Exhibit on daily life in East Germany

The presentation of the exhibit "¿El mundo feliz de la dictadura? Poder político y vida cotidiana en la RDA" will take place on 14 February at 1 pm at the entrance hall of the UAB Theatre (Plaça Cívica). The event will include the presence of Thietmar Bachmann, Assistant Consul of Germany in Barcelona.

07/02/2012

The exhibit will be on display in different venues and has been organised by the German Embassy in Spain. It includes photographs by Harald Schmitt, correspondent for the magazine Stern in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1977 to 1983. The works on display reflect a variety of events and aspects of the German society of that time: political meetings, rallies and demonstrations, everyday scenes, sports events, etc.

The images are accompanied by texts from historian Stefan Wolle, who comments on the contradictions of the ever-present power of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and the feared state security service (Stasi) and, at the same time, a society which read many books, felt protected by its community and found great security in having all basic needs covered, such as having a job, a home, education and food.

Twenty years after the disappearance of the GDR, the exhibit aims to reconstruct the reality of the country by immersing viewers in something comparable to the "happy world" of a dictatorship (paraphrasing the title of a book written by Wolle).