Location

• Neubrandenburg Gartenstraße 6, Germany 17033
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Languages

• German

Website

• http://www.literaturzentrum-nb.de/

Name of collection

• Brigitte-Reimann-Archives

Provenance and cultural activities

• The archive contains the personal estate of the author Brigitte Reimann (1933 -1973). In the GDR she was celebrated as a pioneer of a new literary current, the so-called "arrival literature". However, it was not before long that she encountered difficulties arising from the narrow-mindedness and dogmatism of many party functionaries. She was alarmed by the growing militarization of society, and ultimately repulsed by the suppression of the Prague Spring in August 1968. She desired to coexist in true socialism oriented along human needs. In her writings, she encouraged people to take their own experiences seriously such as in “Die Geschwister” (1965), or "Franziska Linkerhand" (1974), which were published during comparatively liberal phases of the GDR's cultural policy before the so-called "Kahlschlagplenum" of the central committee of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) in 1965 or the dire consequences of the expatriation of the songwriter Wolf Biermann in 1976.

  Brigitte Reimann's personal estate was first managed by her last husband. A large part remained with the Neues Leben publishing house, which began publishing extracts from her diaries and correspondence in the 1980s. With the aim of cultivating regional literature, on the 5th anniversary of Reimann's death in 1978, the Neubrandenburg Literary Center began to collect materials celebrating Brigitte Reimann's life and work. After Burg (near Magdeburg) and Hoyerswerda she had spent her final years in Neubrandenburg, residing there from 1968 to 1973. In 1995, with the help of numerous sponsors, the city succeeded in purchasing the entire estate, bringing together the individual collections into the "Brigitte-Reimann House of Literature", which opened in 1999. Since 1995, the Brigitte-Reimann Archive has been publicly accessible forming the basis for numerous publications.

Description of content

• The Brigitte-Reimann-Archive includes a variety of correspondence, manuscripts, and diaries, illustrating Reimann's growing distance from the regime and its ideological presuppositions. They also convey Reimann's doubts about the success of a socialism whose formation she had so championed in the 1950s. The archive also contains her library with about 1,000 volumes, nearly 600 photos, 100 records and audio tapes as well as various everyday items, furniture and 5 paintings from her estate. In addition to a comprehensive collection of press-clippings including reviews, interviews and reports, academic texts on Reimann's works and life can also be viewed.

Content

• manuscripts (ego-documents, diaries, notes, letters, drafts, etc.): 100-499
• music recordings: 100-499
• other: 10-99
• paintings: 0-9
• photos: 500-999
• publications (books, newspapers, articles, press clippings): 1000-

Operator(s)

• Neubrandenburg Literary Center

Owner(s)

• Neubrandenburg Literary Center

Stakeholder(s) of the collection

• Becker, Erika

Topics

• literature and literary criticism

Founder(s)

• Neubrandenburg Literary Center

Date of founding

• 1978

Place of founding

• Neubrandenburg Gartenstraße 6, Germany
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Creator(s) of content

• Reimann, Brigitte

Collector(s)

• Elisabeth Elten-Krause
• Hampel, Heide
• Neubrandenburg Literary Center

Supporters

• Hans-Fallada-Stiftung
• Land Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
• Landkreis Mecklenburgische Seenplatte
• Stadt Neubrandenburg

Important events in the history of the collection

• Publishing of Reimann's correspondences and diaries
• Purchase of the personal estate in 1995
• Opening of the Reimann-House in 1999

Featured items

• Conclusion from the unpublished (in the DDR) manuscript for "Franziska Linkerhand"
• Extracts from the diary of Brigitte Reimann, August 1968

Access type

• visits by appointments

Part of network

• Informal network of regional literature organizations

Author(s) of this page

• Sonnenberg, Uwe

References

Becker, Erika , interview by Sonnenberg, Uwe, August 26, 2016. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection