World View
VITA COLA is a soft drink first produced in the German Democratic Republic in 1957. An imitation of Coke, the beverage was advertised as a lemonade with fruit and herbs. At its peak, Vita Cola was bottled in over two hundred factories, but the brand collapsed with the fall of the Berlin wall, its distinct lemony flavour fading into memory along with many other products of the era.
A decade later, though, Vita Cola was brought back to supermarket shelves by popular demand, as it became clear that many Ossies (easterners) pined for a life free of the Western cultural imperialism that came as a result of liberation. Despite this, Ostalgie, (a portmanteau of the German words ost and nostalgie), was a taboo subject for a long time.
It has taken years for the political dust to settle, but recent cinematic production from Germany shows an attempt at reconciliation with the country’s dualism. Until recently my impression of Cold War East Germany was formed completely on the basis of sixties spy thrillers such as The Ipcriss File. The film portrays the east German secret services as a calculating machine, with no face behind it to speak of.
Far from being a one-off, the film is typical of the paranoid demonisation of eastern bloc powers by the West. With little cinematic output reaching a global audience, it had been difficult to come across a real insight into what real life was like in East Germany. With the advent of films such as Sonnenallee and Kleinruppin Forever, audiences began to be able to talk about East Germany, the taboo melting away.
It was Wolfgang Becker’s 2003 film, Goodbye Lenin!, that really opened the lid on the Pandora’s box, unleashing fierce debate around the Ostalgie phenomenon. Protagonist Alex’s mother believes in her country’s system of government with endearing stoicism. When she goes into a coma and sleeps through the fall of the Wall, her son reconstructs her old life meticulously for her, and so with her death, Alex sees her departure as marking the end of a golden era.
The admission of a collective nostalgia for that way of life, despite the daily material hardship that was endured, signals a new step towards accepting Germany’s past.
25th May 2006