen, wiegenden und schwingenden
Bewegungsablfiufe, die der Mann als anmutig empfindet, wahrend die mannlichen steifer,
‘eckiger’ und abrupter erscheinen” (Schnabl 44). Women’s more delicate features
naturally make them subject to the masculine gaze. It is this softness that supposedly
determines their emotional needs during sex. “So nimmt sie feinste Hautreize, wie sie

beim Streicheln und Kosen gesetzt werden, gem. Dazu kommt reizsteigernd die

 

32 In the West, it was feminist discourse that called for a reformation of sexual practices to give women
more satisfaction. Specifically Anne Koedt’s article “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" sparked a
movement to teach women that the vaginal orgasm is a construct and to value the clitoral orgasm overtook
both the US and Germany.

41

elastische Weichheit des Gewebes unter der Haut gegenfiber dem festeren und derberen
des Mannes, bei dem sich die Muskulatur starker ausbildet” (Schnabl 43).
Women are not only biologically but also psychologically softer; they are more
emotional than men. Not only a woman’s body reveals her femininity, but her “Gef‘fihle,
Charaktereigenschaften, Interessen, Neigungen” are also typically feminine (Schnabl 49).
Even if feminine emotional attributes are seen as socially determined in part, they are at
the very least “zugleich biologisch verankert” (Schnabl 49). The woman is ontologically
predestined to be soft, which is connected to her natural physical and psychological
weakness. She is known for her “schwéicheres Kinn” (Schnabl 43) as well as her skeleton
that is smaller and more delicate (Schnabl 44). Even at the Chromosomal level, we can
see that the masculine Chromosomes (Y) are faster (read: stronger) than the feminine X-
chromosomes.
Die mannlichen Hoden produzieren ebenso viele Samenzellen mit X- wie
mit Y-Chromosomen. Einer vielleicht mfiglichen stéirkeren Beweglichkeit
von Spermien, die ein Y-Chromosom erhalten (und deshalb das Ei
schneller erreichen sollen als die X-Triiger), wird es zugeschrieben, daB
zur Zeit auf 100 Madchen 106 Knaben geboren werden (Schnabl 29).

Not only after birth, but before they are born, men are faster and stronger than women.

Examples that GDR sexologists draw from the animal kingdom demonstrate that
humans are just like other animals in this respect:

Angeborene bei verschiedenen Tierarten in unterschiedlichem Zeitablauf
nach der Geburt erst ausreifende Sexualreflexe werden im allgemeinen
beim mannlichen Tier durch Reize ‘geweckt,’ die vom weiblichen,
paarungsf‘ahigen Tier ausgehen und fiber Sinnesorgane wahrgenommen

werden. Dadurch werden Verhaltensweisen ausgelOst (Schnabl 24).

 

’3 This motif of masculine simplicity also masks the problem of male impotence. Women’s potential
frigidity is a recurring theme in many threads of East German sex discourse whereas male impotence is
contained solely within a discussion of how to treat it.

42

All male animals are supposedly more adept physically whereas females are nurturing.
This selective connection to parts of the animal kingdom further ontologically predestines
human masculine and feminine sexual roles. Females are immediately pushed into the
weaker object position (sexually awakened by their need to nurture and create a family)
and the man is the stronger subject (sexually awakened by his need to ejaculate). In
conforming to ontologically predetermined sexual roles, East German men and women
thus conform to the natural dictates of socialist sexuality. The natural is newly reified in

GDR sex discourse.

GDR sexology biologically predetennines sexual and gender differences and then
further intensifies these differences with cultural influence. Brfickner warns that
“Selbstbeherrschung wird jungen Menschen besser mOglich, wenn sie Wissen daB
Madchen und Jungen ihre Sexualitiit unterschiedlich erleben” (82). The emphasis here is
that boys and girls are not only built differently, but also that they actually use or
experience their sexuality differently. Only by knowing that, can they then control that
sexuality. Acknowledging cultural influence on sexuality does not, however, lead
sexologists to question any validity in their studies. It rather gives them another outlet for
proving that women and men are exactly as they should be—polarized. When children,
for example, do not conform to prescribed sex and gender roles, cultural pressure will
eventually modify their behavior so that it does conform.

Im fiinften Lebensjahr ist der typische Geschlechtscharakter (von
Spielzeug lnteressen bis zum Grad der Selbstbeherrschung) relativ
verankert und [ist] von Gesellschaft zu Gesellschaft sehr verschieden.
Ausnahmen sind nicht selten, z.B. wenn sich Jungen wie Méidchen oder
umgekehrt Méidchen wie Jungen verhalten. Solche atypischen Falle

kOnnen aber meist leicht aufgeklfirt werden (Starke 82).

43

As we see in this quote from Starke, children who do not conform, even though they are

supposed to be fairly well indoctrinated into the social system’s expectations by age five,

will most likely at some stage conform to predefined gender differences. Exactly what

those differences are supposed to be, will be discussed in this section.

Schnabl is the author most willing to spell out gender differences as he sees them

and, although the other sexologists are rarely so obviously stereotypical, they largely

agree with the sexual differences that Schnabl presents by maintaining similar sexual

binary oppositions. Schnabl establishes the following (sexual) roles for men and women

(49-53):
1)

2)

3)
4)
5)

6)
7)
8)
9)

10)

Woman’s sexuality is imbedded in her whole personality. For example, men
are far more likely (2 1/2 times more likely) to sleep with someone they don’t
like than women.

Men are more sexually attracted to women’s bodies than women are to men’s
bodies.

Women are more interested in love than sex.

Women want long-term relationships; this is less important to men.

The man is often the sexually active partner. “Dagegen liiBt sich die Frau von
ihm lieber hingebend leiten, ohne daB in dem Gewahren Passivitat liegt”
(50). Although Schnabl overtly rejects the word passive, his writing reveals
that women are in the very least receptive partners, and passiveness is often
strongly implied.

A woman is often not aware of how she sexually affects men.

Both man and woman want tenderness, but society won’t let him admit it.
Women are more loyal than men.

Environment is more likely to sexually influence or disturb women.
Women’s orgasms cannot be counted on. The woman’s orgasm is

“auBerordentlich unbestandig und versagt oft” (52).

44

11) A woman’s orgasm is holistic, whereas a man’s is genital.

12) Women need tenderness after sex; men do not.

13) A woman is satisfied by one orgasm for a long time, whereas a man needs
them more frequently. Thus women experience one-tenth the orgasms that
men do.

Schnabl uses sex to reify social roles that establish men as libidinal, active, dominant
teachers, while pushing women into being emotional, receptive, subordinate students.
Men and women are not discussed with an eye to their similarities, since they are only

viewed as polarities.

Sex Roles
GDR sexology unmistakably establishes that men act in direct accordance with
their libidos; they are driven by libidinal impulses in ways that women are not. Firstly,
men are shown to want sex far more frequently than women. This is shown not only in
studies on sexual frequency (Schanbl Sex 23, Schnabl 92), but also in studies dealing with
first orgasms. The male orgasm is portrayed as a physical necessity, thus a boy’s need to
masturbate (Brfickner 82). In fact, only 12% of men reported having their first orgasm
during sexual intercourse with a woman (Starke 124). This need for “Entladung” does not
however die with puberty; even in adulthood, a man experiences the driving need for the
“Ausscheidungsvorgang” that the orgasm provides. Man’s need for sex is also his reason
for departing from sexual norms more often.
Vielleicht ist ein wesentlicher Grund fi'rr die Tatsache, daB Manner weit
haufiger als Frauen pervertieren und sich auCh im Normbereich weniger
treu verhalten, darin zu erblicken, daB sich die miinnliche Sexualitéit
leichter von der Erotik lfist, wéihrend beide Erlebnisweisen bei der Frau

allgemeiner und totaler verschmelzen (Schnabl 269).

45

Not only does a man’s libido lead him astray from normal sexuality and fidelity more
than women, but he also is more affected by sexual impotence, since impotence is then
implied in all facets of his life. “Potenz heiBt Macht, Wirkungsfahigkeit, innewohnende
Kraft, hat also an sich keinen unmittelbaren Bezug zur Sexualitiit. Das Wort wird jedoch
meist einfach als Inbegriff sexueller Leistungsstiirke des Mannes aufgefaBt” (Schnabl
173). Though Schabl would divorce potency from the sexual act, giving it a more
universal importance in a man’s life, it is exactly the connection between sexual and
social potency that binds men. Sexual potency is social potency.

Closely connected to the masculine libidinal drive is the sexually active role the
man takes. He is the initiator of the (hetero)sex act as well as heterosocial interaction.
Childhood provides the first example of this initiation as children’s sex play is examined
by Polte. Boys tend to masturbate as their first sex act, but girls are most likely to
undergo genital examination by a boy as their first sex act, or “play doctor” (Polte 261)——
a girl’s sexual initiation often comes from the boys she plays with. Thus, a boy’s first sex
act is private and arises from his own sexual need, whereas a girl’s is a social act.
Furthermore, the boy’s first sex act ends in orgasm, while the girl’s likely does not. The
boy is the initiator of both. In adulthood, the roles are not much changed. Men have
orgasms because they are physically driven to do so, but women have orgasms in
sociosexual interaction with men. Even if a woman seemingly chooses to have an affair,
Schnabl’s more conservative sexology would have his readers believe that she is lured by
the other man, thus robbing her of all sexual agency (139). In addition, if in the course of
an affair a woman achieves sexual satisfaction, that is due to the prowess of her sexual
predator.

Men dominate heterosexual intercourse. Men have to be “geschickt” during sex,
which allows them to bring about the woman’s orgasm (Schnabl 145). How orgasm is
achieved as well as whether and when it is achieved by both partners is controlled by the

man. “Die Aulesung des Orgasmus héingt von der Harmonie beider Partner ab. Der

46

Mann sollte stets seine Bewegungen und Kriifte so einteilen, daB er etwa gemeinsam oder
unmittelbar nach der Frau den HOhepunkt erreicht” (Polte 149). It is the man who has to
pace his movements and control not only when the woman comes, but also that he comes
at the same time or right after her. He also controls how many orgasms the woman has. If
he is “einf‘fihlsam, phantasievoll, klug” and sexually savvy, he can make his partner
orgasm up to ten times (Polte 159). Although men may be sexually turned on by
women’s bodies, women are not turned on by his “Glied” until it “in ihren KOrper
eindringt” (Schnabl 179). The masculine thrust supposedly arouses feminine sexual
response.

Male dominance is expanded as the man assumes the teacher’s role over the
woman and her body. This begins at a young age as “junge Manner sich nach Miidchen
um[schauen] und Méidchen nach méinnlichen Partnern” (Brfickner 107). Men, even young
ones, look for girls while girls are looking for men. This is because the girl’s/woman’s
sexuality is wakened in general by a man (Schnabl 143).34 In fact, women usually seek
older partners in order to learn from their partner’s experience (Schnabl 94). If women
experience feelings of shame or guilt because of their bodies or because of sex, it is up to
the man to educate her, thus leading her to sexual freedom and orgasms (Schnabl 156).
Should a woman’s husband not able to sufficiently guide her through her sexual
inexperience, she must seek the guidance of a (male) marriage counselor or
psychotherapist (Schnabl 95). Furthermore, men are considered more reliable when
dealing with women’s bodies, for example, regarding birth control. If a man and woman
decide to follow the rhythm method, it is suggested that the man keep the calendar of the
woman’s cycle, should she prove either too irresponsible or uninterested in her own
possible pregnancy to be trusted (Schnabl 219, 221).

The prevalence of male dominance in sex discourse fails to address the possibility

that some women may have a difficult time during sex based on their past experiences

47

with men. Male violence against women certainly did not conform to socialist ideals,
sexual or social. Therefore, past experience with violence does not get thematized in any

significant way by these authors when dealing with frigidity.

1f male sexual behavior is marked by visceral drive, then female sexual behavior
is portrayed as being emotionally motivated, if not removed from physical needs. As
Starke states, there are physical and psychological differences between men and women
during sex (196). First of all, women need to work up to sex; it is not simply a physical
reaction, like in men (Schnabl 146). Above all, the orgasm is a psychological experience
for women (Starke 64, 123). Even their first sex act is “von besonderer Bedeutung” and
often has “eine starkere Bewertung” for young women, or girls, than for boys (Kunzt-
Brunner/Kwast 72). When it comes to emotions, women are less “gehemmt” than men
and strive for “Zéirtlichkeit” in ways that men cannot easily attain.35 Women need more
“Vereinigung” than men, more “geistige Zéirtlichkeit” (Polte 134). In fact, “Eine Frau, die
nicht gem Kfisse empfangt und gibt, findet man nur unter Hunderten einmal” (Schnabl
149); thus, women are largely defined by their sensual reactions as opposed to physical
driving urges. Sexologists further warn men that ignoring the emotional connection
women have to sex and their bodies will lead to difficulties in achieving the female
orgasm during heterosexual intercourse. Ultimately, these unsatisfied women will seek
out other, more understanding men (Schnabl 147).

Because of their emotional tendencies coupled with their complicated bodies,
women need a wide range of proper conditions to be able to achieve an orgasm at all.
Firstly, they must experience deep love for their partner. Secondly, they must be able to
find release from all problems presented by work, studies, and family. Thirdly, they need

a “langfristige, positive Einstimmung” as well as harmonious atmosphere all day long to

 

3" This does, of course, conflict in detail with Polte’s claim that girls are initiated into sex acts by boys: the
overall gist is not however contradictory. Both claims reinforce male sexual dominance.

48

emotionally prepare for the orgasm. F ourthly, foreplay must be long and full of
tenderness. Lastly, there must be plenty of “Spielraum” for the orgasm to happen. The
man must be prepared to try a variety of sexual techniques, proving sensitive to finicky
female sexual needs (Starke 185). In East German sex discourse, a myth of complexity
and mystery was built up around the female orgasm so much that orgasm is portrayed as
a complicated ritual instead of a potentially enjoyable sex act.

Women were still sexual only inasmuch as they were nurturing, the foremost
reason for their supposedly inescapable emotional attachment to sex. “Nach wie vor ist
die Mutterschaft eine der schOnsten Aufgaben jeder Frau, und der Wille zum Kind sollte
in jeder F amilie vorhanden sein” (Polte 184). Here, Polte provides the strong reminder
that sex is a social act that culminates in procreation; women remain mothers in that
structure. Not only is emotion bound to women’s sexuality in GDR sexology, but also a
woman’s passivity comes out in various threads. For example, East German girls were
thought to masturbate much less than boys (Brfickner 60). In girls, sexual inactivity is not
only more acceptable but encouraged, since it preserves their feminine inner peace. A
woman who is too sexually assertive is undesirable, since sexually aggressive women are
thought to stunt the male orgasm (Schnab1278). Sexual aggressiveness in women is also
seen as compensation for the effects of menopause (Schnabl 95).

Another aspect of sexual passivity can be found in the receptive role women were
supposed to play. As part of the active/passive binary, the woman is portrayed as a vessel
for male sexuality. The vagina is accommodating; it will stretch to the size appropriate
for any penis (Schnabl 168, 169). In sex education, girls are assured that they too will
stretch so that their bodies can mold to their lover’s penis (Brfickner 68-69). Sex
discourse, while allowing for other areas of stimulation, emphasizes that sex can only

provide full satisfaction in heterosexual genital intercourse.

 

"5 Men however are encouraged to strive to understand the emotionality of women so that they can
communicate with them sexually.

49

Auch eine vorwiegende an der Klitoris stimulierbare Frau soll keines falls
auf vaginale Geschlechtsverkehr verzichten, sonst wfirde nicht nur der
Mann enttauscht, sondem auch die auf das mfinnliche Glied bezogenen
Bedfirfnisse der Frau bleiben unbefriedigt (Schnabl 167).
Vaginal penetration is necessary to avoid male/masculine disappointment and required to
fulfill the female/feminine inherent needs, one that is inscribed on their reproductive
bodies.

This passive, vessel-like sexuality of the woman also places women in the
subordinate position of the sexual hierarchy. Starke states, for example, that the female
orgasm is more tied to men than a man’s is to women (125).36 The woman is not only
physically dependent/subordinate to the man, but also emotionally. It is claimed that
women want to be dominated by men. “Vom Manne wfinschen die meisten Frauen einen
kleinen SchuB Agressivitéit, das heiBt Angriffslust. Die deuten das ganz richtig als Beweis
ihres Begehrtseins” (Schnabl 277).37 Women are supposedly aroused emotionally when
men dominate them, leading to physical arousal dependent upon rituals of desire.

Women also inhabit the position of the naive, uninitiated student. First of all,
women are supposedly unaware of their erotic effect on men; they unwittingly taunt and
tease men. Girls choose clothing without considering the erotic effect it will have on men
they come in contact with.38 Brfickner writes of the young woman/girl who first realizes
that she looks “grown up.” She dresses herself up, enjoying her appearance, but she
“[wird] durch das Ansinnen des jungen Mannes fiberrascht oder abgestoBen, weil es nicht

bedacht hat, wie sexuell anregend seine Aufrnachung fiir einen Mann erscheinen kann”

 

3" This disregards the fact that many women can have orgasms when they masturbate, but not during genital
intercourse.

37 Such thinking also perpetuates violence as a common, if not necessary element of sex. The myth of male
dominance and aggression is tied up with rape scripts that portray the man as the dominating, dangerous
gender. Thus women are often taught to react passively in order to protect themselves. Recent studies have
shown however that women who adopt aggression are more likely to stave off rape, exactly because it
disrupts the accepted rape script and power dynamic (Marcus 1992).

38 Not only are they then expected to police their clothing choices, but also this further reifies the myth that
men are sexually dangerous, scarcely able to control their sexual impulses. Thus, any unaware woman who

50

(89). This is supposedly a sign of feminine naivete’. Not only girls are considered to be
guilty of this, but women as well are supposedly unaware of the “erotisch-sexuell” effect
their clothing, gait, and make-up have (Schnabl 50). This is part of the script where
women let men lead them into sexual activity, instead of making the step on their own,
and preserve their innocence.

In addition to being unaware of the sexual effect their actions and bodies have on
men, women are supposedly uninformed about their own bodies and need doctors and/or
husbands to guide them in caring for their bodies. Women, for example, do not know
how to care for their menstruating bodies and need to have doctors—who, if they are not
necessarily men, could arguably be seen as representatives of patriarchal medical
practices—explain proper procedures to them (Polte 129). They furthermore do not know
how their own bodies function during sex.

Viele Frauen vermOgen fiberhaupt nicht zu beurteilen, ob sic in der Vagina
oder von der Klitoris her zum Orgasmus kommen. ...Frauen, die auf
manuelle oder orale Reize angewiesen zu sein scheinen, kénnen unter
behutsamer Hilfe des Mannes lemen, sich allmahlich auf seine Genitale
umzustellen (Schnabl 167).39
The emphasis here is woman’s receptive function for male sexuality; men gently teach
women to adapt to the vaginal orgasm as a part of genital intercourse. Other orgasms are
considered secondary and unfulfilling. Should women be unable to achieve orgasm
during genital intercourse, the blame lies with the man. The woman becomes a potential
site for social instability since she is considered prey to men who would take advantage
of her frigid, anorgasmic state and lure her into infidelity (Schnabl 140). That women

experience their first orgasms with men (or, according to Starke, at least 76% of them do)

 

catches the dangerous end of the stick is herself suspect. She has let herself in for the unwanted sexual
attentions she then receives—fully taking the blame off of the man and placing it on the woman.

39 In the 19703, US sex advocate Anne Koedt also claims that women are unfamiliar with their own bodies,
in the attempt to inform women about the clitoris. There is no way of knowing to what extent Koedt’s or
Schnabl’s claims may be true.

51

is considered indicative of feminine and masculine sexual differences; men are driven to
have orgasms by their bodies, but men teach women how to achieve orgasms (Starke
125). Thus, from the first sexual initiation to a mature sexual life, the feminine is guided
by the masculine. The man is sexually savvy, physical, and independent; the woman is
naive, emotional, and dependent.

In this oppositional heterosexual discourse, it seems therefore inconceivable that
women could have sex without men. Though gay men are conceivable as a super-sexed
combination—which creates its own kind of dangerous sexuality—true women are
simply too emotionally bound to engage in more than zc'irtliche exchanges. Visceral sex
from women is not part of this sexual schematic.

So wie sich effeminierte homosexuelle Mfinner gem mit maskulinen
Partnem verbinden, spielt im lesbischen Verhaltnis stets eine von beiden
Frauen die aktiv mannliche Rolle, ja sie hdrt auf einen méinnlichen
Vomamen und spielt den Mann, wahrend die andere sich als hingebende,
weiblich-weiche Frau verhalt. Diese Rollen werden auch im intimen
Verkehr beibehalten bzw. bevorzugt. Einer von beiden Partnem ist meist
der Initiator, der aktiv Handelnde. Der oder die andere lfiBt mit gleicher
Lust die sexuellen Handlungen mit and an sich geschehen (Schnabl 297).
Masculanizing one lesbian partner effectively masks lesbian sex in sex discourse by
portraying it as a shadow of “real” heterosexual sex that can never lead to the desired end

result: children.

Harnessing Sex Drive

Using sex discourse to solidify socialist identity and develop socialist Citizens
must necessarily begin with developing sexual gender roles; normalization however goes
much deeper. It is further necessary to regulate sexual behavior to conform to socialist

standards. Sexological studies not only reflected and perpetuated this normalization, but

52

also reified the rules that socialists were to follow. First and foremost, it was critical for
the socialist regime to harness sexuality so that it could help the state achieve control.
This was first achieved by controlling the family unit so that the heterosexual relationship
was indicative of the relationship between the citizen and the state.
Wir sprechen davon, daB in unserer sozialistischen Gesellschaft die
F amilie die Keimzelle oder — besser — die kleinste Einheit des Staates ist.
Vergleichen wir unseren Staat mit einem lebendigen Organismus, so
erschient sein Bestreben einleuchtend, daB alle seine Zellen gesund und
lebensfahig sind; denn nur dann wird sich auch der Gesamtorganismus
gesund entwickeln (Polte 14).
The family was necessary as a unit of socialist control and indoctrination. The second
aspect of socialist societal control was reproduction; it allowed the state to increase its
numbers of members who were malleable from the first moment.

The first step in this process was to bind sex to heterosexual love; being in love
set boundaries for achieving happiness in the socialist system. “F fir die meisten
Jugendlichen gehOren, wie eingangs betont, Liebe und Sexualitiit eng zusammen, und
diese Grundeinstellung determiniert meist auch die Aufnahme von Geschlechtsverkehr”
(Starke 154). Thus, the logical precursor to genital intercourse was love. GDR sex
education—the occasional lecture in biology class, advice letters in Junge Welt (the FDJ
youth magazine), and the Brfickner text—all had the task of ensuring that youth identified
sex with love. Not only was sex supposed to be “in dem Dienst der Liebe,” but also
having sex without love was indulging in “vorzeitiger Geschlechtsverkehr” that served no
purpose (Brfickner 54). Of course, this message does not end with the youth. “Erfiillte
Liebe- und dazu gehOrt auch die sexuelle Befriedigung — ist eine ein wesentliches
Element der Persiinlichkeitsentwicklung und der Daseinerfiillung des Menschen. Sie ist
eines der elementaren Bedfirfnisse menschlicher LebensauBerung” (Schnabl 47). Thus,

the only way to become a fulfilled as well as fully developed individual was to

53

experience sex and love together. In fact, a loving relationship between two partners led
to contented wives who were more willing to have sex with their (male) partners (Starke
165).

Love and sex were not the end goal of socialism, but rather they led to
heterosexual partnership (Starke l4). Mating rituals such as flirting were seen as “eine
wirkliche, erotisch gefarbte Umgangsforrn zwischen Menschen verschiedenen
Geschlechts” (Brfickner 73-emphasis mine). Placing love and sex, combined with
marriage, in a privileged social position was seen as a break with a history in which
bourgeois (sexual) relationships supposedly had been dominated by religious beliefs and
taboo.

Nachdem jahrhundertlang religiOse Tabus, Prfiderie und Geheimnistuerei
die menschlichen Begegnungen in der Intimsphare falsch reglementiert
haben, ist es an der Zeit, Klarheit zu schaffen, damit nicht als folge
unangebrachter Scham und Unwissenheit weiter hin Irrtfimer, Konflikte
und tiefe Zerwfirfnisse entstehen. Erotik und Sexualitat haben im Bereich
der Gattenliebe ihren festen Platz; sie gehOren zu jedem innigen
Partnerschaftsverhaltnis; sie sind Ausdruck des Glficks und der
tiefempfundenen Liebe (Polte 140).
In real existing socialism, to love, have sex, and then marry (in that order) was considered
a progressive step away from contemporary Western capitalism as well as fascist history.
Not only was socialism a break with the taboos of a prude, religious bourgeois society,
but it was also a break from a woman’s economic dependence on men (Starke 258).
According to East German sex discourse, financial gain and/or dependence was the
seminal reason for marriage in historical bourgeois and contemporary capitalist
society—implying that love was not a motivation. “Heute wird nicht wegen des Geldes,

Besitzes oder Prestiges geheiratet. Da ist mehr Liebe, gegenseitige Achtung und

54

Zuneigung im Spiel” (Polte 97). Thus, love is highlighted as the natural, socialist reason
for marriage.
Allerdings lag auch in ihr in vergangenen Generationen der Akzent
entweder auf einer Zeugungsgemeinschaft oder auf der
Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft. Vollkommen kann die Ehe erst als
Liebesgemeinschaft sein, in der sich die Partner mit gleichen Rechten und
Pflichten gegenseitig Anerkennen, Achten und Vertrauen
entgegenbringen” (Schnabl 56).
By placing overt emphasis on love that leads to sex and then marriage, it then becomes
possible for love discourse to occlude the fact that reproduction and economic factors
were valid reasons for marrying in the GDR as well. Though the marriage loan is
highlighted in some sex discourse, such as Brfickner’s text, this seemingly direct
contradiction—monetary reward for following the steps prescribed above—is
rationalized as a kind of “parental” help from the state for the newlyweds. Let us
remember that this loan is completely forgiven for couples who produce three Children
over a five-year period. The emphasis on love in the socialist marriage also masks the
continuing economic inequality found in East German marriages. Women continued to
receive on average approximately 75% of what men earned and were, for the most part,
limited to (stereo)typically women’s jobs, such as “secretaries, nurses, preschool
teachers, ...[and factory workers in] textiles and electronics assembly” (F erree 92-93).
F urtherrnore, it effectively made East German sexual taboos such as non-monogamy,
prostitution, or homosexuality—all of which were parts of everyday life—invisible in
society at large.
The connection to sex is not however lost in this love discourse. Even though love
is supposed to lead to “fest und bewuBt gestaltete Paarbeziehung, die sich optimal in der
Ehe verwirklicht” (Brfickner 125), sex among youth was certainly accepted and in many

ways encouraged, especially if it led to a more stable relationship, i.e. marriage. “DDR-

55

Jugendliche gehen meist recht frfih feste Partnerbeziehungen ein, in denen es im Verlaufe
einer oft nur kurzen Phase kOrperlichen Kennenlemens, die auch Stimulierungen der
Geschlechtsorgane einschlieBt, bald zum Geschlechtsverkehr kommt” (Starke 130).
Pressure was already exerted on the young members of society to use their sexuality
wisely and ground their marriages in the first sex act, which was also supposed to provide
the best conditions for a successful marriage: “Der erste Geschlechtsverkehr ist Ausdruck
einer ‘groBen’ Liebe, die oft stabil bleibt und in eine glfickliche Ehe mfindet” (Starke
143). By creating an atmosphere in which love and sex are early goals for GDR youth
and providing the opportunity for them to marry young, the state was also more swiftly
able to realize its goal of having young women bear three or four children before they
reach the age of 30. Thus, sex education, limited as it was, had the goal not only of
helping youth prepare for a sexual life, but also of preparing them for an early marriage
and family (Kunzt-Brunner/Kwast 108).

Therefore, love and sexual companionship were not the final goal, but rather it
was marriage that above all led to childbearing. In fact, marriage was seen as the highest
form of social development in which the man and woman form a new social unit. “Wir
haben aber gefunden, daB das Paar die entwicklungsgeschichtlich entstandene
Lebenseinheit darstellt, durch die ein jeder die ihm durch Natur und Gesellschaft
erOffneten MOglichkeiten fiir ein befriedigendes und erfolgreiches Leben fiberhaupt erst
voll nutzen kann” (Schnabl 54-55). This institution served the two purposes of the state
listed above, control of the population at large through family units and producing
children to enlarge the population. Marriage then became a duty to be fulfilled. “Die
Gemeinsamkeit braucht Plane und Ziele—immer die bestmOgliche Entwicklung beider
Partner eingeschlossen; sie braucht Pflichten und Aufgaben—die schfinste davon ist die
Erziehung der Kinder” (Polte 43). As soon as love has reached its goal of producing a
pair, that pair is then beauftragt to fulfill the task of producing children—the task that

supposedly makes marriage worthwhile and holds it together. This is also further

56

ordained by biology and the classification of humans as a higher species of animals. “Die
Vereinigung von Samen- und Eizelle bietet allen lebenden Systemen die grundlegende
Voraussetzung fi'rr die Kontinuitéit ihrer Existenz fiber Generationen hinweg, und sie wird
fiir htihere Tierarten und Menschen zur Wurzel der Sexualitéit, weil sie die Paarung
notwendig macht” (Schnabl 22). Therefore, sexuality makes a full circle; it is not only the
impetus for love, leading to marriage, but also the final goal in proving the advanced

nature of the species through reproduction.

Reproduction as Sexual Goal

Understanding gender roles and how they are reified by sexual discourse is only
one critical step in elaborating the influence sexuality had on socialism or visa versa;
another necessary step is defining what actually constitutes sex. Although other sexual
activities are discussed, and sometimes preferred"), in general sex is defined as genital
intercourse—emphasizing the dominance of heterosexual discourse in sex discourse.
There may be other sexual activities, but all of these are confined to the sphere of
“Vorspiel,” “eigentlicher Geschlechtsverkehr” being the real goal. Thus, the sex act
“beginnt mit dem Einfiihren des erigierten Penis in die Vagina und endet gewfihnlich
kurz nach der Ejakulation des Mannes” (Starke 158). The realm of sex is fully defined by
the penis; it begins with the penile thrust and ends in ejaculation (notice that it does not
necessarily end in orgasm, for either the man or the woman). Despite the recurring motif
of the female orgasm, focus remains centered on the penis throughout the whole act.
Furthermore, the ejaculation is important because of what it carries with it, the possibility
of impregnation.

Female sexuality is largely, though not completely, defined by the fact that the
woman is the main (re)productive cog in the East German social machine. Under GDR

law the woman is completely responsible for raising the Child (Polte 223), and should she

 

4“ According to Schnabl, sexual experimentation is especially critical in the case of male impotence (201).

57

have a Child outside of marriage, she is assured the full help of the state (Polte 176). The
woman’s (re)productive role is emphasized on many levels. Sexual maturity is defined by
menstruation, the point when she becomes fertile (Brfickner 65). A girl’s/woman’s first
genital intercourse, whether willingly engaged in or not, supposedly represented a
physical and emotional “Intimitat.” Despite the circumstances, she was encouraged to
carry a possible pregnancy to full term: “durch die mOgliChe F ortpflanzung, trat der erste
Geschlechtverkehr aus dem individuellen Lebenskreis heraus und erlangte
gesellschaftliche Bedeutung” (Starke l31—emphasis mine). Female sexual maturity is a
socially significant event that guarantees the continuation of the socialist state, which is
evident as Brfickner describes male and female sex organs to teenagers; he focuses on
male ejaculation and female conception. The opening statement in the section on female
genitalia is: “Ein Kind an der Brust zu niihren kann mit zu den tief beglfickenden
Erlebnissen im Leben einer Frau gehéren” (57). From the first discussions of sexuality,
girls and women are identified as potential mothers, not as women who potentially
experience satisfying sex. Thus, what makes sex satisfying for a woman is not necessarily
orgasm, but rather motherhood.

Sex is directly tied to reproduction for women. “Die Hauptaufgabe der weiblichen
Geschlechtsorgane ist neben der Sexual- die F ortpflanzungsfunktion” (Polte 128).
Brfickner is more forceful in his language as he claims that women reach “volle
Erfiillung” only in reproduction (128). Indeed, in the case of an unplanned pregnancy,
girls are encouraged not to abort.41 “Natfirlich sind nicht alle Kinder gewfinscht, und
manche Frau ist zunéichst fiberrascht oder erschrocken, wenn ihr klar wird, daB sie ein
Kind erwartet. Aber es ist ganz erstaunlich, wie tiefgreifend sich im Laufe der

Schwangerschaft die Einstellung zum Kind wandeln kann. Die Mfitterlichkeit erwacht”

 

4' Of course, this discourse is perhaps in direct conflict with East German material reality, since a number
of women did take advantage of the right to abort after 1972. Such rhetoric, combined with the state-
supported cré‘chcs and day care, must have had some effect however given the high birthrates in young
women, even in school and university, as compared to contemporary West and post- Wende Germany.

58

(Brfickner 182). Any pregnancy provides the catalyst to a woman fully assuming her
special role as a mother; thus sex is also the catalyst to fulfilling her socialist duty.

As a socialist subject, it is the woman’s right to decide when to reproduce, not if
to reproduce. “In unserem sozialistischen Staat soll jede Frau das Recht haben, Anzahl
und Zeitpunkt ihrer Geburten selbst zu bestimmen. Das geht’irt mit zur Verwirklichung
ihrer gleichberechtigten Rolle in der Gesellschaft“ (Brfickner 183). Socialist gender
equality rests on choosing how many children to have and when to have them. Though
this is supposedly a woman’s choice, she is given a great deal of guidance in the matter.
She is not only encouraged to have children while she is young, that is between the ages
of 20 and 25 (Brfickner 146, Polte 184), but also encouraged to have at least three
Children (Schnabl 243, Kunzt-Brunner/Kwast 348). Without a minimum of three Children
per family, the socialist state would not grow, but rather stagnate. In fact, the more
children a woman has in a short period of time, the more money she can receive from the
state for those children in the form of the marriage loan, natal care, and
“Schwangerenbeihilfe” in the amount of 1000 DM per child.

Though financial, as well as other social gains such as housing, are considerable
for young parents”, sexologists emphasize that children are the ultimate product of the
love/sex act.

Auf dem HOhepunkt der Erregung, dem Orgasmus, wird die
Samenflfissigkeit in die Scheide entleert. Méinnliche Keimzellen dringen,
wie ihr wil3t, in die inneren weiblichen Geschlechtsorgane ein, and falls
eine befruchtungsfahige Eizelle da ist, vereinigen sich beide. Ein Stfick
Mann und ein Stfick Frau verschmelzen miteinander zu einer neuen
Einheit. Das habe ich deshalb so ausgedrfickt, weil es im kOrperlichen
Bereich veranschaulicht, was auch im seelischen bereich geschieht. Man

fiihlt sich in diesem Moment gar nicht mehr als selbstandiger Mann und

 

‘2 The financial gains are dealt with alongside personal ones.

59

als unabhéingige Frau, sondem wie ein neuer gemeinsamer Organismus
(Brfickner 80).
Conception signifies the epitome of the socialist collective as both man and woman lose

all vestiges of independence in the common creation of a child.

Special Role of the Family

As already mentioned above, the family had a privileged status in East Germany,

not only in social life, but also for the state.
Ehe und Familie, die zwischen Mann und Frau am hfiufigsten gebildeten
Partnerschaften, stehen unter dem besonderem Schutz des Staates. Durch
zahlreiche soziale und juristische MaBnahmen werden staatlicherseits
andersgeschlechtliche Beziehungen moralisch anerkannt und geftirdert
(Warczock 124).
This especially heterosexual institution, a marker for East German heterosocial
interaction, was protected by laws and received special moral recognition. “Die F amilie
ist neben dem Arbeitskollektiv der wichtigste Bereich, in dem sich der Mensch mit seiner
Lebensweise entwickelt” (Polte 13).

