{"id":5892,"date":"2022-04-13T14:17:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-13T12:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/blog\/?p=5892"},"modified":"2022-04-20T09:53:17","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T07:53:17","slug":"how-ernst-thaelmanns-gym-shorts-ended-up-at-the-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/2022\/04\/13\/how-ernst-thaelmanns-gym-shorts-ended-up-at-the-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"How Ernst Th\u00e4lmann\u2019s Gym Shorts ended up at the Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How Ernst Th\u00e4lmann\u2019s Gym Shorts ended up at the Museum<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

A Donation from the Institut f\u00fcr Marxismus-Leninismus to the Museum f\u00fcr Deutsche Geschichte<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Christopher J\u00fctte | 13 April 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of a museum\u2019s tasks is to undertake ongoing research into the provenance of its objects. International Provenance Research Day<\/a> on 13 April is an opportunity for Christopher J\u00fctte, a provenance researcher at the DHM, to present an object donated by the German Institute of Marxism-Leninism in 1962 to the precursor of today\u2019s museum.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Since Germany\u2019s reunification in 1990, the DHM\u2019s collection has included the objects once held by the former Museum f\u00fcr Deutsche Geschichte (MdDG). Located in East Berlin, the latter\u2019s collections drew mainly from objects transferred and donated by state institutions and political organizations of the GDR. To be certain none were unlawfully appropriated, these acquisitions are put to the critical scrutiny of the DHM\u2019s provenance researchers<\/a>. As well as ensuring that the museum is indeed the rightful owner, this process also throws up some interesting stories about the objects themselves.<\/p>\n\n

One such state organization was the Institut f\u00fcr Marxismus-Leninismus (or IML for short), a subdivision of the Central Committee of East Germany\u2019s ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED). In this article, we hope to shed more light on one of the objects donated by the IML.<\/p>\n\n

On 7 March 1962, a \u2018public handover ceremony\u2019 was held in the foyer of the MfDG, located in the Zeughaus in East Berlin. According to the event programme,[1]<\/a> a variety of donors presented objects on this day to the museum. Benefactors included the Dresden painter and graphic artist Lea Grundig, and the East Berlin painter and sculptor Hans Mocznay, who both donated their own artworks. One particularly extensive donation, however, was presented to the MfDG by representatives of the IML. The IML had been established in September 1949, having emerged from the academic research institute at the Central Committee of the SED.[2]<\/a> In addition to publishing and editing the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir I. Lenin, and (initially, at least) Joseph Stalin, the IML was also responsible for researching the German and international workers\u2019 movement. It was to this end that the IML set about putting together a comprehensive specialist library and archive, with the latter tasked with collecting documents and material objects relating to the history of the workers\u2019 movement.[3]<\/a> This was presumably the context in which the objects first came to the IML, which later donated them to the East German museum.<\/p>\n\n

Founded in 1952 as the GDR\u2019s national history museum, the MfDG\u2019s mission was to provide visitors with a Marxist view of history. In order to do this, the museum collected and preserved numerous objects previously owned by or associated with significant figures from the history of the German workers\u2019 movement. The IML\u2019s donation included a ribbon from August Bebel\u2019s funeral wreath, the court robe worn by the lawyer Hans Litten, flags of the KPD (the Weimar-era communist party, banned by the Nazis in 1933) and the SED, KPD membership cards, and numerous objects associated with political persecution during the Nazi period. Particularly prominent in the IML\u2019s group donation are objects from the life of the KPD politician Ernst Th\u00e4lmann. In the appendix of the handover protocol concluded by the MfDG and the IML,[4]<\/a> dated 2 March 1962, thirteen objects from the Th\u00e4lmann legacy are listed \u2013 including some that on first glance might not seem particularly interesting for a museum collection, such as a pair of red gym shorts and five ties. The reason these objects were considered at all collectible by the IML and the MfDG was because of the special place accorded to Ernst Th\u00e4lmann in the GDR\u2019s commemorative culture.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Red gym shorts from the estate of Ernst Th\u00e4lmann \u00a9 DHM<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As leader of the KPD from 1925 to 1933, Th\u00e4lmann was the leading German communist politician and parliamentarian during the Weimar Republic and was arrested on 3 March 1933 following the Nazis\u2019 seizure of power. In 1944, Th\u00e4lmann was executed in Buchenwald concentration camp. In East Germany, Th\u00e4lmann\u2019s written works and the man himself were venerated in acts of hero worship, with numerous statues and a youth organization subsequently bearing his name.<\/p>\n\n

