Handball unites: Dirk Oschmann over the east and its identity

Handball unites: Dirk Oschmann over the east and its identity

Magdeburg, Deutschland - In an interview with Dirk Oschmann on June 13, 2025, which was published in the FAZ identity -creating role of handball in Magdeburg. He emphasizes the recently achieved Champions League victory of SC Magdeburg, who emphasized regional pride.

Oschmann also expresses his concerns regarding the underrepresentation of the East in the all -German society. In this situation, he sees a danger to the cohesion of the country, since the voices and perspectives from the east are often not heard. This becomes particularly clear in the debate about identity and togetherness.

The tension field east-west

The discussion about the realities of life of the people in East Germany is also taken up by the historian Katja Hoyer. In her book "on this side of the wall" she addresses how important it is to understand the GDR as part of German history. Her anecdote about Angela Merkel's speech on the Day of German Unity 2021 becomes the central element of her argument. Merkel had rejected her GDR biography as a "ballast" in Halle an der Saale and emphasized that the turn should not simply be seen as a "hour zero".

This perspective is supplemented by the work of Oschmann, who in his book "The East: An Infent of the West" questions the West German perspective on East Germans. With a postcolonial analysis method, he criticizes the assumption that the West is the normal case and the east. Both authors, Oschmann and Hoyer, require a more comprehensive shift in discourse in German history to hear the voices of the supposed losers.

reactions and controversy

The books by Hoyer and Oschmann are not undisputed. While Hoyer's work in Great Britain is experiencing positive response, the German edition is partly exposed to harsh criticism. Critics accuse Hoyer of trivializing the GDR, while Oschmann is described as ahistorical. However, both emphasize that they do not represent the GDR as an injustice state, but rather want to focus 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 view of East Germans and their experiences must be embedded in the all -German context in order to create a complete picture of German history.