The Trabant: Consumption, Eigen-Sinn, and Movement
eli.rubin{at}wmich.edu
 |
Abstract |
|---|
This essay looks at the history of the quintessential East German automobile, the Trabant, from a unique point of view. Rather than focusing on the Trabant as an object unto itself, this essay argues that the Trabant must be understood as integrated into a larger system of socialism, and the contradictions that this system produced. In particular, the notion of Eigen-Sinn helps illuminate the paradox of the Trabant as an embedded or interwoven object. The Trabant was, from the point of view of the East German leadership and its bureaucracy, part of a larger, overarching "system of movement" (Bewegungssystem). In of itself, it was useful only as a means of moving people from origin to destination, and was only as important as its function allowed. The history of the massive housing projects built in the 1960s, 70s and 80s in East Germany as part of a utopian urban planning campaign illustrates the way in which the Trabant was folded into a broader vision of complete, holistic system integration in the ideal socialist urban space. In so doing, however, the Trabant became like many other pieces of the socialist puzzle, in that it, and its constituent parts, had to be simple, interchangeable, and easily understandable and fixable, even for its consumers in order to ensure the overall smooth functioning of the socialist system of movement, meaning that many Trabant owners could understand and repair their automobiles with a degree of expertise that few western car owners possessed or possess, and thus had a more individual relationship with their cars than many in the more individualized West.