Section Days abstract book 2010.indd - RUB Research School ...

THE INTERNAL GERMAN BORDER
- A LITERARY CATEGORY?
Johanna M. Gelberg
Fakultät für Philologie; Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany
e-mail: johanna.gelberg@rub.de
The division of Germany into two countries between 1949 and 1990 has had an enormous
influence on society. People were separated from each other and a feeling of estrangement
seems to have dominated the German-German relationship. This becomes obvious in the high
amount of prejudices and stereotypes about the respective ‘other Germans’ in society and
media, which partly seem to exist until today. The separation of the countries tended to
separate the people; this went so far, that people in East and West Germany turned their backs
on each other.
The division of Germany, symptom of which was the internal German border - and from 1961
on especially the Berlin Wall -, coined Germany in the second half of the 20 th century.
In 1961, just before the building of the Berlin Wall, the German author Uwe Johnson called
the border a “literary category”. 1 He supposed the border to influence not only society, but
also art, which should actually be regarded as essential part of society.
A glance at the works of this specific author proves his thesis to be true: almost any text ever
written by Johnson includes the division of Germany to certain extend. Already the first novel
Ingrid Babendererde. Reifeprüfung 1953, which was written in the 1950s but only published
after Johnson’s death in 1984, tells the story of a young couple that escapes the ideological
pressure in the German Democratic Republic. The political suppression in school draws
Ingrid to a public act of resistance; her flight from the GDR is a logical consequence. Still, the
arrival in West Berlin does not appear as the arrival in a blessed country. Johnson succeeds
already at this early stage of work in drawing a complex picture of the German situation of
division, which shows more than just black and white portraits. The following novels
Mutmassungen über Jakob, Das dritte Buch über Achim and the tetralogy Jahrestage take up
the topic of the German division as well.
What is more important than including the boundary as a topic in literature, is its potential as
literary category influencing the poetics of the work. The best example of Johnsons work
seems to be Das dritte Buch über Achim. The novel has the structure of a dialogue. The
journalist Karsch reports about his experiences during a stay in East Berlin and his attempt to
write a biography about a cyclist from the GDR. The dialogical structure gives the
opportunity to question and criticize whatever is told by Karsch. This structure is one of
connection rather than division. The dialogic structure is important for the report of Karschs
experiences. The dialogue partner mirrors the expectations Karsch had, when he first arrived
[1] Johnson, Uwe. „Berliner Stadtbahn (veraltet)“ In: (ders.) Berliner Sachen. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. 1975.
S. 10: „Eine Grenze an dieser Stelle wirkt wie eine literarische Kategorie. Sie verlangt die epische Technik und
die Sprache zu verändern, bis sie der unerhörten Situation gerecht werden.“