Colour and Time in Museums of East German Everyday Life

Abstract

A feature of post-GDR cultural memory is the clear division between museums documenting the inhumanity and criminality of the East German state and museums documenting so-called ‘everyday life’. This term (‘DDR-Alltag’) is widely used for those areas of East German life which, while subject to varying degrees of political and ideological pressure, were, for most people, free of state violence: the home, the workplace and leisure time. Even if Federal institutions such as the Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig (Leipzig Forum for Contemporary History) attempt to encompass both the state and the everyday, and even if museums of the everyday are beginning to address dictatorial terror, the two types of museum are likely to remain a feature of the German culture industry.