The political scientist Herfried M\u00fcnkler considers Th\u00e4lmann an icon of the GDR\u2019s founding myth. He was \u2018the GDR\u2019s number one role model\u2019 and \u2018the most important martyr to the communist cause\u2019 in Germany.[5]<\/a> This was the background against which the MfDG also came to view the devotional objects from his legacy to be particularly worthy of collection and preservation. It explains how objects like the gym shorts came to be displayed in the Museum f\u00fcr Deutsche Geschichte\u2019s permanent collection until 1989.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Tie from the estate of Ernst Th\u00e4lmann \u00a9 DHM<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why, then, did the IML give away these objects to the museum? Writing in the run-up to the presentation, the then-director of the IML, Ludwig Einicke, justified the decision in a letter to the MfDG:<\/p>\n\n

Our institute has in its possession a rather extensive collection of museum objects from the history of the German workers\u2019 movement. These objects were saved for posterity during the fascist era by members of our party, often at the risk of their lives, and thus preserved for our nation. As the worthy sanctuary of German humanist and revolutionary traditions, the Museum f\u00fcr Deutsche Geschichte was called into being to use its resources to make history relevant to our fellow citizens in the present day. We have therefore decided to hand over our entire collection of museum objects to the Museum f\u00fcr Deutsche Geschichte.[6]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n

Einicke designated the MfDG as the appropriate place to make these kinds of objects accessible to the wider public and at the same time endow them with ideological significance as \u2018revolutionary\u2019 portents. The quotation above features certain stock phrases about \u2018surviving\u2019 the Nazi period and \u2018saving\u2019 \u2013 objects, ideas, or people \u2013 from the clutches of the Nazis. Such locutions were frequently used for particular objects accessioned into the collections of the MfDG. This was how \u2018relics\u2019 of the workers\u2019 movement and communist party predating the Third Reich and then saved for posterity during the Nazi period came to be considered particularly valuable. We can only speculate what was actually said on the day and whether the small group of attendees at the handover ceremony found time to discuss Ernst Th\u00e4lmann\u2019s gym shorts during the \u2018informal discussion round\u2019 scheduled for the end of the presentation.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

[1]<\/a> Programme for the presentation of gifts to the Museum f\u00fcr Deutsche Geschichte, DHM-HArch, MfDG\/Rot\/002, n.p.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Gr\u00e4fe, Sylvia, introduction to the online inventory \u2018Institut f\u00fcr Marxismus-Leninismus beim ZK der SED\u2019 in the Bundesarchiv, Berlin June 2016. Online: http:\/\/www.argus.bstu.bundesarchiv.de\/dy30iml\/index.htm<\/a>, last accessed: 28 March 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Appendix to the handover protocol for items donated to the Museum f\u00fcr Deutsche Geschichte, DHM-HArch MfDG\/Rot\/002, n.p.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> M\u00fcnkler, Herfried, \u2018Antifaschismus als Gr\u00fcndungsmythos der DDR. Abgrenzungsinstrument nach Westen und Herrschaftsmittel nach innen\u2019. In: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V. (ed.): Der Antifaschismus als Staatsdoktrin der DDR<\/em>, Sankt Augustin 2009, p. 40. Online: https:\/\/www.kas.de\/c\/document_library\/get_file?uuid=d9f3e645-bbd3-ac13-76b1-b571958ec05e&groupId=252038<\/a>, last accessed: 29 March 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Letter from the directors of the IML, Ludwig Einicke, to the MfDG, 15 February 1962, DHM-HArch MfDG\/Rot\/002, n.p.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"

\u00a9 Thomas Bruns<\/p><\/div>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Christopher J\u00fctte<\/h4>\n

<\/p>\n

Christopher J\u00fctte is a historian and a member of the research staff at the Deutsches   Historisches Museum. He specializes in the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ) and the GDR.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How Ernst Th\u00e4lmann\u2019s Gym Shorts ended up at the Museum. A Donation from the Institut f\u00fcr Marxismus-Leninismus to the Museum f\u00fcr Deutsche Geschichte<\/h2>\n

One of a museum\u2019s tasks is to undertake ongoing research into the provenance of its objects. International Provenance Research Day on 13 April is an opportunity for Christopher J\u00fctte, a provenance researcher at the DHM, to present an object donated by the German Institute of Marxism-Leninism in 1962 to the precursor of today\u2019s museum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[207,1540],"class_list":["post-5892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-dhm-en","tag-collection","tag-provenance-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5892"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6112,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892\/revisions\/6112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}