Club Cola and Co. : Ostalgie, Material Culture and Identity

On August 31, 2000, exactly ten years after the German Democratic Republic (GDR) had officially ceased to exist, Die Welt, one of Germany’s national newspapers, announced nostalgia causes rising popularity of Eastern [German] products (Wolber 4)1. The newspaper article goes on to comment on the products and brands particular to the former East Germany that enjoyed a surge in popularity. A surprising fact, given the well-known scenario ten years earlier when access to the desirable hard Western currency, and thus access to Western consumer goods was a major reason for speeding up the monetary union, and thus the political union of both German states. The consequences of the currency union are known well enough: built on entirely different economic and political parameters, the planned economy of the GDR was in no way ready to face the competition of its capitalist counterpart in the West and almost instantly imploded, wiping out entire industries and leading to widespread unemployment. Perhaps the first and, in some ways, also the most visible change was the vanishing of once familiar products, brands, manufacturers names, packages, and the entire communication design of the GDR from the store shelves as the vast majority of these products did not stand any chance against their more sophisticated and more attractively marketed new competitors from the West.