ZThere are two reasons why Aron Boks’ book “Naked in the GDR” stands out from the flow of books. On the one hand, it’s an attempt to portray the ambivalences in Willi Sitte’s life as a painter and a functionary as fairly as possible, and on the other hand, it’s a twenty-six-year-old’s approach to the GDR. When a colleague in his editorial team writes an article about the GDR, Boks wonders whether the text would not have more authenticity if he wrote it. Although he has only been doing research for a few months at this time, he was born in the East German Harz town of Wernigerode. Quite incidentally, the topic of cultural appropriation appears unspoken. It was practiced without scruple by West German historians and journalists in their search for an image of the GDR, and by some to this day. But these encroachments were not called that right after reunification.
It’s easy to explain why the author’s interest in the GDR is combined with that of Willi Sitte in “Nackt in die DDR”: Aron Boks is Sitte’s great-grandnephew. Now, even in the GDR, Willi Sitte’s “mountains of meat” and large-scale propaganda images did not consistently appeal to the public, which is why the saying arose: Better drawn from life than painted from custom. The image of the president of the artists’ association, which Willi Sitte chaired for fourteen years, is a lot worse. He was seen as the guardian of socialist realism, an office that he had authorized as a member of the People’s Chamber and the Central Committee of the SED. Of course, one could have seen that Sitte’s pictures were never painted in the style of flat realism, but rather expressive and with a thick application of paint. Realistic by all means, but more of the kind that knows no taboos. Sitte rejected the idealization and embellishment of natural nudity.
Story and non-fiction at the same time
Aron Boks’ “Naked in the GDR” is both a story and a non-fiction book. The title alludes to the fact that the author entered the historical space of the GDR naked during his research, i.e. with almost no prior knowledge. He wants to know “what the whole story has to do with me”, since he didn’t get to know either the GDR or Willi Sitte. That inspires confidence because it shows that future generations want to help write this story. Interesting that the grandmother becomes the key witness, while the mother, who graduated from high school in the year of reunification, vehemently resists the son’s questions: “My mother says there is nothing more to say today.” As if the silence were repeated war and expulsion.
The collection of material that Boks offers for his Sitte picture is impressive. If a term from GDR history is mentioned – Bitterfelder Weg, the notorious 11th cultural plenary session, the petition against Biermann’s expatriation in 1976 – there is a footnote. Sitte had shown himself “extremely concerned about the situation that had arisen as a result of Wolf Biermann’s appearance in Germany”. Not half a sentence in defense, although Sitte had invited the singer to concerts at the Halle University on several occasions. Since this was one of the ambivalences in the Sitte picture, Boks tried to get a conversation with Wolf Biermann and received a confident answer from him: “Well, your great-granduncle was a great painter, a great artist, but a small person.”
#Aron #Boks #Naked #GDR #tells #Willi #Sitte