No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Music for International Solidarity: Performances of Race and Otherness in the German Democratic Republic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2019
Abstract
Central to the official identity of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was the state's positioning of itself as the antifascist and anti-colonial other to West Germany. This claim was supported by the GDR's extensive programme of international solidarity, which was targeted at causes such as the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. A paradox existed, however, between the vision of a universal proletariat that underpinned the discourse of solidarity and the decidedly more exclusive construct of socialist identity that was fostered in the GDR itself. In this article, I explore some of the processes of othering that were embedded in solidarity narratives by focusing on two quite contrasting musical outputs that were produced in the name of solidarity: the LP Kämpfendes Vietnam, which was released on the Amiga record label in 1967, and the Deutsche Staatsoper's 1973 production of Ernst Hermann Meyer's anti-apartheid opera, Reiter der Nacht.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 16 , Special Issue 1: Special Issue: Music and Socialism , February 2019 , pp. 123 - 139
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019
References
Bibliography
Alter, Nora M. ‘Excessive Pre/Requisites: Vietnam through the East German Lens’. Cultural Critique 35 (Winter 1996–97), 39–79.Google Scholar
Bock, Nicoletta. ‘Ich bin nicht Rappoport: Rassismusvorwürfe gegen Schlosspark Theater’. Berliner Morgenpost, 10 January 2012. www.morgenpost.de/kultur/article105870341/Rassismusvorwuerfe-gegen-Schlosspark-Theater.html (accessed 27 August, 2018).Google Scholar
Brady, Martin and Nielinger-Vakil, Carola. ‘“Altes wird aufgerollt”: Paul Dessau's Posthumous Collaborations with Brecht’, in Brecht Yearbook, vol. 42: Recycling Brecht, ed. Kuhn, Tom and Barnett, David. Rochester: Camden House, 2017. 85–101.Google Scholar
Byg, Barton. ‘Solidarity and Exile: Blonder Tango and the East German Fantasy of the Third World’, in Moving Pictures, Migrating Identities, ed. Rueschmann, Eva. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2003. 55–71.Google Scholar
Demmer, Manfred. Spurensuche: Der antifaschistische Schriftsteller Günther Weisenborn. Leverkusen: Kulturverein Leverkusen e. V., 2004.Google Scholar
Dennis, Mike and Porte, Norman La. State and Minorities in Communist East Germany. New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2011.Google Scholar
Engels, Frederick. ‘The Festival of Nations in London’, [1845]in Karl Marx/Frederick Engels, Collected Works, vol. 6. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976. 3–14.Google Scholar
‘ETERNA AMIGA LITERA angehört und weiterempfohlen: Von Wagner bis zum Singeklub’. Berliner Zeitung, 17 December 1967, 10.Google Scholar
Gray, William Glenn. Germany's Cold War: The Global Campaign to Isolate East Germany, 1949–1969. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Hagen, Katrina. ‘Ambivalence and Desire in the “Free Angela Davis” Campaign’, in Comrades of Color: East Germany in the Cold War, ed. Slobodian, Quinn. New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2015. 157–87.Google Scholar
Heine, Matthias. ‘Nachhilfe fürs Bleichgesicht’. Welt, 16 February 2012. www.welt.de/print/die_welt/kultur/article13871336/Nachhilfe-fuers-Bleichgesicht.html (accessed 27 August 2018).Google Scholar
Jüttner, Julia. ‘Rostock-Lichtenhagen: Als der Mob die Herrschaft übernahm’. Spiegel Online, 23 August 2007. www.spiegel.de/einestages/rostock-lichtenhagen-als-der-mob-die-herrschaft-uebernahm-a-946806.html (accessed 27 August 2018).Google Scholar
Krüger-Potratz, Marianne. Anderssein gab es nicht: Ausländer und Minderheiten in der DDR. Münster and New York: Waxmann Verlag GmbH, 1991.Google Scholar
Kruger, Loren. ‘Seeing through Race: Athol Fugard, (East) Germany, and the Limits of Solidarity’. Modern Philology 100/4 (2003), 619–51.Google Scholar
La Goma, Alex. ‘GDR Opera supports Liberation Struggle’. Sechaba: Official Organ of the African National Congress South Africa 8/2 (1974), 12–13.Google Scholar
Layne, Priscilla. White Rebels in Black: German Appropriation of Black Popular Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018.Google Scholar
