Bowling for Communism

Andrew Demshuk

Description

Bowling for Communism illuminates how civic life functioned in Leipzig, East Germany's second-largest city, on the eve of the 1989 revolution by exploring acts of "urban ingenuity" amid catastrophic urban decay. Andrew Demshuk profiles the creative activism of local communist officials who, with the help of scores of volunteers, constructed a palatial bowling alley without Berlin's knowledge or approval. In a city mired in disrepair, civic pride overcame resentment against a regime loathed for corruption, Stasi spies, and the Berlin Wall.Reconstructing such episodes through interviews and obscure archival materials, Demshuk shows how the public sphere functioned in Leipzig before the fall of communism. Hardly detached or inept, local officials worked around centralized failings to build a more humane city. And hardly disengaged, residents turned to black-market construction to patch up their surroundings.Because such "urban ingenuity" was premised on weakness in the centralized regime, the dystopian cityscape evolved from being merely a quotidian grievance to the backdrop for revolution. If, by their actions, officials were demonstrating that the regime was irrelevant, and if, in their own experiences, locals only attained basic repairs outside official channels, why should anyone have mourned the system when it was overthrown?

Sujets

• Histoire
• Ideology
• History of Europe
• East Germany
• Germany
• DDR

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501751684
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 9 Mo

Extrait

BOWLING FOR COMMUNISM

BOWLING FOR COMMUNISM

URBAN I NGE NUI TY AT T HE E ND OF E AST GE RMANY

A n d r e w D e m s h u k

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2020 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2020 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Names: Demshuk, Andrew, 1980– author. Title: Bowling for communism : urban ingenuity at the end of East Germany / Andrew Demshuk. Description: Ithaca, [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020004274 (print) | LCCN 2020004275 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501751660 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501751684 (pdf ) | ISBN 9781501751677 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Urban renewal—Germany—Leipzig— Citizen participation. | Urban renewal—Political aspects—Germany—Leipzig. | Urban renewal— Germany—Leipzig—History—20th century. | Communism and architecture—Germany—Leipzig. | Architecture and state—Germany (East) | City planning—Political aspects—Germany—Leipzig— History—20th century. | Leipzig (Germany)—Buildings, structures, etc. | Leipzig (Germany)—Politics and government—20th century. | Germany (East)—Politics and government—1989–1990. Classification: LCC DD901.L59 D46 2020 (print) | LCC DD901.L59 (ebook) | DDC 943/.21220878—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020004274 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020004275

Cover photograph: “Leipzig’s Bowlingtreff: subterranean lanes in action, circa 1987.” Photograph by Wolfgang Kluge. StadtAL BA 1988 26091. Used by permission.

For Rebecca and Archie Ray

Co nte nts

Preface ix List of Abbreviations xv

Introduction: Can Leipzig Still Be Saved? 1 1. Survival and Despair in Dystopia 17 2. Urban Ingenuity in the System 53 3. Utopian Visions in 1988 82 4. Urban Ingenuity Underground 95 5. The City as Stage in Revolution 149 Epilogue: Continuities in “the Saved City” 179

Notes 193 Bibliography 233 Index 243

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P r e f a c e

Along the main ring road across from Leipzig’s monumental new city hall, an octagonal sandstone façade with smashed windowpanes and a coat of graffiti festers behind weedy trees that wave in the wind. In a bowlshaped depression of broken glass and pavement several meters back from this wreck, a corroded claw arises to clasp a red stone orb. Behind locked gates that face traffic on the ring road, a defunct neon sign gives a clue about this moldering enigma: in a mix of English and Ger man, faded yellow cursive letters reveal that this had been the “Bowlingtreff.” Completed in 1987, this lofty little hall with its vast subterranean bowling lanes, cafes, bars, and hip accoutrements opened its doors to waves of eager citizens: a gleaming, popular magnet alone in a sea of rotting, collapsing his toric neighborhoods that suffocated under a constant brown haze from the moonscape of strip mines and lignite power plants to the immediate south. Outfitted with Western technology and cuttingedge postmodern flourishes, this wonder arose thanks to unorthodox, even illegal, daring from local of ficials and architects, not to mention thousands of hours of free labor from Leipzig citizens. Ten years later, as the city awoke from its communistera decay to miraculously transfigure into one of Germany’s most lively historic centers, the Bowlingtreff closed because of capitalist mismanagement and steadily metamorphosed into an eyesore akin to what the rest of the city had been back in 1987. The story of this unequaled latecommunist, early postmodern edifice was forgotten. Only its forlorn neon sign and bowling ballshaped fountain testify to its onetime identity. Like most passersby, I was dumbfounded when I first stumbled across what was left of Leipzig’s Bowl ingtreff. Little did I suspect that this architectural riddle bore within it a host of human stories and contradictions that could unlock the inner workings of East Germany’s secondlargest city on the eve of the 1989 Peaceful Revolu tion, in which it played a principal role. This book first came into being amid a personal quest to understand the oddity that is Leipzig’s Bowlingtreff. Through previous research, I had ex plored how waves of public protest against heedless regimeled demolitions

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