Coop à la DDR
Eastern Marketing: Consumer Cooperatives as a Paradoxical Part of GDR History(ies): A Humorous Retrospective.
Ost-Marketing Konsumgenossenschaften als paradoxer Teil der DDR-Geschichte(n): ein humoriger Rückblick.Wer Manfred Kirschs Geschichten verstehen wollen, muss die Geschichte der konsumgenossenschaftlich organisierten Selbsthilfe etwas kennen. That is why his (n)ostalgic book begins near the most British of all British industrial cities. In the middle of the 19th century, 28 weavers (not advertisers!) joined forces near Manchester to buy large quantities of particularly high-quality overseas goods, sell them on in smaller batches and divide the profits fairly among themselves. a thorn in the Nazi flesh
Other principles of this original capitalist commune were open membership, transparent administration, a refund guarantee and political and religious neutrality. In 1850, this new wave of values spilled over from England to Germany, where workers at the Chemnitz Actien-Spinnerei founded the "Ermunterung" savings and consumer association. In the years that followed, such cooperatives sprang up like mushrooms: Industrial companies were followed by struggling craft and agricultural businesses.
In 1930, 3.5 million Germans were members of a consumer association. The downfall of these organizations, which were infiltrated by Bolshevism according to the doctrine of the time, began with the Nazi regime. They were first transferred to the German Labor Front and then banned and stripped of their assets in 1941. Four years later, however, the idea rose like a phoenix from the ashes of the Second World War - at least in the Soviet occupation zone: in December 1945, ten new consumer cooperatives were founded by military decree.
Half-empty shopping bagsThe cooperatively organized Kònsum - in the East, the word is still stressed on the first syllable - was given further tasks by the state in the nascent GDR. It had to prioritize the development of rural areas and thus support collectivization. Specifically, Konsum was responsible for buying up agricultural produce, supplying workers, catering, feeding schoolchildren and children and supporting commission merchants.
The history of this consumption is the history of the East German economy of scarcity. At some point, people became accustomed to rarely getting what they wanted. The imbalance between supply and demand resulted in a special kind of humor. A man in a consumer goods store asks: "Don't you have any furniture?" The sales clerk replies: "There's no furniture next door. We don't have any bicycles." Whether the citizens of the GDR loved their Konsum stores - as Kirsch suggests - even though they regularly left them with half-empty shopping bags is, of course, another question.
What is certain is that reunification meant the end of many consumer cooperatives. Although most of them were not poor, they did not have enough liquid funds to adapt their stores to the exponentially increasing customer demands. The banks refused to grant loans, forcing cooperatives in droves into the open arms of West German trading houses and racketeers. Which mostly went wrong, especially for the Ossis. Kirsch devotes several chapters to this part of the history of consumerism; some of them are garnished with particularly cynical anecdotes. After all, the author worked in this environment all his life and tried to save his store in Güstrow until the very end. For us advertising people, this educational and touching piece on East German marketing is primarily interesting because of the pictures. Kirsch's text seems uninspired and hardly inspiring, at times spasmodically funny. The puns often fall flat and there is no recognizable central theme. Although the book is easy to read, both the obviously affected author and his editor have missed a great opportunity.
Consumer stories by Manfred Kirsch: insight into the bygone brand world of East Germans.
Other principles of this original capitalist commune were open membership, transparent administration, a refund guarantee and political and religious neutrality. In 1850, this new wave of values spilled over from England to Germany, where workers at the Chemnitz Actien-Spinnerei founded the "Ermunterung" savings and consumer association. In the years that followed, such cooperatives sprang up like mushrooms: Industrial companies were followed by struggling craft and agricultural businesses.
In 1930, 3.5 million Germans were members of a consumer association. The downfall of these organizations, which were infiltrated by Bolshevism according to the doctrine of the time, began with the Nazi regime. They were first transferred to the German Labor Front and then banned and stripped of their assets in 1941. Four years later, however, the idea rose like a phoenix from the ashes of the Second World War - at least in the Soviet occupation zone: in December 1945, ten new consumer cooperatives were founded by military decree.
Half-empty shopping bagsThe cooperatively organized Kònsum - in the East, the word is still stressed on the first syllable - was given further tasks by the state in the nascent GDR. It had to prioritize the development of rural areas and thus support collectivization. Specifically, Konsum was responsible for buying up agricultural produce, supplying workers, catering, feeding schoolchildren and children and supporting commission merchants.
The history of this consumption is the history of the East German economy of scarcity. At some point, people became accustomed to rarely getting what they wanted. The imbalance between supply and demand resulted in a special kind of humor. A man in a consumer goods store asks: "Don't you have any furniture?" The sales clerk replies: "There's no furniture next door. We don't have any bicycles." Whether the citizens of the GDR loved their Konsum stores - as Kirsch suggests - even though they regularly left them with half-empty shopping bags is, of course, another question.
What is certain is that reunification meant the end of many consumer cooperatives. Although most of them were not poor, they did not have enough liquid funds to adapt their stores to the exponentially increasing customer demands. The banks refused to grant loans, forcing cooperatives in droves into the open arms of West German trading houses and racketeers. Which mostly went wrong, especially for the Ossis. Kirsch devotes several chapters to this part of the history of consumerism; some of them are garnished with particularly cynical anecdotes. After all, the author worked in this environment all his life and tried to save his store in Güstrow until the very end. For us advertising people, this educational and touching piece on East German marketing is primarily interesting because of the pictures. Kirsch's text seems uninspired and hardly inspiring, at times spasmodically funny. The puns often fall flat and there is no recognizable central theme. Although the book is easy to read, both the obviously affected author and his editor have missed a great opportunity.
Consumer stories by Manfred Kirsch: insight into the bygone brand world of East Germans.
> Die Marken bitte by Manfred Kirsch. Eulenspiegel Verlag, Berlin 2004. 192 pages, Fr. 26.80.
Roger Hausmann
