From Narrative to Symbol: The Development of the Antifascist Monument in the GDR

Summary

TWENTY YEARS AFTER REUNIFICATION, material remnants of GDR political identity can still be found at the very center of the communal fabric of most East German towns and villages. Among these relics, the most common type of GDR monument, the so-called OdF-Denkmal dedicated to the “Opfer des Faschismus” (the victims of fascism), has received little attention from historians. This is perhaps a result of the limited artistic scope of these monuments. However, as a genre they are of great importance for understanding how a specifically GDR cultural heritage came to be formed.

First appearing after 1945 and rooted in the idea of mourning the fallen, the OdF monument developed into a much more specific political symbol that came to typify a condensed self-expression of GDR political identity. In essence, these monuments — studies in formal reduction — embody the origins of Soviet political legitimacy in East Germany and later that of the SED itself. The prototypical OdF monument reaches a height of only 1.5 to 2m, but its concentrated cubelike structure lends it a simple and reduced monumentality. Most of these monuments consist of a simple large slab of stone or a cube of concrete which acts a base for a shallow and wide fire-pan. Mounted on the base, or on an adjacent plaque, a dedication reads “Den Opfern des Faschismus,” sometimes accompanied by socialist symbols or further dedicatory texts. Almost every community in the early GDR erected one of these OdF monuments at the centre of its public space. If funding was very limited, at the very least a plaque with the dedication was mounted in a prominent public position.

The OdF monument occupied a central position in the cultural politics of the GDR, and continues to be of significance in reunified Germany. While most of the spectacular monumental statues of Lenin, or indeed other large-scale political monuments from the time of the GDR, have been destroyed, de-activated or de-contextualized as exhibits of municipal museums, and while media coverage has suggested a thorough iconoclasm of socialist imagery after 1989, a vast number of the lesser known OdF monuments remain in situ today, as do the majority of other small-scale political monuments from the GDR.