page_title: Ostalgie
hierarchical_section_title: Ostalgie
caption_attribution_description: A booth selling East German memorabilia. This was taken with my camera by me, and, in keeping with my status as an information hippie, I release all rights to this photo.
context_page_description: In German culture, Ostalgie is nostalgia for aspects of life in Communist East Germany. It is a portmanteau of the German words Ost and Nostalgie. Its anglicised equivalent, ostalgia, is also sometimes used.
  The term was coined by the East German standup comic Uwe Steimle in 1992.
  Social scientist Thomas Ahbe argues that the term ‘ostalgia’ is often misunderstood as a lack of willingness to integrate, an uproar to reverse German reunification and reinstate the GDR. However, Ostalgia is rather an integration strategy used by East Germans who wanted to retain their own original experiences, memories and values incompatible with those of the West German majority.
  As with other cases of Communist nostalgia, there are various motivations, whether ideology, nationalism, wistfulness for a lost sense of social status or stability, or even aesthetics or irony.
context_section_description: In German culture, Ostalgie (German: [ˌʔɔstalˈɡiː]) is nostalgia for aspects of life in Communist East Germany. It is a portmanteau of the German words  Ost (east) and Nostalgie (nostalgia). Its anglicised equivalent, ostalgia (rhyming with "nostalgia"), is also sometimes used.
  The term was coined by the East German standup comic Uwe Steimle in 1992. 
  Social scientist Thomas Ahbe argues that the term ‘ostalgia’ is often misunderstood as a lack of willingness to integrate, an uproar to reverse German reunification and reinstate the GDR.  However, Ostalgia is rather an integration strategy used by East Germans who wanted to retain their own original experiences, memories and values incompatible with those of the West German majority.
  As with other cases of Communist nostalgia, there are various motivations, whether ideology, nationalism, wistfulness for a lost sense of social status or stability, or even aesthetics or irony.
caption: Soviet and GDR Memorabilia for sale in Berlin in 2006
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