The family unit, as the other side of a social coin that consisted of family and
work, was also strongly connected to equality discourse—especially as women’s roles in
the workplace shifted.

Mit dem Aufbau der sozialistischen Gesellschaftsordnung in der DDR
veranderten sich auch die Ehe- und F amilienbeziehungen. Eine groBe
Rolle spielte dabei der grundlegende Wandel der gesellschaftlichen
Stellung der Frau, ihre wachsende Teilnahme am ArbeitsprozeB und am
gesellschaftlichen Leben. Ein Komplex sozialpolitischer MaBnahmen

fOrdert besonders die jungen Ehen in der DDR (Starke 25 8).

60

The family no longer confined women’s movement. By the end of the 803, approximately
91% of the women worked outside the home (Ferree 91) and a woman’s economic
contribution to society came from her paid work as well as unpaid work in the home.43
Due to the constitutionally mandated emancipation of women, there was neither a formal
discussion of equality nor of inequality in the GDR. Thus, women who had difficulties
managing both work and familial duties were considered to have “personal
shortcomings” (Ferree 92).

Real as well as imagined instances of gender equality also broke down the
traditional gendered division between public and private. In the GDR, there is no private
sphere per se, not only because the woman was no longer confined to the familial sphere,
but also because family life was supposedly as public as the work sphere. It was saturated
with the larger socialist goal of educating and initiating youth for the state. The family
was to contribute to the social redefinition of class and production by providing the
sphere in which individuals could be properly indoctrinated into socialism. Indeed, the
“Familiengesetzbuch der DDR” states that

Aus der Ehe soll eine Familie erwachsen, die ihre Erfiillung in
gemeinsamen Zusammenleben, in der Erziehung der Kinder und in der
gemeinsamen Entwicklung der Eltem und Kinder zu charakterfesten,
allseitig gebildeten PersOnlichkeiten findet. . ..Kinder vollenden die
eheliche Gemeinschaft zur ‘kleinsten Zelle der Gesellschaft,’ wie sie im
Vorspruch unseres F amiliengesetzes genannt wird (Brfickner 128).

Thus, a healthy family life in which parents and children reach socialist maturity
together meant a healthy socialist society, solidifying the family as the smallest socialist
unit. Not only do sex and gender roles erase lesbianism in sex discourse, but lesbians are

also excluded from East German ideals of the family, because lesbians cannot overcome

 

4’ In the bourgeois model a woman’s economic contribution was by remaining at home and providing
unpaid work for the family.

61

the ultimate sexual limitation. “Natfirlich bleibt ihnen versagt, auf diese Weise ihr
Liebesglfick in eigenen Kindem, in einer eigenen F amilie vervollstiindigt zu sehen. Und
wenn sich ihr Geschlechtsleben im einen Intimbereich, also unter AusschluB anderer,
abspielt, werden die Interessen der Gesellschaft nicht berfihrt“ (Brfickner 202). According
to Brfickner, lesbian sex does not allow these women to achieve the full potential of a

loving relationship, thus blocking their full participation in society.45

Socialist Sexual Morality

 

Despite its desired break with history, or perhaps because of it, it was critical in
the GDR to establish a morality that was seen as being specifically socialist. This was
necessary because: “Moralische Norrnen. . .dienen den Interessen verschiedener
Gruppierungen der Gesellschaft” (Schnabl 45). To serve the interests of socialist society
and groups within it is only the superficial reason for establishing a set of moral ground
rules. This moral code actually served several specific purposes, especially in connection
with GDR sex discourse.

A new moral order was supposed to differentiate GDR socialist society from the
fascist and bourgeois societies that not only preceded it, but also supposedly existed
simultaneously.

Die Durchsetzung unserer sozialistischen Moral ist verbunden mit der
Uberwindung der Uberreste der Inkonsequenz, Unaufrichtigkeit und
Unehrlichkeit dieser “doppelten Moral”, die im Grunde genommen
Unmoral ist. Unter neuen F orrnen der Begegnung zwischen den

Geschlechtem werden sich auch heute noch bestehende

 

4" In the bourgeois model a woman’s economic contribution was by remaining at home and providing
unpaid work for the family.

4’ Of course, what Brfickner’s reasoning manages to leave out is that many lesbians already have children
from earlier marriages. It also ignores the fact that many East German heterosexual marriages are
“completed” with children from earlier partnerships.

62

Unterschiedlichkeiten im durchschnittlichen Sexualverhalten von Mann
und Frau “andem” (Schnabl 47).

Let me reiterate that East German sex discourse emphasized that women had escaped the
property status they occupied under bourgeois capitalism. Furthermore, they supposedly
enjoyed a type of sexual revolution that allowed them to take a more active role in their
own sexuality and determine their own sexual roles. This was a so-called shift from the
bourgeois practice of manying for economical reasons and social standing as well as
from the bourgeois sexual double standard in which men were allowed several sexual
partners while women were only allowed the one: their husband. Thus the new socialist
morality was to form a critical building block of the GDR woman’s emancipation.

Second, GDR morality supported the family unit in education and socialist
childrearing. This meant establishing solid marriages that provide a proper model for
children leading them to establish proper heterosexual relationships. The family was
supposed to teach children important interpersonal skills so that the child could better
interact with/conform to society at large (Polte 255). Within the family there were two
specific sexual goals. One was to enlighten Children, so that they would escape the
bourgeois double standard. The second was to model an open attitude toward the body
and sex while teaching them scientific names for genitalia and sexual acts, such as
“Glied, Scheide, Geschlechtsverkehr” as well as more colloquial terms, such as “Puller,
Muschi, usw.” (Polte 255). Opening up language to include both kinds of sexual terms
created an atmosphere in which sex talk was not supposed to be shrouded in euphemism.
This shroud was further lifted by demystifying the body altogether.46 Sexual
enlightenment was coupled with the naked body (Kunzt-Brunner/Kwast 92). Open

nakedness in the family as well as in certain public locations was a physical marker for

 

4" Nakedness, of course, only demystified the body to a certain extent due to the complex nature of
women’s bodies. This belief, as discussed above, rested largely on the fact that women’s reproductive
organs were hidden while men’s were visible.

63

the departure from bourgeois prudery. Thus, nakedness became a critical motif in East
German sexual emancipation rhetoric.

Another goal in the family was the maintenance of critical social norms: the
induction of children into this moral system while protecting them from conflicting belief
systems (which remain largely unnamed, but imply West German influence).

GrOBen EinfluB hat die F amilie darauf, daB mit der Verrnittlung
sozialistischer Werte und Normen auch gesellschaftsfeindlichen
Einflfissen entgegengewirkt wird. Die Einhaltung der Normen der
sozialistischen Moral und Gesetzlichkeit liegt im Interesse jedes Bfirgers.
Deshalb gehOrt es zu den Aufgaben der F amilienerziehung, den Kindem
von klein auf deutlich werden zu lassen, was Recht und Unrecht ist (Polte
233).
Children were not supposed to learn about socialism and its moral system in school, but
rather at home. A major goal of the family was to build socialism from the ground up,
and if achieved, the younger generations would consider East Germany’s real existing
socialism natural.

Since the ideal of marriage and family was the basis for socialist morality, this
ideal mutually constituted a heterosocialism that implicitly—if not explicitly—enforced
heterosexuality. This was first established as children were raised to follow the
heterosexual models set by their parents. Heterosexism extended further than the family
sphere, however. In biology, children were taught that“qu and Mann ziehen sich seit
eh und je gegenseitig an” (Schnabl 39). They were presented with a model that conforms
to the family model as well as the social moral system. This was not necessarily achieved
by creating a negative atmosphere for homosexuality, but rather by creating a society in
which heterosexuality was inevitable. “Wird die Offentliche Meinung im Kinderkollektiv
entsprechend entwickelt, werden auch F reundschaften zwischen Jungen und Méidchen

nicht verspottet, sondem gefdrdert, dann kann die Einstellung zu Freundschaft, Liebe,

64

Sexualitfit gfinstig beeinfluBt werden” (Starke 110). Even at the earliest social interaction,
heterosocial behavior was encouraged, naturalizing socialist heterosexism.

This points to the last firnction of socialist morality, namely the effective
obfuscation of any behavior that does not conform. For example, prostitution directly
after WWII was widespread, but by the 503 it had become all but unknown in the GDR.
“Getreu dem neunten Gebot der sozialistischen Moral, das lautet: ‘Lebe sauber und
anstéindig und achte deine F amilie! ’, wurde Sexualitéit ausschlieBlich in stabilen
heterosexuellen Zweierbeziehungen angesiedelt — diskret und mtiglichst ohne darfiber zu
sprechen” (F alck 58). In VEB Bordell, Uta F alck demonstrates how prostitution, a
thriving business for many GDR women and homosexual men, for all intents and
purposes in GDR culture did not exist. The main function of GDR morality seemed to be
to establish a norm that had no contradictory visible evidence. Thus, it remained equally
important to keep even acknowledged homosexuality limited to the margins of sex
discourse.47 In mainstream sex discourse, homosexuality is never more than a deviation
from normal sex. It is mentioned at the ends of books in conjunction with other
perversions.

As the Church, a suspect bourgeois institution, lost influence in the GDR, socialist
ideals combined with sex discourse formed its own morality. It may not have been
formalized or even state sanctioned, but there was an implicit understanding that this
code existed. For example, as the Berlin group Lesben in der Kirche met with police to
protest the harassment they encountered when they attempted to honor the victims,
especially lesbian victims, at Ravensbrfick48, the police representative claimed: “Der
Staat hat nichts dagegen [being lesbian], aber die Moralvorstellung der Bfirger sind
anders” (Transcript 31 May 1965). This quote clearly points to an understood socialist

morality. East German sex discourse maintains a sexual moral code around the following

 

‘7 Chapter Four will show that this was also true for public space.
“’3 The protests at Ravensbrfick form the material for the fourth chapter of this dissertation and will be
described in detail at that point.

65

phenomena: monogamy, masturbation, orgasm, work, birth control, and a (sexual) class
system. The rest of this section discusses each term individually, shows how they
participate in the socialist moral code, and demonstrates how they are imbued with

specifically socialist rhetoric.

Heterosexual Monogamy

It was considered a “F ehlhaltung” when members of GDR society were not able
to establish long-lasting (hetero)sexual and emotional partnerships. Citizens who did not
engage in long-term relationships, but rather had sex with many partners were marked as
asocial, because they were driven solely by their sexual desires, instead of placing those
desires into the larger context of acceptable social conduct (Brfickner 203). Transgressing
this aspect of sexual morality warranted government policing. Those who were known to
frequently change sexual partners were labeled “HwG-Personen (Menschen mit haufig
wechselndem Geschlechtsverkehr)49” and health officials tracked their sexual activity
ostensibly to protect others from sexually transmitted diseases (Brfickner 190). Their
sexual exploits were observed by the same government officials who kept track of
prositutes and homosexuals; HWGs were suspect not only as carriers of disease who
could infect the individual, but also the socialist body. The government used their sexual
practices against them so that they could get information from them about their partners,

often by blackmailing them into becoming unofficial Stasi informants (Falck).

Masturbation

In GDR sex discourse, masturbation has several telling aspects. Masturbation is
openly discussed and not as a sexual perversion. The general opinion was that men/boys
masturbate more frequently than women/ girls. Some sexologists even see it as a critical

element of sexual health, not to be underestimated or considered inferior to genital

 

’9 This is a term that originated in Nazi-Germany.

66

intercourse. On this view, it is even considered an important act for adults (Starke 112).
However, most masturbation discourse takes on a more negative tone. On one hand, it
gains partial acceptance as a necessary safety valve for boys and adults of both sexes,
especially unmarried women. Since boys supposedly awaken sexually much earlier than
girls and they are driven by their bodies to have orgasms, masturbation can give them the
release they need to keep them from pressuring girls into sex (Brfickner 54). A similar
argument is presented when considering its importance for adult women.
Auch die Masturbation jener alleinstehenden Frauen, die unter der
Sexualnot leiden, ist sicher eher gutzuheiBen als der Einbruch in fremde
Ehen, den viele verheiratete Manner in rfihrender Néichstenliebe noch
immer mit Vergnfigen gewahren und durch groBzfigiges Entgegenkommen
erleichtem. Sowohl Frauen als auch Manner, die aus irgendeinem Grunde
eine Liebesgemeinschaft entbehren mfissen, verhalten sich viel achtbarer,
wenn sie masturbieren, statt in flfichtiger Bekanntschaft mit einem
ungeliebten Partner zu verkehren (Schnabl 261).
In this case, masturbation provides a necessary outlet for single women. Without this
release, those single women who suffer from sexual desire are considered a threat to the
socialist institution of marriage. Thus masturbation is presented in some contexts as the
logical lesser of two evils.

Masturbation is however still portrayed as secondary to “real sex,” that is genital
intercourse. Since sex is bound to heterosexual love in East German sex discourse, any
non-heterosexual sexual activity is suspect. “Gehaltvoll wird die Sexualitéit allein durch
die Liebe zweier [heterosexuellen] Menschen” (Schnabl 262). Orgasms lack physical and
emotional intensity when not achieved in genital intercourse (Schnabl 160).

Sexologists also emphasize the lower frequency of masturbation in females. The
most common reason given for this is that girls/women do not experience a separation of

sex from the mind, but rather can only achieve sexual fulfillment when both genitals and

67

emotions are stimulated. This is best accomplished in a relationship with a man (Schnabl
60). Furthermore, they are subject to social taboos that men are not (Schnabl 263-64).
This may actually be a more accurate assessment by Schnabl, since there is a lot of talk
about male masturbation, while female masturbation is largely invisible. Supposedly,
women who masturbate do so only after a man has awakened them sexually—that is,
they have already had their first orgasm during intercourse (Starke 125). In discussions
about masturbation, there is not a single reference to masturbation helping girls learn
about their own bodies and orgasms, though this is considered normal for boys. In fact, as
discussed above, when girls masturbate, it supposedly upsets their emotional equilibrium.
Masturbation in married women is seen as a sign of an unhealthy (sexual)
relationship, demonstrating that her partner either lacked tenderness or the sexual
prowess necessary for a “richtigen, groBen Orgasmus” (Starke 128). Brfickner further
claims that a high frequency of masturbation in young people can signify other problems.
Wenn wir jetzt noch einmal auf die Frage der Hiiufigkeit der
Selbstbefriedigung zurfickkommen, so versteht ihr nun, daB sie nicht nur
von Mensch zu Mensch sehr verschieden sein wird, sondem auch beim
einzelnen Jugendlichen ganz erheblich schwanken kann. Gelingt es ihm,
den gestellten Aufgaben in Schule und Berufsausbildung gerecht zu
werden, findet er Anerkennung bei Lehrem, Klassenkameraden und
Eltem, dann wird er verhéiltnisméiBig selten diesen Wunsch haben.
Erwischt ihn aber eine Pechstriihne, regnet es plOtzlich schlechte
Zensuren, gibt es zu Hause unerfreuliche Auseinandersetzungen oder
verliert er seinen F reund, dann kann die Haufigkeit pltitzlich ansteigen. Sie
hangt also weit weniger vom KOrper und von der “Triebstarke” ab als vom
seelischen Zustand (52).
The (young) person who was in control of his life was less likely to masturbate. Brfickner

gives youth the message that masturbation is not only a sad substitute for sex, but also a

68

poor substitute for social success, whether with friends, in school, or at home. Thus, a
well-adjusted person would not need to masturbate because successful social experiences

would obviate the physical compulsion.

69

Orgasm
A critical element of the GDR sexual moral system was the status of the orgasm.
Since GDR society was supposedly, at least in its own representations of itself, a model
society, then sexual practices—a benchmark of social identity—were necessarily at the
forefront of social progress.
Mann und Frau waren [um die Jahrhundertwende] sexuell vfillig
unvorbereitet. Aufgrund eines “Sieges fiber das Weib” durch die Hochzeit
hat der Mann Anspruch auf sexuelle Befiiedigung. Und die “Besiegte”?
Sie hatte alles “Uber sich ergehen zu lassen” und muBte damit “zufrieden”
sein. Sie lemte hOChstens das Notwendigste im sexuellen Verhalten durch
ihren Mann, der selbst wenig wuBte. Damit war der “Liebeslehrgang”
beendet, der erotische Horizont abgegrenzt. Frauen dieser Zeit haben
mitunter zehn und mehr Kinder zur Welt gebracht, aber viele, vielleicht
die meisten von ihnen, nicht einen einzigen Orgasmus, das Glficksgefiihl
der Liebesvereinigung, erlebt. (Polte 144).
In this quote, the female orgasm signifies love inside the marriage. Since love and sex
were the cornerstones of a GDR marriage, the lack of the female orgasm during
bourgeois sex pointed to the belief that bourgeois women were property. Thus, the
bourgeois marriage equaled little more than a contract of acquisition for the man.
Because of their supposed superior sexual knowledge, East Germans were
expected to better achieve the sign of mutual love in the sex act, the female orgasm. The
female orgasm became a sign of sexual progress50 as well as a motif representing the
success of socialism. Due to this social importance, sex discourse scrutinizes whether
women have orgasms, how they have orgasms, and if they do not, why not. In addition,

the male and female orgasm as a simultaneous occurrence during intercourse became the

 

5" Although the social context is different, a similar emphasis was placed on the female and simultaneous
orgasm in the US. sexual revolution, effectively occluding other sexual practices. This was a common

70

ultimate goal of genital intercourse. Not only was emphasis shifted to the female orgasm
during sex, but pressure was also exerted on the man to control the sex act. If he did so
properly, the couple would reach simultaneous orgasm, proving their ultimate unity
(Schnabl 161, Polte 125). In fact, this was considered the epitome of married sex, the
“hOChste Befriedigung” for a couple (Starke 194).

However, before this Zusammengehb’rigkeitserlebnis could be achieved,
sexologists needed to again make apparent the process of achieving orgasms in women.
A high frequency of sex marked the successful socialist marriage. Thus, the way to
ensure that women would want to have frequent intercourse—overcoming their natural
instincts toward sexual inactivity—was to educate men about how to successfully bring
about the female orgasm, since studies showed a positive relationship between frequency
of sex and the frequency of the female orgasm (Starke 170). East German men needed a
basic understanding of the female orgasm on two fronts: 1) women’s orgasms were
considered more powerful than men’s and 2) women could have multiple orgasms. This
orgasm discourse was in direct reaction to (a perhaps partly imagined) historical
bourgeois sexual piety, which questioned whether women should have orgasms at all,
since joy in sex was considered a sign of inherent feminine sinfulness; East German
sexual rhetoric portrayed the woman as a powerful sexual creature, at least in some
respects. For example, women could have longer orgasms, at shorter intervals, and
sometimes the interval diminished entirely, so that one orgasm melted into the next
(Starke 69). The once forbidden fruit for women became a consequence of her success as
a socialist Citizen.

Je positiver die Frau ihr Leben bewertet, je harmonischer, aktiver und
leistungsfahiger sie sich ft’rhlt, je mehr sie glaubt, den Aufgaben ihres
Lebens, vor allem in Familie, Beruf oder Studium gewachsen zu sein,

desto genuBfahiger ist sie auch im sexuellen Bereich (Starke 190).

 

complaint among lesbians in the women’s movement of the early 703 (B.K.O. 1971, Katz,

71

If women’s orgasms were seen as more powerful than men’s, they were
nevertheless still more troublesome—just like women’s bodies. The simplicity of a man’s
orgasm was marked by its visibility; his ejaculation was a simple observable process.51
The woman’s orgasm, like her sexual organs, was hidden, marking it with mystery and an
ineffibility. The female orgasm is complex (Starke 67) and, unlike the man’s, can be
caused by stimulating a variety of areas (Starke 217). In fact, some women describe their
own orgasm as a “Pulsieren oder Pochen,” that defied both location and explanation
(Starke 68).

The mystery of the female orgasm left sexologists themselves sometimes at a loss
for words; sexologists were not sure what causes them. On the one hand, they seemed to
think that they were not tied to any “spezifischen psychischen oder sozialen
Bedingungen“ (Starke 195). On the other hand, there was the general belief, stated above,
that orgasms, and even more 30 multiple orgasms, could only be achieved “wenn
[Frauen] eine harrnonische Lebensentwicklung genommen haben, ihren Partner lieben,
mit ihrem Leben zufrieden sind, keine groBen Angste haben und wenn keine sozialen
Barrieren dem entgegenstehen” (Starke 196). Physical indicators were completely
removed from discussions of the female orgasm. East German sex discourse delivered
evidence demonstrating that women needed above all to be well integrated socially to
consistently achieve orgasms. They needed to meet a variety of conditions to be orgasmic
and if socialism itself worked, then women would be sexually satisfied.

Repeatedly, sex discourse shows that women themselves were not necessarily in
control of their sexual and/or social happiness. Women have to be taught to have orgasms

by men (Schnabl 134). Should the woman not be able to achieve orgasm, then her

 

Baxandall/Gordon 2000).

5' As briefly mentioned above, this belief does not seem carried out in discussions of male impotence. At
the point that the male orgasm becomes difficult to achieve, it takes on its own aura of mystery, or perhaps
helplessness, as the woman is encouraged to subtly control a variety of variables, such as the arrangement
of furniture in the bedroom, how long she is undressed before intercourse begins, the kind of lingerie she
wears. how long foreplay lasts, whether she discusses his impotence with friends, that impotence only be
referred to in the most positive ways, what kind of birth control she uses, and whether the sex position
allows for the best enclosure of the penis (Schnabl 173-221).

72

psychotherapist—also portrayed as a man in sexology—was supposed to guide her
emotionally to achieve what her husband could not help her achieve physically (Starke
188). Polte further discusses at some length what he considers the reward men receive for
bringing their partners to orgasm.
Es ist zum Beispiel bekannt, daB die Frau wfihrend eines Geschlechtsaktes
den Orgasmus zwei- und mehrrnals erleben kann, wéihrend der Mann
seinen Hfihepunkt erst beim zweiten bzw. x-en Orgasmus der Frau
gemeinsam mit ihr abschlielit. Geht der Mann vorher leer aus? Oder
bedeutet das fi'rr ihn Verzicht auf LiebesgenuB? 1m Gegenteil. Nicht nur,
daB sich der Mann fiber langere Zeit selbst stéindig an der Grenze des
hohen Lustgefiihls bewegt; er erlebt auBerdem mit vollem BewuBtsein und
in freudiger Erregung die Liebesgebarden seiner Partnerin. Ja, er genieBt
die Zweisamkeit in anderer Weise, als Erfolgserlebnis, und sein ganzes
Streben im Liebesakt konzentriert auch nur auf die geliebte Partnerin. Er
erlebt die Liebe ohne Egoismus. Ist die Partnerin hierbei sehr aktiv, dann
ist der LiebesgenuB noch hOher. Ein einfiihlsamer, phantasievoller, kluger
und sich natfirlich auch im Liebesspiel auskennender Mann vermag seine
Partnerin bis zu zehnmal und mehr in das hohe Lustgefiihl zu versetzen,
bevor er selbst mit ihr gemeinsam seinen Orgasmus erlebt. Danach werden
sich beide in glficklicher Entspannung und ErschOpfung voneinander lfisen
und an dem zuvor Erlebten erfreuen. Wenn, fuBend auf der griechischen
Sage, behauptet wird, die Frau erlebe den Orgasmus siebenmal stfirker als
der Mann, so ist der Mann durchaus in der Lage, diese “Manko” der Natur
auszugleichen. In dem Ausltisen des sich wiederholenden Orgasmus seiner
Partnerin verschafft er sich gleichzeitig ein ebenfalls tiefes und

langanhaltendes emotionelles Erlebnis der Liebe. Das geschieht jedoch

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nicht automatisch, sondem verlangt die Klugheit und Aktivitat beider

(159).
According to Polte, the man gains sexual pleasure from the knowledge that he has
brought the woman to orgasm and controlled the sex act so that they achieve mutual
orgasm. Conversely, if men failed in this task, they were likely to be as disappointed as, if
not more so, than women; it even effected his level of sexual desire (Starke 201). In
general, the female orgasm was not inborn, like the male orgasm, but rather a
“Lemprodukt.” It was a skill that a woman was able to learn with her husband, just as she
has to be taught to swim: “Man kann vielleicht einen Vergleich wagen: so wie die
Fahigkeit zu schwimmen erlemt werden muB, so mfissen die Frauen die F éihigkeit,
orgastisch zu reagieren, erlemen. Dieser Vergleich ist keineswegs exakt, er verdeutlicht
aber doch die Problematik“ (Starke 183). In order to become orgasmic, a woman had to
trust and love her husband. This was “cine wesentliche Voraussetzung fiir den
Orgasmus” (Polte 158). In fact, Starke’s studies show that the percentage of women who
had orgasms without loving their husbands was a full 12% lower than women who did
(190).

When the man—through his skill and his wife’s devotion to him—had achieved
this goal, the next goal was the simultaneous orgasm. To achieve this, it was again the
man who was in control. He had to control the pace “allein oder intensiver als die Frau“
when negotiating the woman’s plateau phase, in which she “bleibt eine Zeitlang trotz
weiterer F riktionen auf gleichem oder nur leicht antsteigendem Niveau” (Schnabl 75),
save up his strength for the right moment (Polte 149), and employ the proper techniques
(Starke 199) to make them both come together.

Although the female orgasm was a sign of healthy socialism, it still did not rate
higher than male ejaculation in the orgasmic hierarchy. As'long as the man’s own sexual
potency remained intact, he was supposed to do all he could to ensure the female orgasm,

but the moment that he was unable to perform sexually, that shifted. At that point, the

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woman had to direct all of her sexual energies toward enabling his orgasm (Schnabl 82).
This, despite the rhetoric of sexual freedom and the importance of female orgasm, points
to a deeper socialist need, of reproduction. State childrearing policies, the marriage loan,
and rhetoric supporting the Wunschkindpille (discussed below) demonstrate the state’s
commitment to reproduction in the GDR. Women were still able to conceive without
orgasms, but this was impossible if the man did not ejaculate—at least when conception
is confined to genital intercourse. Thus, at the most basic level, despite the sexual
knowledge that GDR Citizens had gained over their bourgeois counterparts from fin-de-

siecle Germany, the ultimate goal of childbearing had not changed.

Work

When dealing with socialism, especially in the GDR, it is critical to remember
that work as an institution is a critical part of social life. Socialists are supposed to
express themselves in society through the work that they do (Starke 283); it is the sphere
in which the socialist is supposed to fully develop his/her personality (Polte 112). It is not
surprising that this sphere supposedly affected all aspects of socialist life, providing the
“Basis fiir Liebe und Sexualitéit auf einem bestimmten Kultumiveau” (Starke 272). Work
formed one side of a two-part structure that undergirded all social life, both work and
family. On the one hand, the connection between family/love/sex and work is perhaps
tenuous, such as it is easier to concentrate at work when all in the family or love life is
running well, or that it is easier to relax at home or while having sex, when work
problems are not pressing in (Starke 274). These are fairly commonsensical connections
between work and sex. GDR sex discourse however forged direct bonds between the two:
“Insgesamt liiBt sich nachweisen: Liebe fOrdert durchaus die Arbeit” (Starke 275).
Love/sex and work influenced each other in GDR culture, so that the work ethic could be

also seen as a significant part of sexual morality.

75

According to sexological studies, socialists with happy family and sex lives made
the best workers. For example, as youth entered the work sphere as apprentices or
students (also a form of apprenticeship, especially in the GDR where education was
directly connected to the real workforce), it was supposedly proven that the best students
and apprentices had the best love lives. Women who had successful careers were also
thought better capable of orgasms. This relationship also works the other way around. If
there was a problem in the sex life, one of the first areas to examine—besides whether or
not the female was frigid—was satisfaction with the workplace (Starke 92). Thus, if we
examine sexuality and its moral code, it is clear that the best sexual partners were
supposedly those who correctly participated in work culture; a properly developed work
ethic encouraged a healthy sex and family life and vice versa.

Women were supposed to work as a sign of their emancipation under socialism.
Not working meant not being a full citizen, so much so that Starke, for example, did not
include housewives in his study of sexual practices up to age thirty (101). “Ihre Tatigkeit
[die Tatigkeit der Frau] kann sich aber nicht allein auf den Kreis der F amilie
beschriinken. Als gleichberechtigte Partnerin muB sie gemeinsam mit dem Mann am
Berufs- und gesellschaftlichen Leben teilnehmen kOnnen” (Polte 180). We have already
seen that women were required to take part in both spheres of East German culture: work
and family. The family however was not of lesser importance than work; East German
women were required to take equal part in both spheres. In order to accomplish this, it
was of equal importance that women be able to control when and how to have children.
In fact, family planning and gainful employment were tied together, since the woman
could not take a job without knowing how she could continue to successfully manage her
family life (Polte 19). Birth control was a part of the woman’s right to work and also have
a family as well as state-provided daycare services (Polte 213), allowing GDR women to

be doubly productive: sexually and in their Chosen career. Furthermore, pregnant women

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were to be well cared for at the workplace and assured the chance to return to their job

after pregnancy (Polte 170).

Birth Control

Birth control in the GDR, especially from 1972 on, was a marker for women’s
equality and power within the socialist system. Available birth control along with legal
abortion was part of the GDR plan to be more progressive as well as more humane than
the West. This landmark Change in women’s legislation came during the second and
perhaps final socialist thaw, right after Honecker became head of the Zentralkommittee,
demonstrating his forward-thinking brand of socialism, a definite break with the first
twenty years of the GDR. On the positive side, the new laws did give women more
control over their bodies. It was a material act that coincided with GDR rhetoric about
female equality. The availability of the pill and legal abortion changed women’s lives in
two ways: it gave them new physical freedom and also resulted in higher confidence
levels for many women. Not only was this seen as a kind of women’s social
empowerment, but also of sexual empowerment. The fear of getting pregnant caused
“habituelle Verklemmungen und emotionale Barrieren” which led to “Stfirungen des
Orgasmuserlebens” (Starke 203). Therefore, the pill allowed women to relax during sex
and have more orgasms, better conforming to socialist sexual ideals.

This newfound freedom was not however to be taken lightly by women. They
were warned to use the pill, other types of birth control, and abortion wisely; their
functions should only be those of family planning. Using birth control to regulate
when—and not whether—to have children, “entspricht voll und ganz den Grundséitzen
der sozialistischen Moral” (Polte 184). Using birth control however as a means for having
uninhibited sex with many partners was considered an abuse of a woman’s socialist
privileges (Polte 184). The pill, popularly known as the Anti-Baby-Pille, was renamed the

Wunschkindpille in socialist sexual rhetoric to underscore the fact that birth control was

77

supposed to be used to plan conception, not to prevent it altogether (Brfickner, Starke,
and Polte).

Of the different kinds of birth control practiced in the GDR, such as the pill,
condoms, coitus interruptus, IUD, the rhythm method, and the “day-after” pill, the pill
was by far the most preferred. Studies showed that at least 50-60% of all adult women
used the pill long term (Starke). It was preferred for its convenience and young women
were given the pill long before it was thought they would engage in sex. Schnabl even
implies that using the pill could contribute to curing male impotence (204).
Unfortunately, the dangers of all birth control methods were not presented as fully as
their convenience was emphasized. Especially the IUD was used without reasonable
warnings. If women noticed that they were having undesirable side effects from the pill,
such as vomiting, etc. they were counseled to find another brand that their bodies could
better cope with (Brfickner 178). All in all, the advantages were seen to far outweigh any
disadvantages.

Abortion was also seen as a form of birth control and it was connected with a
seemingly contradictory mixture of concepts. Women were encouraged to carry an
unwanted pregnancy to full term, even in cases of rape. The belief that women attained
ultimate satisfaction when they conceived took precedence. At the same time, abortion
itself was a sign of progressive socialism. Because the GDR legalized abortion, women
no longer had to rely on “butchers” not regulated by the medical system. Legalizing
abortion supposedly actually led to fewer of them being performed (Brfickner 182).
Sexual openness, as well as the supporting social system, allowed women other choices
than abortion. Childcare and birth were not supposed to restrict the mother’s social and
work life and many of the social taboos against, for example, unwed mothers were
supposed to have disappeared under socialism. Lastly, although girls and young women
were informed of their legal rights to abortion, they were in some cases given detailed

descriptions of the process. In Brfickner, abortion was presented as an unsavory process

78

and terms like “SChwangerschaftsunterbrechung” were dismissed as being euphemistic.
He reasoned that if a woman chose to end a pregnancy, she was supposed to confront the
material reality of the situation: “der Embryo wird zerstOrt, nach Dehnung des

Gebéirmutterhalskanals [und] operativ ausgeraumt beziehungsweise abgesaugt“ (180).52

Sexual Classism/Social Hierarchy

In East German sex discourse, there was a hierarchy of sexual enlightenment
based on work and education. Children who grew up with parents in managerial
positions, especially if both parents were supervisors, were supposedly better able to deal
with their own sexuality. Furthermore, they were considered better able to evaluate the
importance of sexuality, while also demonstrating an interest in high culture (Starke 255).
Daughters of managers were though more likely to have orgasms more frequently as well
as earlier than other young women, since their parents were supposedly more engaged in
a family life invested in socialist ideals of childrearing (Starke 190). In addition,
managers themselves supposedly had a more active sex life than normal workers; young
female supervisors seemed to be most differentiated from other women in their age
group. These women were “sehr aktiv, anspruchsvoll, fiberdurchschnittlich verlangend
und genuBfahig” and they supposedly had an “Ausstrahlung” that other young women
lacked (Starke 168).

As a supposed rule of thumb, women who were satisfied at work, led strong
family lives, were politically active, and were educated were more likely to lead sexually
satisfied lives (Schnabl 95). They in turn were more appealing sexually. Social and
sexual success also translated into aging more gracefully (Schnabl 95). Similarly, young
men and women (but more so men) who identify with socialist society more strongly

tended to have more satisfied sex lives (Starke 166). Again, social and political activity

 

52 This was likely a reaction against what some sexologists considered lightheartedness on the part of some
women who aborted unwanted pregnancies. Thus they felt the need to emphasize the responsibility that
comes with the right to abort.

79

seemed to correspond directly to sexual activity. The socially and politically active had
more sex and were better satisfied by that sex (Starke 167).

The less educated and less socially motivated members of socialist society also
supposedly tended to be less sexually enlightened. Women above all were confined by
outdated bourgeois taboos. These women also had a difficult time dealing with their own
sexuality—revealing a higher percentage of frigidity (Schnabl 128-162). Young people
who are “weniger gebildet [und] unqualifiziert” are also less likely to actually touch the
genitalia of their partner during sex, especially during their first intercourse. These youth
also seemed to have their first sexual experiences without having carefully chosen their
partner and seemed to change their partners frequently (Starke 146). In fact, in the sexual
questionnaires that Starke’s group handed out, those who were less educated were
supposedly less likely to understand the point of many of the questions and therefore did
not put much energy or thought into answering them (104-105). Thus, well-educated
socialists who were politically committed and successful at work were more likely to
have more sex, more orgasms, and raise their children with an open attitude toward sex,
whereas the less educated were less likely to care about sex, more likely to perpetuate
sexual and physical taboos, frequently Change sexual partners, and less likely to raise
their children in a sexually positive atmosphere, according to Starke et al.’s evaluation. It
is clear then that sexual progressiveness was, at least in sex discourse, directly tied to
social and political progressiveness, creating a socialist hierarchy that valued its citizens
based on their political activity, intelligence, success in the workplace, and sexual

satisfaction.

