Consensus, withdrawal, opposition: images of youth and generational conflictin feature films of the GDR

This research aims to examine “images/’ elements of a filmic discourse, of youth and generational conflict in feature films produced by DEFA, the state film production company of East Germany, that portray the postwar Soviet Zone of Occupation/GDR. It posits a periodization of this discourse consisting of three broad stages images of th zAufbctu (1946-1965), images of the Nischengesellschaft (1965-1980), and images of the Wende (1980-1991). It sees these stages as discursive constructs of GDR filmmakers and other cultural workers in their negotiation of the official cultural policy of the state. It traces how the very image of youth in rebellion that emerged from the first decades of the 20th century was subsequently “improved” through the elimination o f critical elements and adopted by the official state youth organisations of national-socialist Germany and of the GDR. In this context and within the constraints of the rigid supergenre of socialist realism, it shows the extent to which the connection between youth and generational conflict was maintained by critical filmmakers in the GDR to became an important way of expressing dissent in a society that attempted to neutralise all opposition