Wir Sind ein Volk

German Identity Before and After the Fall of The Berlin Wall

Abstract

This paper seeks to present an analysis of the construction of the identity Ethos of Germany after the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, after its fall in 1989 and nowadays through digital media, during the celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the country's reunification, from photos and posters in these three moments, identifying the signs and meanings that build their verbal and imagetic discourses. For this, we will use the accounts of Ignácio de Loyola Brandão (2000) about his local experience in divided and then united Germany, and the work of Michael Meyer (2009) to understand the historical panorama of the 28 years in which the Berlin Wall and the division of the country remained. As for the understanding of the current representation of Germany, the newspaper reports on the digital platform Deutsche Welle (2019), O Estado de São Paulo (2020) and BBC (2019) present the reality of the country today, which differs from the imagery discourse built around the historical landmark. After the study, an attempt will be made to discover the identity of modern post-unification Germany and whether it is consistent with what has been and is disseminated in the past and present.