Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
experiences to all tourists that may be inter-
ested in travel back in time to a recently disap-
peared past.
I will illustrate this complex example of tour-
ism of memory through different kinds of experi-
ences and tourist products, illustrating the supply
of (n)ostalgia tours in the city of Berlin and the
growing phenomenon of GDR-museums.
A tourist in Berlin can experience an Ostal-
gia tour by bus or by boat on the river. The
'East Berlin Nostalgia Tour' is presented as fol-
lows on the Berlin Tourism Offi ce website: 'The
'Ostalgia' tour presents important places of the
GDR. In Berlin every district has its own history
and identity. In the years of its separation in two
parts, two different political and ideological sys-
tems were developed and therefore two differ-
ent historic evolutions took place in Berlin. After
the fall of the wall Berlin became one city again,
but the past is vivid in various places. The recent
history of Berlin has many aspects and different
ways of handling. On the one hand there is the
diffi cult historical discussion, on the other hand
is the (n)ostalgic mood. The actual wow of the
German fi lm 'Good-bye Lenin' made this kind
of mood clear to an international public. Our
tour shows both sides'.
9
The tour includes, for
example: the headquarters of the
Staatssicher-
heit
, the so-called
Stasi
; the Karl Marx Allee,
which is presented as a 'unique open-air museum
of Socialist Realist architecture in Germany',
where in 1953 the worker's rebellion started,
and, of course, the remains of the Berlin Wall.
One of the most relevant Ostalgic sightsee-
ing stops in Berlin is indeed Checkpoint Charlie,
the former border crossing point between East
and West Berlin where Soviet and American
soldiers stood face to face, after the construction
of the Wall in 1961. Today it is possible to get a
(false) visa in the passport of the former GDR,
supplied by a false GDR soldier (Fig. 2.11) and
to take a picture in front of the (reconstructed)
border house together with (false) Allied or
Soviet and GDR soldiers (Fig. 2.12). It is clear
that in this case history and a specifi c past (both
historical and political) give sightseeing value to
the former east side of the city (when we can
forget the 'diffi cult historical discussion', which
is not just historical but primarily political).
It is also clear that the memories of former
GDR citizens are now better understood around
the world through the media imaginery, in this
case thanks to a fi lm that in 2003 was the most
successful fi lm in Germany (both in the western
and eastern sides of re-unifi ed Germany). The
reference is to a historical past, of course, but
the gaze (the observer's perspective) is that of the
tourism system and of the media imaginery.
In connection to these Ostalgia tours, both
in Berlin and other former GDR cities, there
have also been set up travel agencies for tourists
which offer 'Trabant Safaris'. The Trabant was
the popular autarchic car of the GDR and today
it undoubtedly represents a 'realm of memory'
of former East Germany and a GDR 'cult object'
at the same time (Behrdal, 2001; Bartoletti,
2008). Tourists can get in and drive a Trabant
themselves, following the audio-guide, which
gives explanations. Two tours are offered: 'Berlin
Classic' and 'Berlin Wild East'.
Western Ostalgic tourists sometimes encoun-
ter the Ostalgic citizens of the former GDR, who
have themselves been transformed into tourists
of their own past. This can occur in the many
private museums of everyday life in the GDR
that have been opened in former East Germany
in recent years. The most recent among them
was opened in July 2006 in the centre of Berlin:
it is the
DDR-Museum der Alltagskultur -
GDR
Museum of everyday culture
-
and it attracted
9000 visitors in the fi rst weekend after its open-
ing alone.
10
I visited one of these museums in
2006: the museum, in the Dresden suburbs,
opened in 2005 and is named
Ddr-Zeitreise
(GDR Time Travel). Its visitors are not only tour-
ists, but also inhabitants of the area. During my
visit I encountered groups of young students
from different East European states (Poland and
former Czechoslovakia, both former socialistic
States) (Figs 2.16 and 2.17) but also Dresden
citizens who were visiting their past through old-
fashioned scenes of daily life (Fig. 2.18): work,
leisure, play, technology, mobility, the household
and so on are the themes of the different rooms
10
Compare S. Stone,
Museum Offers 'Ostalgic' Look at East Germany
, Spiegel online International, 20 July
2006,
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518, 427579,00.html
(Accessed 31 July 2008).
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