Discourse on Homosexuality

 

How does homosexuality fit into a moral system that favored heterosexual
monogamy and placed special emphasis on reproduction? Homosexuality and its

discourse in the 19803 occupied a site of contradiction.

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In der Literatur, die populfirwissenschaftliche Kenntnisse fiber Sexualitiit
und angrenzende Bereiche verrnittelt, zeichnet sich ein Wandel ab. Aber
typisch fi'rr viele Vertiffentlichungen ist ihre Widersprfichlichkeit. So
werden zwar homosexuelle Bfirger z.B. als gleichwertige Bfirger
akzeptiert und die SchluBfolgerung gezogen, sie nicht zu diskriminieren.
Dann aber kommt das ABER. . .Entweder wird bedauert, daB diese Leute
nicht zu heilen sind, und/oder Homosexualitéit wird zu negativen Werten
in Beziehung gesetzt, wie falsche Erziehung, Abnormitiit, mangelnde
Intelligenz, Kriminalitfit, Asozialitat etc. (Sillge, “zur psychosozialen
Situation“ 77).
This contradiction is not only evident in Ursula Sillge’s evaluation of the homosexual and
society in the GDR, but is also evident in sex discourse. On the one hand, homosexuality
had been legal in East Germany since 1968 and was a sign of East German sexual
progressiveness couched in antifascist discourse (Starke 297). Sex discourse of the 19803
encouraged acceptance and/or tolerance, claiming that homosexuality is a “Variante der
Sexualitat” (Schnabl 300, Starke 297), or an “Eigenart, die [Homosexuelle] weder wahlen
noch andem kdnnen” (Starke 297). On the other hand, homosexuals were considered
more likely to develop psychological neuroses due to their “Anderssein” (Starke 292) and
talk of “Heilaussichten” for homosexuals was not completely absent from sex discourse
(Schnabl 300). Schnabl encouraged a strategy of “Vorbeugung der Homosexualitéit“ in
youth. “Wenn von frfiher Kindheit an durch konsequente Entwicklung von Leitbildem
heterosexuellen Geprages das spatere Sexualstreben in die norrnale Richtung gelenkt
wird — eingebettet in eine zweckmaBige Gesamterziehung -, kann manche homosexuelle
Entwicklung aufgehalten werden“ (301).
Mainstream sex discourse sent mixed messages about homosexuality by aligning
it with F ehlhaltungen, Perversionen, and Abarten, that were also dealt with marginally at

the end of books (Schnabl, Starke/Friedrich, Brfickner) or not at all (Polte). While overtly

81

claiming “wir zahlen Homosexualitéit nicht zu den Perversionen” and that “echte Liebe”
was possible among homosexuals, homosexuals were portrayed as “sehr empfindsam,
schnell beliedigt, reizbar, unausgeglichen, leicht zu beeinflussen, nervlich labil, ja
neurotisch” (Schnabl 284-5).53 Special attention was dedicated to discussing the causes of
homosexuality, specific problems caused by homosexuality, as well as the necessity for
therapy—not as a curative, but for equipping the homosexual with the proper tools to
cope in a heterosexual society. Some mainstream sexologists, such as Schnabl and
Brfickner, also seriously cautioned against interaction between homosexuals and youth.
“Wenn nun Jugendliche durch erwachsene Homosexuelle verfiihrt und in deren
Vorstellungswelt eingefiihrt werden, so kann das eine ‘Umformung’ ihrer noch nicht fest
ausgerichteten Erlebensweise bewirken (Gewfihnungshomosexualitéit)“ (Brfickner 202-
203). At the same time, other sexologists disavowed this belief by stating that young
heterosexuals are no more susceptible to homosexuality than homosexuals are to
heterosexuality (Starke 114). Homosexuals were, at best, seen as a site of instability in
the socialist body.

Parallel to mainstream sex discourse of the 803 there was an emerging discourse
of homosexuality that, though dominated by mainstream sexologists, did not enjoy the
same visibility as popular sex manuals. Between 1985 and 1989 there were three
conferences on homosexuality at the universities in Leipzig, Chemnitz (then Karl-Marx-
Stadt), and Jena respectively—the proceedings of each was published the following
year.54 1988 also saw the publication of Rainer Wemer’s publication Homosexualita't:
Herausforderung an Wissen und Toleranz. Though not sexology but still a part of
homosexual discourse, in 1989 Jfirgen Lemke’s collection of interview literature Ganz
normal anders was published by the Aufbau-Verlag and the first East German feature

film on homosexuality entitled “Coming Out” debuted (on the rather auspicious date of 9

 

’3 Though I have directly quoted Schabl here, the language used by the other sexologists does not greatly
differ. .

82

November). The overall trend in all of these publications is that gay male experience is,
for the most part, universalized as pan-homosexual experience. In very few instances is
lesbianism thematized. Wemer’s book on homosexuality dedicates five pages to lesbians.
At the conferences on homosexuality, lesbian papers remained static a two per
conference, although the last conference had three papers that compared lesbian to gay
male experience. Both the film and interview literature collection were about gay men.
Much as mainstream sex discourse relegates homosexuality to the margins, lesbians are
relegated to the margins of homosexual discourse. Lesbian discourse, such as the
underground newspaper fiau anders that appeared January 1989, remained just

that—underground—and never joined the more visible homosexual discourse.

Mainstream sex discourse had little to no room for the lesbian; she was obscured
in a number of ways. Heterosexuality as a constitutive element of socialist identity denied
homosexuality, much less lesbianism. Sex practices that privileged the male penis failed
to recognize sex acts in which a penis was not involved—for hetero or homosexuals.
Women who did not respond to the male penis were hidden behind the monolithic term
frigid and considered unstable socialist subjects in sex discourse. Because female sex and
gender roles were bound to receptive practices, lesbian sex in mainstream sex discourse is
frequently portrayed as a pale mimicry of heterosexual genital intercourse and relying on
a “kfinstlichen Penis,” further erasing lesbian experience. The conflation of female sexual
experience with productive motherhood within a heterosocial context rendered non-
productive lesbian sex, as well as any lesbian family unit, practically invisible in

socialism. Moreover, even homosexual discourse was dominated by male discourse, so

 

5" In 1989, Gfinther Amendt published a West German selection of texts from the first two conferences
entitled Natit'rlich anders: zur Homosexualita'tsdiskussion in der DDR.

83

much so that to be homosexual was, as many East Germans understood it, to be a man, to

be schwul.

 

’5 Of course, what Brfickner’s reasoning manages to leave out is that many lesbians already have children
from earlier marriages. It also ignores the fact that many East German heterosexual marriages are
“completed” with children from earlier partnerships.

84

Chapter Three

 

The Idealized Lesbian in East German Women’s Fiction

 

l56 in East Germany, which was

In 1985, the first nation-wide women’s festiva
largely organized by lesbians, took place in Dresden under the topic of “Lesbische Liebe
in der Literatur” (Waberski 90). Though lesbian literature was a common topic among
lesbians in the GDR, much of the literature they discussed was not generated by East
Germans and stemmed from the Anglo-American or West German traditions. Despite the
paucity of lesbian representations on the East German front, GDR authors did, on
occasion, mine same-sex relationships for literary material, and some of these such as
Waldtraut Lewin, Irrntraud Morgner, and Ingeborg Arlt were even invited to talk about
their literary works by lesbian groups, since they were recognized as authors “deren
Bficher offensichtlichen lesbischen Gestalt hatten” (Waberski 90). Despite the presence
of lesbian characters in GDR women’s literature, there was no lesbian literature per se in
the GDR. Thus the question arises: What was the function of the lesbian in literature?

The preceding chapter demonstrates that the socialist subject was clearly
heterosexual to coincide with the socio—political goals of the GDR state. Within this
social/institutional construct, the lesbian could not exist. She does not conform to the
sexual roles created for socialist women as either mothers or partners to the man in the
smallest unit of socialism, the nuclear family. This chapter further investigates texts that
conceal lesbian experience. In the case of East German women’s fiction, the lesbian is
obscured behind the imagined “Lesbian” who has a specific role in East German
oppositional literature.

Literary scholarship has clearly established that East German literature was a

literature deeply embedded in the socialist project. Whether scholars tend toward the

 

5" The first three of these were in Dresden. Although they must have been organized through the Protestant
Church, there is no indication that they were part of the Kirchentag, which took place in Greifswald in
1985 and other cities in the subsequent years.

85

periodization of GDR literature into the categories of socialist realism, modernism, and
postmodernism attributed to Wolfgang Emmerich, in which modernism consists of the
“better texts of GDR literature [that] disengage themselves from official discourse and
cast literature as a ‘counter-text’; as a subversion of the official discourse” (Rewrite 125)
or prefer the arguments posed by Julia Hell that:
Following the collapse of National Socialism and its political imaginary,
organized around Hitler’s body, the locus of power was empty. For the
SED, reconstruction involved creating a new symbolic order, and the
center of this new order was constructed by deploying a symbolic politics
of paternity, a cultural discourse centered around the Antifascist Father.
This discourse characterizes the political speeches and essays of the
immediate post-war period; but, above all, it is developed in literature
(Critical Orthodoxies 70);
it is Clear that socialism, as either the central or oppositional thread, is a constitutive
element in East German literature. As the Literaturstreit of the early 19903 established,
even so-called oppositional literature is deeply invested in the socialist agenda, a socialist
utopia, and the “real existing socialism” of mundane life in the GDR. The reading public
that was surprised by this devotion to the socialist utopian vision by many of the GDR’s
premier authors, in the words of Gfinther de Bruyn, “gibt damit zu, [Christa Wolf and
andere Autoren] vorher nicht richti g gelesen zu haben oder aber in ihnen, nachdem ihre
oppositionelle Rolle gegenstandslos wurde, nur noch politische Gegner zu sehen” (quoted
in Rossbacher 23).

This chapter than investigates specifically how the lesbian is used as a literary
device to support the sociopolitical project of GDR women’s fiction. Marilyn F arwell, in
“Heterosexual Plots and Lesbian Subtexts,” pursues a similar issue in the context of
Anglo-American literature, and she proposes that “What we must ask instead [of whether

a work of literature is lesbian literature] is how the strong lesbian overtones function in

86

the text as a whole, especially in a novel, which cannot, without violence, be called
lesbian” (92). It is the goal of this chapter to show how the lesbian as an ideal woman
functions within the agenda of women’s fiction.

The lesbian is used symbolically to point to the ever-widening chasm between the
real existing socialism pronounced by Erich Honecker in 1971 and the socialist utopia as
a political goal, however unreachable that goal may be. In order to establish this
argument, I will first elaborate the position of literature in the GDR as a supposed
Ersatzoflentlichkeit as well as look specifically at the socialist utopia and its role in GDR
literature. I will also review the goals of women’s fiction specifically and how, in a
number of specific works, the lesbian functions, at least in part, in achieving these goals.
Then, using the work Kassandra as a point of study, I will show that at the plot level,
characters marked as lesbian are used to establish a utopian space in direct conflict with
the everyday heterosexual “reality.” In addition, I will demonstrate, at the meta-level of
Character configurations, that by Oedipal positioning—by this I mean how the Character
is created in the Oedipal symbolic established by Freud—or other alignments, a lesbian is
structurally created (not at the plot level) which adds a dis-ease to even heterosexual
female characters, contributing to the critique of the patriarchal order. Lastly, I will show
how the lesbian, or the “rumor” of the lesbian, can be used to drive the heteronarrative,
but that, as the narrative in Kassandra so aptly shows, the heteronarrative, as the

patriarchy, is inescapable, or escapable only in death.

GDR Literature and the Socialist Agenda

 

Early literary production in the GDR was strictly controlled by the ideals of
socialist realism; it was the goal of literature to project the desired reality of the
developing socialist state in order to encourage the Citizenship to strive toward creating a
material version of that “reality.” This developed in a state that set itself up as the

oppositional state to Nazi fascism and created itself out of a myth of resistance and

87

victimization. As the East German state progressed, the gap between the rhetorical and
quotidian existence of East Germans did not seem to be closing. It is in this context that
literature began to take on what is known as the role of the Ersatzoflentlichkeit (substitute
public sphere). Brigitte Rossbacher, discussing this common view of the role of GDR
literature of the 19703 and 19803, uses the work of Monika Maron, which was actually
never published in the GDR, as critical of GDR censorship; Maron’s literature “stresses
joumalism’s propagandistic role within a society where ideological proclamations were
divorced from lived experience. As a consequence there was immense pressure on
literature. . .to document public opinion and address societal contradictions” (Rossbacher
18-19).

Polemical views of GDR literature have often divided authors and their works by
conflating seemingly collaborative content with the bad and dissenting with the good. In
fact, for many years this was the main criterion in the West for judging GDR literature,
either explicitly or implicitly, but as we have seen in the last fifteen years “Reality was,
indeed, much more complex” (Hamburger 171). For example, Western readings of
Christa Wolf and Heiner Mfiller often saw them only in their dissident role against the
GDR state, thus “logically” placing them in the same camp of Western ideals of
democracy while overlooking their pro-socialist stance. This sort of reading, then, of
course allowed the Western world to be completely shocked when it was revealed that
both authors—having been firmly placed on the top of a high, moral, and certainly
Western pedestal—had briefly worked for the Stasi in their youth. Thus, although
literature has often been seen as a type of Ersatzb’flentlichkeit allowing certain authors the
necessary space to voice concerns about daily life in the GDR, state constraints and
censorship make this view too black and white. “In a certain concrete sense, the writer
bore the inscription of the difficult task that all GDR citizens faced in negotiating their
individual and corporate selves. By exposing the seam between these different selves, the

writer was reproducing a fundamental trope of daily life” (Mittrnan 23).

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Literary space allowed for criticism of as well as alliance with the state, but the
division of these two categories was fuzzy and often both voices could be found within
the same text. With the onset of literary production in the 19703 (specifically landmark
works around 1968, such as Wolf’s Nachdenken iiber Christa T.), the development of
literary techniques such as fragmented voices and episodical organization often allowed
authors more room for play, giving them the chance to develop “alternative perspectives
and diverse discourses” (McClintock). These are exactly the modernist traits in that
literature that led to Emmerich’s separation between socialist realism and modernism. If
writers were able to create more alternative narratives, “encod[ing] criticism within the
texts” as Costabile-Heming claims, then their readers were forced to learn to “read
between the lines” in order to decode these texts created out of an “inner exile” enforced
upon the writer (4). Literary space was, furthermore, filled with ambiguity because of
censorship, “the public sphere was not ‘open’ in the GDR. Rather censorship and other
oppressive practices turned literature into an extension of the state” (Costabile-
Henningl6). Thus state control over literary production in civil society created not only
overtly collaborative texts, but also a space in which instructive texts,’7 such as Mfiller’s
plays, were a labyrinth of postmodern form combined with encoded messages hidden in
myths.

Current reading strategies of GDR literature must be aware of “The failure of
many Western critics to acknowledge the complexities of literary production in the GDR
[that] contributed to one-sided readings of texts” (Rossbacher 23). It is simultaneously
difficult, but also critical, to avoid judging GDR literary production solely based on its
dissident status, as Emmerich does above. GDR literature, like other national literatures,

is not solely political production. In fact, Kane reminds us:

 

’7 Many socialist authors still believed that literature served a social as well as educational purpose and
their contribution to socialist society would be to create texts that illuminate the reader or audience. Thus,
many “critical” authors—Mfiller, Braun, Wolf, etc—did not abandon the educational potential that
literature had.

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to regard the GDR’s novelists, poets and playwrights and what they have

written either as pawns and pieces in a cultural and political debate, or, to

use a scathing expression of one of the distinguished East German

contributors to this volume, as ‘Zeitungsersatz’, would be deeply insulting

and a severe diminishment of what individual writers have achieved (x).
Though much of the literature was indeed used as a vehicle for expressing ideas that may
have been socially critical, the literature itself did not solely pursue a political agenda; it
is both literature as well as a critical voice.

Within the almost journalistic function that has been ascribed to GDR literature,
there developed a sophisticated critique and playful observation of the disconnect
between socialist rhetoric and the daily life. Brigitte Rossbacher describes the function of
literature thus:

The officially prescribed role of literature was to support and further
socialist development, a role regulated through censorship and other
govemment-implemented controls. Yet the literary realm also constituted
one of the few domains of the public sphere in which societal conflicts and
contradictions could be voiced. The resulting double bind of collaboration
and critique characterizes GDR literary production of the 19703 and
19803, years in which the glaring disparity between the dream and the
reality of socialism became apparent (34).

Of course, the socialist utopia could never be attained, but when real existing
socialism was declared, it was as if the dream had been completely abandoned for a
reality that was found wanting. Many writers still longed for the third way. It is this
tension between the desire for improvement and the govemment’s denial of the need for
change that led to the expulsion of Wolf Bierrnann and the subsequent abandonment of

the GDR by so many authors. Those who chose to remain did so in pursuit of this utopia.

“Das geliebte Objekt des DDR-Autors: Das war der ‘wirkliche’ (dabei nie wirklich!)

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Sozialismus im Gegensatz zum ‘realen’, eine Utopie, die in immer noch nicht ganz
aufgeklarter Weise an der miBgestalteten Wirklichkeit hing — und von der die libidinOse
Energie abzuziehen so schwer fallt” (Emmerich 176).

It was also in the 19703 that a philosophy professor at the Leipzig Karl-Marx
University, Ernst Bloch, began to gain popularity and also face growing difficulties from
the East German state because of his call for a “concrete utopia” that was:

closely connected to everyday life. For Bloch, utopian thinking had
subversive potential. In contrast to ideologies, which he defined as groups
of ideas that reflect and defend the status quo, he attributed the idea of
utopia to groups who attempt to undermine and rupture the status quo in
the hope of a better society (Rossbacher 15).
This kind of concrete utopia was in direct conflict with the real existing socialism that
had seemingly given up any hope for more. Bloch was not against the idea of a utopia,
but rather the fact that that the socialist utopia had been abandoned as a social project,
while a lesser shadow of that ideal—i.e. “real existing socialism,” or the material
conditions of the GDR in its last two decades—was praised by the state as the end goal.

In literature, there were definite reactions to the abandonment of the ideal.
Protokolliteratur, for one, used the voices of everyday subjects to highlight the vast
difference between socialist goals and everyday life. For example, various women’s
collections showed the reality of women’s double burden at work and home that
contrasted vastly with the promises of equality in socialist rhetoric and law. The literary
subject also differed greatly from the flat ideal of the socialist subject. “The
misinterpretation of Marx had led to a predetermined and fixed subject [the comrade]
within a ideological framework, and any development of the subject is consequently per
se heretic. Hence, women writers who could not fit into this model of the subject must be
heretical” (Dueck 58). By fragmenting the subject and drawing attention to internal

contradictions, which mirrored the contradictions in the state only played out on the body

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of the literary subject, the misconstrued and falsely idealized East German socialist
subject was revealed. As writers drew attention to the dystopia that was the GDR, the
Wende revealed the chasm of expectations between those writers and the citizenship,

which in the majority had abandoned socialist ideals for Western ones.

Women’s Fiction and the Function of “the Lesbian”

 

Women’s literature had its own set of concerns directly connected to those of the
larger context of East German literature. East German authors of women’s literature were
concerned with the “[f]ormation of body image, femininity, and sexuality” (Dueck 15) as
well as the development of subjectivity “as a measure for reality. . .If the subject can fully
and freely develop itself and engage thereby with societal structures and processes,
something will have truly been achieved by the socialist state” (Dueck 52). As feminist
concerns develop into the 19803, women’s literature becomes more concerned with the
“roots of patriarchy. . .its manifestations in society, its impact on the female subject”
(Dueck 17). Feminist utopias and quotidian dystopias then become the realms in which
these women’s issues were dealt with.

In a pragmatic way, there is a large body of GDR women’s literature that deals
with the everyday issues faced by women under socialism, especially the “doppelte Last”
women had to carry because they were not only fully active members of the work force,
but they were also almost solely responsible for household duties and childrearing.
Though socialism supposedly assured them full equality with men, this equality never
completely broke the private barrier; men and women—outside of isolated cases—never
really shared household duties, and legally women were fully burdened with childrearing.
An observable rift between socialist rhetoric and everyday experience was a real part of
women’s lives and by the 19703 women authors took this up in their writing to “beklagen
das Versagen der DDR, eine form des Sozialismus zu entwickeln, welche die

. Selbstverwirklichung mOinCh macht, sie reden oft satirisch, fiber die ‘doppelte Last’,

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[Autorinnen] suchen tastend nach Altemativen, die fiber die Beschriinkungen des
heutigen Lebens in der DDR aufweisen” (Lennox 235).

An idealized version of lesbian relationships is one of the alternatives used in
women’s literature to playfully point to the uneven relationship in GDR heterosexual
relationships and posit an idealized solution to women’s double burden under socialism.
“Ich habe wieder geheiratet” by Christine Wolter is an especially good example of how
the myth of the lesbian, or perhaps in this case the innuendo of a lesbian relationship,
very Clearly points to the inadequacies of the socialist nuclear family. The short story is
about two women who live together, share housekeeping and Child raising duties and, in
general, find that they are much happier because of this. The narrator, a woman who
recently left her husband, plays with the fantasy of the reader. She begins the story with
the statement, “Ich habe wieder geheiratet. Diese Nachricht hat meine F reunde, die, die
mich gut kennen, fiberrascht. Um genau zu sein, eine wirkliche Hochzeitszeremonie hat
nicht stattgefunden, das erlauben die Umstfinde nicht” (Wolter 143). The narrator’s
“wife” Rosa is described as the antithesis of the narrator’s ex-husband, T. Whereas he
never helped in the house, harassed her while she drove, would not let her go to private
parties with him and had an affair, Rosa is T.’s exact opposite. The two women share all
chores, Rosa is confident of the narrator’s driving skills, and she goes out frequently with
the narrator. Therefore, Rosa becomes for all intents and purposes the positive force that
fills the negative space left by T.

Though no sexual relationship is mentioned, there are inconclusive hints
throughout the story, such as comments from the narrator’s friends such as “Du warst
immer ein bissel verrfickt,” and glances from the neighbors that heighten suspicion.
When the two women arrive at a party together, they both notice—and enjoy—how the
air begins to crackle when the other guests notice that it is not a “normal” couple entering

the room, but rather that two women have come together. The narrator, without naming

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it, is purposely leading the reader to the almost inescapable conclusion that these two
women are lesbians.

In fact, they are not. The critical shift fi'om a hinted-at perversion to normalcy
occurs on the last page. For the first time in the short story, the narrator seems to notice
that this woman, Rosa, with whom she shares her life, possesses “iiuBere Reize” and
considers that—albeit briefly—a “Versuchung” (geheiratet 149). This thought is quickly
squelched, however, by the thought that both women are much too smart to ruin what
they have together, as companions, as helpmates. The last action in the story displaces the
sex that Rosa and the narrator would have together, were they lovers, from the narrator
onto the ex-husband T. The object of desire, the lesbian body, is replaced by the male
closest to the possible lesbian body. Reader expectations are flirted with and teased out,
much as the narrator briefly flirts with the idea of sexual experimentation, creating
tension to drive the narrative on.

East German women’s writing is strongly based in the second wave feminist ideal
that women and men are inherently different and that, to at least some degree, women are
morally and ethically superior to men because of their nurturing traits. Women also
supposedly have stronger connections to nature, the magical, and the fantastic (Lewis).
This connection to the fantastical is used in women’s literature to further emphasize the
split between the socialist utopia and real existing socialism—the fantastic is used to
uncover “a repressed and censored narrative that charts the continued subordination of
women in the private sphere, in the work place, and in the domains of historical and
scientific inquiry” (Lewis 9). Fantasy literature is common in any culture that is
especially repressive because it provides hope for alternate and better worlds: “It subverts
official or public versions of the truth by opposing dominant ideologies with alternative
truths, counter-myths, and other histories” (Lewis 3). According to Alison Lewis, for

GDR authors like Morgner, who relied heavily on the fantastic in their literature, it is

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“transgressive rather than escapist, critical rather than celebratory” (4). Fantastic elements
in realist texts, creating a “fantastic realism,” reveal the utter contradictions in society.

In combination with the fantastic lesbianism is not only idealized, but also
possesses dream-like qualities; fantasy allows it to be played with without being
presented as a viable alternative to heterosexuality. In the short story “Meine ungehérigen
Tréiume” by Helga Kbnigsdorf, comprised of five vignettes, the second vignette centers
on a lesbian encounter between Snow White and the narrator. In this dream version of
Snow White, she is dressed like a stereotypical GDR housewife, in “ einer blauen
Schfirze und einem gelben Kopftuch,” and it is one of the narrator’s (ex)lovers, Karlchen,
who has eaten the stepmother’s apple. As Karlchen lies in a death-like sleep and Peter,
the other love interest (both men are, incidentally, dwarves), is put to sleep with a strong
punch; the two women “kosten [sich] und genossen erregt die weibliche Weichheit” (67).
In the middle of this description of their lovemaking, the narrator gives a short exegesis
on the fact that women cannot possibly understand the nature of men and that patriarchal
literature has led to the misplaced belief that men are logical creatures. This is largely due
to the fact that men have written the literature in which gender relations are thematized.
Thus, male authors are certain of their own logical intent. This is then followed with the
statement that:

In keinem Augenblick meines Lebens habe ich alle diese Barrieren so weit
fiberschritten wie in diesem Traum mit Schneewittchen. F fir einen Moment
war eine fremde Trieblandschaft in grelles Blitzlicht getaucht, um sofort
emeut ins Dunkle zu fallen, unverstandlich wie zuvor (T ra'ume 68).
The love scene between the two women is completely disrupted when Karlchen wakes
up, starts chasing Peter around in a jealous rage, and Snow White is distracted by
Karlchen’s needs. The interlude is over and the narrator is left, even as she begs and
throws herself at Snow White’s feet, commenting that “Unseren Stolz hatten wir

irgendwo hinter den sieben Bergen zurfickgelassen” (T ra'ume 69). Ultimately, the narrator

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is unable to convince Snow White to ignore the men. Snow White, in the guise of
protecting Karlchen, then eats him while the director58 storms in, blowing out all of the
candles and destroying the last vestiges of any romantic mood.

The lesbian scene proves to be a too-brief interlude that allows the narrator to
voice her critique on the difficulty of understanding heterosexual-based gender roles.
Even this however demonstrates that the lesbian love scene is controlled by heterosexual
desires given that it is—at its core—controlled by the narrator’s reflections on the literary
source of gender myths. Only in the dream-world arms of another woman is the narrator
able to use this woman-defined outsider position as a place of criticism before she is
completely pulled back into the circle of heterosexual intrigue among Snow White,
Karlchen, and Peter.

Like the text from KOnigsdorf, “Gute Botschafi der Valeska in 73 Strophen” by
Irmtraud Morgner, also plays with gender and sexuality to critique societal gender roles.
The story itself, organized like one of the books of the Christian Bible, is established as a
kind of “tract” or religious parable to help other women overcome the problems they face
due to gender roles; they are taught how to step out of those roles using their “magical”
powers as women. The following longer quote from Eva Kaufrnann clearly highlights the
revolutionary aspect of Valeska’s message to disrupt the status quo. Perhaps a gentle
reminder that Christ was a radical activist as Valeska is, though it is the religious
devotion to the patriarchal elements of the East German socialist system and male power
that Valeska attempts to overcome:

Was Morgners Valeska zu ihrem und ihrer Geschlechtsgenossinnen Heil
praktiziert ist der durch den Geschlechtertausch ermOinchte frdhliche Sieg
fiber Wfirde und Macht des Phallus. Welch ein Blasphemie, dies zum Kern
der “guten Botschaft” fiir die Frauen zu machen. Damit verletzt Morgner

Tabus auf der Sitten-, Geschmacks- und Politikebene alle auf einmal,

 

5” The “director” is another Character in these dream sequences. He is the head of the narrator’s department

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wenn sie das weibliche Erlfisungswerk — noch dazu mit lesbischem
Einschlag - in Moskau inszeniert, wo die Frauen unter dem “schleppenden
F ortgang revolutionéir eingeleiteter Veriinderungen” besonders leiden.
Morgners Berufung auf die Begrifflichkeit der Bibel (Offenbarung,
Botschaft, Lehre, Evangelist, Prophetin) ist zugleich parodistisch und
emst. Damit ist auf spielerische Weise auf die menschliche Dimension
verwiesen, um die es in der Erzfihlung geht. Valeska ist auch ein
weiblicher Messias (l l l).

Archetypes of gender roles are presented by Valeska and Rudolf. Valeska, defined
by her relationship to her future husband, is further defined as modest as well as
nurturing; at work she is competent and but she is defined through her motherhood and
heterosexual relationship with Rudolf. Rudolf, on the other hand, supposedly adheres to
stereotypical masculine roles in his arrogance, “Rudolf betrieb seine F orschung in der
Uberzeugung, der grOBte Wissenschaftler seines F achs zu sein” (Morgner 27) and also
somewhat cerebral attitude, allowing Valeska to take care of the physical, daily
chores—despite the fact that are professionally equal. Rudolf takes for granted that
Valeska will cook, do the shopping, as well as entertain guests. Valeska is unsure of
moving in with Rudolf and is reluctant to give up the relative ease of being a single
mother, where she only has the one person to care for, her son. “SchlieBlich lebte sie
wunderbar erleichtert allein mit ihrem Sohn, seitdem die Scheidung ihr alle Mfihen des
Daseins auch offiziell allein zu tragen erlaubte” (Botschaft 29).

Valeska’s tranforrnation to a man is accomplished solely through her own magical
powers as a woman; she repeats “Man mfiBte ein Mann sein,” three times before she is
“miraculously” changed. She accepts her male body as a type of disguise—never
accepting its potentially masculinizing effect on her inner life. On the other hand,

knowing that Rudolf would not approve of this new “uniform,” she escapes him until she

 

at work and he invades all of the dreams.

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can come to terms with this body. She is surprised at some point to find that she is
completely unprepared, not having had the background, to act as men act. Valeska’s
friend Shenja sees this as an advantage. The following quote is just one of the situations
in which Valeska realizes that fulfilling masculine actions does not make her feel like the
men around her act:
Sie kfiBte Schenja hingerissen die Hand. Der erste offizielle HandkuB. Das
minnliche Vorrecht, den Hof zu machen, gehOrt auch zu den allerersten
Vergnfigungen der menschlichen Rasse. Spiiter Liebe in der kommunalen
Wohnung.
Gedankenlos. Nachdem beide erfi'eut waren, fiel Valeska ein, daB die
erstrnals erprobte Apparatur ohne herrscherliche Geffihle und
Unterwerfirngsvorstellungen funktioniert hatte. Schenja war nicht
veerhnt, also begeistert (Botschaft 48).
Even after engaging in sex, or especially after engaging in sex, Valeska is amazed to
realize that she feels no stereotypically masculine tendencies. This lesbian sex, which is
coded as sex between two women, one of whom happens to have the body of a man “can
be read as a general expression of the desperation at the lack of sexual and social
alternatives available to women in the GDR: as the negation of all feminine desire—for
love between two women, for social mobility, for travel and adventures, and for
difference” (Lewis 138).

Given the narrative form and the exaggerated stereotypes represented by the
characters, Morgner has attained a humorous, but also incredibly critical look at male-
female relationships. Even though she alludes to homosexuality, we see that she is unable
to escape the heterosexual pairing and Valeska returns to Rudolf, moves in with him, and
they lead an equal and happy life, in which Valeska, “Um die landliiufigen moralischen
Vorstellungen nicht zu verletzen” (Morgner 62), returns to her female body to have sex

with Rudolf.

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On the other hand, women-centered alternatives to the nuclear family take on a
central importance. In fact, they dominate much of the narrative; ultimately, other women
are the intended recipients of this gospel. Sharing a house with other working mothers,
instead of with Rudolf, “presents a utopian perspective that touches on a subject that has
constituted one of the taboo topics in GDR literature. Such solutions as communal
were thought to be incompatible with the socialist ideal of the harmonious nuclear
family” (Lewis 1 12-113). She is giving women news of a miracle on which they can
pattern and change the material conditions of their lives. Thus, even though heterosexual
dominance is not completely undone in the plot of this short story, it is certame disrupted
by the dominant woman—centered communities since romantic relationships are not
valued as the optimal living arrangement.

Unlike the Morgner text, which relies on the fantastical elements in a woman’s
nature to provide solutions to social and gendered inequities, “Selbstversuch” by Christa
Wolf, also a short story about gender transformation, has a less positive outcome. The
transformation that the character Anders [other/different] undergoes is based in science,
not in magic, and for it to become permanent, Anders has to take on all aspects of being
male. Because he s/he cannot accept the physical as well as mental shift, Anders breaks
off the experiment. The fantastically induced Change that Valeska undergoes allows her
to overcome many age-old dilemmas, such as how to create the ideal marriage or solve
world hunger (Kaufmann 110), whereas Anders in “Selbstversuch” loses all of a
woman’s positive qualities and they are not replaced by equally positive male traits. By
becoming a man through and through, Anders also loses the privileged position women
supposedly hold in society to critique its problems (Lennox 231).

Irene, Anders’ one love interest, is unable to respond to the sexual advances
Anders makes, replying “wie schade es jetzt doch sei, daB wir uns von frfiher kannten”
(Selbstversuch 87). The only chance the narrator has of living out his/her sexual

masculinity is with someone who does not know his/her feminine past. That is, with a

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woman who would not be concemed—because she would not know—that she is “really”
having sex with a woman, despite the masculine apparatus. Of course, the irony of this
situation is that Anders becomes less and less the woman s/he was before as the
experiment progresses.

In this story, Wolf creates a solid criticism of gender roles and even how they
create heterosexual practices. The criticism ranges from bodily contact, either with
women or the men around Anders, to linguistic crisis. Just as Anders is not able to have
sexual contact with those women who know him/her, s/he is not able to communicate
either. All forms of expression are gendered and Anders’ liminal state as the
transformation from the female to the male is not completely finished finds him unable to
speak as well as love. Anders is struck by the irony that words are supposed to mean
something else to him/her in a masculine body than in a feminine one:

Sollte ich als Frau antworten? Als Mann? Und wenn als Mann: Wie denn,
um Himmelswillen? So daB ich schlieBlich auf “rot” nicht “Liebe” sagte,
wie sonst immer, sondem “Wut.” Auf “F rau” nicht “Mann,” sondem
“schfin.” Auf “Kind” “schmutzig” anstatt “weich,” und auf “Mfidchen”
nicht “schlank,” sondem “sfiB.” Olala, sagte mein F reund Rfidiger, ganz
schOn schon, mein Lieber (Selbstversuch 78-79).
S/he can imagine what the answers should be and how s/he “should” react as a man. By
pointing this out, s/he is however demonstrating the outrageousness that there should be
another “language” for men—who incidentally live on a different planet as women—as
well as the instability of language and how it manages simultaneously to undergird and
undermine established gender roles.

