Der 13. Februar 1955. Verwendungen von Zeit in der DDR-Presse anlässlich des 10. Jahrestages des Luftangriffs auf Dresden

Abstract

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden in 1955, the press in the GDR endeavored to place the blame for the devastating attack on the "imperialist" West and to emphasize its own successes in reconstruction. In my contribution, I argue that three practices of time (instrumentalization of time, ordering of time, quantificati-on of time) emerged in the reporting, which in turn used distinct forms of time and units of time. I also illuminate the dilemma that newspapers faced: The perished baroque architecture of the Elbe metropolis could hardly be the future of a socialist Dresden. At the same time, however, it was precisely this loss that fuelled the propaganda against the “guilty” Western powers. The result was a coverage that did not want to commit itself to the question of architecture and was eager to ignore contradictions.