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Since the mid 1990s a peculiar phenomenon has spread from Germany's New Federal States: mementos from the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) have suddenly become en vogue. Trendies started to gather at specific events, dressed up in the polyester fashion of the old country, sipping drinks such as Vita Cola and Rotkappchen-Champagne while listening to bands playing Ost Rock. A surprising fact considering the rather unceremonious demise of this state when, in 1990, the majority of its citizens voted to join the Federal Republic of Germany. In the ensuing euphoria over the unification of both German states it seemed as if the GDR-and everything that was connected with it-was destined for the rubbish heap of history.1 And yet, only a few years after the political and economic unification of both states had been accomplished, some of the most unlikely remnants of the GDR have made a remarkable comeback: old products and brand names, such as the drinks mentioned above, have reached almost cult status. The most striking point of this development is that with the traumatic transformation of the East German socialist economy into West German capitalism, most of these products stood no chance of surviving the competition from their better-made, better-marketed, and snazzier Western counterparts and thus had vanished practically overnight from the shelves.
However, despite the initial enthusiasm for Western products (which became available to the residents of the New Federal States with the introduction of the deutsche mark), consumers have increasingly demanded that their old products and brands, familiar from the days of the GDR, be brought back.2 An indicator of the importance of actual consumer products in this context is that not only small companies are beginning to market their products' Eastern origins, but that also at least some large Western manufacturers have jumped on the bandwagon and (re)introduced products and brands still familiar to a public from the days of the German Democratic Republic (Wolber 4). Probably the most telling examples, however, are those products that have not managed to survive, or were killed off in the transition to capitalism, such as the Trabant, East Germany's version of a small car, and that have subsequently found a second life as representations. Their images adorn everything from the pages of cult...