Die deutsche Misere : Geschichte eines Narrativs

The interpretation of German history prevailing in the years 1945-1953, the formation phase of the GDR, is mostly apostrophized in contemporary debate as well as in later research as "Misere-Sicht". What is meant by this is the Marxist variant of the thesis of the "German Sonderweg", which characterizes the course of German history as having failed because of the absence of a bourgeois revolution and the resulting alliance of the bourgeoisie with the feudal forces, and sketches a historical narrative that leads, as it were, logically from the Peasant Wars to the catastrophe of Nazi rule. In historical research this phase of the discourse of history in the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ) and the GDR is usually treated as only a short episode, which quickly proved to be a useless master narrative and was accordingly contained by the SED leadership and replaced by more constructive conceptions of history. In this study, I consider the Misere-conception of the SBZ/GDR as part of a much longer existing Misere-narrative, which was first articulated in the Vormärz period, but which could build on already existing autostereotypes. Thus, the research on the "German master narratives" is extended by an aspect that has so far received little attention: In addition to the great narratives of German exceptionalism, of Kulturnation and German mission, there has always been a critical narrative that problematized or rejected German history to a great extent and that developed its own tradition from this assumption, the traces of which can still be found today in the public discourse on German identity