Behind the Wall

Behind the Wall by Ines Geipel

Germany, like many countries, has witnessed the rise of extremist far-right groups and parties in recent years, and no more so than in the eastern regions.  Why have those parts of Germany that used to be part of the old GDR turned out to be so supportive of extremist groups and parties and such fertile ground for violence and hatred? To try to find answers to this question, Ines Geipel, the former East German Olympic athlete, returns to her past in order explore the matrix of fear and anxiety that shaped the lives of people in the GDR.  Spurred on by conversations at the bedside of her brother as he lay dying of a brain tumour, she probes into her own family background and discovers a web of secrets and denial that reflected larger processes of East German society.  She finds that her father had worked as a special agent for the Stasi until the service had no further use for him, and her grandfather had joined the Nazi party in 1933 and was stationed in Riga at a time when tens of thousands of Jews were murdered in the nearby forests.  Silence and denial within her family was mirrored in the collective loss of history outside her home, and the repression of ideological non-conformity made it difficult for a traumatized population to grapple with and come to terms with a brutal past. Instead, a politics of forgetting emerged which served the ends of an authoritarian state and seeped into private lives of individuals with deep and lasting consequences.   This powerful memoir, grippingly told, will appeal to anyone interested in the history of modern Germany, in the rise of far-right extremism and xenophobia and in the historical forces that shape the present.

‘Ines Geipel takes the occasion of her beloved brother’s death to reflect on their times together growing up in the GDR, on the tensions within their family, and on the wider context of east Germany nearly three decades after the collapse of communist rule and unification with the westGeipel’s account of life in GDR is fascinating, and her reflections provide illuminating insights into the inner history and psychological workings of much of what has been going on in eastern Germany over many decades, particularly the impact of dictatorial rule during Nazism and communism, and the changing circumstances since 1989.’
Mary Fulbrook, FBA, author of Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the Quest for Justice

Ines Geipel is a writer and Professor of Verse Arts at Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9781509559978
ISBN 10	1509559973
Titel	Behind the Wall
Autor	Ines Geipel
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Hardback
Verlag	John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Erscheinungsjahr	2024-05-31
Seitenanzahl	200
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis	Nicht verfügbar