Legacies of the Cold War: symbolic and subcultural re-appropriations of former Soviet barracks in East Germany

Joachim Otto Habeck, Universität Hamburg

From 1945 to 1994, an archipelago of Soviet Army barracks and military infrastructure existed on the territory of the German Democratic Republic. When in 1994 the last remaining soldiers left the eastern part of Germany, most of these sites turned into “empty spaces” or “lost places”. These areas were soon informally appropriated as playing grounds in manifold ways – ways that emulate and simultaneously transcend the phantasies of those who initially constructed and lived in the barracks. The remnants of military infrastructure came to attract urban explorers, photographers, trophy hunters, LARPers, sprayers, and other subcultural groups. In this presentation, I will show how the material decay combines with creative re-appropriation and visual documentation. The range of past inscriptions (official displays of Soviet patriotism, informal paintings made by erstwhile residents, and graffiti of Soviet soldiers) provides ample ground for aesthetic re-interpretation; at the same time, the liminal character of these spaces offers the opportunity for collective self-exploration by means of role play. However, the existence of such liminal spaces is “endangered” because local and regional administrators perceive them as a security risk; thus, the authorities try to mop up the rubble and clear the terrain, reclaiming these spaces for different land use. Some see this as a gradual erasure of past traces of the Soviet Army’s presence in Germany. My presentation will close with the question how the different after-lives correspond with re-enactment, memory, and forgetting.