Another common theme that can be found in the works above is that men under
patriarchy are unable to love; they are only able to conquer. Only outside of patriarchal
structures can men and women come together as equal subjects in a relationship. Brigitte

Reimann’s F ranziska Linkerhand seems to support this feminist assertion. Throughout

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the story, Franziska’s love relationships are disturbed by patriarchal structures. She gives
in to romantic notions of love only to marry a man who beats her. As an architect, she is
subject to the whims of both her architecture master Reger as well as the architectural
designs of the state that are represented by Schaflreutlin. The one innocent expression of
love in the whole text is presented as an almost primordial occurrence with another young
girl in Frankziska’s youth. Before she has her first relationship with the young artist
Django, before she marries, before she is consumed by her career making love impossible
(taking on masculine traits for professional success), she enjoys the idealized sexual
contact with another “innocent” girl:

Sie war ein schdnes Madchen mit zimperlichem Mund und einer Masse

von weizenblondem Haar, das ihr beim Kammen in die Kniekehlen fiel,

und du kannst dir denken, wie attraktiv sie neben ihrem struppigen Pagen

aussah. Sie kfiBte mich. .. Manchmal, vom Sonnabend auf den Sonntag,

durfte ich bei ihr schlafen, und wir spielten allerlei unschuldige

Spiele. . .oder doch nicht so unschuldig. . .verwischte Erinnerung an

Fragiles, Zéirtliches, zwei Kinder in einem groBen Bett, der gelbe gefa‘ltelte

Seidenschirrn der Nachttischlampe” (F ranziska 35—ellipses in original).
Lesbian contact is presented as an ur-sexuality, an utopian precursor to the realities of
heterosexuality awaiting F ranziska as well as her friend. It also provides an innocent
counterpoint to the jaded Western consumerism indicated in the following quote: “Sie
wurde zu Haus streng gehalten, und mit sechzehn hatte sie einen geheimnisvollen Freund,
der einen Porsche fuhr, und mit achtzehn, kurz vorm Abitur, die erste Abtreibung, und
mit zwanzig heiratete sie einen Mercedes in Bad Pyrmont” (F ranziska 35). Of course,
this cannot provide the basis for sexual or love relationships and is remembered as a
brief, innocent prelude to the realism of socialist and/or Western heterosexuality.

Here we see that lesbianism, either as a relationship between two helpmates in the

home, or prefigured as a utopian innocence that is contrasted with heterosexual love, is

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used in women’s fiction as the fantastical, utopian other to the dystopia of real existing

socialism.

The Case of Kassandra

 

This section specifically deals with at Kassandra by Christa Wolf. I have chosen
this text for two main reasons. First, it demonstrates a shift in GDR women’s writing of
the early 19803, especially noticeable in Morgner’s Amanda and Wolf's Kassandra, away
from the quotidian issues confronting women under socialism to the mechanisms of state
power and patriarchal control and how they are interwoven with gender dominance
(Kaufmann). In Kassandra, Wolf traces the utilization of women within the militaristic
decline of the patriarchal order. Kassandra was published in 1983 at the height of
Reagan/Brezhnev-Andropov cold war tensions as the two Gerrnanies formed the focal
point of those tensions due to the addition of short-range nuclear missiles on both sides of
the wall. By “focusing on the antagonism between the Greeks and the Trojans, Wolf
prefigures East-West relations in her own time and relates masculinist patterns of
thought, the mentality of war and women’s objectification in the past and the present”
(Rossbacher 115). Because of the connection Wolf draws between war and patriarchy,
she has chosen the Trojan War specifically because it is the earliest recorded history,
demonstrating the shift from the matriarchal to the patriarchal, and marking the
emergence of war as a phallic power play. Kassandra, as the main Character “ist eine
Schnittstelle der beiden Themenbereiche” of that shift (Stein 173). Secondly, the
narrative complexity of this one text allows for an in-depth analysis of the function of
“the lesbian” at three levels: the characters marked as lesbians, the meta-lesbian of
character configurations, the lesbian as a critique of/disturbance in the heteronarrative.

The first level of analysis, that of characters more or less obviously marked as
lesbians, is in many ways the easiest to conceptualize. The individual lesbian figures and

lesbian community function in Kassandra by providing a utopian counterpoint to the

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patriarchal order and creating a space for working out sociopolitical solutions to the
damages caused by the patriarchy: “Der weibliche Eros wird bei Christa Wolf zum
Grundstein einer weitergehenden feministischen und politisch-utopischen Theorie
gemacht” (Tabah F iktionalisierung 227). In fact, “Wolf’s continued interest in utopian
themes has made her work suspect to the East German establishment. The concept of a
‘real, existing utopia’ ironically inverts the govemment’s oft repeated appeal to the
people to be content with ‘real existing socialism’; i.e., the status quo” (Pickle Scratching
44). Some theorists see lesbianism in close, physical relationships between women (that
are not necessarily genital) as well as strong, women-centered communities; for example,
Birgit Waberski argues for viewing any close women’s fiiendships as lesbian (11).
Others would claim that there is no lesbianism present if no direct mention is made of
sexual contact between women. For this analysis, I will consider both extremes. The
community on Mt. Ida is clearly women-centered and matriarchal—though this does not
exclude the presence of men, especially in the last two years of the war, any more than
the patriarchy excludes the complicity of women—and as such is also portrayed as
containing intimate women’s relationships. This section will also consider the individual

characters of Kassandra, Myrine, and Penthesilea as lesbians.

Lesbian Utopia in the Women-Centered Community

The Mt. Ida community is a women’s community outside of the citadel walls of
Troy that is led by the strong matriarch Arisbe and worships the goddess Cybele. The
first time the reader is introduced to this community is during a rite to Cybele in which
the women participate in a wildly sexual dance that Kassandra observes from the outside
and the sexuality of which she finds intimidating. This community proves dangerous to
the Trojan/Greek patriarchy in a number of ways: First, they are the truly matriarchal, the
proto-matriarchal culture that provides a utopian counterpoint for Trojan culture. Though

both women and men are part of the Mt. Ida community, women govern it; men, such as

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Anchises, though they are taken as counsel over the duration of the war, do not form or
create any governmental structure. In fact, instead of there being a single ruler of the
community, the women form their own council and discuss how to proceed, how to
continue to protect themselves. Secondly, Mt. Ida is also a threat to warlike patriarchy in
its silence and pacifism. There is a tension created in the way that they allow themselves
to be plundered by the Trojans of cloth and foodstuffs but still manage to survive the war
in the end. They choose to remain outside Troy’s city walls in secret, but manage to
provide more safety to their community than the stone walls of Troy do for its
inhabitants. As pacifists and nurturers, they provide a political counterpoint for the
warrnongering of the patriarchal societies in Greece and Troy. Lastly, there is a rampant
sexuality displayed by these women, both around the fire dancing to Cybele and in their
uninhibited touching that defies masculine power.

Through their pacifist behavior as well as sexual freedom, as opposed to the
stringent heterosexual sexual rites and rituals observed by the Trojans, the Mt. Ida
women also provide a space in which men and women work together, not ruled by
patriarchal sexual rites. Social interaction is not governed by sexual tensions created by
patriarchy and thus men and women coexist peacefully without women being oppressed
by the men who live on the mountain. In fact, the only sexual oppression they suffer is
under the Trojans when they take part in Trojan society and they are only relegated to
servant roles when working in Troy or when their goods are stolen by the Trojans.
Otherwise, they benefit fully from their own labor. Thus, the society has to guard its
paths and sneak into the caves, hiding themselves away from the Trojans in order to
preserve their way of life as well as that of the women and men who find refuge there. It
is not only sexual expression that marks this woman-centered community as “lesbian”
even though, throughout the war and especially in the last two years, it expands to

include men, with Achises (Aineias’ father) as a male complement to Arisbe.

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In the end the community consists of women and men from all levels in the social
hierarchy who have taken refuge in the caves and wish to pursue a peaceful alternative to
the “toxic situation in Troy” (Resch 135). Margit Resch reads the Mt. Ida community as a
“feminist paradigm” not to be “emulated” (i.e., that it only has value in its oppositional
function, not in any real sense); it would seem that she misses the point. It is exactly the
alternative to the toxic Troy, that is the toxic patriarchy, that this community allows and
that is created as more than a counterpoint, but a utopian goal to strive for—it is no
accident that Wolf has created a community in which there is no privilege or gendered
antagonisms. Mt. Ida is the “geographical space in which [the feminine ethic of love] can
be sheltered and nurtured. . .where female slaves, women from outside the citadel, and
other women gather to dance and commune” (Finney 101). It would be a mistake to claim
that this fictional Mt. Ida community is congruous with the historical Minoan society that
Wolf discusses in her lectures on poetics that accompany the Kassandra narrative; though
Wolf has certainly preserved the utopian qualities of the Minoan in the Mt. Ida
community, she abandons the problematic aspects of the Minoans, such as slave
ownership.

What is critical about this community in its final form, though it begins as a
utopian women’s-only space, is that it expands to include men who are peaceful. “For
Wolf, emancipation can only emerge if men and women work together toward a common
goal” (Rossbacher 143). The amalgamation of the women-centered community and the
refugees of patriarchy creates a version of the “third way” that is related to Wolf’s “real,
existing utopia” and Bloch’s “concrete utopia.” (Rossbacher 142). In its original form,
the Mt. Ida community embodies a “form of feminism that emphasizes women’s position
outside of a patriarchal history of oppression, women are untouched by that history’s
most destructive forces” (Hell Critical 93). Although, according to Hell, Wolf seems to
advocate the purity allowed by this kind of feminist vision, I would argue that Kassandra

does not support this kind of utopia and opts for the integrative community at the end.

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Anchises is no less critical of the advancement of patriarchy inside Troy’s city walls and,

as a man, is not afforded this supposed critical purity that women would claim. Linda

Pickle also stresses that, though the roots of the Mt. Ida women’s community predate

Troy, the community is enhanced by its alterations:
In her recreation of the world of the Trojan War, Wolf goes beyond the
portrayal of women’s growing powerlessness in this male-dominated
world. She also posits the formation of an alternate female subculture as
part of the hidden but absolutely spontaneous and natural reaction to it.
This subculture predates the war itself, and stems from the exiling of the
old female gods from Troy (Scratching 43).

It is the expulsion of women’s gods from Troy—i.e., the formation of the patriarchy by

exiling the gods of the matriarchy—that creates the Mt. Ida community and the war that

leads to its simultaneous expansion to accommodate the needs of those who support

neither the war nor its underlying patriarchal order.

The formation of this patriarchal order in Troy rests solely on

objective binary thought:...”F fir die Griechen gibt es nur entweder
Wahrheit oder Lfige, richtig oder falsch, Sieg oder Niederlage, F reund
oder F eind, Leben oder Tod. Was nicht sichtbar, riechbar, ht’irbar, tastbar
ist, ist nicht vorhanden“ (VK 124). Although they initially sustain
remnants of matriarchy and its values, the Trojans eventually internalize
and reproduce this mode of thinking. In place of subjectivity and valuation
of self-knowledge and intersubjective knowledge, they adopt a rationalist
mentality based on objectivity and utilitarianism (Rossbacher 139)

Thus, while the spirituality of the Mt. Ida community is driven by sexuality and a

connection to the earth, Arisbe is a mother-earth like character in her immensity and

presence, spirituality in Troy and for the Greeks is led by men who are calculating;

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Kalchas stays in Greece to save himself and provide visions that Agamemnon wants to
hear while Panthoos is equally self-serving in his spiritual leadership.

Furthermore, in Troy, as the patriarchy is more deeply established and war is
entered upon, women are increasingly pushed out of seats of power: Hekabe is removed
from the ruling council because in war it is “keine Frauensache mehr” (K 105). “Im
Gegensatz dazu steht die friedliche Gemeinschaft auf dem Berg Ida, fast ausschlieBlich
eine Frauengemeinschaft, die sich wohlgemerkt auBerhalb der Zitadelle Troia bildet
(Stein 175). The patriarchy, while shutting women out of the ruling process, uses women
as political tools: Agamemnon has his daughter Iphigenia sacrificed to the gods for
favorable winds, Polyxena is bartered to Achilles ultimately to lure him to his death,
Kassandra is married to a potential ally, Eurpylos, who is killed the following day, after
impregnating her, and Helen, who never makes it to Troy but rather is taken captive by
the Egyptian ruler, is used as a symbol for a grueling war that is in actuality about trade
policy. In the patriarchal order, women are nothing more than tools to be used for
political and personal gain. As the patriarchy develops, the two communities, Troy and
Mt. Ida, do not become closer, as is the goal of a society and its utopia, but they diverge
so that there is ultimately no crossover between the two communities. The women who
moved between the two at will at the beginning of the narrative are forced to completely
abandon Troy for their own safety in the end. There are examples of women who
demonstrate aggressive traits throughout the narrative, but this violence occurs due to
interactions with the patriarchy, such as Penthesilea, the female guards who abuse

Kassandra, and the women who kill Panthoos as revenge for Penthesilea’s death.

Intimate Friendships and Sexual Alternatives to Heterosexual Patriarchy
We also find intimate relationships between individual women, such as the
friendship that develops between Marpessa and Kassandra. In this relationship, it is the

nurse Marpessa who is able to remain by Kassandra’s side, no matter what happens. After

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all of Kassandra’s lovers have either deserted her or have been killed, it is Marpessa who
takes the ship with Kassandra to Greece, who continues to care for Kassandra’s children,
even after Kassandra’s death and who comforts Kassandra in her final hours. She is the
helpmate who shores up Kassandra in her last hours of need. In a both political and social
context, regardless of the passing satisfaction that can be gained from a lover, it is this
kind of friendship that provides support and enduring companionship.

Beyond friendship, sexual relationships between two women have political
implications in Kassandra; lesbianism is used as a sensual contrast to the harshness of the
subject/object control implicit in patriarchal heterosexual pairings. According to Mireille
Tabah, “[Der weibliche Eros] korrigiert andererseits die brutale Sexualitéit, auf die sich
die mannliche Erotik in der patriarchalischen Gesellschaft reduziert hat, indem er
Anspruch auf eine entfaltete, alles umfassende Sinnlichkeit erhebt und nach Zéirtlichkeit,
Vertrauen, Offenheit, Rficksicht und die Bedfirfnisse des anderen verlangt”

(F iktionalisierung 229). Not only is the physical and emotional aspect of the utopian
lesbian relationship more satisfactory, it also allows Kassandra to be an equal subject,
what she was seeking as a priestess and seer in Troy (Tabah Liebesleben 85). This is in
direct opposition to the violence that patriarchal sexual relationships do to women and
even other men: “Sexuelle Potenz ist im patriarchalischen Klischeedenken Synonym filr
Macht und Herrschaft” (Tabah Liebesleben 86). This is played out on many levels in the
Kassandra narrative; Achilles is the worst example. He takes out his (sexual) frustrations
on serving women, young men, and then on Penthesilea’s dead body on the battlefield,
not having humiliated her enough by killing her. That Achilles engages in same sex
relationships does not hold the same meaning as lesbian relationships, but is rather, like
the necrophilia practiced on Penthesilea, an indication of his “verabsolierter
Mannlichkeit, die sich destruktiv gegen Menschen richtet” (W aberski 198). He is the
ultimate symbol of all sexual repression that happens between men and women in the

novel. Furthermore, the patriarchal sexual relationship establishes the less powerful

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member of the relationship, that is the woman, as the object; it is Wolf’s utopian goal that
sexual partnerships contain no object, but rather be established by two equal, autonomous
subjects, as in her version of a utopian lesbian relationship (Tabah F iktionalisierung 228).

Though a sexual relationship is an expression of the “Zugewandtheit von Frauen,
die nicht lfinger die KOrperlichkeit ausschlieBt. . .als rein weibliche Erfahrung positiv
dargestellt und von den Frauen lustvoll erlebt” (Waberski 197), according to Tabah, a
sexual relationship between women is, however, only a utopian, exemplary relationship
that does not actually play out in any developed way in the text:

[D]ie gleichgeschlechtliche Liebe [ist] das Modell einer erotischen
Beziehung ohne Gewalt- und Herrschaftsstrukturen, wie sie nach C. Wolf
in einer nicht patriarchalischen Welt auch zwischen Mann und Frau
mOinch sein soll. . .Das Verhéiltnis zwischen [Kassandra und Myrine] wird
nur in wenigen Seiten angedeutet und mit einer stilistischen Diskretion
nahegelegt, die es nicht erlaubt, es tatséichlich als Modell erotischer
Entfaltung der Frau zu betrachten (F iktionalisierung 234).
As a utopian space for women, the lesbian relationship is also seen as a refuge. After
Kassandra escapes her imprisonment and retreats to the Mt. Ida community to live out the
rest of the war, though she is still in love with and friends with Aineias, she only allows
Myrine to approach her sexually. The abuses from men have simply overwhelmed her to
the point that she no longer wants to participate in a sexual relationship with the future
hero Aineias.

It is the love relationship with Myrine that stands in stark contrast to the
ultimately failing relationship with Aineias. As Kassandra is more and more abused by
her heterosexual sexual relationships, either at the hands of Panthoos or her father (not
directly sexual, but in the form of his utilitarian use of her sexuality in the war and her
physical imprisonment to squelch the “voice” of warning and criticism that Kassandra

cannot control) she loses the ability to be touched by men. After she is freed from her

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prison by Myrine, Kassandra remains bonded to Aineias by friendship, but can no longer
tolerate the touch of a man. She only allows Myrine into her physical realm; it is this
relationship between Myrine and Kassandra that is related with hints and innuendo:
Das war dein geballter Trotz und deine flammende Trauer um Penthesilea,
die ich, was denkst du denn, verstand. Da war ihre tief verkrochene Scheu,
ihre F urcht vor Berfihrung, die ich niemals verletzte, bis ich ihre blonde
Mahne um meine Hand wickeln durfte und so erfuhr, wie miichtig die Lust
gewesen war, die ich lange schon darauf gehabt. Dein Léicheln in der
Minute meines Todes, dacht ich, und hatte, da ich mich keiner Zfirtlichkeit
mehr enthielt, fi'rr lange den Schrecken hinter mir. Jetzt kommt er dunkel
wieder auf mich zu.
Myrine ist mir ins Blut gegangen, im gleichen Augenblick, da ich sie sah,
hell und kfihn und in Leidenschaft brennend neben der dunklen sich selbst
verzehrenden Penthesilea. Ob sie mir Freude oder Leid brachte, loslassen
konnte ich sie nicht, aber sie jetzt neben mir zu haben, wfinsch ich nicht
(K 9-10).
The images of Kassandra’s hand entwined in Myrine’s blond hair and words like
Za'rtlchkeit (tenderness) are the emotive sexual markers for Kassandra and Myrine’s
relationship. Like the time spent with the women in the mountains, the passages that
reveal the relationship between Kassandra and Myrine are few, whereas the passages
dealing with Kassandra’s male lovers, Panthoos and Aineias, are relatively extensive and
direct. Heterosexual pairings, either between Kassandra and men or her sisters and
brothers, are straightforwardly presented throughout the text and form a large part of the
narrative, paired together with the destruction of the war, whereas the women-centered
and lesbian relationships are told in snatches of interspersed narrative. Though the time
spent on Mt. Ida at the end of the war, for example, was a full two years, it only makes up

four pages of the narrative. It signals that Kassandra has Chosen to quit fighting the

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patriarchy and simply chosen to disengage; after her imprisonment and Penthesilea’s
death, she no longer feels the need to interact with Trojan society. The relative peace and
silence among the women needs little narration in order to provide a stark and critical
contrast to the ravages of a patriarchal and warmongering society.

In Penthesilea however Wolf locates the supposedly negative aspects of a lesbian
separatist. Wolf Clearly establishes Mt. Ida as the positive alternative to the violence done
by patriarchy and it is not accidental that this society is mixed in gender, though
matriarchal in conception. Though literary scholars attribute Penthesilea with a range of
symbolic attributes, from a Bund-Deutscher-Mc’idel—leader and ultimate fascist to the bad
example of separatist feminism, it is this last example that Waberski takes up in her
analysis of the Kassandra narrative. Whereas the women on Mt. Ida and Kassandra are
willing to work together with men to forge an equitable society, Penthesilea chooses to
not join this community, opting for the life of a warrior instead; she literally fights against
the patriarchal order, but in the end, this kind of unilateral separatist approach leaves her
too weak to triumph and she is literally ravished on the battlefield. Penthesilea makes this
choice, though it spells her demise, because she does not believe in any alternative:

Penthesilea: Die Manner kommen schon auf ihre Kosten.

Arisbe: Du nennst ihren Niedergang zu Schléichtem auf ihre Kosten
kommen?

Penthesilea: Sie sind Schléichter. So tun sie, was ihnen SpaB macht.
Arisbe: Und wir? Wenn wir auch Schlfichterinnen wfirden?

Penthesilea: So tun wir, was wir mfissen. Doch es macht uns keinen SpaB.
Arisbe: Wir sollen tun, was sie tun, um unser Anderssein zu zeigen!
Penthesiliea: Ja.

Ainone: Aber so kann man nicht leben.

Penthesiliea: Nicht leben? Sterben schon.

Hekabe: Kind. Du willst, daB alles authrt.

lll

Penthesilea: Das will ich. Da ich kein andres Mittel kenne, daB die Miinner
aufhfirn.
Da kam die junge Sklavin aus dem Griechenlager zu ihr herfiber, kniete
vor ihr hin und legte Penthesileas Hande an ihr Gesicht. Sie sagte:
Penthesilea. Komm zu uns. — Zu euch? Was heiBt das. — Ins Gebirge. In
den Wald. In die Hdhlen am Skamander. Zwischen Tdten und Sterben ist
ein Drittes: Leben. (K 137-138).
Penthesilea believes that men are incorrigible; therefore as a woman she has the single
option of playing their game better than they do in order to end the game. Because
Penthesilea cannot accept the third option, to live, but feels she has to choose either
between men or women, to kill or be killed, “Penthesilea ultimately chooses death”
(Rossbacher 143).

I would however argue that the black/white analysis of Penthesilea’s role
provided by Waberski is not that cut and dried. The futility of Penthesilea’s battle is not
lost on the reader, but neither is the futility of Kassandra’s fight. She too eschews
patriarchy, which leads directly to her death. And though the Mt. Ida community survives
to escape with Aineias, they are likely to be subjected to the same utilization of women
under patriarchy as they are re-formed under a patriarchal system that forces them to
adapt in order to survive. After all, it is because Kassandra is convinced that Aineias will
have to succumb to patriarchy and become a hero, which will force him to adopt
patriarchal strategies and Oppress women, that leads her to choose death herself.
Kassandra cannot stand to become Aineias’ tool. Myrine, the female warrior alternative
to Penthesilea, who never takes up the mantle of the hero, also dies in the fight against
patriarchy as the only warrior who will listen to and act upon Kassandra’s warnings about
the Trojan horse. Ultimately, all of the paths against patriarchy are doomed in this

narrative.

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The Symbolic Lesbian

The previous section dealt with the idealized lesbian as a character in the narrative
and how lesbian pairings and lesbian community both function to provide a utopian
opposition to the failings of the patriarchy, both at the social and the intimate, sexual
level. This section will focus on character configurations and how a lesbian is created as
part of the character structure; this lesbian influences the narrative by her positioning, not
by her actions within the narrative.

According to Julia Hell in Post-Fascist Fantasies, in GDR literature, and
especially in the writing of Christa Wolf, “The identification with the father’s body [the
sublime body] results in the fantasy of the post-fascist body. . .sexuality is defined as that
part of subjectivity which links the subject to its fascist past, and the new subject comes
about as a result of the erasure of its material body, its sexual body” (19). It is exactly this
Oedipal identification with the father’s body that creates a further social disjunction
between Kassandra and the other characters in the Trojan and Greek patriarchy.

In the process of Oedipal identification, Kassandra is rejected by her mother
Hekabe, who Claims that Kassandra does not need her, and is taken in by the father.
Freud claims that the young woman, in order to rightfully inhabit a “normal”
heterosexuality, is supposed to desire the father. This requires that she identify with the
mother; in Kassandra’s case, the opposite happens. Not only does she clearly identify
with the father, he in turn seems to desire that identification from her. Kassandra’s
identification with Priamos is not one of desire as much as it is one of replacement, of
both her father and the sublime father in the form of the king. The king himself
perpetuates this identification process by sharing his fantasy with Kassandra that she
should take his place on the throne, “dressed in his clothes” and discussing politics with
her: “ich, Liebling des Vaters und an Politik interessiert wie keines meiner zahlreichen

Geschwister, ich durfte bei ihnen sitzen und hOren” (Kassandra 17). He further makes it

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clear that he considers her the one true heir to his throne and bemoans that she is female,
not male.

Further identification with her twin brother Helenus, the highest priest, reinforces
this masculinization. Kassandra Claims that Helenus is “the image of me if I had been a
man. If only I were!” (C 28). Hell firrther claims that in the act of losing her father’s
relationship she replaces him through an “act of identification” (238). Effectively, instead
of usurping the mother’s position, it is the father’s position that is usurped, and near the
end of the narrative it is the mother who is taken into protection on Mt. Ida by the
Oedipally lesbianized Kassandra.

Kassandra attempts from the beginning to occupy the place of a subject, a
masculine position in the patriarchy, instead of a feminine position of an object. It is her
desire to be a subject in the subject/object patriarchal heterosexual order (before she
deserts the order altogether) that creates Kassandra’s outsider position in Trojan society,
so much so that she balks at Apollo’s attempt to bed her in the vision he grants her. Thus,
he gives her the subject position she seeks as a seer, but curses her for denying her object
position in relation to him by making sure that she will never be believed. Her positioning
as a subject is never accepted in the subject/object society and only by escaping to the
Mt. Ida community is she able to act as a subject in a societal structure that ideally places
everyone in the role of subject. At the plot level, it is this society that also claims to have
no heterosexual relationships, though men and women live peacefully together, or

perhaps because of that fact.

Queering the Heteronarrative

This last section is concerned with the narrative structure of Kassandra and
specifically how by manipulating the intersection of sexuality and narrative, Wolf
disrupts heteronormative narrative structure. Judith Roof in Come as You Are, an

examination of the connection between sexuality and narrative, demonstrates how Freud

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not only creates a story about how sexuality develops, but also how stories are told and
the connections between the two. In his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality he does
not begin with normative sexuality, but rather with the perverse, what can go wrong, or
obstructions to “normal” sexual development. Freud’s story of sexual development:
proceeds from risky multiplicity to productive singularity. Freud’s story
features a struggle and victory instead of the erroneous account’s
inevitable and unmotivated line of least resistance. In his narrative, Freud
situates the perversions as the spot where the story falls apart, a spot that is
also part of the story, serving its function as inhibition or dissociation only
in relation to the narrative’s ultimate end, ‘the discharge of the sexual
substance” (xx).
This sexual discharge that is the end goal of sexual development is also the instance of
reproduction in the narrative, the ultimate goal of the narrative. As such, the narrative “is
the expression of an ideology of value and meaning that resides in the pattern of joiner to
product where products parallel such other metaphorically reproductive yields as
children, knowledge, and victory” (Roof Come xxii). Of course, homosexuality and other
“perversions” provide the obstacles to the development of the narrative; they are the
tension or titillation that keeps the reader involved until normalcy is recovered. So, there
is a clear connection her between content and form in that it is the heterosexual story that
contributes to the form of the narrative. As Roof claims, if the story were between two
men or two women, it would not end the same, because the chance for reproduction
would be disrupted.

In her theoretical analysis, Roof comes to the conclusion that the heteronarrative
is inescapable; it is irreversibly connected to production of text and sexual reproduction
and could only be escaped when the need for reproduction is no longer socially valued,
i.e., when we manage to escape death altogether. In Kassandra, it is exactly in death of

the narrator that heteronormativity is finally escaped. “’In den Tod’ geht ja nicht

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Kassandra allein, auf der inhaltliche Ebene, sondem ebenso der Erziihler, der einmal
erzahlend, in Kassandras Tod geht, zum anderen auf auBertextualler Ebene, in seinen
eigenen, in dem Sinne, daB erzahlen einer zeitlichen Spur folgt, die unausweichlich auf
den Tod zusteuert” (Stein 178). Though the death of the narrator/narrative shows that
heteronormativity in the patriarchal order is inescapable, Wolf does not attempt to escape
heteronormativity in order to devalue heterosexuality, but rather to expose the violence
done to women as objects within the patriarchal system. It is this patriarchal subjugation
that Kassandra chooses to avoid, by choosing death. Wolf systematically critiques,
perverts, and queers the narrative, stretching its boundaries until it can no longer be
sustained.

Wolf ties linear narrative to patriarchy and “argues that women should not simply
adopt aesthetic modes passed down by men, but must develop synthetic forms that reflect
their engagement, multiplicity and interdependence. [Her narrative] resembles an
intricate artistic weaving: in parts imperfect, tangled and irreducible to a single thread”
(Rossbacher 132). Cause and effect as a staple of the reproductive narrative structure,
especially when tied to heterosexuality, are disrupted throughout the narrative. We see
this disruption on several occasions throughout the text. In the case of Kassandra, but also
with her sister as a negative mirrored figure, the reader sees that love 96 romance ¢
marriage ¢ reproduction. It is clearly established that Kassandra is in love with Aineias.
This does not however directly lead to sex; at her sexual initial rite, Aineias is unable to
perform and Kassandra remains a virgin. Instead, Kassandra is initiated into sexual
practices by Panthoos, the high priest of her temple where she is a seer. The fact that this
sex is supposedly between Apollo and his high priestess does not conceal that not only
does Kassandra not love Panthoos, but rather it is quite clear on many occasions that she
does not particularly like him. On top of this, when Kassandra does get married, it is to a
man her father wants as an ally at the end of the war. Instead of quarreling with her

father, she marries the man, who dies the next day in a skirmish. In the end, Kassandra

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claims that Aineias is the father of the Children, who are obviously a product of her short-
lived marriage to Eupylos; Kassandra had stopped having a physical relationship with
Aineias by this time.

In Polyxena’s case, the heterosexual ideal of love is also disrupted on all fronts.
She is so traumatized by the war that she succumbs to plans to use her body to lure
Achilles out of the Greek camp. On the City wall, she exposes herself and later in the
narrative, she is the one who is able to draw Achilles to the temple, so that he can be
killed in revenge for Hector’s death. The ideal of heterosexual love is broken down to its
basest elements of lust driven by power; Achilles wants Polyxena as his just spoils of
war. The damages caused Polyxena leave her insane and defenseless. Though this alone
does not queer the narrative, it points to an unequal power exchange between men and
women in heterosexual relationships under the patriarchy.

These disruptions of romantic love would not be enough, on their own, to disrupt
heteronarrative structure. In the place of a narrative structure based on cause and effect,
this narrative is driven by repetition. Instead of linear reproduction, it is the sameness in
the form of Kassandra’s memories of Aineias that drives the narrative. The iteration of
memories about their relationship keeps the narrative moving. On the one hand, this is
clearly a heterosexual phenomenon, because it is a relationship between a man and a
woman. On the other hand, repetition “underscores a crucial sameness between

,9,

lesbians. . .[creating] ‘a disruptive space of sameness (Zimmerman 11). This sameness
displaces the dominance of heterosexual narrative drive based on cause and effect, and
brings it into the realm of the queer, thereby creating a space in which the narrative
simultaneously criticizes the story it is conveying. This kind of repetitiveness is a queer
production can be found in theories of queer relationship building (Sinfield) as well as

concepts of queer reproduction, in which genealogy is not generational, but rather based

on patterns of initiation and adaptation (Halberstam).

ll7

Though Wolf is able to expand, parody, and play with the heteronarrative, she is
not able to completely create a new narrative form. The connection between reproduction
and narrative is too strong to be completely overcome, even if it is diverted through the
disruption of cause and effect. The narrative is dominated by the various heterosexual
pairings, despite its disruption by women-centered relationships. From beginning to end,
it is the relationship with Aineias, in its various forms, that is carried throughout the
whole narrative and when Kassandra finally denies Aineias, the narrative ends. The love
affair with Myrine and the women-centered community of Mt. Ida were neither able to
withstand heterosexual pressures. Despite the temporary refuge that Kassandra’s
relationship with Myrine as well as the Mt. Ida community provide, in the end Myrine
was killed by destructive masculinity and the Mt. Ida community does not provide
enough safety to continue, it will have to transform into the kind of patriarchal
community it wants to avoid for further survival under Aineias. Kassandra is separated
from them both when Greek patriarchy overwhelms them all. Separated from her female
support system, all that is left Kassandra is submission to patriarchal heteronormativity
by staying with Aineias and the Mt. Ida community as it escapes. However she rejects
heterosexual ideology as she rejects Aineias and within a page, the narrative itself ends;
“she experiences the contradictions of individual and society at a physical level and dies”
(Dueck 119). “An deinen Augen sah ich, du hattest mich begriffen. Einen Helden kann
ich nicht lieben. Deine Verwandlung in ein Standbild will ich nicht erleben” (K 159).
Kassandra chooses death over seeing Aineias become a hero, or perpetrator of women’s
subjugation, and ultimately her own subjugation. Kassandra’s, and subsequently, the
story’s final words, are “Das Licht erlosch. Erlischt. Sie kommen” (K 159). As
Kassandra, the narrator, voluntarily goes to her death, she takes the narrative with her as
well, letting it die on the ashes of the heterosexual promise that was not able to sustain its

tension. The text ends.

118

Idealized lesbian images and narrative queering serve specific functions in
Kassandra, as well as other East German women’s fiction, notably to provide contrary
examples for the patriarchy in the case of symbolic representations and also of
heteronormative practices. The “story” neither in its content nor structure, actually
focuses on lesbian or queer alternatives; there is no material lesbian condition in and of
itself that is represented in this text or in other GDR women’s fiction. Lesbianism is used
to socially critique the patriarchy and everyday women’s issues such as the double
burden. Though, just as the matriarchal community on Mt. Ida is composed of women
and men, it is a reformed, but ultimately heterosexual, political and social system that is

the end goal.

119

Chapter Four
Queering the Antifascist State: Ravensbrfick, Social Drama,

and the Problem of Historical Representation

On 10 March 1984, a group of lesbians from the Berlin—based Arbeitskreis
Homosexuelle Selbsthilfe-Lesben in der Kirche (Lesbians in the Church) made their first
“official“ trip to the former concentration camp Ravensbrfick in Ffirstenberg north of
Berlin. They had booked a tour of the grounds and museum for eleven am. on that day,
but due to train schedule complications, arrived at four pm. When they arrived, they
visited the museum—where they commented on the fact that the pink triangle was not
among the description of prisoner markingssg—and wrote the following passage in the
visitor’s book: “Unsere Gedanken gelten allen Frauen, die im KZ Ravensbrfick ihr Leben
lassen muBten und gelitten haben, insbesondere unseren lesbischen Schwestern.
AuBerdem gedenken wir allen Frauen, die noch heute unter Faschismus und
Unterdrfickung leiden mfissen“ (Letter of Official Complaint, 20 March 84). They also
placed a wreath with the inscription “Im Gedenken an das Leid der Frauen des
ehemaligen KZ Ravensbrfick—Arbeitskreis Homosexuelle Selbsthilfe Berlin-Lesben in
der Kirche” (Letter of Official Complaint, 20 March 84) in honor of the women who had
suffered and died there. Four days later, two women returned to the memorial to find that
the entry in the visitor’s book had been removed. The rest of the book was there, intact.
They further discovered that the floral wreath, along with the inscription, had also been
removed. The lesbians re-wrote the entry in the book and left. Three days after that, other
women from the group returned to the memorial only to discover the entry had been
removed yet again. They inquired about the removal, but did not leave a new entry after
they were informed that entries and wreaths left by organizations unrecognized by the

state were, as a rule, removed.

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The group then registered a formal complaint that led to a meeting with a Herr
England, from the justice department of the Ministry of Culture, who told them their
group’s name was the problem. Although the group was allowed to exist within church
boundaries“), it was not allowed to present itself as an organization outside of the
umbrella of the Church. England assured them that further attempts to honor victims of
fascism at Ravensbrfick would not be interfered with, as long as they did so without their
group’s name, Lesbians in the Church.

