cac.ophony.org

Ampelmann, or “street light man”, is a figure that appears on street lights in East Berlin, in green or red. He wears a wide brim hat and seems to be freeze-framed in the midst of a jaunty stride.

While the nostalgia for all things East German (Ostalgie) seems to have passed, Berliners vociferously opposed a project to homogenize all the street signs with the more boring looking West German design. The Ampelmann not only survived, but became an icon of the city and a popular tourist souvenir.

It seems that the street signs represent not only the right of way for pedestrians but also a way of life, a collective memory and a need to preserve a cultural heritage. Even though the street light man is a remnant of the old regime, he is also a part of the collective identity of East Berliners. People don’t necessarily associate the Ampelmann with the Stasi secret police or the DDR government but with their city and with their everyday lives.

Certainly Germany is in a very particular situation because the country had been split in two. After reunification, there was a trend to erase all remnants of the old regime and create a united national identity. Unlike the countries in the rest of the Soviet block, East Germany simply stopped existing. The people who lived there became Germans, but yet they are not simply Germans, not entirely. They had an entirely different history for the past fifty years and there was a feeling that a lot of the changes were imposed by the west. The Ampelmann is, in a sense, a way for East-Berliners to hold onto a part of their identity and resist the rush to erase the past as quickly as possible.

In Poland, the country found different ways of dealing with its past. Most of the Soviet era street names have been rapidly changed, and many monuments to the Soviet solders or prominent communists were destroyed. There is now some remorse for this rush to erase so many memories.