Commemorating Hell: The Public Memory of Mittelbau-Dora

7. The Wall Comes Down

7. The Wall Comes Down Nordhausen had not existed in a vacuum; it was highly influenced by the national policy makers and had to work largely within that framework. Indeed, the national government was not entirely free to make its own decisions, for it was a country that, as often asserted in the West, was a “satellite of the Soviet Union.” Nordhausen, like other small cities, was on the end of a chain of command , impacted by what was occurring internationally and nationally, but also shaping its own local future. In the 1980s, the situation became critical. Germany had experience in transitions. The denazification of the Third Reich had left a trail of procedures that could be used: get rid of the teachers, fire the administrators, examine the people who were close to the state apparatus (staatsnah), expel sympathizers of the previous regime from their jobs and remove their privileges, punish a few, reeducate the masses. The discourse and rhetoric must also change in public institutions like the Gedenkstätte— perhaps particularly the Gedenkstätte. By the end of the 1980s, these procedures began to come into play. The Gedenkstätte Loses Its Leader Dissatisfaction and unrest had become more open by the mid-1980s, and the entire Eastern bloc was sensing that Gorbachev was going to make big changes in the Soviet system that would soon impact the GDR. At the twentyseventh party congress, in the spring of 1986, he announced his new conceptions : “perestroika” and “glasnost.” These reforms would relax relations with the West, give parliamentary rule a larger role, and give state offices more power while reducing the power of the party. The reforms encompassed more individual freedom of expression, free from repression.1 The GDR was in a peculiar situation. If the people compared their living standard with others in the Eastern bloc countries, they were very well off because of their industrial base and agricultural sufficiency. However, common necessities of life were often missing, and stores were not well stocked. It was a common practice among the people, though unwelcome to the SED leadership, to watch television programs coming from the FRG. There, the comparisons between East and West were apparent to GDR viewers. Visits, although restricted, did occur between relatives from East and West Germany , and word of mouth increased the feelings among the populace that they, living in the GDR, were the poor cousins. With the increased freedom of expression in other Eastern and middle European countries, people began to complain more about how things should be reformed. The discussions within the Gedenkstätte often became heated and divided between those who favored system reform and those dedicated to retaining the system safe from threat. Where goodwill and a team spirit had prevailed, the staff was now divided; hot tempers and harsh words were not uncommon. Kurt Pelny may have considered his own political position when he decided to leave the Gedenkstätte, but he had other reasons as well. He suffered from the injuries he incurred in a motorcycle accident in the late 1950s, and by the late 1980s, he had trouble standing and walking for more than a few minutes 116 chapter seven Nordhausen’s Töpfer Street with the department store Töpfertor, downtown, in the GDR period. (Stadtarchiv Nordhausen, no date) at a time. He stepped back and retired in 1988 without a successor at hand. He left a gap filled by the staff (Mitarbeiterkreis) until a new director could be found. Euphoria and Hardship Dr. Peter Kuhlbrodt was assigned in September 1989 to be the new director . He was a teacher in the Nordhausen high school (Gymnasium) with a doctorate in history. He had been raised in the nearby town of Ellrich and remembers seeing the “zebras,” as the townspeople called the prisoners. He did not know the context when he was a child. As a teacher, he was obligated to take his students to the Gedenkstätte to do work on the grounds, but he did not approve of the political tone that accompanied such visits. Peter Kuhlbrodt was not a “150 percenter,” a reference to those who were more than willing to hold the line and ignore or explain away most of the excesses and failures of the GDR. His father was a target of the Communist regime as someone who had had an important position in the Third Reich and had escaped to...