In the following year on 20 April 1985, eleven women from the same group
planned to travel to Ravensbrfick again on the 40th anniversary of its liberation. They
ordered a wreath with the inscription: “zum andenken an die lesbischen fiauen die im kz
ravensbrfick gelitten haben” (Transcript 18 April 1985), and signed their first names. On
the day before the planned trip, Marina, the woman who ordered the wreath, was taken to
the nearest police station and interrogated by a woman (frau x) from the criminal police
division and a man (herr y) from the permit bureau. She was informed that the list of first
names on the wreath’s ribbon implied the presence of a group and that they therefore
would not be allowed to place the wreath at the memorial on the following day. Marina
and the other women decided to travel singly and without the wreath (that had been
stripped of its ribbon before Marina was allowed to take it) and take part in the memorial
activities anyway.

All eleven women were followed from their respective homes in Berlin to the
train station in F firstenberg, where the riot police rounded them up, took their
identification papers, and loaded them into a truck. After being driven around for over an
hour, the women were driven to a school, interrogated, finally given back their IDs and

allowed to leave, without going to the memorial. In response to this treatment, the women

 

59 The emphasis the group places on the pink triangle carries with it certain problems that will be discussed
in the final section of this chapter, “Subverting Object Position into Subject Position.”

6° In the GDR, there were a variety of “special-interest” groups that found a home in the Protestant Church
after they had been denied meeting space by the state. They were not recognized by the state as official
groups, but they were allowed to exist within the space of the church, as long as they confined their
activities to church-only venues.

121

once again lodged a formal complaint, this time to the Ministry of the Interior and
Honecker. Eventually, they were granted a meeting with two men from the Ministry. The
men apologized officially for the police’s actions on 20 April and informed them, once
again, that their organization’s name was the problem; it was unrecognized by the state
and the state could not allow them to give the impression to society at large that
unrecognized groups existed. He assured them that this would not happen again and that,
if the group could find an “appropriate” way to honor the lesbians who had been interned
at Ravensbrfick, they would not be bothered again. He was unable to give them any idea
however of what that appropriate memorial might be.

On the same day a year later, the women from Lesbians in the Church, after
hearing that the Arbeitskreis from Leipzig had been successful in honoring the
homosexuals who had been interned at Buchenwald, once again made their way to
Ravensbrfick. This time, accompanied by representatives from the organization Aktion
Sfihnezeichen, they received a tour of the grounds and museum, wrote in the visitor’s

book, and placed a wreath.

The facts of the story above are gleaned from the following collection of
documents: a short description of the meaning of the pink triangle, 14 letters (two of
which are formal complaints to government offices), a questionnaire, four reports of
events, two newsletter articles, one open letter, four transcripts of meetings, and one radio
transcript. The main actors of this social drama are members of the program committee of
the Berlin-based Arbeitskreis, Lesbians in the Church, who also wrote these documents.
After the Wende, when this group as well as other gay and lesbian groups in the East
disbanded, these documents were collected by Samira Kenawi at the GrauZone archive in
Berlin.

After reviewing the facts of these events, the questions emerge: Why the fuss?

What could possibly have been the problem with honoring women who died at the hands

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of Nazi fascists in Ravensbrfick? How could this behavior be contrary to the GDR’s
antifascist agenda? The lesbians involved asked Ministry officials a similar question:
“Inwiefem wfirden wir, wenn wir als Gruppe auftreten wfirden, den gesellschaftlichen
Interessen widersprechen?” (Transcript, 31 May 1985). To which they received only the
answer, “Das kann ich nicht beantworten” (Transcript, 31 May 1985). It is however clear
throughout the whole set of events that the problem is the identifiable, or even the threat
of an identifiable, lesbian presence in a public venue; it is a question of space and power.
As long as these women were content to act within the invisible sphere of the church,
raising no suspicion that there could be a lesbian minority, in fact any minority or
“special-interest group,” lurking in the background, they were tolerated. This chapter
deals with the social drama, the conflict of a specific social group with the with the ruling
body, represented in these recorded events and demonstrates how the GDR state blocked
lesbian participation in Ravensbrfick to control East German civil society. It shows that
civil society, as a critical part of hegemonic state control, was a space that also figured as
heterosexual, and while homosexuality was tolerated inside certain queer niches,
allowing lesbians incursions into public space would not only contradict GDR state
policy against special-interest groups, but would also risk queering Civil society as well as
antifascism. The Berlin group was thus limited to recording the events as an attempt to
preserve their actions while creating themselves as agents within East German socialism;
their agency is based on their simultaneous attempt to recover an obscured lesbian history
from the ashes of Nazism and align themselves with that history by Claiming it as their

own cultural, antifascist inheritance.

Victor Turner is an anthropologist who, after observing how conflicts within tribal
structures arose and played themselves out, decided that these conflicts were subject to
many of the same rhythms of Western drama; he created a dramatic structure, the social

drama, to discuss the development, Climax, and resolution of those conflicts- In order for

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a conflict to qualify as a social drama, the public manifestation of the conflict had to have
wider political implications and at least attempt to bring about social change. When
reading through the documents created by the Lesbians in the Church, which they
carefully preserved by sending them to the Gran Zone archive after the Wende and their
group was no longer active within the Church, it was Clear that the group attributed these
events at Ravensbrfick a special status in their struggle to gain acceptance from the East
German state. The Ravensbrfick demonstrations,“ which began innocently enough and
then spanned three years, showed the group’s commitment to engaging the state in an
attempt to change the state’s policy, or perhaps non-policy, regarding homosexual
presence within a clearly dominant heterosexual social structure. Tumer’s social drama
allows us to understand how these demonstrations and all other surrounding events
follow a clear narrative structure of social conflict, which in turn provides a template for
evaluating how the Lesbians in the Church create their own lesbian subjectivity vis-a-vis
a state that refuses to acknowledge that subject status.

According to Turner, social drama consists of “four phases. . .breach, crisis,
redress, and either reintegration or recognition of schism. Social dramas occur within
groups of persons who share values and interests and who have a real or alleged common
history. The main actors are persons for whom the group has a high value priority”
(Turner 145). For the lesbians participating in this drama and then recording it, Lesbians
in the Church was their “star group”: the group in which each member “looks most for
love, recognition, prestige, office, and other tangible and intangible benefits and rewards”
(Turner 146). It is the group that they use to establish a sense of belonging and history
and to define their emerging lesbian identity.

By tracking the four phases of the social drama, we can see what the lesbians

themselves and, to some degree, the GDR state had invested in the drama. It reveals that

 

“' Similar demonstrations, or “guerilla wreath-laying ceremonies” were held in West Germany at various
concentration camp memorials surrounding Pride celebrations. This led to an official commemoration by

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the question of special-interest groups attempting to enter civil society took on a new
layer of meaning in the form of public morality in connection with (homo)sexua1ity. It
especially demonstrates that civil society was a space in which the myth of socialist
solidarity was created and it is this sense of solidarity and homogeneity that is most

threatened by homosexual groups.

Hegemony, Civil Society, and Discipline

 

This section considers three aspects of the East German state and society,
hegemony, civil society and discipline, in order to foreground the discussion of the
Ravensbrfick social drama and provide the context in which that drama unfurled.
Although the GDR state contained elements of totalitarian and dominant government,
such as a central party ruled by a Central Committee, neither is sufficient for imagining
the type of control attempted in the GDR. Totalitarianism implies a monolithic ruling
body. The GDR government was a collection of individuals who were more or less
committed to achieving more or less similar political goals. These political goals were
certainly not identical to all members of the state, neither were they pursued with the
same strategies or levels of commitment to the socialist ideal, although the East German
political structure was one of centralized decision-making. Dominance implies a top-
down ruling structure that is driven by “coercive force alone” (Gramsci 276). This is of
course called into question by Foucauldian theories of power, in which power is a fluid
force, not owned by one single person or group; it is a positive force, creating instead of
restricting, that is used by all members of society in a variety of ways. Furthermore, the
GDR government sought to saturate all levels of socialist society and gain control at the
micro-level, not just from above. I will show that a third form of governmental control,
hegemony, allows for the kind of control pursued by the GDR state; it accomplishes this

by relying on “noncoercive power, but it is power nonetheless. . .flexible, and often

 

President Richard von Weiszs'acker in May 1985 followed by a number of memorials on West German soil

125

camouflaged” (Buttigieg 27). This non-coercive power plays out in civil society largely
under the guise of discipline.
Hegemony is dependent upon a superficial plurality by allowing other political
groups to exist, but then gains indirect control of competing political groups as well as of
society at large. In the GDR, there were political parties other than the Socialist Unity
Party of Germany (SED), but these block parties, such as the Christian Democrats and the
Farmer’s Party, had no real political influence and they were controlled, overtly as well
as covertly, by the SED. When the block parties were formed, many of their leaders were
ousted by the SED Central Committee and quickly replaced by former members of either
the communist party or the SED. This covert control is also part of every other sphere in
the hegemonic society and hinges on the appearance of personal consent. Consent in a
hegemony means however
not the spontaneous outcome of ‘free choice’, consent is manufactured,
albeit through extremely complex mediums, diverse institutions, and
constantly changing processes. Furthermore, the power to manufacture
consent is not evenly distributed in society... and there are even those who
remain unaware of the fact that consent is manufactured and actually
believe that they give their own consent ‘freely’ and spontaneously
(Buttigieg 7).

By permeating all levels of society, the state attempted to create a socialism in which its

members were freely subordinate to state will.62

One sphere in East Germany that most successfully manufactured consent and
maintained a mythical “free-will” compliance with state doctrine was civil society. Some

social theorists viewed civil society as that oppositional part of the public sector that

 

being unveiled in subsequent years (Jensen 336).

62 It cannot be stressed enough however that it is questionable whether or not the state ever reached this
level of control. If the state ever attained it, they certainly lost their grasp on it, despite, or more likely
because of, the construction of the GDR’s socialist apparatuses and the state’s—or perhaps
Honecker’s—apparently unflinching commitment to them.

126

operates outside of political influence; it develops in social and economic institutions that
are not part of the ruling body, whether that is a political body such as the state or a
religious body such as the Catholic Church. Hegel, for instance, believed the global body
of the state was comprised of three elements: the family, civil society and the state or
political society (the political state was part of the global state). “Whereas the family was
a natural institution. . .that had existed prior to civil society, as had the state. . .civil society
according to Hegel was a creation of the modern world; he associated its emergence with
industrial development” (Colas 1015). Civil society is inextricably tied up in production,
the “accumulation of wealth,” and the “systematic division of labor” (Colas 1015).
According to Marx, in an idealized past of “primitive communism” that existed in
Germanic tribes, civil society was an “economic sphere” mutually constitutive with the
state. In this utopian model “there was no personal ownership; the state was a collective
landlord, owner of the land and of all wealth” (Colas 1018). Under industrial capitalism
these two spheres split, creating a political sphere of “bureaucracy and violence” that
protects the economic interests of civil society while allowing the bourgeoisie to oppress
the working class. Though the state no longer serves a directly economic function, it
“becomes a tool for the bourgeoisie, an instrument for Class domination by the
capitalists” carried out in the economic sphere, or civil society (Colas 1019). In Russia,
Lenin believed that there was no civil society, because there was no bourgeois class to
develop one. There was only despotic rule that oppressed a proletariat that was firrther
damaged by the “parasitic peasantry, the kulaks” whom Lenin planned on eradicating. As
Lenin saw it, it was necessary to purge society of the harmful elements—the despots and
the kulaks—and rule the emerging state with a single party, the Bolsheviks. Therefore,
though Lenin did not believe a civil society had ever emerged in Russia, his new
governmental plan also did not call for the emergence of a civil society (Colas 1020-

1022)

127

Gramsci’s view of civil society differs greatly from that of Hegel, Marx, and
Lenin. Hegemony as a state model gains control not by eradicating, but rather by
manipulating Civil society. “Gramsci regarded civil society as an integral part of the state;
in his view, civil society, far from being inimical to the state, is, in fact, its most resilient
constitutive element, even though the most immediately visible aspect of the state is
political society, with which it is all too often mistakenly identified” (Buttigieg 4). Civil
society is not pitted against political society, but rather is perhaps the most important
realm in which consent necessary for hegemony is manufactured; it is used by the state to
“reinforce its power by nonviolent means” (Buttigieg 26) and “best described not as a
sphere of freedom but of hegemony” (Buttigieg 6-7). By controlling civil society,
political society ensures the relatively peaceful hegemony it seeks. For hegemony to be
successful, civil society must appear not to be influenced by the state/political society at

all63

; it is such a part of the hegemonic system that state manipulation of civil society is
obfuscated.

“The intricate, organic relationships between Civil society and political society
enable certain strata of society not only to gain dominance within the state but also, and
more importantly, to maintain it, perpetuating the subaltemity of other strata” (Buttigieg
4). Thus, by influencing civil society, the state is also creating norms that push the
“abnormal” groups into non-existence, or at least into seclusion by disallowing them
access to civil society as a group altogether. It is also critical that the apparatuses of civil
and political society differ, but not the nature of the two societies. That is, theater,
literature, social interaction, etc. belong to civil society while political parties, elections,

etc. belong to political society, but the consistent ruling force in both areas is state

involvement.

 

“3 1n the GDR, this level of hegemony was never achieved, so that even though in many normalizing forms,
state control had become invisible, state presence in civil society never achieved the same level of
anonymity.

128

In the GDR, state control saturated all levels of political and civil society. Just as
the political parties were completely controlled by the state so that all block parties were
nothing more than puppet parties for the state, the state also infiltrated civil society
apparatuses. For example, the state was at the formative level of all publishing, theater,
education, and organized forms of social life, such as renting halls for parties, etc. Taking
censorship in literature as one example—even though it was clear that censorship was
somewhat erratic in its severity—the role of the censor was always to be taken in account
by every author who tried to publish inside the GDR. It was never a given that any
literary work would be approved and East German writers were subject to a complex
interaction of self-censorship (whether conscious or subconscious), censorship at the
publishing houses, as well as at the Party level. Thus publishing was a constant
negotiation of an unpredictable system. Furthermore, strictly controlled access to paper
and copy machines all but halted the possibility of underground publications until the mid
to late 19803, when for example, the Prenzlauer Berg poets began Circulating
underground poetry magazines and a lesbian group in Jena and Weimar managed to start
an underground newsletter.64

This complete saturation of civil society by the state left GDR citizens practically
no refuge from the state. Thus, in order to escape, many East Germans created niches in
which they could create a space parallel to the state-scrutinized civil society. “The
majority in the GDR seemed to be able to live a dual existence between the ‘lie’ in the
official discourse and their normal discourse within the niche society” (Grix 4-5). These
niches cropped up in many different areas of life, sometimes in the family, but also in
work or education. Regardless of the location of the niche, it had the function of

providing a “safety valve” for East Germans, who used niches to escape.

 

(’4 Since Gramsci formulated his political theory with an eye to its application to capitalism and bourgeois
society, he was fearful of the decline in civil society caused by state control and that this control would lead
to the loss of a development of real thinkers. But to look at it from the other side, to really control Civil
society, a state would strive to achieve the kind of journalism, literature, etc. that serves state needs and
discourage the kind that could produce thinkers who would be able to successfully formulate rebellion
against the state.

129

A niche network grew out of these pockets of retreat and in the case of subaltem, or
“special-interest,” groups exiled from open participation in civil society, these niches
allowed them to create their own subculture. For lesbians, this subculture occurred in
private homes, the Protestant church, and at private parties as opposed to the appropriated
public spaces used by gay men, such as bars and parks.

Despite the fact that Gramsci clearly establishes the necessity of hegemonic
control in civil society, Civil society is a conflicted space in which counterhegemony also
exists. Counterhegemony is a double-edged sword; on the one hand, by opposing
hegemony, counterhegemonic groups inadvertently allow the hegemony to set the terms
for conflict and end up reinforcing the hegemony they oppose. On the other hand,
counterhegemony allows the possibility of practical resistance. In the GDR, for example,
the Protestant Church was a counterhegemonic space because it allowed for the formation
of so-called special-interest groups. These groups were contained within a limited space
and under constant surveillance and were not given access to civil society in the larger
sense. It was however one of these groups in St. Nicholas’ Church in Leipzig that directly
contributed to the peaceful revolution of 1989. As a counterhegemonic space, the church
was conflicted on other levels as well. While the Protestant Church represented a certain
conservatism that did not condone alternative lifestyles“, because of its contrary position
to the state, many individual churches, such as the Gethsemane church in Prenzlauer
Berg, housed dissenting organizations that found no room in civil society, such as peace,
feminist, environmentalist, gay, and lesbian groups. Civil society with its many attendant

institutions is the sphere critical for hegemonic control, because it allows for the

 

“5 There were ongoing debates within the Protestant church as a larger institution about whether and to what
extent they should support alternative groups and which groups should be allowed to meet in their space.
Not all churches were open to gay and lesbian groups. Their acceptance was dependent upon the actual
clergy and administration of the individual Church. “Die Frauen des Arbeitskreises ‘Homosexuelle
Selbsthilfe - Lesben in der Kirche’ in Berlin haben ein vorléiufiges Gastrecht in der Gethsemane-Gemeinde.
In einigen Gemeinden sind sie abgewiesen worden, hier ist dies Gastrecht vorlaufig. Warum wurden sie
woanders abgewiesen? Was mOgen die Grfinde ffir die Vorliiufigkeit des Gastrechts sein?” (Report by
DOrte Beyer on “Lesbians in the Church” in the Gethsemane Church Newsletter, no date).

130

manufacturing of consent at a fairly invisible level, even if it is the space in which
resistance is still possible.

It is not enough however to claim that civil society was a space of invisibly
manufactured consent by the hegemony, but rather the question must be asked: How was
this consent manufactured? Michel Foucault’s theories of surveillance and bodily
discipline, though conceived by observing French prisons and boys’ schools, when
applied to the larger context of the GDR, prove most helpful in illuminating how consent
was manufactured. In the “disciplined society” as conceived by Foucault, it is critical to
indoctrinate the members at a young age into discipline (in East Germany this happened
at school, in the Young Pioneers, and in the family), spread the disciplinary institution’s
surveillance (East Germany’s Ministeriumfiir Staatssicherheit, known as the “Stasi”),
and create self-regulation through the constant fear of regulation from above (Foucault
209). Although in the GDR this was not achieved on the same level as the micro-systems
of the prison or the school“, its successes were achieved by following similar strategies.

Foucault found three criteria for creating a disciplined society that can be
observed in the GDR. The first, hierarchical organization, is the organization (read:
control) of space. One level of spatial control is “an architecture that would operate to
transform individuals: to act on those it shelters, to provide a hold on their conduct, to
carry the effects of power right to them, to make it possible to know them, to alter them”
(Foucault 172). New housing settlements (Neubaugebiete) in the GDR are one example
of this kind of hierarchical organization. These Neubaugebiete were organized not only to
provide necessary housing after the war, but also followed socialist ideals. They removed
many overt markings of individuality by, for example, making all housing look the same
or using numbers instead of street names, thus reinforcing each inhabitant’s place in the
GDR work collective. Certainly, similar housing has been erected in many modern

industrial societies, not just socialist and communist ones, for a variety of resons, such as

 

6" The objects of Foucault’s study in Discipline and Punish.

131

providing housing for the poor (for example, the “projects” in cities throughout the US.
and Great Britain) or concentrated housing for university students. Though this type of
housing is an efficient mode of manufacture, it does not change the fact the GDR had
specific socialist goals they wished to achieve with the addition of socialist housing,
especially that of the 603 and 703. Neubaugebiete were often directly connected to
specific industrial complexes or Kombinate, such as the connection of Halle Neustadt to
the Buna and Leuna works by tram and train lines. “The aim is to derive the maximum
advantages and to neutralize the inconveniences. . .as the forces of production become
more concentrated. . .to master the labour force” (Foucault 142). Workers were
encouraged to live together and, of course, the hot running water and central heating (a
rarity at that time) made the new housing a luxury. Moreover, workers were surrounded
by their co-workers, at home and on the job.

This kind of spatial control moved beyond housing into Civil society and confined
like-minded minorities away from the collective. The state controlled group formation
altogether, by administrating “functional sites” where people are allowed to gather for
social functions (Foucault 143). The state also confined the socialist collective Citizenship
by using the anti-fascistische Schutzwall (known as “the Berlin Wall” in English, but a
direct translation—the antifascist protection wall—reveals its political underpinnings) to
create a “safe space” for socialism, away from the dangers provided by Western cultures.
Within this “protected” space, obvious state involvement at all levels of society created
an atmosphere of constant policing:

The East German regime was sustained to a great degree by integrating the
population into its structures and organisations essential for its
functioning. For example, almost all of the work force were members of
the FDGB [Confederation for Free German Trade Unions], through which
practically all holidays, convalescence holidays, shopping and many other

services were distributed “top-down” (Grix 3).

132

State intervention in all aspects of life, like participation in state-sanctioned clubs, led to
citizens needing state permission for nearly all activities, making them more accessible to
the state.
Policing even permeated the so-called private spheres of the family and friends.
The GDR was a surveillance society loosely similar to the panopticon, a circular building
with a dark tower in the center. In the panopticon, all rooms face a central glass tower
without curtains, thus the inmates could never escape surveillance, and because the tower
was dark, they never knew when they were being watched (Foucault 201). Similarly,
GDR citizens—because of the widespread distribution of State Security (Stasi) official
operatives, unofficial informants for the Stasi, and Party members at work and in
clubs—never knew exactly when they were being observed“. Foucault directly addresses
this phenomenon in relation to the panopticon:
[H]e who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes
responsibility for the constraints of power. . .he inscribes in himself the
power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes
the principle of his own subjection (Foucault 202-03).
Thus, by controlling space and movement in the GDR, the state was not only able to
police its inhabitants more effectively, but also create an atmosphere of fear in which its
citizens would then police themselves and each other. A pointed example of this is to be
found in the documents about the Ravensbrfick demonstrations. A woman who worked at
the flower shop where the Lesbians in the Church ordered their wreath contacted the
criminal police division about the group’s planned visit to the Ravensbrfick memorial in
1985; it was not a state operative who turned the Lesbians in the Church in to the police.
The second tool used to create a disciplinary society is the establishment of a
normalizing system of judgment. A whole catalogue of misdemeanors against the social

order categorized by time (lateness, absences, interruptions of tasks), activity (inattention,

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negligence, lack of zeal), behavior (impoliteness, disobedience), speech (idle chatter,
insolence), body (incorrect attitudes, irregular gestures, lack of Cleanliness), and sexuality
(impurity, indecency) existed (Foucault 178). Displaying any of these aberrations is then
strictly policed by society at large. Social conduct becomes naturalized while also serving
as a subtle litmus test for an individual’s commitment to the social and political order;
being a good citizen is directly bound with seemingly insignificant details such as
punctuality, personal hygiene, and sexual habits.

The last area, examination, “transformed the economy of visibility into the
exercise of power” (Foucault 187). Proving one’s indoctrination into social structures
critical to the maintenance of society becomes the key to hierarchical advancement. This
ranges from the most basic steps in advancing through youth groups, to becoming a Party
member, and even moving into leadership roles in the SED.

Hegemony based on discipline manufactures consent at the most basic level; most
Citizens do not even realize that they are perpetuating state control themselves. Power
becomes anonymous, carried out by the state without a face, but in reality it is so
entrenched at the individual level that the state is most concerned with perpetuating the
institutions that allow for individual consent. To achieve manufactured consent, power
cannot be exerted from above, but rather must be supported by the individuals in society.
In fact, “the acquisition of a hegemonic position in Civil society is ultimately more
important to the ruling Classes than the acquisition of control over the juridico-political

apparatuses of the government” (Buttigieg 30).

Breach or the “Fear of the Queer”
The next four sections will return to the social drama and follow the Ravensbrfick
demonstrations as they progress through the four stages: breach, crisis, redress, and

reintegration/recognition of schism. The conflict between the state and the Berlin group,

 

"7 This became evident after the Ministry for State Security’s files became accessible to the general public

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Lesbians in the Church, is over civil society and the state’s careful control thereof as a
public space. This study will show that the social drama confronts not only the problem
of supposedly counterhegemonic special-interest groups in the public arena, but also how
the sexuality of this particular group plays a special role in the conflict.

It is the breach, the exposition, that sets the parameters of the conflict. “Social
drama first manifests itself as the breach of a norm, the infraction of a rule of morality,
law, custom, or etiquette, in some public arena. This breach is seen as the expression of a
deeper division of interests and loyalties that appears on the surface” (Turner 145). This
clearly applies to the situation that the women from Lesbians in the Church entered into
on 10 May 1984. By publicly asserting themselves as lesbians, announcing their
membership to a larger organization, the Lesbians in the Church, both in the visitor’s
book of the memorial and on their wreath’s ribbon, they became a name, a group, an
entity that the larger public would be able to recognize. As an Arbeitskreis within the
protective sphere of the Church, this homosexual group, along with others that had existed
in large Cities of the GDR since 1982/1983, was stepping out of its niche. For the public,
they had remained largely invisible; up to that point their reports, newsletters, etc. were
“nurfiir innerkirchlichen Gebrauch” and the workshops or conferences they participated
in all remained within the protected sphere of the church. This action was a definite step
out into the “public arena,” as Turner calls it, or, in this case, the visitor’s book and the
area where wreaths are placed at the Ravensbrfick memorial. By doing this, the Lesbians
in the Church were defying hegemonic rule of civil society and challenging socialist
society at its root, its myth of the (heterosexual) homogenous collective.

In order to understand the full implications of the breach phase, not only is an
understanding of civil society and its control by the state critical, but also how space is
created as inherently heterosexual as well as how queer space intersects with that

dominant heterospace. Space is the setting for daily life, the where that accompanies the

 

shortly after the Wende. The full extent of Stasi surveillance was not known until that point.

135

what, why, and how. Since the nineteenth century, as space became more of a concern for
the nuclear family, “private” space became increasingly contested as well as necessary;
for example, to “enhance [re]production” (Ingram et a1. “Making” 374). Queer space, as
opposed to naturalized heterosexual space, is a “cultural construct that provides a
territorial basis for considering opportunities for and persistent disparities in access to
public space and various respective services and amenities, as well as options for
personal and collective expression” (Ingram Marginality 41).

This construct can result in spaces that are concrete and (semi)permanent such as
bars, bookstores, and community centers as well as temporary and/or abstract, such as the
“Michigan Women’s [sic] Festival or the ‘space’ of an on-line lesbian/gay e-mail
conference” (Inness 151). Some common levels of queer space are: the body (established
by queer markings and/or fashions), the queer ghetto (symbolized by some sort of
“haven” which can also become a target), and oppositional or “designed” space used to
“disorient the normal masses” (Ingram). Recognizing queer space is not only dependent
on recognizing queer markings that delineate the space, but also the oppositions that help
to define or form it. For example, considering concrete as well as abstract and/or
transitory spaces, we see that queer space is often defined by “relations between queers
and nonqueers within different spatial regions” (Inness 147). Queer space is considered
different from heterosexual space while also being “multivalent in nature” (Inness 145).
Often, queer space is appropriated space and inhabiting that space can be a political or
social statement in and of itself. “Queer places have been forged within spaces not
originally intended for gay use. Identifying a place as queer is a deliberate action parallel

3,9

to ‘coming out (Ingram, et a1. Placemaking 295).
As is already implied in the quote above, queer space is often a conflicted space
that is defined by its opposition to normative heterosexuality68 and its conscious desire

not to be part of heterosexual space. Chapter two has already shown that East German sex

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discourse predetermined the socialist subject as a heterosexual subject, thus the space
provided by civil society, as well as political society—or in which those heterosubjects
moved—would then necessarily also be a normalizing heterospace. As a survival tactic,
queers choose to “create [their] own worlds and words to describe [their] spaces; only in
this way can [they] maintain existence where existence is denied” (Inness 133). Queer
space, because of its oppositional nature, whether intentional or not, is a “singular point
of expression, exchange, sexuality, or resistance in the landscape that counters loss of use
and habitation because of social changes and events rooted in homophobia” (Ingram
Marginality 43).

Queer sites/spaces are also ambiguous in that they can provide solidarity for the
inhabitants while also being risky sites for policing by and spectacle for the “normal,
straight” audience (Nestle). On the other hand, this kind of spectacle, or “gay
referencing” can also help to “create gay space. When a place is labeled gay, it becomes
part of a common language and enters into the gay discourse” (Inness 152). Thus, the
spectacle surrounding queer space can be the means by which, especially uninitiated,
queers find and gain access to queer space. Not all queer space is visible, however. The
queer community is also mindful, if not always accepting, of the fact that for many
homosexuals, the closet—which queer space seems to want to escape—is still the most
viable space. Queer space is not always meant to be visible or politicized and for queers
who have other priorities, the so-called closet might be their chosen home.

Queer space however is not totally separate from heterosexual space and many, if
not all, of its inhabitants have to negotiate both spaces. Especially when building queer
space seems impossible, queer use of heterosexual space is inevitable. “In times of
repression, public open space has had particularly crucial roles in making contact and
subsequent socialization, education, nurturing, and protection” (Ingram Marginality 45).

Heterosexual space is also not monolithic and it continues to be inhabited by visible

 

“’8 Even though not all queer space is necessarily rebellious space the two kinds of space are inextricably

137

queer activity, even outside of periods of repression. For example, despite visible queer
spaces in the early 21St century, queer men still meet in public parks for sex, creating a
conflicted queer/heterosexual public/private space. In fact, the further onset of queer
political power will lead to “queer (re)appropriation of public space, whether it be safety
from violence in a park or ten seconds on national television” (Ingram Marginality 39). A
goal of queer activism is, in fact, to further blur the lines between heterosexual and queer
space, so that it will be more difficult to label seemingly universal public/Civic space as
heterosexual or queer. In this endeavor to consciously overlap queer and heterosexual
space, making the former more visible in so-called neutral space (read: heterosexual
space) and move out of queer ghetto spaces, queer activism has had its most effective, but

also dangerous, encounters with heterosexual society (Wolfe and Sommella).

Breach occurs exactly because of this blurring of heterosexual and queer space
that the Berlin Lesbians in the Church are trying to achieve with their Ravensbrfick
activism. Lesbians were successful at meeting in the church group and private homes69,
but as they gained a sense of community, they also wanted social and state recognition.70
They wanted to leave the queer ghetto that provided them the security to formulate their
political and social desires and merge queer space with (socialist state-controlled)
heterosexual space. They wanted to be visible, accepted, and gain civic mobility. Thus, in

their case, and perhaps in the case of queer space in general, it can be seen as a temporary

step to a larger goal of creating spaces not defined/limited by sexuality. Of course, given

 

interwoven, whether contentious or not.

69 Charlotte von Mahlsdorf shows in her autobiography lch bin meine eigene Frau and film of the same
title, that her Griinderzeit museum on the outskirts of Berlin became a popular semi-public meeting place
for Berlin gays and lesbians in the 19803, though they were often observed by the police and Stasi. Some
events, as portrayed by Ursula Sillge in Un-Sichtbare Frauen were prevented from taking place because
they were too large.

7° Though the goals of gay and lesbian groups were similar, indeed it was a gay group that staged similar
demonstrations at Buchenwald, there are also differences between how gays and lesbians were perceived in
public. Gays had a much higher profile, as I already discussed in Chapter Two, and, as is seen in other
countries as well, they also had their own spaces that more successfully, or perhaps covertly, mixed
heterosexual and queer space, as they made more use of at least semi-public spaces such as bars.

138

the state’s motivation to gain and uphold a socialist hegemony, this lesbian desire could
not be granted, because it would expose the falsely homogenous nature of GDR society.
Admittedly, homosexuality gained a limited presence 7’ throughout the 19803,
though any visibility was largely freighted by contradictory socialist ideals and value
judgments. That is, homosexuality was seen as a condition that homosexuals suffered
from. Though it was no longer considered a disease to be healed, it took on the status of
an unavoidable condition that was to be tolerated and pitied. Lesbians, however,
remained largely invisible in sex and homosexual discourse and certainly secondary to
gay male presence. This gay male presence was allowed in order to assimilate
homosexuals into the collective rather than to give them more personal control over their
own image:
That the authorities at last began to respond more positively to the
representations made to them by homosexual interest groups in the mid-
19803 may be put down to the fact that it was only in this initial phase of
the debate that they were persuaded of the extent of homosexuality within
GDR society and therefore of their own interest in ensuring the social
integration of such a significant minority which might otherwise develop
into a politically subversive organised unit (Paul 234).
Though lesbians formed a somewhat less recognizable subset of homosexuals, their
special-interest groups were allowed to inhabit the counterhegemonic space of the church
in order to keep them somewhat satisfied, but of course, lesbians as such were still not
allowed free access to civil society.
When breach occurred and the lesbian group took a small step into civil society,
the initial reaction against the group was literally to erase its existence. When all traces of
the group’s actions from 10 May were removed from public access, the Ravensbrfick

leadership did not confront the Lesbians in the Church directly, but rather quietly

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removed all evidence of their visit after they had gone. Further attempts to leave evidence
of their existence, four days as well as seven days after the initial visit, were either
removed or prevented. The state was clearly sending them a message not to transgress
heterosexual civil society.

This is complicated by the problem that the socialist citizen, in the GDR, was also
an antifascist citizen, given that s/he was part of the socialist antifascist regime. Thus, not
only was civil society already predetermined as heterosexual space, it was also antifascist
space. This creates a strange set of correlations in which if socialist equals heterosexual,
and socialist equals antifascist, then homosexual was left with either a blank political
identity, or perhaps even the parenthetical implication that homosexual could equal
capitalism and fascism, two concepts that were blurred in socialist rhetoric. Though this
logic may seem simplistic, historically the German socialist party has made this same
logical leap. Though socialists from the Weimar period supported Magnus Hirschfeld’s
efforts to decriminalize homosexuality, that same party in exile attempted to cast doubt
on Hitler’s legitimacy by painting the Nazi party as “riddled with homosexuals” (Giles
259)— based largely on Ernst ROhm’s controversial sexual tastes and firrther rumors
about the SS and the Nazi movement due to its cult of male bonding—seemingly making
the claim that fascists were not only politically but also sexually perverse (Giles and
Micheler). In addition to this, homosexuals were seen as a security risk in the GDR
because they were considered “blackrnailable” (Dodds and Allen-Thompson 119). This is
coupled with the correlation of sexual decadence and/or perversions with the West
(Brfickner 195-199).

Whether consciously or unconsciously, lesbians staged the battle over their
presence in civil society in terms that squarely identified them as socialist antifascists
with the interests of disrupting the facile binary Opposition they were caught up in as

homosexuals. In their formal complaint from 20 March 1984 to the Minister fiir Kultur,

 

7' This presence was largely relegated to medical discourse, specifically sexual research, and advice

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they wrote, “Es ist eine Behinderung in der umfassenden aktiven Auseinandersetzung mit
der Zeit des Faschismus in Deutschland. . .ein VerstoB gegen die Verfassung der DDR,
Artikel 20, Abs. 1,” couching their right to be seen in socialist terms, calling on their
rights as GDR citizens—reminding the state that they are part of the antifascist collective
without reference to their sexuality.

Their plea was ignored and in response to their complaint, Justice England of the
Ministry for Culture reiterated that their presence in the Oflentlichkeit simply would not
be tolerated. In a letter from 14 June 1984, England told them that the ministry was less
concerned with“das Verhalten der NMG Ravensbrfick,” and more so whether “das
Offentliche Auftreten einer sexuell motivierten Vereinigung von Bfirgem auBerhalb
religifiser Handlung [emphasis mine]” was allowable at all. He shifted the blame off of
the Ravensbrfick staff and put any questionable actions on the shoulders of the members
of Lesbians in the Church.

