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Bowling for Communism: Urban Ingenuity at the End of East Germany

Online ISBN:
9781501751684
Print ISBN:
9781501751660
Publisher:
Cornell University Press
Book

Bowling for Communism: Urban Ingenuity at the End of East Germany

Andrew Demshuk
Andrew Demshuk
American University
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Published online:
20 May 2021
Published in print:
15 October 2020
Online ISBN:
9781501751684
Print ISBN:
9781501751660
Publisher:
Cornell University Press

Abstract

This book 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. The book 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, the book 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?

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