Mac Con Uladh, Damian. ‘Guests of the Socialist Nation? Foreign Students and Workers in the GDR, 1949–1990’. PhD diss., University of London, 2005.Google Scholar
Meyer, Ernst Hermann. Kontraste. Konflikte: Erinnerungen, Gespräche, Kommentare, in discussion with and edited by Dietrich Brennecke and Mathias Hansen. Berlin: Verlag Neue Musik, 1979.Google Scholar
Obermueller, Nele. ‘Does German Theatre have a Race Problem?’. ExBerliner, 30 May 2012. www.exberliner.com/whats-on/stage/does-german-theatre-have-a-race-problem/ (accessed 27 August 2018).Google Scholar
Piesche, Peggy. ‘Black and German? East German Adolescents before 1989: A Retrospective View of a “Non-Existent” Issue in the GDR’, in The Cultural Afterlife of Germany: New Transnational Perspectives, ed. Adelson, Leslie A.. Washington DC: American Institute for Contemporary Germany Studies, 2009. 37–59.Google Scholar
‘Porgy und Bess in Berlin’, Neue Zeit, 24 January 1970, 1.Google Scholar
Reichardt, Achim. Nie vergessen – Solidarität üben! Die Solidaritätsbewegung in der DDR. Berlin: Kai Homilius-Verlag, 2006.Google Scholar
Schaefer, Hansjürgen. ‘Menschenrecht und dringende Menschenpflicht. Uraufführung in der Staatsoper Berlin: E.H. Meyers Reiter der Nacht – bekenntnishaftes Musiktheater’. Neues Deutschland, 21 November 1973, 4.Google Scholar
Schleicher, Hans-Georg. ‘The German Democratic Republic and the South African Liberation Struggle’, in The Road to Democracy, vol. 3: International Solidarity, ed. Houston, Gregory. Pretoria: Unison Press, 2008. 1069– 153.Google Scholar
Schleicher, Hans-Georg and Schleicher, Ilona. Special Flights to Southern Africa: The GDR and Liberation Movements in Southern Africa. Harare: SAPES Books, 1998.Google Scholar
Schleicher, Ilona and Schleicher, Hans-Georg. Die DDR im südlichen Afrika: Solidarität und Kalter Krieg. Hamburg: Institut für Afrika-Kunde, 1997.Google Scholar
Schubert, Manfred. ‘Held der Oper ist das Volk: Zur Uraufführung von Ernst Hermann Meyers Bühnenerstling Reiter der Nacht’. Berliner Zeitung, 22 November 1973, 6.Google Scholar
Schwinger, Eckart. ‘Flammender Freiheitsgesang: Uraufführung von Ernst Hermann Meyers Oper Reiter der Nacht unter der Regie vom Joachim Herz in der Deutschen Staatsoper’. Neue Zeit, 20 November 1973, 4.Google Scholar
Sieg, Katrin. Ethnic Drag: Performing Race, Nation, and Sexuality in West Germany. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Sieg, Katrin. ‘Race, Guilt, and Innocence: Facing Blackfacing in Contemporary German Theatre’. German Studies Review 38/1 (2015), 117–34.Google Scholar
Singh, Eric. ‘Sechaba – ANC-Zeitschrift printed in GDR’, in Engagiert für Afrika: Die DDR und Afrika II, ed. van der Heyden, Ulrich, Ilona Schleicher and Hans-Georg Schleicher. Münster and Hamburg: Lit Verlag, 1994. 129–40.Google Scholar
Slobodian, Quinn. ‘Social Chromaticism: Race, Racism, and the Racial Rainbow in East Germany’, in Comrades of Color: East Germany in the Cold War, ed. Slobodian, Quinn. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015. 23–39.Google Scholar
Thurman, Kira. ‘A History of Black Musicians in Germany and Austria, 1870–1961: Race, Performance, and Reception’. PhD diss., University of Rochester, 2013.Google Scholar
Torner, Evan. ‘The Red and the Black: Race in the DEFA Indianerfilm Osceola’. New German Review: A Journal of Germanic Studies 25/1 (2011), 61–82.Google Scholar
‘Übergriffe auf Migranten: Entsetzen in Chemnitz’. Spiegel Online, 27 August 2018. www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/rechte-in-chemnitz-oberbuergermeisterin-entsetzt-polizei-offenbar-ueberfordert-a-1225042.html (accessed 27 August 2018).Google Scholar
Weis, Toni. ‘The Politics Machine: On the Concept of ‘Solidarity’ in East German Support for SWAPO’. Journal of South African Studies 37/2 (2011), 351–67.Google Scholar
Westad, Odd Arne. The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Witkowski, Gregory. ‘Between Fighters and Beggars: Socialist Philanthropy and the Image of Solidarity in East Germany’, in Comrades of Color: East Germany in the Cold War World, ed. Slobodian, Quinn. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015. 73–94.Google Scholar
Zatlin, Jonathan R. ‘Scarcity and Resentment: Economic Sources of Xenophobia in the GDR, 1971–1989’. Central European History 40/4 (2007), 1–38.Google Scholar
Discography
Kämpfendes Vietnam. LP, Amiga 85098, 1967.Google Scholar