In a meeting with England as well as a Herr Grfife from the Staatssekretariatfu’r
Kirchenfragen, England consistently claimed that it was the name of the group that led to
the removal of their entries and the wreath. Though he denies any discrimination against
homosexuals in the GDR, and allows that any group, regardless of its “intime
Gepflogenheiten,” is allowed space in the church, “[England] iiuBerte Bedenken gegen
die Ausweitung bestimmter F ormen kirchlicher Arbeit in Organisationsform” (21 August
1984). He further emphasizes that, according to the rules for the formation and activities
of groups, such a lesbian group would not be able to exist outside of the church”.
Homosexuality does not have a place in the Oflentlichkeit, though “dies sei eine Frage
der Moral und keine staatliche Sache. . .die Meinung zur Homosexualitfit [sei] historisch
gewachsen und [kOnnte] nicht vom Staat beeinfluBt werden” (21 August 1984). As

happens throughout the documents regarding these protests, the state hides behind a legal

 

columns.
72 This is a problematic statement that England is making, since it is around this time that the secular group
“Der Sonntagsclub” finally gained permission from the state to meet in state-run Clubs.

141

argument that regards a “gesetzlich nicht anerkannte Vereinigung” as well as a moral
argument that is attributed to society itself. In the end, the breach is explained as an
“infraction of a rule of . . .law” but the underlying message is inescapably that multiple

sexualities do not fit into the imagined GDR collective space.

Crisis: Challenging the State

 

Crisis, the culmination of the breach, is reached on 20 April 1985. The breach of
the previous year—had it gone unnoticed—could be read as an attempt by Lesbians in the
Church to subtly enter Civil society while also showing themselves to be in support of the
socialist state’s antifascist agenda. Perhaps the lesbians in the Arbeitskreis had expected a
denial when on 12 January 1984 they requested a tour of the Ravensbrfick memorial in
celebration of International Women’s Day, but since their visit, official tour, and
placement of a memorial wreath were approved at the initial stage, the removal of their
wreath and book entry came to them as something of a surprise while creating the
circumstances for the ensuing social drama. However, when the Lesbians in the Church
planned to return to Ravensbrfick in 1985, it was obviously a calculated move. Though
they took Justice England at his word and did not plan a memorial demonstration as a
formal group, signing only their first names on the wreath, they chose the fortieth
anniversary of the liberation of Ravensbrfick—a highly publicized event. Despite a
warning not to attend the event, the eleven women still chose to make their scheduled trip
to the Ravensbrfick memorial.

One certain reason for this calculated crisis is that it allows the lesbians to once
again lodge a formal complaint, this time to the Ministry of the Interior and Honecker
himself (although I doubt they expected any direct recognition of the event by Honecker).
A formal complaint would push the state to acknowledge them on some level; therefore
the lesbian group wanted to push the government into a comer. Marina, was warned by

herr y and frau x on 18 April 1985, “kiime dem Offentlichen auftreten einer (in diesem

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Fall nur getamten) organisation von bfirgem gleich. die behfirden wfirden das als
umgehung der bestehenden gesetze deuten.” By actually going to the memorial, the
lesbians pushed the government to a point of overreaction. The police took the women
into custody for 4 1/2 hours, drove them around, harassed them, interrogated them about
their personal lives and then released them with the warning that each of them would be
taken into custody again, if they didn’t behave in F firstenberg and on the way back to
Berlin. While in police custody, the lesbians read out loud, sang, and yelled to get
attention while they were in the truck, further aggravating the police, who in turn gave
the women a reason to pursue the issue of lesbians in the public sphere formally again.
The formal complaint itself left the government with the choice either to fully squelch
this particular lesbian group and by extension, all homosexual groups, or to give some
room in Civil society over to them.
It also became somewhat clearer that the legal breach was only one side of the
state’s problem with the lesbian group. They were not only concerned with the fact that
this was a supposed special-interest group, but also concerned with the sexuality of the
group—what they saw to be a moral breach—which was already thematized in the
meetings with England the year before. This is evident in the following statement from
the transcript of the meeting between Marina and the two unnamed officials from the
Kriminalpolizei and Erlaubniswesen.
die dame von der kriminalpolizei warf. . .ein, dass es sich bei und um eine
gruppe von frauen handelt, die sich zusammengeschlossen hat mit dem
ziel ihre sexuellen interessen Oflentlich zu vertreten. unser auftreten als
gruppe mit solcher kranzschleife wfirde in der offentlichkeit den eindruck
erwecken dass es in der ddr nicht staatlich anerkannte vereinigungen von
bfirgem gabe (l 8 April 1985, emphasis mine).

Here is it equally clear that the heterosexual nature of civil society is at least partially the

reason for state interference.

143

The lesbian group achieved its goal—at least in part—the moment that its
members were rounded up on the platform of the train station and sequestered from the
general public; the government itself established the identity of the lesbian group and
made them visible. “Wir sind nicht als Gruppe aufgetreten, sondem wurden durch
gezielte Festnahme gerade von uns elf Frauen von Ihnen dazu gemacht” (Transcript, 31
May 1985) This crisis then became the threshold that forced this social drama into the
redress phase and in some ways catapulted the group, even if for only a few hours, into
the public spotlight. These women completely took advantage of their visibility at that
moment by resisting the police, singing, playing games and calling out to passersby. They

took advantage of the tactical miscalculation on the part of the government.

Redress: Establishing the “Outsider” Lesbian

 

“The redressive phase of social drama frames an endeavor to rearticulate a social
group broken by sectional or self-serving interests” (Turner 164). In this phase of the
social drama, the state, represented by two members of the Ministry of the Interior,
endeavored to do exactly that. It was their agenda to convince the lesbians that they
should, for their own good, retreat back into the safety afforded them by the
church—which also effectively would have erased their existence and reintegrated them
into society as its accepted silent members. In the transcript of an open discussion
between several members of the Arbeitskreis and the Ministry officials, the Ministry
clearly raises the sexuality/morality issue, emphasizing that the collective was not willing
to be as tolerant as the government. “Der Staat hat nichts dagegen, aber die
Moralvorstellungen der Bfirger sind anders. . .Wir sind der Meinung, daB, wenn Sie an die
Offentlichkeit treten, sich negative Reaktionen der BevOlkerung noch verstarken. Das
werden Sie sicherlich schon bemerkt haben.” The officials build a supposed protective
bond between themselves and the lesbian group by stating that they accept lesbian

sexuality, but that they cannot vouch for the acceptance of the public. In fact, they cannot

144

affect the public’s opinion, so it would be better for lesbians, and all homosexuals, if they
chose not to be so open. The Ministry officials further attempt to smooth over the breach
and subsequent crisis by formally apologizing for the Bereitschaftspolizei. The Ministry
representatives claim that it is lesbianism that pushed those young police officers to
overreact. Thus, the Ministry claims that it can only protect lesbians by encouraging them
to remain hidden, reinscribing the idea that the lesbian group only has true safety in
silence and privacy. Moreover, by emphasizing the danger of a public presence, the
Ministry is naturalizing the lesbian outsider position, demonstrating to them that socialist
hegemony and the collective are stronger than sexuality. The state may change its
position on the acceptance of homosexuality, but the collective they have established
through hard work over many years is less forgiving. The hegemonic force in motion has
already produced a collective that is undeniably heterosexual.

Despite these warnings, the Arbeitskreis takes advantage of their mistreatment
and uses all Channels available to them to keep this incident from retreating back into the
unknown. Using a report format and a choral voice, versions of this event are sent to
Emmy Handke, General Secretary of the International Ravensbrfick Committee, to the
Ministry of the Interior and also to other homosexual and church-based groups, especially
those in the peace movement. They also adopt a voice that best fits each intended
audience. For example, when asking Handke—a former inmate of the Ravensbrfick
camp—for help, they place themselves in a passive role, emphasizing the frightening
aspects of their captivity:

Nach ungefahr 15 Minuten wurden wir von einem Zug
Bereitschaftspolizisten — 30 Mann -— eingekreist und mit groben Worten,
Pfiffen und festen Handgriffen zu einem LKW der Bereitschaftspolizei
getrieben und gendtigt dort aufzusitzen, ebenfalls wieder mit unfliitigen

Worten gesagt...wir [warden] durch ein Spalier uniformierter und ziviler

145

Sicherheitskriifte in ein kleines Klassenzimmer delegiert (Letter, 25 April
1985)
When sending the report to another Arbeitskreis, they bring out their own resistance:
“Von einem Herrn im Zivil erhielten wir die energische Aufforderung zum Stehen, sonst
ktinnten sie auch anders. Wir leisteten dem nicht F olge, es passierte nichts. Wir lasen
wiederum vor und machten kleine Ratespiele” (Report, no date). In the formal complaint,
they adopt a legal tone, demanding reconciliation based on their “constitutional” right to
honor the victims of fascism. Moreover, they Clearly draw a comparison between Nazi
persecution of lesbians and the injustice they endured at the hands of the Ffirstenberg
Bereitschaftspolizei:
Homosexuelle Frauen gehfiren ohne Zweifel zu den Opfem des
F aschismus. Es ist daher nur legitim, daB lesbische Frauen heute das
Bedfirfnis, das Anliegen und das Recht haben, diese auch zu ehren. Wir
lesbische Frauen fiihlen uns noch heute. .. diskriminiert. . .So ein Verhalten
ist entmfindigend, ganz zu schweigen von den verbalen Beleidigungen und
kOrperlichen Belastigungen. Frauen, die nach Ravensbrfick fahren wollen,
um Opfer des Faschismus zu ehren, sind wie Verbrecherinnen behandelt
worden. Wir finden dies als Kriminalisierung unseres humanistischen
Anliegens (Formal Complaint to Ministry of the Interior, 3 May 1985).
This was not the first time that they drew parallels between their trials with the GDR state
and the victims of Nazi persecution. In their formal complaint from 20 March 1984, they
claimed that the discrimination they were suffering from by having all evidence of their
initial visit removed was a form of latent discrimination against the women who had
suffered in Ravensbrfick. It was critical for these women to establish a separate lesbian
history, so that they could—for themselves as well as in the eyes of society—justify their
citizenship in GDR society. On many occasions, from the point of breach throughout this

social drama to the point of “reconciliation,” the members of Lesbians in the Church

146

reiterate their desire to uncover and make public their history. This then catapults them,
in the present, into civil society and helps them achieve their second goal of public
recognition to some degree. Furthermore, the mistreatment they receive during the breach
allows them to further align their own personal fate with that of lesbians who suffered in

Ravensbrfick, reinforcing their victim status.

Reintegration/Recognition of Schism: Which is it?

 

The reintegration phase comes quietly, long after the political negotiations and
public appeals of the redress phase. On the one-year anniversary of the day when the
eleven lesbians were taken into custody, they return to Ravensbrfick with members of
Aktion Siihnezeichen, a peace group affiliated with West Germany known for its
volunteer work in Eastern Europe, Israel, and the US. as an atonement for Germany’s
actions in WWII. Together with the members of this peace group, they achieve their
original goal, complete with guided tour, the laying of the wreath and an entry in the
book. This event itself is textually indicated in one short write-up in a church bulletin by
the members of Aktion Siihnezeichen and a short paragraph at the end of a description of
all of the Ravensbrfick events by the lesbians themselves. It is unclear to whom this latter
report is directed—most likely the other lesbian and gay groups in the GDR at that time.
There are two comments from the lesbians themselves that add a degree of uncertainty as
to what they have attained. They are satisfied that the pink triangle has been added to the
museum’s explanation of the complex system for marking prisoners and even more
satisfied that they were able to successfully carry out their visit—without interference.
“Der 20. April 1986 zeigt uns, daB staatliche Behbrden lemfahig sind im souverfinen
Umgang mit fiir sie bislang noch “unbekannt” und demzufolge “nichtdurchschaubare”
Minderheiten” (Final Report of Events, no date). It seems that these women accept the

end result of their two-year battle with the government.

147

In contrast to this positive statement, a postscript to the last report completely
Changes the reception of the previous quote. “P.S. eine Stippvisite im Mai 1986 lieB uns
ein neues Besucherbuch in der Nationalen Mahn- und Gedenkstfitte erblicken. Seine erste
Eintragung datiert vom 1. Mai 1986” (Final Report of Events, no date) The actual climax,
then, becomes something of an anti-climax, given that the message these lesbians wanted
to leave in the visitor’s book was not ripped out, but the replacement of the book with a
newer one ensures that their entry will still not be read. The replacement of the book is
also not the kind of action that the lesbians can protest against. The government has
found its loophole around the actions of the lesbians, but also allowed a small victory in
the addition of the pink triangle to the museum.

This “victory” is then a prime example of the GDR government giving in enough
to quiet unrest, but not enough for the group to be completely satisfied with the outcome.
In the long run, the group has been neither successfully reintegrated nor has there been
any real recognition of schism. Rather, they have an open-ended border experience that
contains both partial reintegration on the part of the state by laying the matter to rest and
also recognition of schism, in that the Arbeitskreis realizes the necessity of moving on to
another possible venue for future demonstrations, or perhaps abandoning this goal
altogether; it is not clear.

Throughout their accounts, the Lesbians in the Church emphasize sexual
discrimination. Their representations support that they are sure that their treatment is due
to the fact that they are lesbians: there is some evidence to support this. In their
confrontations with state representatives, their sexuality and moral otherness is often a
point of discussion: England refers to them as a “sexuell motivierte Vereinigung” (Letter,
14 May 1984) as well as a “Gruppe, die andere Bedfirfnisse hat” when the Lesbians in the
Church protest the former formulation (Transcript of Meeting, 21 August 1984). One of
the unnamed functionaries in the meeting from 31 May 1985 stressed that although

lesbians are equal under the law, “wenn ich beim Erlaubniswesen wéire, hfitte ich bei dem

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Wort ‘lesbisch’ auch den Kranz aus dem Verkehr gezogen.” “frau x” from the criminal
police division claims that the group wants only “ihre sexuellen interessen Offentlich zu
vertreten” while “herr y” from the permit bureau, at the same meeting, claims that “das
boesondere hervorheben der lesben sei unlogisch da sie allgemein zur grossen gruppe der
OdF [victims of fascism] ziihlen die aufgrund der politik des 3. reiches verfolgt wurden,
nicht aufgrund ihrer spezifischen andersartigkeit.” At the end of the meeting, herr y
called to Marina “diskriminieren sie nicht die opfer des fascismus” (18 April 1985)! The
police who took the women in custody on 20 April 1985 told the lesbians they were being
taken “ins Arbeitslager,” referring to the persecution of gay men and lesbians under the
Nazi regime. In a meeting with two unnamed functionaries on 31 May 1985, one of them
further—while seemingly distancing the state from any sign of
discrimination-—emphasized that their “sexuelle Auffassung” would have been the reason
they were so mistreated when they were taken into custody.

This representation of the social drama created by the Ravensbrfick protests will
never be able to fully clarify whether these women really were only discriminated against
because they were a special-interest group. Though state officials told them: “Das
Festhalten war nicht wegen Ihrer sexuellen Veranlagung, sondem wegen dem Verdacht
einer Vereinigung” (Transcript of Meeting with Two Officials, 31 May 1985), the
repeated emphasis on their sexual difference does make this difficult to believe. In
addition, the Lesbians in the Church are first allowed to successfully honor women and
lesbians at Ravensbrfick when accompanied by members of a group that, while it is also a

Special-interest group, is not seemingly “sexually motivated.”

(mg Socialist Subjectivity/Subject Position
For the Lesbians in the Church, it is clear that they are the acting subjects of the
text they create. Out of the complicated situation, they are compelled to create a story of

their actions, which also includes a somewhat coherent lesbian, activist subject. Although

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we exist in a split, fragmented world, alienated from any possibility of reaching any level
of “reality” “In conscious life, we achieve some sense of ourselves as reasonably unified,
coherent selves, and without this action would be impossible” (Eagleton 147). Although
they attempt to create a subject, they are not attempting to create an individual or even
coherent group identity, but rather they create a subject position from which they can
speak. This subjectivity is difficult to achieve on two levels.

As is indicated by many writers about GDR lesbians, not least Ursula Sillge in her
book Un-Sichtbare Frauen, they were a subaltem group, kept away from civil society as
a group by state control translated into government and social policy. Even when
homosexuality became somewhat visible, female homosexuals were still largely invisible
due to their sex. Using Gyatri Spivak’s words, as she describes the subaltem status of
third-world women, there are definite parallels that help to clarify why lesbians were
doubly hidden in the GDR. “[B]oth as object of colonialist historiography and as the
subject of insurgency, the ideological construction of gender keeps the male dominant. If,
in the context of colonial production, the subaltem has no history and cannot speak, the
subaltem as female is even more deeply in shadow” (Spivak 83). Structurally, I will
argue that lesbians in the GDR are in a similar position to that of colonized people in a
European colony. First of all, homosexuality was long hidden in the daily life of the GDR
and, even when it began to be recognized, it was not seen as being a historical sexuality
or as female. The anti-homosexual law, §175 from Wilhelmine Germany, though
modified under the Nazi regime, in the GDR returned to its original Wilhelmine wording
in 1950. “Die widematfirliche Unzucht, welche zwischen Personen mannlichen
Geschlechts oder von Menschen mit Tieren begangen wird, ist mit Gefangnis zu
bestrafen; auch kann auf Verlust der bfirgerlichen Ehrenrechte erkannt werden.“ Though
under the Nazis, there were debates about including women in the wording, neither
version targeted homoerotic acts between women, only those between men or with

animals. It was not until 1968, when in the GDR §l75 was stricken but §151 was added,

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which forbade homoerotic contact with any youth under the age of 18, that women were
included in anti-homosexual legislation. In addition, when considering the texts written in
the latter half of the GDR about homosexuality, little to no mention of women is ever
made, the authors of the texts are rarely women or lesbians, and the universal term
“homosexual” is basically equal to the term Schwuler (gay man).73
When the presence of lesbians in East Germany is acknowledged, for example in
sex discourse, or portrayed in women’s literature, it is, as I have already shown in
Chapters Two and Three, based on preconceived notions of lesbianism that rarely have
any correlation to material lesbianism. Of course there is a paradox here, as lesbians are
an open secret in the GDR; it is one that no one acknowledges, but most everyone knows
about Again, I would like to return to Spivak and her demonstration of the
misunderstanding of the word sati, which has the effect of changing expressions by
subaltem women into pre-conceived notions of the listeners/readers.
To see [the destructed female body74] as proof of the feminism of classical
Hinduism or of Indian culture as goddess-centered and therefore feminist
is as ideologically contaminated by nativism or reverse ethnocentrism as it
was imperialist to erase the image of the luminous fighting Mother Durga
and invest the proper noun Sati [meaning good wife] with no significance
other than the ritual burning of the helpless widow as sacrificial offering
who can then be saved. There is no space from which the sexed subaltem
subject can speak (Spivak 103).
Entrenched in lexical and logical slippage, the reading imposed on any subaltem work

completely occludes any space from which the female subaltem could speak, because she

 

’3 Sillge’s book begins with the following anecdote: “1989 wurden ffir eine Sendung des DDR-Femsehens
Eltem auf der StraBe befragt, wie sie sich verhalten wfirden, wenn ihre Kinder homosexuell waren. Eine
Frau antwortete: ‘Kann mir nicht passieren. Ich habe TOchter‘“(Sillge 10). The book by Reinhardt Werner
Homosexualita't included four and a half pages about ,.feminine homosexuality.“ at the three conferences
about homosexuality held in the GDR, there was little to no lesbian representation, and there are many
other examples of this lack of talk about lesbians.

7’ The goddess Sati, killed by the suffering she underwent by her father’s abuse of Sati’s husband Siva, was
dismembered and distributed over the earth by Vishnu—inscribed on the earth as sacred geography.

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is always already pre-interpreted through that prejudice in the mind of the reader. To
return briefly to an example from sex discourse, this is evident in Schnabl’s
interpretations of lesbian sex, which he reads as the imitation of heterosexual sex. That
any butch/femme relationship could be working with different signifiers behind the
obvious signs simply does not occur to him, nor does he feel he needs to further research
the topic. Furthermore, lesbian sex that does not conform to the butch/femme model falls
completely out of his scheme of interpretation.

GDR lesbians expressed themselves using non-sexual voices, in an attempt to
escape the super-sexualized prejudice attached to them as homosexuals. Thus, they chose
to enter civic space in the Nazi victim identity, rather than the lesbian one, per se. This
strategy de-emphasized their sexual difference and focused on their identification with
state-sanctioned anti-fascism. Not only lesbians in the GDR have made such a political
move. “In the 19703 lesbian feminists [in the US] sanitized sexuality in order to make
themselves more palatable to heterosexual feminists and the public, leading to a ‘Civil
war’ of S/M women and other sexual liberationists versus lesbian feminists” (Ingram, et
a1. Lost 12). Of course, this is still an issue as many lesbians and gay men restrain from
kissing, holding hands, or any other sexual gesture in public, so as to secure their

presence there.

Subverting Object Position into Subject Position

When reading the Ravensbrfick texts, it is clear that the lesbians are subjected to
the whims of the state; they are objects of state abuse from the police and misinformation
from many different state functionaries. Despite this objectification—and perhaps in
some ways because of it—in these texts the lesbians are the subjects, they are the actors
and simultaneously the acted upon. How then do they change their status as victims of the

state into a speaking subject position in their own writing?

152

One way they do this is by manipulating, or at least attempting to manipulate,
class distinctions in the GDR. Though socialism was believed to have eradicated class,
we have already seen in chapter two that a clear hierarchy, or “class” system did develop.
This can be demonstrated by taking an everyday situation, in this case, entering the
university for further studies. If attempting to enter the university, suitability was figured
only partially by the potential student’s academic background. A more salient factor was
which group (read: social class) the student belonged to.75 In the GDR, these were not
racial or economic categories, but rather social background categories, such as worker,
production worker, farmer, survivor of Nazi persecution, intellectual, etc. Depending on
one’s group membership, one would or would not be allowed to study. These groups
create a new class in which, for example, members of the worker group would be given
first consideration. In fact, however, these “worker Children” were actually Children of
party functionaries and people in leadership positions. The actual workers were called
“production” workers, and they were given consideration only after the “workers” had all
been given university admission. Ahead of production workers were also the victims or
children of victims of Nazi persecution. If you were a part of the group “intellectual,” the
chances of actually being allowed to study, if your parents were not party functionaries,
were slim. (Sillge, Ursula, public reading at Leipziger LesbenTreffen, MonaLiesa,
Saturday, 4 October 2002)

Thus, a class system is created out of the non-classed Socialist system, but this
class system, creating an elite, is based on political affiliation. Of course, the significance
for Berlin lesbians trying to gain access to civil society, is that a concrete connection with
victim status would allow them the kind of access they had been denied. This recognition

would also shift the perception of them being sexual outsiders to them being political

 

75 If comparing it to the US, one is reminded of all kinds of government forms on which race has to be
filled out, Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American, etc.

153

insiders. For lesbians to gain access, they had to couch their arguments in this rhetoric of

socialist class and create an acceptable identity for themselves.76

In order to shift civic perception then, instead of drawing attention to their
outsider status as lesbians, Berlin lesbians allied themselves to their victim past and
couched their entrance into civil society in antifascist, socialist terms.

Wir sind betroffen, weil wir in der Offentlichkeit oft Diskriminierungen
erfahren, z.B. Siitze wie: So das wie ihr ist frfiher erschossen oder vergast
worden. Daraus resultiert fiir uns die Notwendigkeit, uns mit der Situation
der Lesben in der Nazizeit zu beschfiftigen. Ausdruck dessen ist auch
unser Wunsch, lesbische Opfer des F aschismus zu ehren. Wir wollen uns
in der Oflentlichkeitfrei bewegen. Darum ist es unser Anliegen, daB
Bfirger erfahren, daB es uns in der Gesellschaft gibt“ (Transcript of
Meeting with Two Officials, 31 May 1985—emphasis mine).
Thus, although they wanted recognition as lesbians, emphasis is removed from sexuality
and placed on their anti-fascist history, hopefirlly allowing them to take advantage of the
antifascist prerogative in the GDR. This is not an uncommon strategy for marginalized
groups and can be used as a “strategy to raise awareness within the community of
oppression. . .in order to goad that community into political action” (Jensen 326).
Antifascism was stressed in all aspects of GDR culture, and if GDR lesbians could show
that homosexuality and by extension lesbianism was wrongly persecuted under Nazi

fascism and furthermore show themselves to be the social inheritors of that persecution,

 

7" Lisa Rofel in “Qualities of Desire: Imagining Gay Identities in China,” addresses contemporary Chinese
articulations Of gay male identity that confront some of the same issues that GDR lesbians confronted in the
19803. Rofel stresses that Chinese gays are concerned with “intense desires for cultural belonging, or
cultural citizenship” (453). Like the group Lesbians in the Church, these are gays who have chosen to
remain in their homeland (a significant point in the GDR) and though they are interested in what it means
to be gay in other places, they are most concerned with how they can effectively “be gay” in their own
cultural context. It’s clear that the Lesbians in the Church also have outside influence on their concept of
being lesbian, this is shown in their adoption of the pink triangle as a symbol (which will be discussed in
depth later) or the choice of staging wreath-laying demonstrations at Ravensbriick, but they continue to

154

they could then express their desire for public recognition and blending
queer/heterosexual space in a political argument instead of facing the sexuality/morality
question head on. Though identifying themselves with lesbian history under Nazism is
still connected with sexualized difference, it is also an inclusionary move based on
antifascist sameness while detracting from that sexualized difference emphasized by their
encounters with the GDR state and its officials, or as an anonymous report with no
recorded date stated: “Zum anderen handelt es sich hier um eine Gruppe von Lesben. . .,
denen es um ihre Identitat und nicht um die Zur-Schau-Stellung ihrer Sexualitat geht.”

Victim status and antifascism also establish their textual subjectivity. Throughout
the social drama, the lesbian group draws parallels between their own experiences in the
GDR and the persecution of lesbians under the Nazi regime, while naming the Nazi
persecution as part of their own history: “Wir sind Frauen, und wir haben cine
Vergangenheit, eine Geschichte, die es aufzuarbeiten und vor allen Dingen zu verarbeiten
gilt, um in unserem EmanzipationsprozeB und in unserem Selbstverstfindnis weiter zu
kommen” (Letter to Ravensbrfick Archive Director, 12 March 1984). “Wir beschéiftigen
uns auch mit unserer Geschichte” (Letter to General Secretary of the Ravensbrfick
Committee, 25 April 1985). This historical binding is further expressed in several texts as
a desire to honor their own “lesbische Schwester” (Letter to Minister of Culture, 20
March 1984; Report on Events of 20 April 1985, no date; Letter to General Secretary of
the Ravensbrfick Committee, 25 April 1985, Transcript of Meeting with Anni
Sindermann, 3 May 1985; Report by Dtirte Beyer on “Lesbians in the Church” in the
Gethsemane Church Newsletter, no date).

The smaller acts of discrimination that GDR lesbians, and specifically the
Lesbians in the Church, suffer are aligned with the greater acts of discrimination that
lesbians in the camps suffered. In some cases, contemporary discrimination is seen as a

continuation of the former discrimination: “Wir empfinden [the removal of the visitor

\

define what it means to be lesbian in the GDR and stretch the parameters of the boundaries that confine

155

book entries and wreath] als latente Diskriminierung der Frauen, die im KZ gelitten
haben und sind betroffen fiber die MiBachtung uns gegenfiber” (Letter to Minister of
Culture, 20 March 1984). Correlations are also drawn between the discriminatory
practices of the GDR state, not only the legal discrimination implied by the wording of
§151, but also in its disregard of homosexual victims of fascism:
Sowohl England als auch Grfife sagten wiederholt, daB Homosexuelle in
der DDR in keiner Weise diskriminiert wfirden. Beide blieben auch bei
dieser Meinung nachdem sie den Paragraphen 151 des Strafgesetzbuches
gelesen hatten und andere Diskriminierungsbeispiele von uns gehOrt
hatten. Wir verwiesen zB [sic] auf Unterlassungen bei der
Wiedergutrnachung und Anerkennung von Homosexuellen als Verfolgte
des Naziregimes (Transcript of Meeting with England and Grafe, 21
August 1984).
The most extreme example tying contemporary discrimination to historical persecution
makes the cognitive leap that the smaller discriminations from which contemporary
lesbians suffer allow for extreme persecution such as occurred under the Nazi regime:
In der letzten Zeit wurde viel fiber Homosexualitiit unter Miinnem und
Frauen geschrieben und geredet — es scheint zu Modethema geworden zu
sein. Es ist aber zum Modethema fi'rr die geworden, die nicht direkt
Betroffene sind. Ffir die lesbischen Frauen selbst ist eine Entwicklung
wichtig, die sie an sich erleben und die es auch in einer Gesellschaft geben
muB. Es darf nicht dabei bleiben, daB Homosexuelle als nicht Norrnale
abgestempelt und damit abgeschoben werden, denn mit Nicht-Norrnalen
mOchte kaum einer etwas zu tun haben. So konnten ideologische

begrfindet Gruppierungen wie Homosexuelle, Zigeuner, Juden, Geistig

\

them within their own society.

156

Behinderte der Vemichtung preisgegeben werden (Anonymous Report, no

date).
Furthermore, the lesbians show that they find the state and its officials in no way
prepared to deal with either form of discrimination: “ich will die kurze diskussion fiber
unsre motive fiir eine ehrung der lesben im frfiheren kz Ravensbrfick nicht vollstandig
widergeben [sic] da sie streckenweise hochgradig unsinning verlief da herr y sich in der
problematic der diskriminierung homosexueller frfiher und heute als inkompetent erwies”
(Transcript of Meeting between Marina and herr y and frau x, 18 April 1985).

The members of Lesbians in the Church also suffer from a partially inaccurate
conceptualization of the history they are intending to recuperate. They emphasize the
importance of the pink triangle—which in today’s Western lesbian and gay culture stands
as a sign of recognition based on the suffering of homosexual men under §175a. It was a
common assumption in the West up until the mid-19803 that gay men and lesbians had
suffered equally and similarly under Nazi persecution. In the meantime, scholars such as
Claudia Schoppmann, Christa Schikorra, and Erik Jensen have all conclusively show this
to be a misconception and proven that lesbians were not systematically persecuted during
the Nazi Era. This misconception, which was so strongly supported at the time that it
becomes part of the story East German lesbians tell about their cultural heritage, fully

supports the antifascist victim status that the Lesben in der Kirche are claiming.

By showing that their contemporary socialist state continues to disregard the
existence of homosexuals who suffered under Nazism, the Lesbians in the Church are
dealing with a double-obscuring of homosexuality and specifically lesbianism. They are
aware that homosexual persecution has been ignored by the state—or, as herr y 30 Clearly
demonstrated—it has been hidden behind the universalization of fascist persecution. In
the socialist, universalized concept of history, all victims of fascism suffered equally,

though it is those communist and socialist victims who define the universal while

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marginalized groups such as gay men, the Sinti and Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the
Jews (! I) gained little to no recognition. In their written portrayal of the social drama
created by the Ravensbrfick demonstrations, members of Lesbians in the Church hope to
recover their obscured past while simultaneously creating the Circumstances for their

contemporary presence.

158

M

Personal Narratives and the Reclamation of East Gemn Lesbian Plurality

In the wake of the social revolution that brought about the dissolution of the
German Democratic Republic when it joined the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990,
there was a literary explosion of voices that had been either directly or indirectly
repressed in the GDR. One of the classic examples of indirect repression is the
publication of Christa Wolf’s Was bleibt in the early nineties. Though there was a general
uproar in the literary community, especially the Western literary community, condemning
her for waiting until the relative safety of the post-GDR to publish (though, given the
tumult, it is questionable just how “safe” this was for her), Wolf preserved the text for a
time when she felt she could publish it within her own country; she Chose to remain in the
GDR in the 19703 and also not to publish works solely for foreign audiences. Not only
high-profile writers took advantage of the open publishing atmosphere post-1989, but
women’s magazines and queer publications also began to surface to fulfill a need that 40
years of socialism and strict publication controls had created. For the first time,
publications that dealt with complicated women’s issues and homosexuality were readily
accessible to the East German public. It was during 19903, shortly after the social
upheaval that three lesbian texts, in fact the only three book-length publications written
by lesbians and that directly deal with East German lesbians to this day, appeared. These
three texts provide the material for this chapter. The first, lch ahnungsloser Engel, was
published in 1991 and is a collection of personal narratives compiled by Kerstin Gutsche.
The second volume, viel zuviel verschwiegen, is also a collection of personal narratives,
gathered by Christina Karstadt and Anette von Zitzewitz, and though it was not published
in book form until 1996, it consists of personal narratives from interviews taken in 1990-
1991 that appeared in the 1992 film documentary of the same name. Un-sichtbare

Frauen, by Ursula Sillge, is the only single-author text, and it was published in 1991.

159

In the titles of these three works, there is a common East German lesbian
problematic demonstrated by the terms ahnungslos, verschwiegen, and unsichtbar. Each
term confronts a different aspect of lesbian experience in the GDR, namely of being
unaware, silenced, and invisible; the mere presence of these texts, which are all three
personal accounts from East German lesbians, calls for consciousness, voice, and
visibility. The question may follow, whose consciousness, voice, and visibility? Who
were these texts written and/or published for? The narratives contained in these three
books largely narrate experiences gained pre-1989, though they were not published until
after the GDR became the new German states of the Federal Republic of Germany in
1990, these works are an historical attempt to draw attention to the silenced/hidden
existence of lesbians in East Germany. Though there was a small underground lesbian
newspaper, frau anders, that a group of lesbians in Jena and Weimar began publishing in
January of 1989, it only had a circulation of 100 copies, and even 15 years after the
Wende, my conversations have shown that mainstream Germans from the East were not
aware of the lesbian subculture.77 By drawing on personal experience, lesbians from the
GDR used these texts to say to anyone willing to read them, be they East Germans or
readers outside the former GDR: “We were there and this is what it was like.” As can be
seen in the chapter prior to this one, conditions in the GDR prevented such a public
statement at that time.

This chapter will show these three books as part of a historical attempt to recoup a
material reality of being lesbian in the GDR. Both content and form of the narratives
reinforce the “authenticity” of the experiences portrayed and introduce a lesbian plurality
that was not an element of either East German mainstream sex discourse, which silenced
the lesbian altogether, or women’s fiction, which used an idealized fiction of “The

Lesbian” to further feminist issues. This chapter will specifically ask what kinds of

——

7' Having lived in the Jena, a small city in Thuringia, from 1999-2005, the opportunity to talk to former
Citizens of the GDR about the topic of my dissertation presented itself frequently and, except when I was

160

similarities and differences are evident in the subjects portrayed in these personal
narratives. According to Lacan, the split subject—demonstrated by the mirror image,
which a child identifies as “me,” but which cannot be the actual physical “I” of the
child—is proof of the fictive, constructed, coherent self that is created through language.
Using language to embody the self is elusive and any “coherence” projected through
language can only be a chimera. Since the self is known to be a fiction, this illusion is
replaced with the concept of the subject that is “always split and always in the process of
constituting itself through others” (Smith/Watson 19). Using Lacan and the split as an
overarching conceptual framework 1 will pursue how East German lesbian narrators
create narrative coherence.

Each narrator, to either a greater or lesser extent, was at odds with the East
German ideological system, if solely by virtue of her sexuality, raising the question of
how she gained agency within a system that failed to recognize her as both a lesbian and
socialist subject at the same time. It is through her personal narrativization of experience
that each narrator is able to assert subjectivity in the East German socialist context—even
if that narration happens after the GDR has failed. Furthermore, these texts are grounded
in East German literary traditions such as Protokolliteratur and a certain understanding of
Wolf’s term “subjective authenticity” as well as a Western lesbian narrating tradition,

which pave the way for the agency the individual narrators are able to draw upon.

