Echoes of the Brother Countries

In recent years, the former German Democratic Republic (DDR) has been the subject of a reappraisal that, while not seeking to redeem the stiflingly authoritarian state, has attempted to present a more nuanced overview of its social and cultural realities.

- Harry Stopes

Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany

Such is the case with ‘Echoes of the Brother Countries’, which explores relationships between the DDR and socialist states in the Global South; the experiences of students, contract workers and political refugees who came to East Germany from across the globe; and the significance of these connections for present-day Germany.

Encounters between the DDR and the brother countries were characterized at different moments by solidarity, paternalism, self-interest, admiration, racism and anti-imperialism: this complexity is conveyed throughout the show in a range of media. One mode is a kind of outsider-socialist-realism favoured in a number of films by foreign students who studied at the Film and Television Academy. Riad Ali Saad’s Marhaba Rostock (1970), for instance, compares the roles of capital and labour at the harbours of Rostock and Beirut, while Emile Itolo’s Olingo (1966) recounts the experience of a Congolese student who finds his attempts to study in West Berlin thwarted by casual racism – the Western setting offering an implicit contrast with the apparently more brotherly east.