Zone Gaby

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Zonen-Gaby is a fictional person who appeared on the cover of the West German satirical magazine Titanic in November 1989, the month the Wall came down , with a peeled cucumber and the saying “My first banana”.

background

The GDR's banana shortage had long been the subject of West German satire. The cabaret Die Stachelschweine presented an episode of the program Was bin ich nach in 1965 , in which the prominent guest Walter Ulbricht received a banana instead of the usual 5 D-Mark.

Even before the border was opened on November 9, 1989, a wave of emigration from the GDR developed (in the West it was known as a zone for decades ). In this context, tens of thousands of East Germans reached the Federal Republic in a roundabout way (for example via the Federal Republic's embassy in Prague or via Hungary , which had opened its border with Austria in June 1989 ). In West Germany, many GDR citizens who had entered the country gained access to goods for the first time that were difficult or impossible to obtain in GDR retail due to the local shortage of goods , such as tropical fruits . In the supermarkets frequented by the East Germans in large numbers after the opening of the border , the dessert bananas were the first to sell out.

The Titanic editors advised how they could satirically address the issue of the GDR escape. They talked about television pictures in which German Germans were distributing bananas to GDR citizens who had emigrated via Hungary.

cover photo

The Titanic cover alluded to this. It showed a smiling, stereotypically “ East German ” looking young woman with a frizzy hairstyle and denim clothing ( snow jeans were in fashion at the time in the GDR and were also referred to as the Ausreiser-Kluft ) and tears of joy in her eyes. She was holding a cucumber that had been peeled in a manner typically used for bananas . The headline read: " Zonen -Gaby (17) im Glück (BRD): My first banana". This alluded to the cliché lacking familiarity of the East Germans with bananas, which became accessible for the first time through the now possible departure to the West.

reception

The title page developed into a popular poster and postcard motif - supported by the topicality in the course of the fall of the Berlin Wall - and as such is still widely known today, even beyond Germany. The literary critic and writer Hellmuth Karasek described the cover as “one of the most brilliant caricatures” and as a “highlight of the political joke” that “brought East and West closer together”.

Occasionally there are press reports in the German media about the real person who was a zone Gaby for the photo. In reality, she is a medical / commercial employee from Worms , who was personally friends with the then editor-in-chief of Titanic and who was 29 years old at the time.

More Titanic covers with Zone Gaby

In July 2005 Titanic headlined with a head of Angela Merkel mounted in the picture from 1989 and the headline: "Zonen-Geli (61) im Glück (FRG): My first banana", alluding to Merkel's candidacy for chancellor.

In November 2009 the magazine showed Guido Westerwelle on the cover, mounted in the picture of the denim jacket, but without the cucumber, with the text "Federal Guido (47) in happiness (black-yellow): My first banana (not in the picture)" , an allusion to the homosexuality of the then Federal Foreign Minister, which became known in 2004.

In September 2015 Titanic headlined again with a montage of the picture from 1989 in which a broadly grinning black man next to the zone Gaby and the new title headline “Refugee Joe (52 cm) in happiness (asylum): My first zone Gaby . "Are added. In addition, the thought-text bubble "Hihi .. Banana-Joe" was inserted at the head of the zone Gaby. The magazine is alluding to the refugee crisis in Europe in 2015 .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Titanic archive with download of issue 11/1989 as PDF
  2. ^ Stiftung Deutsches Kabarettarchiv e. V., catalog for the exhibition "Hundred Years of German Cabaret", Part IV, p. 83
  3. ↑ More than a fruit. In: orf.at. October 31, 2012, accessed April 9, 2014 .
  4. ↑ a b c Martin Zips: Titanic cover girl: Zonen-Gaby unpacks. In: sueddeutsche.de. May 17, 2010, accessed on April 9, 2014 (print: Süddeutsche Zeitung of October 16, 2009).
  5. ↑ Rebecca Menzel: Jeans in the GDR. From the deeper sense of leisure trousers , Ch. Links, Berlin 2004, p. 169 ( Google Books ).
  6. ↑ Dieter Herberg, Doris Steffens, Elke Tellenbach: Keywords of the turning point. Words book on public language use 1989/90 , de Gruyter, Berlin 1997, p. 133 ( Google Books ).
  7. ↑ a b What does “Zone Gaby” actually do? bild.de, September 28, 2010, accessed on April 27, 2013 : "The image made a career - worldwide"
  8. ↑ Anne Hähnig: The zone Gaby united east and west. Interview with Hellmuth Karasek. zeit.de, December 9, 2012, p. 2 , accessed on April 27, 2013 (Print: Die Zeit nr. 50/2012).
  9. ↑ Titanic-Magazin.de, Cover Issue of July 2005
  10. ↑ Issue archive | TITANIC - The definitive satirical magazine. Retrieved October 5, 2019 .
  11. ^ Cover picture of the Titanic , September 2015 issue