Protokolliteratur

 

Ich ahnungsloser Engel and viel zuviel verschwiegen continue in part a literary
tradition when collections of interviews published as personal narratives became an
important part of GDR literature in the 19703; that is when Maxie Wander published her
collection of women’s narratives Guten Morgen, du Schb'ne. This tradition was not

invented in the GDR per se, but rather grew out of confessional documentary-type

‘

talking to other lesbians, to a person, the people I talked to were always surprised that l was able to pursue

161

literature from the end of the Nazi era that was mostly published in the West. This
documentary literature ranged from narrative portraits to collected interviews and also to
Protokolle. What differentiated the Protokoll from interviews was that an interview was
printed in its entirety, with questions from the interviewer, whereas Protokolliteratur
worked those interviews into an unbroken monologue (SchrOder 29-30). Maxie Wander,
among others, transported this style of writing to the GDR in the early 19703. Guten
Morgen, du Schb'ne set the standard of Protokolliteratur in the GDR by creating a literary
form that is based on material experience.
Ausgangspunkt der Protokolliteratur sind Gesprache, die Autoren mit
Mitmenschen fiihren, im allgemeinen auf Tonband festhalten und dann
spiiter transkibieren, bevor sie diese Gesprache zu Prosa umarbeiten.
Indem sich die Schriftsteller in der veroffentlichten Version des Gesprfichs
als sichtbaren Bestandteil des Textes weitgehend ausschalten, entstehen
scheinbare Monologe, die erlebt und erzahlt, 'Offentliche und private sowie
vergangene und gegenwartige Alltagswirklichkeiten zum Inhalt haben.
Autobiographie, Erinnerung und Kommentar bilden die F ormen. Die
Texte werden meistens gesammelt herausgegeben (Andress 2).
The author/editor of this type of literature ostensibly remains invisible as s/he records the
experiences of the narrators/interviewees; the editor does, however, play an important
role in the reception of the narratives. Although the interviewer’s voice is never directly
present in the printed narratives, the interviewer leaves traces in the monologues through
answers to ghost questions or direct speech aimed at the interviewer. Also, the editor
shapes narratives when transcribing them and often selects the printed narratives from a
larger sampling. Either explicitly or implicitly, the narratives conform to a purpose the
editor has for the collection. There is no way for the editor’s voice to remain completely

suppressed. In addition, the editor commonly introduces the narrative collection, which

—‘

SUCh a dissertation topic, much less find enough material to sustain an investigation.

162

also pre-detennines how those narratives will be read to some degree. Therefore, we can
read this literary form as crafted by the editor to tell a “story.”
Reinhard Andress sees Protokolliteratur as being especially useful for post-

Wende readers by creating an everyday image of the GDR that is usually in direct conflict
with the party-dictated image:

Protokolliteratur ist eine F undgrube fiir die Untersuchung von

Alltagsleben, und da die typische Verdffentlichung in der Protokolliteratur

aus einer Anzahl von individuellen Stimmen besteht, die aneinandergereiht

werden, wird dort die Vielzahl der Standpunkte in einer bestimmten Zeit

starker als in Autobiographien bewahrt. Im Vergleich zu Autobiographie

zeigt sich ebenfalls der demokratische Anspruch der Protokolliteratur

(Andress 13).
Unlike autobiography, which usually tells one person’s story in a conscious, and self-
reflective manner, Protokolliteratur utilizes a multivocal approach and draws on oral
tradition, since the narratives are transcripts of taped interviews and/or monologues on a
topic. There is always a collection of many different voices, usually centered around
some theme, such as being a woman, a gay man, lesbian, Jewish, or “surviving” the
Wende; Protokolliteratur also has the function “Gesprache zu initiieren,” around complex
social issues (Schmidt 17). Though Felicity Nussbaum claims that initiating dialogue is a
common byproduct of any autobiographical production that presents “marginalized
versions of identity and experience [which] contest the culture’s more public and
institutionalized constructs of reality” (166), it is one of the primary functions of
Protokolliteratur in the East German context.

Andress however seems most concerned with the idea that the interview texts

create together an unofficial historical account for the reader today:

Darfiber hinaus beleuchten Protokolltexte die alltiigliche Situation von

DDR-Bfirgem. . .Es ist ein Bild, das seine Gfiltigkeit dadurch gewinnt,

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indem es die Wirklichkeit in der DDR real erfaBt und im Kontrast zum
exaltierten offiziellen Bild dieses Landes steht, das der Staat wfihrend
seiner Lebzeit propagierte. Aus Protokolltexten liiBt sich ein inoffizielles
Bild der DDR heraus kristallisieren (1-2).
His readings of Protokolliteratur on various topics, among which are the collections by
women such as the influential Wander collection, concentrate almost solely on the value
these texts have historically: “die DDR-Protokolliteratur [besitzt] aus heutiger
Perspektive einen historischen Wert” (Andress 209). Although he points to the fact that
writers like Wander, Sarah Kirsch, author/editor of Pantherfrau, or Christine Mfiller,
author/editor of Mannerprotokolle did not necessarily pass on their interviews word for
word, but rather used their own writing to Change them, or “tune them up,” he never
deconstructs the concept of the authentic. He stands by the term “authentische Aussagen”
throughout his book. Protokolliteratur is the convergence of three different types of
scholarly inquiry: oral history, autobiography, and documentary literature, he analyzes
these collections mainly based on their worth as historical finds, rather than literary ones
and never deals with the perhaps uncomfortable connection between the two. This
approach is not vastly different from that of Hans Joachim Schrdder who also
emphasized the sociological, historical and scholarly importance of Protokolliteratur, in
addition to its literary significance (26-3 8).

Although Sabine Schmidt recognizes the impulse to read Protokolliteratur as an
expression of “die Information fiber Realitat und damit eben fiir die Wahrheit” of East
German life and that this type of reading carries with it “die interpretatorische Vorgabe
fiir eine auf den Inhalt konzentrierte Rezeption und Analyse” (12), she encourages a
reading strategy that moves away from the socio-political value of the texts and
emphasizes “die Gestaltung der Texte und ihre Produktionsbedingungen” (13). Above all,
she is concerned with seeing how the texts that seem the most authentic carefully

construct their facade of authenticity. This chapter reads the lesbian personal narratives

164

contained in the two Protokoll collections lch ahnungsloser Engel and viel zuviel
verschwiegen through a lens more consistent with Schmidt’s view of Protokolliteratur
than as a historical find suggested by both SchrOder and Andress.

These two collections not only participate in the East German tradition of
Protokolliteratur, but can also be read as part of a trans-national lesbian tradition of
similar narratives that began in the lesbian community of the US. in the late 19703 and
early 19803 with publications such as The Coming Out Stories edited by Susan J. Wolfe
and Julia Penelope Stanley (1980), The New Lesbians edited by Laurel Galatia and Gina
Cavina (1977), and The Lesbian Path edited by Margaret Cruikshank (1980). According
to Bonnie Zimmerman in “The Politics of Transliteration,” in the US. lesbian movement
narrating becomes a major way to create a personalized, politicized lesbian community.
Because of lesbian invisibility and silence within larger culture, lesbian politics are
directly tied to overcoming invisibility and silence through the acts of speech—writing,
speaking, and naming. These are critical for creating a lesbian identity. Telling one’s
personal story is, then, part of community building because it creates the fabric of
experience with which other lesbians can identify; publishing those stories also allows
lesbians to join a mainstream dialogue reaching beyond the lesbian community.

It is not a very far stretch to see a similar community-building agenda in the
personal narratives published in Germany in the early 19903. As a proclamation of
participation in a past culture, that of the former GDR, these narratives are also directed
at lesbians in post- Wende Germany; these narratives not only claim “we were there” but
also “we are here.” Sillge’s Un-Sichtbare Frauen does this by actively reaching out to
post- Wende lesbians; she provides information at the back of the book such as contact
addresses of lesbian groups, cafés, and hotlines at the time of publication throughout the

new German states.

165

Political Projects and Narrative Structures

 

As mentioned above, two of the three texts in this chapter are Protokoll
collections, and the other is a single-author narrative that is intended as a history, but
relies mainly on the author’s personal experience. Taken together, all three books create a
body of narratives that provide the reader with multiple experiences of lesbians in the
GDR, though there is some limited mention of life during and directly after the Wende.
Two of the publications, viel zuviel verschwiegen and Un-Sichtbare Frauen concentrate
on the political and community-building activities of lesbians, while the third book, Ich
ahnungsloser Engel, is comprised of interviews with lesbians who either did not
participate in the lesbian community that emerged in the 19803 in church and secular
clubs or this aspect of their lives was simply not part of their narratives. Though all three
books, by nature of when they were published, have a clearly historical function, they
each have a specific project to fulfill as well: Ich ahnungsloser Engel presents
“authentic” lesbian lives in the GDR, viel zuviel verschwiegen presents a historical
development of lesbianism in the GDR, and Un-Sichtbare Frauen presents the
development of lesbian activism in the GDR.

In the two Protokoll collections, lch ahnungsloser Engel and viel zuviel
verschwiegen, in which the narratives are interviews transcribed and compiled by an
editor/editors, not only is the narrating style of the interviewee important, but also the
form the editor may or may not have imposed on the narrative. “The narrative form a
writer [or editor] gives to a life necessarily involves her sense of the purpose for which
her or another’s story is told and is responsive to her notions of audience” (PNG “Forms”
99). The form of the narratives is not arbitrary, but rather—at least to some
degree—consciously chosen by either the author or the editor of the narrative to speak
directly to her perceived audience. Thus, we will see that the two Protokoll collections
demonstrate different narrative forms, at the individual as well as the collection level, but

also that the single-author text is again different, because its perceived readers, or even its

166

perceived readers‘ expectations are different. In viel zuviel verschwiegen, one can
observe a relative formal similarity for all of the narratives—which corresponds to the
editors‘ emphasis on the historical as will be discussed further below—in comparison to
Ich ahnungsloser Engel, in which the individual narratives are more random, allowing for
the “process of self-interpretation, the most salient aspect of the personal

narrative. . .partially revealed through the choice of narrative form” (PNG “Forms” 100).

Ich ahnungsloser Engel

Around the time of the Wende, Kerstin Gutsche began collecting interviews with
lesbians all over the GDR. She began working on this project while dealing with the
problem that homosexuality, and by extension lesbianism, is exclusively portrayed as a
natural predisposition instead of a choice. “Doch wenn eine Lesbe behauptet, sie habe
sich entschieden, so zu leben, weil sie ausprobiert hat, was ihr besser gefallt, rfittelt sie an
den Grundfesten moralischer Auffassungen vieler Menschen” (Gutsche 8). The
connection between choice and morality is a disturbing one that she hopes to deconstruct
to some extent with these narratives.78 This collection consists of twelve interviews with
lesbians and one interview with the mother of one of the lesbian interviewees (Ursula,
Andrea’s mother) and was published one year after the GDR joined the Federal Republic
of Germany. The interviewees range from 25-66 years of age, although the majority
(seven) are in their thirties. Each of the women is identified by her code name, her age,
and her profession; the interviews are organized in a seemingly arbitrary fashion. The
interviewees seemingly come from all over the GDR, but since the place names have
been changed, there is no way of knowing their exact distribution.79

Gutsche states in her preface that she is most interested in providing a varied

glimpse into the “sehr unterschiedliche Lebensvorstellungen von Frauen. . .die cs

78 Criticism of the predisposition/choice dichotomy and how it’s politically used as well as received is a
C9nstitutive element of much current queer theory and can be found in the writings of Michael Warner,
Lisa Duggan, Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini, and Richard Goldstein.

167

vorziehen, mit Frauen zu leben” (Gutsche 9). Above all, Gutsche is concerned less with
the “literarische Ansprfiche” of this collection and more with the “Authentizita‘t der
AuBerungen” (Gutsche 10, emphasis mine). It is this desire to present a collection of so-
called authentic narratives that most strongly connects [ch ahnungsloser Engel to the
tradition of women’s Protokolliteratur of the GDR. Just as Guten Morgen, du Schb‘ne
juxtaposes women’s material conditions against the socialist assumption of gender
equality, this collection provides mundane lesbian experiences juxtaposed against the
assumed East German socialist, heterosexual subject. She attempted to change the
interviews themselves as little as possible, preserving a “dokumentarischen Charakter”
(Gutsche 10), so that the reader has access to a relatively accurate version of the original
interview. This is connected to her stance as interlocutor. For the most part, she Claims to
have tried to keep these interviews from seeming like interviews in order to preserve a
sense of “authenticity,” but she admits “daB mir das nicht durchweg gelungen ist und ich
nicht ohne Fragen auskam. Eigentlich wollte ich mir erzéihlen lassen, was den einzelnen
Frauen selbst wichti g erschien” (Gutsche 9). There are however thematic similarities and
implied questions that seem to dominate the content of the narratives; Gutsche herself
admits that she is woven as interlocutor throughout the interviews. In some cases,
questions were restated: “Wie ich damals dazu kam, diesen Mann zu heiraten?” (Gutsche
l4—Christiane). Sometimes, the interviewee directly addresses the interlocutor, for
example in Bettina’s narrative. “Du willst ein Beispiel, denke ich. . .” (Gutsche 50). In the
most extreme case, in Julia’s interview, in addition to restating interlocutor questions, the
interview lacks the fluidity of the other interviews and seems to be moving from one
question to the next. Gutsche, as editor and interviewer of these different women, is
unable to completely take an overt or covert role in the interview process, but vacillates
between those extremes; the narratives demonstrate the difficulty the interlocutor has

remaining completely out of the process.

 

79 In her preface, Kerstin Gutsche claims that all “Namen und Orsangaben” have been changed (10).

168

Although each narrative is in the first person, they each have a different structure
according to the flow of their oral interview. For example, the first interview with
Christiane is roughly chronological, but each part of her life is characterized by a
different theme, such as sexuality, family, university, husband and marriage, first
experiences with women, first female love, and personal relationships. Despite this
chronological/thematic structure, the interview begins with a discussion of the
importance of her job in her life, instead of her childhood. The following narrative,
Rahel’s, however, is circular in nature, always returning to certain themes, such as love,
relationships, and being lesbian. She does not share her life story with us and what she
does share of her personal life outside of these themes, such as work, always relates back
to the three main themes. These differences continue throughout, ensuring that each
narrative retains its own personality. There has been no Chronological order or other kind
of structure obviously imposed on the narratives. Although some of the interviews tell a
coming-out story, this is not the primary objective of the interviews. Each interview
seems to reflect what that woman thought most important at the time of the interview;
thus, some concentrate on love and the lesbian relationships they have had, while others
concentrate on their work, the butch/femme dilemma as they see it, or a poor housing

situation, while others give their personal histories.

viel zuviel verschwiegen

This collection is the published follow-up to a film documentary by East German
dramatist Christina Karstadt and West German psychologist Anette Zitzewitz of the same
name that was released in 1992; it is distinctly different than the preceding one,
especially due to its strong political agenda. Although both collections are based on
personal experiences of the narrators, Ich ahnungsloser Engel concentrates on presenting

an “authenticity” of everyday lesbian life in the late GDR, while viel zuviel verschwiegen

169

is concerned with creating lesbian history. viel zuviel verschwiegen was not published
until 1996, though most of the interviews took place in 1991 and 1992. The main
difference between the film and the book is that the interviews are extended (material is
included that was cut out of the film version due to constraints on length) and three
interviews have been added, specifically those of Christel Neumann, Anna, and Maike F.
In addition, the book contains a documentation index that also could not be part of the
film. In an, attempt to recreate the flow of the documentary, the book also contains the
lyrics of three of Maike Nowak’s folk songs, which were used as interludes in the film
version. The book consists of 12 interviews, of which ten are with individuals and two
are with small groups; thus 15 women were interviewed. The interviewees’ ages ranged
from 67 to 27 at the time of their original interview (between 1991 and 1993). The reader
is also given the interviewee’s name (either real or code name, depending on the
interview), job, and the place where the interview took place. The ages are relatively
evenly spread out, but eight of the twelve interviews were held in Berlin, and a further
two were in Potsdam; only two interviews took place outside of this Berlin/Potsdam
sphere: one in Dresden, and one in Weimar. The interviews are roughly organized
according to age, oldest to youngest, although there are some slight deviations, especially
in the two group interviews.

The historical agenda of this collection is strongly reflected in the organization of
the interviews. In the introduction, although there are different topical headings, such as
“Lesben suchen ihre Geschichte,” “Lesben in der Auseinandersetzung mit Wissenschaft
und Psychiatric,” “Rfickblick: die Dokumentarfilmarbeit,” and “Die Bucharbeit,” lesbian
history and the addition of GDR lesbian history to the greater whole is thematized
throughout the whole introduction, which is strongly indicated in the first two
paragraphs:

Die Geschichte von lesbischen Frauen ist seit Jahrtausendcn cine

Geschichte von Schweigen und Verschwcigcn, von Andcutungen und

170

Auslassungen, von F ragmenten. Immer wieder suchen lesbische Frauen
nach Wurzcln und Ursprfingen, nach einer historischen Identitfit. Dabei
begibt sich jede Generation von neuem auf den Weg, um ihre Geschichte
selbst zu crarbciten und sich anzueignen (9).
As stated, this historical project is carried out not only on the content level of the
interviews, but also at the structural level. Not only is the narrative organization of each
interview chronological, but the interviews are also organized according to the age of the
interviewee; from oldest to youngest, creating a chronological development throughout
the whole collection. The interviews also demonstrate a historical shift from the personal
to the community. The older women concentrate on the development of their whole lives,
focusing on their discovery and naming of their lesbianism and finding suitable partners,
whereas the interviews of the younger lesbians concentrate almost solely on community
building in the 703 and 803, without much “personal” content. The interviews in the
middle are a mixture of the two, moving from early community building attempts and
subculture to contact with larger or at least more open lesbians and then, the first attempts
at community building. Emphasis here has moved from the mundane to the
historical/teleological development of the movement; much as the Berlin group Lesbians
in the Church grounded their contemporary subjectivity in the historical roots provided
by lesbian persecution under the Nazis, the narrators of this collection create their own
textual subjectivity by calling on the historical, teleological development towards

enlightenment of the public and thus the eventual acceptance of lesbians in society.

Un-Sichtbare Frauen: Lesben und ihre Emanzipation in der DDR

This text from Ursula Sillge is vastly different from the other narratives in that it
is a single-author text that attempts to be a kind of scholarly history of the development
of the lesbian movement in the GDR; this goal it shares with the collection viel zuviel

verschwiegen. Un-Sichtbare Frauen is not Protokolliteratur, and neither was it Sillge’s

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intent to write a personal narrative. Despite her attempts at “scientific objectivity,” Sillge
almost exclusively writes about her own experiences and her interactions with a specific
group. Her narrative thus is a combination of semi-scientific report, personal history, and
advice (such as how to deal with coming out and who to contact) for the lesbian
community in the early 903. In the narrative, Sillge shifts seemingly arbitrarily between
the third and first person—often within the same report about the same group. Compare
this quote about the formation of the Sonntags-Club (of which Sillge was a member and
head organizer): “1987 beschloB dcr [Berliner] Freundlnnenkreis, sich ‘Sonntags-Club’
zu nennen. Programme vervielf‘altigten die Organisatorlnnen zunachst mit der
Schrcibmaschinc, das einzige ihnen zugéingliche Verfahren, das nicht verboten war”
(100, emphasis mine) with the following quote where she talks about problems with the
club leadership about a year later:
Seit dem Frfihjahr 1988 kam es zu stfindigen Attacken und inneren
Auseinandersetzungen, die die Existenz des Sonntags-Clubs mehr
bedrohten als alle auBeren Auseinandersetzungen vorher. An meine Stelle
als Leiterin sollte cin sicherer Kader rficken: Mitglied der SED und Lehrcr
fiir Marxismus/Leninismus (ML) an einer F DJ-Schule. Von mir befragt,
ob er sich nicht schfibig vorkomme, erwiderte er: ‘lch stelle mich dieser
Aufgabe’. ...Die Aktion gegen den Club war begleitet von
Verleumdungen gegen mich und andere Mitglieder, an denen sich auch
verschiedene Lesben und Schwule kirchlicher Gruppcn beteiligten (102,
emphasis mine).
Within a span of two pages, Sillge shifts from talking about her actions with others in an
impersonal third person (assuming the tone of an omniscient, distanced narrator) to a
personal first person when talking about the split in group leadership—seeming to

indicate that she also felt the split was a personal attack.

172

Her shifting tone undermines her reliability as a narrator because her involvement
is buried beneath a thin veneer of scientific objectivity. In the end, there is a disconnect
between content and style. Instead of creating an “objective” history of lesbian history in
the GDR—a project which in and of itself is questionable given the subjective nature of
any scientific or scholarly inquiry—she has written a personal account of her and her
cohort’s own experiences combined with advice for lesbians in post- Wende Germany.
Using a scholarly vehicle for a personal history that is not self-reflective80 puts form and

content are at odds with one another, creating an awkward narrative.

Subjectivity

To a large degree, the East German lesbian narrators ground their subjectivity in a
variety of communities, whether they are work, familial, or lesbian-centered—in fact, in
the widest sense, the narratives in Ich ahnungsloser Engel concentrate on love and
familial relationships as well as work, while both viel zuviel verschwiegen and Un-
Sichtbare Frauen are concerned with the emerging lesbian community, whether in
church-based or secular groups. Women commonly organize their personal narratives
around their connection to the community (they are locally bound), their awareness of
their own multiple roles within society, and their need to relate personal experience
(Morgan). Narrating personal experiences in East Germany is self-referential and works
as a means of self-discovery as well as narrative creation. In her investigations of modern
feminist autobiography, or what she calls autography, Jeanne Perreault states that
women’s voices do not come from their experience directly, but from the process of
relating that experience; thus subjectivity grows out of the process of narrating. In her

view, “the feminist ‘self’, then, exists in the particular of feminist texts and not in any

 

8° There are scholars who have been able to write self-reflective personal histories that also confront
complicated social issues. Most notably, Carolyn Kay Steedman’s Landscape for a Good Woman: A Story
of Two Lives relates her own complicated memories of growing up in working-class England with analysis
of how class is gendered. It is because Steedman confronts her own implication in her object of study that
the text is so successful as a scholarly work.

173

particular kind of text” (193). Paul John Eakin would agree that there is no self without
narrative, though he would extend the process of becoming and narrating beyond the
written sphere to include all forms of narration that help us distinguish ourselves from our
social context. The real effect this has for East German lesbian narrators is that, though
they are not necessarily recognizable in the mainstream fabric of GDR social life, they
create themselves as participants in that society, not just in forms that conform to socialist
compulsory heterosexuality, but also that allow for the varieties of sexual and familial
experiences that do not conform.81 This can be seen in the friendship circles that older
lesbians like Tommy and Cristel Neumann moved in as well as the number of shared
living situations, having multiple partners, male and female, cross-generational
relationships, and the separation of sex (with men) from an emotional experience (with
women).

If subjectivity is attained in the act of narrating, subjectivity is not prior to
narration, but simultaneously created in the act of production. Eakin shows however that
both narration and subjectivity are not solely textual production, but always/already part
of the process of becoming who we are, even if we are not always aware of the process.

We don’t, I think, pay much attention to this process [of becoming a
“self”], not only because we want to get on with the business of living our
lives, but also because identity formation is not available for conscious
inspection as it happens. We can never expect to witness the emergent
sense of self as an observable event precisely because it is an ongoing
process, taking place mostly beneath our notice from day to day—and

indeed, physiologically, moment by moment. We never catch ourselves in

 

8‘ Though Morgan and Perreault would confine this relational form of autobiographical production to
women’s production, in How our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves Eakin sets out to deconstruct the
gender polarization implied by this approach. He shows that it is rather a common strategy of postmodern
life writing to focus on relationships, how postmodern personal narratives, regardless of the gender of the
author, create the subject in relation to a spectrum of “others.”

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the act of becoming selves; there is always a gap or rupture that divides us

from the knowledge that we seek (Eakin x).
It is not only growth and differentiation that determine subjectivity, but also the act of
explaining the self. Subjectivity comes not only from the narrating process, but also from
the perceived audience or telegraphed purpose of the text. In the texts in this chapter, it is
clear that all of the narrators derive subjectivity from their own experiences, but it is also
the form used to relate those experiences that further lends them an authoritative voice. In
the case of lch ahnungsloser Engel, narrators’ concentration on everyday experiences
such as relationship formation or work strongly embeds them in the socialist fabric of
society, demonstrating that lesbians had concerns “just like everyone else.” Conversely,
Sillge’s adherence to a scholarly voice in Un-Sichtbare Frauen supports her efforts to
create a text that is seemingly more concerned with the political and social issues that
lesbians face, even if or perhaps because those issues place them in an outsider position
to mainstream society.

All of these personal narratives also point to a schism between GDR culture and
the narrators’ own experiences within that culture. Not unlike Althusser, Felicity
Nussbaum confronts the subject under ideology and whether she may conceive of herself
as an agent without being able to identify the ideologies and institutions that determine
that agency. This seems to leave little space for any kind of subject that can in some way
produce a text not wholly determined by ideologies—hegemonic or not. In Michel
Pécheux’s “theories of the transformation of the subject” (164), Nussbaum sees the
possibility of a subject position that “disidentifies” with the ideologies that create it (or
rather, is forced to accept a subject position that is inadequate or incompatible); thus, the
ideological system becomes transparent to the subject who may then effect some sort of
social/political change. This means that through disidentification, language usage will

shift as well, as new subject positions “contest dominant ideologies” (164).

I75

Disidentification is exactly the strategy that GDR lesbians used to relate their
stories while also pointing to their oppression within the GDR, thereby creating an
interesting paradox for GDR lesbians. Their texts exist in a space of what Nussbaum calls
interdiscourse-the place where disidentification meets up with ideology allowing for a
discourse that simultaneously critiques ideology and its institutions while using the
language of that ideological system; thus, to some degree they are forced to couch their
arguments/create their subjectivity according to the rules of their oppressor, the GDR
social system, while also attempting to point to the oppressive nature of the system on
them. Reinhard Andress sees this as a critical point as well in his analysis of GDR
Protokolliteratur. As a common form in the GDR that he traces back to its formative
period, Andress states that:

Durch das Erzahlen unserer Geschichte und Geschichten in diesem
Kontext erkennen wir den Grad unserer eigenen Eingliederung bzw.
Nicht-Eingliederung in cine Gesellschaft, definieren unscr Selbst und
geben unserem Leben Sinn. Daraus ergibt sich unsere Identitéit;
autobiographisches Erzahlen bildet ein wichtiges Mittel zur Herausbildung
eines Sclbstverstéindnisses (24).
In his consideration of autobiographical subjectivity, Andress brings together, albeit
unconsciously, both Perreault and Nussbaum in that he claims that subjectivity is created
in the process of writing—autobiographical writing allows the writer to reach a certain
self-understanding—while emphasizing the degree of integration or lack of integration
into society. In Protokolliteratur by women, Andress further ties subjectivity to reality by
stating that “menschliche Subjektivitiit [ist] Bestandteil der Wirklichkeit. Im Falle von
Wanders Protokollband erhOht das Subjektive an den Aussagen das
Identifikationspotential mit den Frauen in den Protokollen, vor allem bei den Leserinnen”

(86). The rest of this chapter, while showing how subjectivity is grounded in experience,

176

will engage that experience and confront its constructed nature, as well as the kind of

subject it creates.

The narrators of Ich ahnungsloser Engel, viel zuviel verschwiegen, and Un-
Sichtbare Frauen all derive their subjectivity from different kinds of experience as well
as their anticipated reader. The narrators in Engel find their voice in their everyday
lives—they narrate through their current experiences whereas the narrators of
verschwiegen narrate with an eye to a historical development that expands beyond their
individual experiences. Their subjectivity is derived from their connection to history,
whether it is their individual history, or whether it is their participation in a GDR
collective lesbian history through the acts of community building and participation in the
lesbian movement. These narratives call on history as their basis for authority. Sillge’s
narrative, however, calls on a completely different authority—one given her by scientific
inquiry, or at least the appearance thereof. Her experiences are partially historicized, but
even more, they are couched in a supposedly objective, scientific language that lends her
narrative authority.

The importance of experience and a sense of authenticity in all of these personal
narratives are inescapable. In order to locate the discussion of experience and authenticity
in an East German as well as lesbian context, I will first take a short excursion into
Christa Wolf’s concept of subjective authenticity since it becomes a cornerstone of
women’s writing in the GDR and specifically in conjunction with Protokolliteratur.

According to Kathleen Komar, it is Wolf‘s intention to complicate her own
authorial voice as well as the narrating voice, to intertwine them inextricably, making it
also difficult for the reader to separate them. She uses (auto)biography fictionally, using
the form to create uncertainty about the (auto)biographical voice altogether: when a story
is told, whose is it? This fragmented voice can also be seen as a communal voice—a

pluralized “I.” For Wolf, this fragmentation, in conversation with itself, stands in for a

177

utopian, cooperative social(ist) structure she sees as the eventual outcome of socialism.
Thus the end goal of Wolf’s writing is that the collective develops into a community, but
one in which the “other” is critically engaged, so that the question arises why it is the
“other,” not the “same.” Wolf uses subjective authenticity, calling on experience—her
own, and yet not her own—to create this pluralized “I” with which the reader can
simultaneously identify and not identify.

The author thus does not attempt to separate herself from her texts and create an
objective distance to textual matter, but rather is communally entwined in the text, so that
author and narrator become inextricable, although they are not the same. “For Wolf,
‘authenticity’ goes beyond the traditional (auto)biographical convention of verifiability or
attempted objectivity. The authenticity she models for the reader is that of a
consciousness intent on revealing its own self-deceptions, continuously questioning its
own assumptions, and persistently redefining itself in, as, and apart from ‘the other’”

(F rieden “Transforrnative” 173-174). Thus authenticity is no longer connected to
providing the salient number of supporting documents, pictures, etc., but rather refers to
authenticity in representation—not necessarily an authenticity that promises
documentable truth or accuracy, but rather authenticity of voice, of authorial commitment
to the written. Because of this, Wolf “sees in [Protokolliteratur]. .. an answer to the GDR
literary establishment’s call for ‘realism’ in literature: namely, a concept of realism which
does not exclude the subjective interaction of the self with the text” (Pickle 217).

The author is thus free to play with form and subject matter, as well as narrative
voice, in the hope of creating a subjectivity that extends beyond the subjectivity of the
author, but also allows the reader to gain subjectivity from the reading process.

Als Autorin strebt [Wolf] eine literarische Reflexion ihrer eigenen
Erfahrungen an (in doppelten Sinn von Widersiegelung und
weiterfiihrender Auseinandersetzung) und hofft, cine Beziehung zwischen

sich und den Text herstellen zu kOnnen. Durch Verweigerung der

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erwarteten Form and durch das Beispiel ihres eigenen ‘Subjektwerdcns’
hofft sic im Leser einen neuen BewuBtwerdungsprozeB zu fOrdem
(Frieden 156).
Wolf’s subjective voice not only directly engages the text, but also the reader; not in an
attempt to provide answers, but rather to challenge the reader to look beyond the
mediated/written material as well as her/his own material conditions.

The reader and author thus use experience as a starting point, not the end point of
understanding the narrative. This approach is supported by the theoretical writing by Joan
Scott who states that experience, when used as evidence, stunts historical analysis of
difference in that it naturalizes the categories of difference being examined. Thus,
experience [read: personal narratives for our purposes] occludes the working of
categories while stating “the fact of difference” (Scott 59). Experience has to be
historicized, problematized, and explained. It is not the end goal of history, but rather the
starting point of historical inquiry. In order to historicize—instead of
naturalize—experience and difference we need to treat the “emergence of a new identity
as a discursive event” (Scott 66), inquire how representation is constructed and what
stands behind that construction (Scott 67), and situate and contextualizc language and its

shifts, looking at the politics of identity construction.

Experience/ Authenticity

 

If we take theories of autobiography as well as Wolf’s fluid definition of
authenticity into consideration, it is possible to take each narrator’s experience and look
beyond it. Since any subject is necessarily a constructed fiction that seems to create a
coherent narrator, the question of experience becomes not what kind of experiences the
writers/narrators had, but rather how they use their own material conditions and
memories to shape the kind of narrative that is most effective for their textual intent, and

it is not necessary that the narrator be conscious of this selecting process. All of these

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narrators are concerned with visibility; the question then is not whether they were able to
gain that visibility, but rather how their personal narratives are constructed to that end.

lch ahnungsloser Engel and viel zuviel verschwiegen, following a common
agenda in Protokolliteratur of the GDR, attempt to show the reader lesbian life in the
GDR that is in direct conflict with mainstream East German ideas about being lesbian.
These collections provide a plurality of lesbians who were inextricably woven into the
fabric of East German socialist life, as opposed to either the missing lesbian of East
German sex discourse or the singular, idealized “Lesbian” of East German women’s
fiction. In many ways, the narrators’ mediated experience first demonstrates to what
extent they resemble the general population. Their experience emphasizes that they had
similar concerns to other GDR citizens.

In almost all of the narratives, work is centrally thematized; the workplace
occupied a central place in not only many of the narrators’ professional, but also their
social lives. Employment not only provided the financial means to provide for their
necessities as well as luxuries, but it is also a constitutive element of their identity under
socialism. The very first sentence of the first narrative in lch ahnungsloser Engel is
“Meine Arbeit macht mir unheimlichen SpaB” (Gutsche 11). Andrea, in the same
collection, gains much of her self-worth from the community she takes part in as overseer
of a construction crew. When she was younger, it was as “one of the guys”: Mit den
Jungen, mit denen ich da zu tun hatte — wir feteten viel —, da brauchst du bloB mal
ankratzen, und da fingen die an zu erziihlen. . .Wenn wir auf dcr Baustellc waren und
irgendwas zusammen machen konnten, irgendwas mauem oder 30. Die Jungen waren
immer ein bchhen unkomplizierter als die Madel in dem Alter“ (Gutsche 155-156). As
she gained experience, became qualified as a Civil engineer, and supervised construction,
her attitude shifted so that she made more of a division between her work and her private
life: “Wichtig ist fiir mich das Arbeiten, arbeiten, arbeiten und dann SchluB. Und in

meiner F reizeit mache ich ganz was anderes” (160). Many of the narratives give detailed

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accounts of the different paid work they have done throughout their lives, and in some
cases, as with Andrea above, their work experience is more fully narrated than their
experiences discovering their sexuality. In fact, all lesbians who provided narratives were
identified by their names or pseudonyms as well as by their ages and their professions,
and although the names may have been modified, their professions were accurately
identified.

