East Germany – Wolfgang Engler: A “Bravo” only in itself

We met for the first time in the mudflats, the well-known pub in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg. I recognized it on the boxing nose: Wolfgang Engler. We both wanted to get beer at the counter, and one of us was just pushing. Engler has probably always had this penetrating look, from someone who doesn’t have fun. So I went one more thing: “Sach, are you not the new Erich Honecker?” – “But yes, that’s me!”

The person addressed did not rule the country, but at least the Berlin University of Act Ernst Busch. A wave of protests was ran against Engler at the time. As a rector, he also acted as the head of the “Bat”, the Berlin workers theater, the university-owned stage for the productions of his students. This BAT studio theater was able to go back to the old venue near the water tower in Prenzlauer Berg in summer 2017, after two years of renovation, from Berlin-Weißensee. But then the scandal: For the upcoming celebration, one of the still living founders – let’s call him Wolf Biermann – received none and then no correct invitation. And that after being banned there in 1963! The brave bard had been locked out again. And like 41 years earlier, protest had registered, a petition, initiated and signed by outstanding personalities as Ines Geipel and Freya Klier. But Wolfgang Engler was stubborn. So that I now called at the counter: “More beer, man!” He laughed. “Come to our table.” And I did that the next few years …

“Poverty is not a social construct, but a bitter experience for those affected.”

Wolfgang Engler

As a philosopher, I always admired Wolfgang Engler. Known with books such as “The East German as an avant -garde”, he has enriched the social discourse for some impulses.

To date, we have no practical concept of rule to the GDR. Terms such as “injustice” or “care dictatorship” have not prevailed (at least in the case of East Germans). Wolfgang Engler speaks of a “working society” – at least a proposal. The propagated leadership role of the working class has led to a social and cultural dominance of the workers, which shaped the East German society, in contrast to the middle class society of West Germans.

In his new book »Breaks. The 73-year-old now writes an East German life: “The first and last” workers’ and peasant state “on German soil never put the political power into the hands of the one he referred to. But he offered women and men from the ›People‹ development and advancement opportunities that at least partially compensated for the lack of elementary freedoms. «A sentence that the sociologist Steffen Mau denies for the late 1980s. The GDR company had been stuck; The old men were not only in the political office.

For my generation, the large counting count was only a rumor. We stuck in the “bottle neck for university access” (Steffen Mau). I would probably never have got beyond my office job at the State Central Administration for Statistics. And because the youth no longer had this intensive commitment to the state, in summer ’89 there were so many over Hungary. We talked about this in the mudflats, the group around Engler that the GDR was different at different times.

Wolfgang Engler, born in Dresden in 1952, could have had other experiences. Inspired by the promotion story of the French writer Édouard Louis (“to become a different”), he traces his life in “breaks”: from the skilled worker for electronic data processing, which follows his high school diploma on the second educational path, is studying philosophy, becoming an assistant at the Institute for Guide Director, making a career one day as a public To succeed overall German feature pages.

The first “break” was theft. Engler’s memories use the counter gang from the west. Fourteen -year -old Wolfgang steals the “Bravo” from the satchel, the new suffering of the young W. “Envy grabbed me, just because of the large -format poster of bands that I rever.” Only those who had his childhood and youth in “God’s beloved Eastern Zone”, as the theologian Karl Barth lovingly called this country. “Bravo” high-gloss poster, at my time it was Kajagoogoo and Limahl (nothing that I am proud of today) were acted for a lot of money at school. The young Wolfgang Engler had a whole “bravo” in itself!

I recently called him, wanted to talk to him about his criminal past and know which band enthusiastically inspired him at the time. Engler laughed. Probably the kinks, but he doesn’t know anymore. Again and again we wanted to drink a beer, just like before. In his book, he also writes about the “Tuesday round” in the mudflats: “There was no topic. They told what one belonged in the past few days, seen, read, thought, agreed to others or argued with them in a friendly manner, and finally went home. ”Which was probably also because it was none of these typical east. No bitter counter philosophers that attributed their personal failure to the West alone.

Even journalists from the “FAZ” and “taz” were joined at our table; His wife Anna was there; A theologian; An architectural professor and not to forget: a representative of the “happy unemployed”. We talked about God and the world that became more and more complicated. If you had painted the future in bright colors earlier, this hope was over for a long time. Wolfgang Engler also said that: Life of the coming generations will not be better; Humanity has long since played a better future. It could only be about keeping the damage within limits.

And of course we also blasphemed through the Left Party’s post hunter troop-which, frankly, was a topic for the regulars’ table that did not lack a certain irony: Wolfgang Engler was one of the very few GDR squad who did not lose their post with German unity. Although there was no lack of attempts to accuse him of Stasi and State, but he should survive all takeovers and reviews. Later the man was even the only East German rector of a university. Once, at an advanced time, the now emeritus Professor Engler said: “The postal structure lists me up like this.” We were amazed. This was a little overloaded for a pub conversation.

I called him these days and wanted to know how he meant. Engler asked for time; He sounded tired and called back after an hour. At Derrida, he said, Foucault and Lyotard disturb him that everything is always dissolved in discourses, becomes the game of the signs and symbols. Because of, it can be like that and or otherwise. “The factuality falls down. Poverty is not a social construct, but a bitter experience for those affected. “Of course, the word of climate change is also a social construct,” and yet it burns on the skin when the sun is up “.

If I have any questions, as before in the mudflats, I should call. This did not listen to it as if he wanted to exchange ideas with me as before – about Sahra Wagenknecht, the drinking behavior of the young hanic or about transcendental homelessness at Georg Lukács, what do I know. Our meetings on Tuesday are missing.

He has been tormenting with severe depression for years. He also tells of this and about his clinic stays in his autobiography. I actually intended to visit him at home.

I wanted to start the article about our encounter with the four black Ikea armchairs that are still in his apartment-from GDR times. Engler was a travel tray. What a privilege! From the west money for his teaching position in Klagenfurt, he bought the furniture, which he then smuggled across the border in the luggage car of the train, with a color TV and thirty books. I have a teaching position at the same university today. And what I earn there is not enough for chairs on Ebay. We could have talked about it too … that’s what my book remains. In it, the author remembers that the East Germans used to be the handshake in the past: “He captivates with a dialectic that goes to the hug, puts a connection and maintenance.”

It is also open how it goes with Wolfgang Engler. But I know that if we see each other next time, I will hug him.

Wolfgang Engler: »Breaks. An East German life «, Aufbau-Verlag, 347 pages, born, € 22.