Lukas Bartl

German, Democratic, Restless. GDR health publications on the search for rest and relaxation (1955-1992).

(Working title)

The increase in noises, sound and noise, acceleration or even changes to traditional daily rhythms - in short, restlessness expressed in many different terms - is perhaps one of the hallmarks of modernity per se. However, if this is the case, then the human activity of seeking and, in the best case, finding rest must also be considered such a characteristic. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of actively creating, seeking and finding peace of mind has so far attracted little attention in historical research.

From a subjectivisation-oriented perspective, I aim to deal with problematisations of restlessness and practices of finding peace in the popular health discourse of the GDR. The work will be based primarily on scientific or popular scientific health media to answer the question of how restlessness was presented as a health problem in GDR health literature. Spanning more than four decades, I have collected articles from the popular and specialist health magazines and other educational media, mostly from the German Hygiene Museum Dresden. In addition, submissions and letters from the general public will also be analysed. They range from recommendations on the best way to relax on holiday to articles on noise or other nuisance phenomena as well as contributions with a more psychological approach, e.g. dealing with stress. The common thread is an ongoing engagement with a perceived apprehension and the desire to (re)build a connection to oneself and one’s social and natural environment. A desire which we might also call a desire for resonance.

Conducting such a case study based on the GDR is particularly appealing to me because I hope to shed light on three areas of GDR history that have so far been insufficiently analysed:

1. on individual health practices and their mediation by state media. The image of a society without personal responsibility still prevails in the common understanding of the GDR (and the new federal states). However, health media such as Deine Gesundheit can be used to show - as I have already done in a forthcoming article on the subject of fitness - that personal responsibility for health was actively communicated and accepted by the population.

2. on how the consequences of the rather abstract concept of technical and scientific progress (which was a key element of the GDR’s propaganda) related to the very concrete bodies and minds of citizens in both the official media and in individual letters from the general population.

3. the development and dissemination of psychological knowledge and forms of (self-) therapeutisation. For West Germany, various publications have already dealt with the "therapeutic decade" and its consequences. For the GDR, however, the untenable image of a pre-psychologised society prevails to some extent. This image could be corrected by analysing the practices and ideas of "finding peace".

Health media presented a fast, loud, overwhelming world. While the socialist ambition to change such a world faded over the decades, the pressure on individuals to find their individual solutions increased.

 

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