An additional concern thematized by GDR lesbians in their narratives was the
search for appropriate living space. Like other citizens, housing was at a premium and the
competition for spacious, centrally heated housing was intense. Furthermore, this brought
up issues of privacy and problems with shared space, which was often the problem with
singles (or at least legally unmarried people), who either had to share apartments with
other singles or had to live with their parents. Thus, finding an apartment as a single or as
part of an unmarried couple was problematic. Living space was not, however, the only
spatial concern lesbians shared with the population at large. Lesbians also had the
problem of finding public meeting spaces they were allowed to use. Although this may
seem to be a problem specific to lesbians and other homosexuals, any group that was
perceived as too specialized/independent—this included groups as simple as mah jong
enthusiasts—were denied meeting space since public space was closely guarded by the
state.82

A last example of commonality between lesbian concerns and those of other GDR
citizens is that of finding an appropriate partner. GDR sexologists as well as other
numerous forums, such as the personal ads in newspapers, especially the Wochenpost,
demonstrate the problems associated with finding a companion. Pairing off is a main
concern in GDR social life and it is no less so in lesbian narratives. Especially the
narratives by Inge Scheuer and Christel Neumann outline how they used the personal ads

to find women who they could form partnerships with. Christel Neumann “kam eines

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Tages auf die ldce, auf Annoncen in der Wochenpost zu antworten” (Karstadt/Zitzewitz
44-45) and met two women that way. Inge Scheuer placed her own ad looking for a
“Lebensgefahrtin fiir gemeinsame Stunden” and received sixty answers to that one ad
(Karstfidt/Zitzewitz 37). Sillge, in her interview in viel zuviel verschwiegen as well as in
her own book also discusses the problems associated with personal ads in the GDR,
especially as lesbians and gay men became more visible, the ads were more controlled.
Not only is the content of these narratives critical in establishing mundane
similarities between lesbians and the mainstream population but also the structure of the
narratives as well. According to the Personal Narratives Group, the form a narrator
Chooses can allow her to represent her life and how she feels about it in a way that may
be incongruent with her actual material possibilities. She can express her self textually in
a way that she could not materially; she can develop a textual subjectivity denied her by
the material conditions of her everyday existence (PNG “Forms”). By accentuating their
participation in the mundane activities of socialist life, the narrators portray themselves as
“normal” members of society, whether or not they were actually accepted as such. Except
for the narrative by Sillge, all of the narratives have a conversational tone, and since all
but Sillge’s text have been transcribed from interviews, this has largely to do with the
oral quality preserved in many of the narratives. Gutsche, editor of Ich ahnungsloser
Engel, even states that she tried as little as possible to edit the narratives, because she did
not want to disrupt the quality of the original; she attempts to preserve the tone and
structure as well as the content of the narratives/interviews, thus ensuring them an
“everyday” feel. Furthermore, she states that she does this because she is not interested
“literarischen Ansprfichen gerecht zu werden” (10). In viel zuviel verschwiegen, two of
the narratives consist of small groupings, so the interview/discussion quality of the
narrative is even more present. In almost all cases, although the narrative form varies

from chronological to cyclical to almost free association, the mundanity of the narratives

 

82 For a full discussion of civil society and the state’s control thereof, please see the previous chapter on the

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does not call attention to itself; it makes the reader feel at ease with the narrative and
makes it easier for her to identify with the narrator and her (mediated) experiences.
According to Monika Totten, this is also due to the fact that the reader can imagine the
questions and the implied dialogue, if she pays attention to the places where the shift to a
new theme is sudden or where questions are restated in the answer. This silent
interviewing voice that is present throughout the collections manages to preserve the
intimate tone, instead of disrupting it. In comparing the implied dialogue in Wander and
the inner dialogue, often present in Wolf’s writing, Pickle says that it is “not surprising
that an intimacy of tone results from these inner meditations which resembles that in the
Wander interviews. In addition, the underlying, usually unarticulated participation of
Maxie Wander in the interviews reminds one of the complex narrative structure in Kein
Ort. Nirgends” (223). The reader feels she is taking part in or being allowed to listen to
an intimate discussion between friends.

Although the narrators focus on the mundane and, in many ways, make it easier
for all readers to identify with them, they also highlight their difference as lesbians as
well as the problems associated with lesbianism in GDR society, stressing the necessity
for acceptance within that society. In the concerns mentioned above, there is a special
lesbian bent to each concern. In the GDR since living space was such a problem, lesbians
had even more problems finding accommodations suited to their needs, especially if they
were in a long-term relationship. As two “single” women, they would not qualify for an
apartment together, so they would be forced to either keep two smaller apartments and
cope with that, or to consolidate into what was mostly a much smaller space, a studio or
one-bedroom apartment for the both of them. Sometimes this was made easier if one of
the women had children and had been able to keep a larger apartment she had shared with
a husband, but this was not necessarily the norm. Concerning work, many of the lesbians

lived with the fear that their sexuality would be discovered and either used against them

 

Ravensbrfick demonstrations.

183

in the workplace or would even lead to them losing their positions—which was not a
completely unfounded fear. Christiane, who worked for the Abteilung Kultur of her city,
was in danger of losing her job because she admitted to having a relationship with a
woman:
Ich muBte mich zum Beispiel bei dem Kreissckretar der SED
verantworten, bei dem Stadtrat fiir Kultur und bei meinem Chef. Die
fibcrlegten dann gemeinsam, acht Wochen lang, ob ich meine Arbeit
weiter machen darf. Weil ich ja im Lichte der Offentlichkeit stehe, das
ware ja nicht so gfinsti g. . .Man teilte mir nach diesen acht Wochen mit,
daB ich meine Arbeit weitermachen darf, es aber bitte nicht so an die
Offentlichkeit dringen soll (Gutsche 19-20).

For some lesbians, meeting potential long-term partners was also a problem since
visibility for lesbians was at a minimum until the 19803, though even then, many lesbians
did not benefit from the lesbian groups formed in the last decade of the GDR. These
women were limited to either word-of-mouth within their circle of friends, if they were
lucky enough to have a Circle that included lesbians other than the one they were
currently in a sexual relationship with, or the personal ads they were sometimes allowed
to place in the Wochenpost. This opportunity was shaky at best and as lesbians gained
visibility—limited as it was—the opportunity to place ads declined. At the best of times,
these ads used covert language like Brieflreundin and Gleichgesinnte and drew a limited
number of responses that the women who placed the ads felt they could reply to (Christel
Neumann— Karstéidt/Zitzewitz 41-52). The problem with lesbians encroaching on public
space to find each other did not end at the personals, but rather became one of the main
points of contention for the lesbian/gay groups in the 19803. Most solved this by meeting
under the protection of the church, since secular groups were not allowed to form and
gather publicly until the last two or three years before the Wende. If the emphasis on

mundane problems encouraged readers to identify with the narrators, the emphasis on

184

lesbian singularity was not intended to cause disidentification but rather to garner
sympathy from the reader regarding the problems lesbians faced.
Further emphasis was placed on the shift to community—the necessity of creating
a lesbian collective so that lesbians were able to be better integrated into socialist society
(see viel zuviel verschwiegen and Un-Sichtbare Frauen especially). These two goals may
seem contradictory, but the right to develop one’s individuality within an appropriate
environment was considered, at least on a theoretical level, indispensible to successful
integration with the socialist collective:
Notwendi g bleibt allerdings die Berficksichtigung der spezifischen
Interessen homosexueller Personen. Sic haben, wie alle anderen Gruppen
der Gesellschaft, allgemeine und spezielle Interessen. Sic mfissen, wie alle
anderen Gruppen der Bevfilkerung, die Mfiglichkeit haben, ihre
Bcdfirfnisse zu artikuliercn und ihre spezifischen Interessen zu vertreten.
Das ist eine wesentliche Voraussetzung fiir die individuellc
Persfinlichkeitsentwicklung cinerseits und sozialistische Demokratie in der
Gesellschaft andererseits.
Wenn der Grundsatz, daB der Sozialismus ffir alle da ist und alle braucht,
wenn das Bestreben, alle Menschen zu erreichen und einzubeziehen,
realisiert werden soll, muB sich die konkrete Interessenstruktur auch in der
politischen Organisation der Gesellschaft widerspicgeln, d.h. in der
mOglichen Existenz der Begegnungsstéitten homosexueller Bfirger wie
Klubs etc. (Sillge Sonntagsclub).
In this statement, Sillge uses personal development as a basic principle of socialism to
argue for the inclusion of homosexuals. She couches her argument in socialist rhetoric to
reach the logical conclusion that homosexuals must be allowed special considerations in

order to become successful citizens under socialism.

185

The content of viel zuviel verschwiegen especially maintains the teleological
development of lesbian culture in the GDR. In this collection, not only is there a
chronological organization of the narratives, moving from the Oldest to the youngest,
there is also a shift from narratives that reflect the total isolation of lesbians in their
monogamous relationships (Inge Scheuer) to the development of friendship circles of
lesbians and gay men who met in each other’s homes (Christel Neumann and Tommy), to
lastly the development of the lesbian community in the churches, the secular groups, and
the creation of the first lesbian newspaper (Anna, Gabriele S., Heinrikc, Ursula Sillge,
Arbeitskreis “Lesben in der Kirche,” “frau anders”). This shift is accompanied by a shift
from individual concerns and the discussion of love as the main narrative motivators to
the creation and continuation of the collective as the main narrative motivators. Lastly,
within this shift it is the last group of narratives, the ones about lesbian community, that
further establishing the importance of the collective voice (for example, this is the section
with the group or pair interviews). The constructed nature of this teleology becomes
evident as the narratives themselves reveal that: l) in the early years of the GDR there
were lesbians that participated in friendship groups and queer communities, and 2) during
the 19803 and the proliferation of lesbian groups leading to a burgeoning lesbian
community, there were still many—in fact the majority of—lesbians who were not
connected to any kind of collective based on sexuality. Most lesbians in the 19803 were
still struggling with the problems of finding and keeping partners; all twelve narratives in
Ich ahnungsloser Engel discuss this problem, though none of them talk about taking part
in the lesbian movement of the 19803. In some ways this was further complicated by the
fact that newspapers quit carrying personal ads from women seeking women, since it was
becoming increasingly difficult for the newspapers to accept the pretense that these were
“fi‘atemal” ads given the rising visibility—however limited—of lesbians and

homosexuality in general.

186

Moreover, in order to stress their place in GDR society, very little attention is paid
to sex or sexuality; sex itself is mostly referred to by euphemisms such as “tenderness”
(Za'rtlichkeit), so that for the most part the only real references to sex are either
heterosexual, or misplaced perversions that the lesbian narrator did not participate/want
to participate in. Of all the narratives, only two narrators thematize sex itself: Martina
talks about lesbian sex practices and SM sex and Miriam talks about her days of
“playing the field” as it were— “Damals dachte ich auch sofort immer an Sex. Das war
immer alles eins, cine Frau kennenlcmen, cine Frau lieben, war sofort immer Sex”
(Gutsche 42-43)—but otherwise, sex gets talked about only indirectly, if at all. This may,
in part, dispel the myth of the oversexed lesbian/homosexual, though it is more likely to
reinforce the stereotypes of mainstream sex discourse that women are concerned with the
emotional, not the physical side of sexual relationships. Although sex is not directly
talked about, there is a lot of talk about love, love problems, and relationships and their
problems. Thus, as lesbians divorce themselves from the myth of their sexed selves, they
reconfirm the myth of their female emotional selves. Another way in which many
lesbians conform to the female sexual role is as mothers, since many of them were
married first and many lesbians have children, creating another bridge between lesbians
and reproductive socialist women.

This is seen in contrast to the highly sexualized heterosexuality that is a
constitutive element of socialist identity. As was shown in Chapter Two, the GDR
woman is sexualized not only as the child-bearing nurturer, but being properly socialist

also assures that women are more likely to be orgasmic and instigate sex acts. However,
it is through masculine stimulation that the socialist woman reaches an orgasmic state,
and thus, since lesbians are not “stimulated” by men, they have no language for their own
sexuality.

The seemingly tame or desexualized expressions of sexual intimacy may also be

tied to Western feminist influences, since East German feminists and lesbians had at least

187

limited access to such texts. It was especially during the 19703 and the sex wars of the
19803 that feminists were skeptical of using patriarchal language to express sexuality and
some feminists even considered all “masculine” sex acts, such as penetration, to be
oppressive and even violent acts: “J etzt ist cine neue art von sehnsucht entstandcn, von
erregung und von hingabe — hingabe, die mit zuwendung zu tun hat, nicht mit
unterwcrfung und gewalttat” (Stefan 119). The linguistic dilemma regarding sex is well-
portrayed in Verena Stefan’s Ha'utungen; she creates a binary opposition between
feminine sex, that is based on offering oneself and excitement, and oppression and
violence. She also searches for a new bodily, sexual language: “Ich habe keine klitoris,
ich habe keine vagina. Keine scheidc. Keine miise. Keincn busen, keine warzen“ (Stefan
129). Several lesbian scholars such as have discussed the post-Stonewall desexualization
of the lesbian in the US. context as well:
[I]n the late 19703 dykc relationships had to be heavy on the romance and
light on the sex because women were terrified of using each other as
sexual objects: “Inserting your fingers into your lover’s vagina was
considered heterosexual,” she says. “Touching her breasts meant that you
were just objectifying her. The only thing that was all right was oral sex,
and you had to be sure that you both got it for an equal time” (F adermann
quoting a 1987 personal interview with Susie Bright, 337).
Though GDR feminists tended to eschew separatist practices, lesbian politics were not so
clearly defined; most of the lesbian groups, especially in the churches, felt that they could
only develop if they chose to meet separately from the gay men’s groups. Though this is
speculation on my part, it is not inconceivable that the convergence of socialist
heterosexuality and the desexualization of feminist lesbians from the West could both

explain, in part, the desexualized representations put forth by East German lesbians.

I88

Narrating Diversity

 

Though up to now, I have talked about these narratives as collections, there are
also 28 different stories being told by these narratives. The different narratives bring a
plurality to East German lesbianism that simply did not exist in any published form
before the Wende. Despite common themes that each collection works through as part of
its social/political agenda, the narrators all represent a unique standpoint based on their
own experience and material conditions.

Although East German lesbian narratives have received little scholarly attention,
there has been much scholarship dealing with lesbian narrative collections in the US.
Though U.S. narrative collections were socially usefirl in bringing visibility to lesbians,
criticism centered on the identity-building project of the personal narratives, especially as
these collections were considered too representative of white, middle-class experience.
This is a reasonable concern, especially as white Euro-centric societies struggle to disrupt
the homogenous stereotypes that form national identity in order to embrace the
heterogeneity that is seen in European and American contexts. As a next step in the
identity-building project, Bonnie Zimmerman encourages a move away from
personalizing politics and into pluralizing lesbianism, which she sees in US. anthologies
such as Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology edited by Evelyn Torton Beck (1989)
and This Bridge Called My Back: Writing by Radical Women of Color edited by Cherrie
Moraga and Gloria Anzaldt'ra (1984). This line of criticism gets picked up by Biddy
Martin in “Lesbian Identity and Autobiographical Difference(s),” who points to what she
sees as the major problems of identity politics and how it is tied to personal narratives;
Martin believes that collections of personal narratives mold multiple voices into a single,
cohesive voice. She further claims that lesbian personal narratives anticipate a unified
lesbian picture, by defining how to be lesbian and backing this up with “authentic”
lesbian experience—creating an authoritative lesbian voice. Where Martin’s criticism

weakens is in the assumption that multiple narratives necessarily create a monolithic

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lesbian identity. This assumption seems to rest on anticipating how readers will receive,
process and file away what they learn from reading personal narratives and I am not sure
that a reader’s response is any more predictable than authorial intent.

At the very least a double bind exists in that, on the one hand, it seems onlyfair to
expand the number of identity categories that are represented, but, on the other hand,
eventually it becomes clear that possible categories are infinite. In addition to the infinite
possible category distinctions, material conditions are infinitely different for the
inhabitants of each category. As Eve Sedgewick’s first axiom states in her introduction to
The Epistemology of the Closet, “People are different from each other” (22). The
categories we use to differentiate people from each other, such as race, gender, class,
sexuality, are so general that the complexity of each human cannot begin to be contained
by these limitations. At each node of identity combinations, the possible material
conditions/experiences of each subject are still infinite. Thus, another reading strategy
presents itself: to look to how identity as well as subjectivity is constructed and not invest
it with universalizing authority. “Rather than labeling any story as true or untrue,
interpreters need to look for the reasons why narrators tell their stories” (PNG “Whose”
203). This requires reading each narrative as a complex site instead of a statement of
“how it was/ is” or necessarily conflating the personal narrative with prescriptive identity
politics. This reading strategy requires understanding that each narrative is a mediated

construction through language and that authenticity is a cleverly constructed artifice.

George Chauncey, queer theorist and historian, develops many strategies for
seeing beyond contemporary contexts when reading personal narratives by attributing
what he considers to be the misreading of homosexual history to many factors.83

Chauncey Claims that historical development is read through the lens of current

 

83 In his book Gay New York, Chauncey uncovers a visible gay community that existed in New York City
in the early 20th century, demonstrating that post-Stonewall definitions of gay community have occluded
the visibility of earlier communities.

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experience, obfuscating the strategies lesbians and gay men used in different social
contexts to define and organize their worlds. For example, if lesbian community building
in 19503 GDR is seen through the lens of the lesbian movement in the 19803, it is easy to
conclude that women in the 19503 had no lesbian community. However, if we reconsider
the definition of community within that earlier context, it becomes apparent that the
search for a lesbian community at that time must investigate/include different social
venues.84
Narratives by lesbians active before the 19703 present a number of strategies these
women had for creating their own communities beyond their family circle:
Cristel Neumann: Wir lebten durchaus nicht isoliert mit unserer F amilie.
lch lud Otter Stingerinnen zum Musizieren ein, die mein Anderssein
akzeptierten (Karstéidt/Zitzewitz 50).
Cristel not only demonstrates that she and her lover were “out” at some level with their
families, but also that they had friends who accepted them and with whom they had
frequent social contact. Other examples demonstrate that community building was not
restricted to family and heterosexual friends:
Anna: Danach haben wir versucht, auch andere homosexuelle Menschen
zu finden. Bis dahin hatten wir nur zu Heterosexuellen Kontakt. Wir
hatten dann cine Annonce aufgesetzt, daB wir andere Freundinnen oder
F reundc suchen zwecks “Freizeitgestaltung”. Wir haben aus
unterschiedlichen Motiven eindeutig Paarc gesucht: Wenn es zwei Méinner
sind, dann kOnnen wir so tun, als seien wir zwei heterosexuelle Paarc.
Frauen haben wir gesucht, weil wir uns austauschen wollten

(Karstéidt/Zitzewitz 94).

 

8" Similar discoveries were made by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis in their research
for Boats of Leather, Slippers of Gold. They show that the lesbian community in 19403 Buffalo, NY,
revolved around house parties and closed circles of friends while the 19503 sees a shift among working-
class lesbians to a more public bar culture.

191

Anna and her partner found the public space offered by personal ads useful for building
relationships to other homosexuals, both women and men. In this way, they were able to
create their own underground community of homosexual friends as well as enhance their
public social lives by passing as straight couples with the men and sharing their different
experiences as lesbians with the women. Tommy also describes an underground group of
friends who met in each other’s homes on a regular basis:
Tommy: Wir haben uns dann irgendwo in Wohnungen getroffen. Wir
hatten ja viele F reunde. Oft haben wir uns hier bei mir getroffen oder auch
in anderen Wohnungen, haben ein lustiges Beisammensein gehabt und
haben fiber alles mfigliche gesprochcn (Karstiidt/Zitzewitz 58).
Even after this group of friends was cut off from the homosexual scene in West Berlin by
the building of the wall in 1961, they continued to interact socially within a homosexual
community of their own making. Tommy, Anna and Cristel were not only not isolated,
but they led rich social lives—in Tommy and Anna’s cases these social lives were filled
mostly with contact to other homosexuals. All of these women describe situations in
which their social lives were played out in the mostly private sphere of their homes,
which is similar to Chauncey’s assertion that gay men in early twentieth century New
York enjoyed the private sphere they created. This has further resonance in the GDR,
where the private sphere was the refuge for many people—not only lesbians—who
wanted to express themselves in ways not condoned by the state. On the other hand,
Tommy also describes the many different bars—some of which were mainly gay, but
some of which had a mixed gay and lesbian clientele—as well as a gay and lesbian
theater group. Although these communities are dismissed by the Karstiidt and Zitzewitz
because they are private—“Sic blieben versteckt in privaten F reundinnenkreiscn”
(l l)——that is a value judgment that discounts the community building before the lesbian

movement of the 19803.

192

It is also critical to acknowledge the “strategies of everyday resistance”
demonstrated by the older lesbians. An act such as women dressing in a “masculine”
fashion within a social context which strongly encourages women to be feminine, is one
example of an everyday resistance. Tommy talks about confusion she dealt with in her
youth because of how she dressed and her name, as well as the assumptions that people
made about her sexuality based on her desire to wear pants:

Weil ich meistens sowieso in Hosen ging und die Haarc kurz hatte, fand
ich es irgendwie doof, wenn ich da hingegangen wéire und héitte gesagt:
hier, ich heiBe so und 30. Das wollte ich nicht. Da habe ich gewollt, daB
man lieber Tommy zu mir sagt, weil ich doch angeeckt wiire, wenn ich da
plOtzlich als Madchen. . .ja, da hatten die ein bchhen doof geguckt, weil
ich so andcrs aussah.
Damals war es eigentlich so, wenn man Hosen getragen hat, da haben die
Leute gleich gesagt, man ist vielleicht andersrum, was eigentlich auch kein
Beweis war, denn heute weiB man auch nicht, was vome und hinten ist
(Karstiidt/Zitzewitz 54, ellipsis part of original).
Other resistances are remaining single, despite the pressure to marry, and remaining
childless, despite the pressure to reproduce. Of all of the older lesbians in both collections
(Ich ahnungsloser Engel only contains one narrative by a woman in her sixties, and this
same woman, Inge Scheuer, also has a narrative in viel zuviel verschwiegen), none of
them were married and all of them had to create social circles that centered on something
other than marriage and childrearing. In fact, these everyday acts can prove more difficult
than walking a picket line proclaiming homosexual rights.

Another kind of resistance is evident in the fight against invisibility, as Sillge
makes clear in her text, Un-Sichtbare Frauen. When confronting the problem of
invisibility, it is useful to remember Michel Foucault’s criticism of the repressive

hypothesis. He claims that times of supposed repression create such an atmosphere of

193

policing, chatter and rebellion, that the repressed topic often receives more attention than
it would during times of liberation—which create their own repressions (as Sillge’s
anecdote may demonstrate, since it comes from the 19803, a period of relative visibility
for homosexuals in the GDR, or at least of relative visibility for gay men).85 Therefore,
even though the lesbian community had been driven underground during the 503 and 603,
only to emerge slowly again in the 703 in certain gay men’s bars, there are many
indications that lesbian life was no less visible than it was in the last decade before the
Wende.

There are many levels of invisibility, and often what is supposedly invisible in
society, is simply undesirable, though it is policed against. In the case of the early GDR
and the repression of lesbianism, it is clear that those suspected of being lesbians were
under constant surveillance by the larger community, especially at the workplace and in
the schools:

Gunna Bohne: Ich kam [1961] in Untersuchungshaft in Dresden bei der
Staatssicherheit. . .Es war ein Mittelpunkt der VerhOre, mich auf den
Tatbestand meines Lesbischseins zu fixieren und mich da irgendwo zu
kriegen. lch habe das damals in der eigentlichcn erpresserischen Art und
Weise gar nicht so wahrgenommen (Karstadt/Zitzewitz 72).
Lesbianism had an unclear status in East German culture. Under §151, the law regulating
the age of consent for both heterosexual and homosexual contact, Gunna Bohnc was put
in prison for three years and the state Classified her a political prisoner because of her
lesbianism. The government, while banning homosexuality from public venues, was still
very concerned with the development of homosexual relationships. Gunna explains
further that this is the way the GDR managed to outlaw homosexuality while ostensibly
legalizing it (Karstiidt, 72-73). Anna talks about a close friend and roommate she had

When she was nineteen and lived in her university dormitory. Though their relationship

 

8’5 . . . . . . .
A full discussion of the repressrve hypothesrs can be found in the introduction to Foucault’s volume

194

was not sexual, they spent most of their time together and sometimes slept in the same
bed in their six-person dorm room. Because of this, one of Anna’s instructors decided to
speak with both Anna and her friend about the relationship and how it looked:
Es war wirklich wie ein Verhiir. Er stellte mir merkwfirdige Fragen, z.B.
ob ich homosexuell sei, ob ich lesbisch sei.. . .Ob ich einen Verlobten habe,
fragte er, alles Mdglichc, lauter idiotoisches Zeug. Ich habe den Ernst der
Lage fiberhaupt nicht erkannt, weil ich im ersten Augenblick erleichtert
war, daB es nichts Politisches ist. Bis er dann anfmg zu drohen, wenn es
sich herausstellt, daB da was dran sci, dann mfiBte ich natfirlich
exmatrikuliert werden, denn besonders ffir Psychologen ist das
unwfirdig. . .Dieser Dozent hat dann das Wort “invertiert” gebraucht. Er
hat uns gefragt, ob wir invertiert waren. Er meinte dann, wenn wir das
nicht sind, dann ware es auch besser, nicht zusammenzuziehcn, damit das
gar keiner erst denken kann (Karstadt/Zitzewitz 90-91).
He introduces them to the labels that will, either through identification or opposition,
reify their sexual identity, while simultaneously indoctrinating them into the process of
self-surveillance so that they will “police” themselves. In fact, Anna never had a lesbian
relationship with her roommate, but used that friendship—which was already under
suspicion—to mask the sexual relationship she had with her actual lover. Inge Scheuer
also relates that she was accused of being a lesbian by a coworker. Although the assertion
was true at the time, there was no physical proof and Scheuer felt that it was a
professional attack, so she pressed charges against her co-worker causing the woman to
lose her job and further distancing Scheuer from sexual policing:
Ich hatte cine Kollegin, die hat mir wohl meinc Arbeit geneidet. Sic war
Schaffnerin. Sic hat mir nachgesagt, ich ware lesbisch und hatte cin

Verhaltnis mit der und der. Erstmal hat das Verhaltnis mit der und der gar

 

 

History of Sexuality: An Introduction.

195

nicht gestimmt, und das Lesbische, ich wciB nicht, ob man das damals so
genau wuBte. Jedenfalls hat mein Chef gesagt, das geht nicht, die mfisscn
wir wegen fibler Nachrede anzeigen. lch habe es gemacht. Wie die
Verhandlung war, ist mein Chef sogar mitgekommen und hat mir das
innere lch gestéirkt. Wie die Richterin fragte, was denn da nun dran ist,
habe ich gesagt: “F cstgestellt kann sic das nicht haben. Das wird sic nur
crzéihlt haben, urn sich wichtig zu tun.” Da wurdc sic wegen fiblcr
Nachrede verurteilt, und ein Vierteljahr spatcr haben wir sic auch entlassen
(Karstiidt/Zitzewitz 35).

This example also demonstrates how insiders in society create and label the
categories that society’s marginalized members inhabit. Naming was not, however,
restricted to those in positions of institutional power, like the Stasi or an instructor:

Tommy: “Bubi” hat man immer gesagt. Wenn man in Hosen geht und cin
bchhcn streng aussieht, dann ist man ein Bubi....Das war so ein
Ausdruck, Bfibchen oder Bubi, und Miiuschen. . .Hclli ist ein Mauschen,
denn sic macht sich fein, und ich bin eher ein Naturbursche, wfirdc ich
sagcn (Karstéidt/Zitzcwitz 55).”’5
Terms like Bubi and Ma'uschen to designate butch and femmc roles among lesbians were
used by society at large. These terms were used as insults against lesbian couples, and are
also examples of a kind of policing of societal norms by the members of society, not
institutions. Any member of society, especially if s/he was speaking from the secure
insider position—such as a heterosexual—could reinforce that position by marking the
marginal position of an outsider—such as a butch lesbian. The resistance carried out by
women who dared to depart from the norm and be labeled lesbians becomes more

apparent when we consider the physical risk involved. Tommy explains that they were

 

8&“Bubi’[similar to ‘butch’] is what they always said. If you went around in pants and looked a little bit
53' 011g, then you were a Bubi That was an expression, Bfibchen or Bubi , and also Mauschen [similar to
‘femmcfl Helli is a Miiuschen, because she dresses up, and 1 am more of a natural guy, I would say.”

196

sometimes beaten up (Karstadt/Zitzewitz 57). All of these incidents indicate that lesbians
in the GDR before the lesbian movement were not only visible, but also that they were a
marginal group—named by the center—which reinforced the heterosexual cultural center

of the GDR.

The analytical category of the closet is relatively new and did not emerge in the
US. and Germany until the post-Stonewall 19703—Rosa von Praunhcim’s landmark
West German film “Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondem die Situation, in dcr er
lebt” modified the American “closet” to fit the West German Schwuler and the kind of
closet he hid in with the slogan “raus aus den Toiletten, rein in die Strchn” (Jensen 324).
This film was not only important for West German gay men, but also for homosexuals in
the East who were able to watch it on Westfernsehen when ARD showed the film in 1973
(Karstfidt/Zitzewitz 94, 100, 135). This brought the “closet” and coming out of it to the
GDR. However, applying late-twentieth century “closet logic” to homosexuals in the
19503 and 19603 masks how many lesbians and gay men moved between different
worlds. The “closet” has implicit significance for many GDR lesbians discussing their
own coming out process. It signifies, however, the barrier to their self-realization as often
as it is connected with hiding one’s lesbianism from others. For example, Gunna Bohnc
uses “coming out [of the Closet]” to map out the different steps of her process to realizing
her lesbianism. This process begins with childhood friendships and ends many years later
with her self-acknowledgement of her sexual desire for women. She names this whole
process her “Coming Out” and she never explicitly states that this coming out was to
anyone other than herself (Karstiidt/Zitzewitz 69-78), whereas other women in these
narratives name the act of telling others of their lesbianism as their “Coming Out.”

Comparing the lives of lesbians in the first thirty years of the GDR with those of

lesbians who participated in lesbian activism in the last decade of the GDR is misleading

and occludes that many lesbians did not hide their partners from friends and family. For

197

example, as mentioned above, older lesbians like Cristel Neumann and Tommy had tight
circles of friends, straight and queer, with whom they regularly socialized. The so-callcd
closet allowed lesbians before the 19803 to commonly use coded language to find other
women in personal ads, but as the closet gets opened, that coded language becomes
transparent and those ads are no longer an option for many lesbians, especially those who
did not take part in the church or secular groups. The closet also dcvalucs lesbians and
gay men from other times—as well as currently—who enjoy the separation of their
private and public lives, disregarding that being gay and lesbian carried different personal
and political significance for them. It is possible, after all, to organize one’s life around
other characteristics than one’s sexuality. In fact, feminist scholarship has demonstrated
that subjectivity is multiple and that persons have many different organizing points for
their identity, which tend to shift according to the context.87 For example, Andrea spends
as much time establishing herself as an overseer for construction sites as she does
describing her life as a lesbian (Gutsche 155-162). None of the lesbian narratives not

written by activists, and not all of the ones written by activists either, discuss coming out.

These three books comprise the published primary literature on being lesbian in
the GDR. They combat mainstream images of the lesbian provided by women’s fiction,
which was not interested in providing any kind of lesbian experience, but rather used an
idealized image of the “the lesbian” to work through aspects of heterosexual relationships
under the patriarchal system of the GDR. These narratives also attempt to fill the hole left
by official GDR sex discourse, which for all practical purposes absences the lesbian
altogether. By providing readers with a combined 28 narratives based in lesbian
experience, these narratives are able to present a lesbian plurality that rests neither on

idealized myths of lesbianism nor heterosexual imagination.

 

87For an introduction to shifting identities and how those play out in feminist and (homo)sexual politics,
read Riley, Butler, and Sedgwick.

198

Conclusion

This dissertation has investigated lesbian representations found in four different
textual discourses from the late German Democratic Republic: sex discourse, women’s
fiction, demonstrations by the group Lesben in der Kirche and their aftermath, and finally
personal narratives from lesbians who lived in the GDR. Although these four discourses
coexisted at roughly the same time, with the exception of the personal narratives, which
were published in the early and mid-19903, they do not overlap and there are few
commonalities between them, though some do exist. It is possible to divide them into
texts created by lesbians (demonstrations and personal narratives) and those not created
by lesbians (sex discourse and women’s fiction). The similarities in the discourses are to
be found in those divisions.

In the texts not created by lesbians, lesbians are largely obscured by those
discourses. In the case of sex discourse, it is the institutionalized nature of the discourse
that does this. She is hidden behind a socialist heterosexuality that expects her to bear
children and be awakened sexually by a man. Her sexual practice is seen only as a
shadow of heterosexual practices. Even as a homosexual, she is defined by male
homosexual practices, as the male is the universalized homosexual. Since “the lesbian”
cannot conform to these sexual expectations, though lip service is paid to her existence,
she is in essence absent from sex discourse. Women’s fiction further obscures lesbian
experience by creating lesbian Characters that fulfill feminist expectations of the
oppositional text. The idealized lesbian becomes the utopian or dystopian figure against
which feminist desires for parity in personal as well as social relationships are projected.
Onc-on-one relationships between women as well as women-centered communities are
grounded in an imagined counterhegemony of womanhood that can stand against the
dangers of a patriarchal system. These occluded lesbians created by non-lesbian authors

are very different from the identities created by lesbians.

199

Lesbian-authored texts are motivated by presence. In the demonstration texts, the
Lesben in der Kirche have provided letters and transcripts of the events that were blocked
from public knowledge in an attempt to revive those demonstrations and create a textual
presence where public presence was denied. Their recollections of events highlight that
lesbians were shut out of public space not only because they were a special-interest
group, but also because of the sexual politics, or sexual morals, of the GDR. This
discourse foregrounds their victim status in the GDR and creates parallels to the victim
status of lesbians in concentration camps based on contemporary beliefs about lesbian
experience in concentration camps. Though their ideas about lesbian persecution at the
hands of the Nazis were based on a common fallacy from the 19803 their own “imagined
Lesbian” supports the anti-fascist identity that they claim for themselves. Thus, although
sex discourse blocks the lesbian as a socialist subject based on sexual practice, this
discourse reclaims their socialist status and embeds it in the socialist anti-fascist myth.

Personal narratives published in the 19903 are also aimed at creating lesbian
presence in the GDR, albeit retroactively. By basing lesbian personal narratives in
personal experience and creating a lesbian “authenticity,” these narratives attempt to
recoup lesbian identity in its multiplicity that was virtually hidden in East Germany
before the Wende. By concentrating on themes such as work experience and the
formation of families, these women further weave themselves into the socialist fabric that
denied their presence—these narratives show that lesbians participated in the day-to-day
struggles of the East German Citizens as lesbians.

Despite certain commonalities in these four textual contexts, it is Clear that they
coexisted while not necessarily overlapping or even informing each other. I expected to
find that these four text types created a common discourse by articulating similarities that
echoed back and forth. What I found was that there was little to no communication
between the contexts. Despite attempts to reveal themselves to a larger public inside and

outside of the GDR, lesbian experience is still an “insider’s secret” for those who interact

200

with queer communities. To this day, the idea that there was a lesbian movement in East
Germany is new to those people who did not in some direct way interact with it. Despite
the prevalence of lesbian groups in thirteen of the fifteen Bezirke, most lesbians did not
participate in them and the larger public was not aware of their presence. In the
subculture of active lesbians, however, a network was being built. There were women’s
festivals and lesbian retreats. There is a non-articulated absence and presence of lesbians
that existed in East Germany and to a large extent, still exists.

Fifteen years after the GDR ceased to exist and became part of the Federal
Republic of Germany, the extensive programs offered by women’s centers—largely run
and frequented by lesbians—as well as the struggles that they are facing in the current
economic climate are largely unknown to the public at large. Though festivals are more
prevalent and lesbian publications are readily accessible, the largest portion of the
population is unaware of this visible subculture. The visibility that GDR lesbians sought

in the 19803 still remains to be achieved on any large scale.

In queer studies, this project provides an opening to a wide range of possible
studies dealing with the creation of homosexual identities in socialist and communist
states. Most queer studies research focuses on either the US. or Western European
countries, largely because these countries have been most accessible. My project along
with future projects can help to round out the range of knowledge about how
queers/homosexuals interact in a variety of cultural contexts. This dissertation reveals
that, though there are similarities between Western and East German experiences, there
are far more differences based on the cultural specificity of East Germany. Though East
German lesbians had access, due to their close contact with the West, to literature and
film that supported the gay and lesbian movements in both the Federal Republic of
Germany and the US, they dealt with social constraints that their Western counterparts

can still barely conceive of. Future research will hopefully further break away from

201

Western expectations and comparisons to reveal the complexities faced by Eastern

queers.

202

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