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Guillaume Affair in Media
Petrov, Martin ; Emler, David (advisor) ; Lizcová, Zuzana (referee)
The bachelor thesis "The Guillaume Affair from the Media's Perspective" deals with the reaction of selected periodicals to the event in which the West German counterintelligence exposed the Stasi agent Günter Guillaume in Willy Brandt's chancellery. After the Spiegel affair, this was another major event in German history, and even in this case the media played a key role too. After the arrest of Guillaume and his wife Christel, the German media published many articles about Guillaume's life, his career, and the background to the affair. Increasing pressure from the press and fellow party members eventually forced Willy Brandt to resign as Chancellor of the Federal Republic, leaving his post to Helmut Schmidt. Brandt's resignation is one of the reasons why the media in East Germany, which had preferred to remain silent in similar cases, picked up on the affair. However, the popularity of the former mayor of West Berlin was also high in the GDR, which is why several articles dealing with the Guillaume affair appeared in the media there. The aim of this thesis is to map the reaction of the weekly Der Spiegel and the daily Neues Deutschland to the Guillaume affair and to find out how the selected periodicals agreed and disagreed in their coverage of the event.
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GDR-Nostalgia in the Former East Germany and Politics of Memory of the PDS
Novosadová, Alena ; Konrád, Ota (advisor) ; Šmidrkal, Václav (referee)
In 1990 when the GDR and FRG were united, there was a lot of optimism about the future of the new state. However, after few years after this historical event, both West and East Germans felt disillusioned by the transformation process. The sensation of the East Germans was named GDR-nostalgia or the so called Ostalgie, nostalgic longing for the former GDR. This feeling was rooted both in the objective socio-economic situation and in the feeling of loss in the biographies of the East Germans. This paper deals with the political dimension of the GDR-nostalgia, focusing on the political party PDS, a successor party of the communist state party SED. Despite the pessimistic prophecies about the PDS the party was growing steadily in the East. The East Germans felt that the party represents their particular interests in the united Germany. Yet the PDS didn't use a chance to deal critically with its controversial history. The hypothesis is, that the party, by presenting an idealistic version of the GDR past to the public and their potential voters, tried to strengthen the nostalgia feeling in order to gain votes. To prove the thesis the structure of the party, its program and history institutions will be examined. The concept of politics of memory will be described.
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GDR-Nostalgia in the Former East Germany and Politics of Memory of the PDS
Novosadová, Alena ; Konrád, Ota (advisor) ; Šmidrkal, Václav (referee)
In 1990 when the GDR and FRG were united, there was a lot of optimism about the future of the new state. However, after few years after this historical event, both West and East Germans felt disillusioned by the transformation process. The sensation of the East Germans was named GDR-nostalgia or the so called Ostalgie, nostalgic longing for the former GDR. This feeling was rooted both in the objective socio-economic situation and in the feeling of loss in the biographies of the East Germans. This paper deals with the political dimension of the GDR-nostalgia, focusing on the political party PDS, a successor party of the communist state party SED. Despite the pessimistic prophecies about the PDS the party was growing steadily in the East. The East Germans felt that the party represents their particular interests in the united Germany. Yet the PDS didn't use a chance to deal critically with its controversial history. The hypothesis is, that the party, by presenting an idealistic version of the GDR past to the public and their potential voters, tried to strengthen the nostalgia feeling in order to gain votes. To prove the thesis the structure of the party, its program and history institutions will be examined. The concept of politics of memory will be described.
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