Handball unites: Dirk Oschmann about the East and his identity

Handball unites: Dirk Oschmann about the East and his identity

In an interview with Dirk Oschmann on June 13, 2025, which appeared in the FAZ was published, the German scholar and author addresses the identity-forming role of handball in Magdeburg. He highlights SC Magdeburg's recent Champions League victory, which has significantly strengthened regional pride.

At the same time, Oschmann expresses his concerns about the underrepresentation of the East in German society as a whole. He sees this situation as a threat to the cohesion of the country, as the voices and perspectives from the East are often not heard. This is particularly clear in the debate about identity and belonging.

The East-West tension

The discussion about the realities of life for people in East Germany is also taken up by the historian Katja Hoyer. In her book “This Side of the Wall” she discusses how important it is to understand the GDR as part of German history. Her anecdote about Angela Merkel's speech on German Unity Day 2021 becomes the central element of her argument. In Halle an der Saale, Merkel rejected her GDR biography as “ballast” and emphasized that the transition should not simply be viewed as “zero hour”.

This perspective is complemented by the work of Oschmann, who questions the West German view of East Germans in his book “The East: an Invention of the West”. Using a postcolonial method of analysis, he criticizes the assumption that the West is the norm and the East is the exception. Both authors, Oschmann and Hoyer, call for a more comprehensive shift in discourse in German history in order to make the voices of the supposed losers heard.

Reactions and controversies

The books by Hoyer and Oschmann are not without controversy. While Hoyer's work has received a positive response in Great Britain, the German edition has been subjected to some harsh criticism. Critics accuse Hoyer of trivializing the GDR, while Oschmann is described as ahistorical. However, both emphasize that they do not want to portray the GDR as an unjust state, but rather want to focus their work on the perceptions and life stories of the people in the GDR.

This discussion is not only a cultural phenomenon, but also has far-reaching social implications. The perspective of East Germans and their experiences must be embedded in the pan-German context in order to create a complete picture of German history.