Communality

In autobiographical narratives, such group experiences are often exaggerated and immunised against criticism and contradictions. We interpret this as a mythification. The remembered group activities are reinterpreted as particularly formative experiences of communality. In the following, three cases will be used to illustrate how mythicisations of communal experiences are manifested in different forms in the context of narratives: they relate to institutionalised groups, political identification and counter-collectives. The first narrative initially refers to experiences in institutionalised groups.

Maria Findig¹ was born in 1976 in a small town in the GDR. She experienced the political-social system during her childhood and early youth (→ youth and youth culture). Her first memories relate to school, where things like Mickey Mouse comic books, which she had received from relatives in the West, were taken away from her by teachers (→ memory). She explains that she did not understand these sanctions as a child and did not associate them with the state. In this context, she talks about the Young Pioneers (see also Sources in focus: Pioneer narratives). She was a group council's spokesperson (Gruppenratsprecherin)² and took part in activities such as handicrafts, without realising that the ideology of the state was also taught in the organisation. She describes the Pioneers’ community in terms of its potential for identification:

Findig cites a supra-individual need for belonging as the reason for community. This need results in a search for integration opportunities, of which the Young Pioneers are mentioned as a possible target. According to Findig, however, the individuals are not lost within the Pioneer collective. On the contrary, belonging to this group creates the opportunity to be someone, to develop as an individual. Membership in this group is not just a formality: a physical neckerchief marks the children as part of a community.

Two aspects of Findig's story point to the mythmaking of her experience of communality within an institutionalised group: in the quote mentioned above, she describes communal experience as a prerequisite for self-discovery. She also defends the former youth organisations against the criticism of ideologisation (→ ideology) by depoliticising her childhood experiences: As a child, she simply did not understand the political nature of these groups and so no ideologisation could have taken place. The experience of the Young Pioneers is abstracted in the narrative to the affiliation and self-discovery functions of communality. In her narrative, the communality of the Young Pioneers remains limited to its functions of belonging and self-discovery.

Steffen Ingelhart was born in 1956 in a town in the GDR. His education took place in the GDR. He studied medicine and trained as a pathologist. At the beginning of the interview, he reports that he had no negative experiences with sanctions or authoritarian structures. In his narrative account, he talks about his school days and discusses, among other things, how he learnt about the 1973 coup in Chile at school. The school's FDJ secretary (→ Free German Youth (FDJ)) had set off the fire alarm and when the pupils gathered in the schoolyard, the secretary had told them about the military coup:

Ingelhart's narrative is centred on the emotionality of the FDJ secretary and the pupils. Thus, the political functionary not only provides information about an event, he also conveys it as an emotionally upsetting event. The pupils react accordingly. Ingelhart himself attests to his own sadness in his scenic description. In this way, political identification with Chile's left-wing government is literally embodied. The narrative constructs a virtual community between the GDR and Chile. The two countries were not officially allies, but the political alignment created a bond – at least in connection with the political event.

Ingelhart describes a political community that goes beyond concrete relationships between states and is experienced as ideologically anchored. The experience of such a community is secured in the narrative by legitimising references, such as remembering the secretary crying. Here, the mythmaking of communality refers to a political constellation that is linked to the socialist orientation of the GDR and the Allende government in Chile (see also Sources in focus: International solidarity).

Hans George was born in 1954 in a small town in the GDR. He studied civics and history and then worked as a teacher. In the context of his experiences as a pupil, he talks about a discussion club that he founded together with a fellow pupil, and which was made up of the collective of the school class (Klassenkollektiv):

The school class here serves as the basis for a different social formation that allows for more critical discussions than are possible in the classroom. Thereby a counter-collective is founded, that promises emancipatory potential in pushing the boundaries of what’s possible to discuss in class. George goes on to describe how the school headteacher had wanted to ban their discussion club, but the pupils prevented this by getting the district leadership of the SED party (Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands)³ on their side. The headteacher was then sanctioned.

George describes this as an emancipatory counter-collective. The distinctions from predetermined group structures of the school include a valorisation of one's own group or form of communality. However, there is a contradiction here, as the discussion club was saved by the political structures it sought to criticise. This contradiction is lost in the heroic nature of the story, in how pupils triumph over the school headteacher. The making of a communality myth in George's account involves the formation of groups beyond pre-existing structures.

What the presented manifestations of the communality myth have in common is that specific social constellations in the GDR are valorised through them. Within the manifestation that refers to institutionalised groups (in the case of Maria Findig), community is attributed as a conditional basis for individuality. Self-discovery is the value behind the connection between the collective and the individual. On the other hand, the manifestation that recurs to political identification (in the case of Steffen Ingelhart) refers to solidarity as a moral background. Ideological similarities in the context of socialism create an emotionally charged bond. The manifestation of the communality myth associated with counter-collectives (in the case of Hans George) refers in turn to emancipation as an underlying ideal and shows the possibility of a communal and critical confrontation with socialism.

The first two manifestations of the communality myth function as a safeguard against possible criticisms of the GDR. Corresponding arguments or descriptions to this effect are presented in the biographical narratives. In contrast, the myth’s manifestation that exaggerates the counter-collective as emancipatory is threatened by a contradiction between ideal and actual action that is not articulated. Here, the counterweight to the exaggeration is dissolved in a heroic narrative that ignores the structural conditions of victory. Against the background of the cases described, the communality myth is based on a structural context that can be found in biographical narratives: The valorisation based on various ideals is called into question and must be justified in itself or dissolved narratively.