The DDR Museum presents its new social media manager

My name is Michael Geithner; I was born in 1985 in a comfy village near Zwickau. For a short while I can call me the social media manager of the DDR Museum, because in the last years the extent of activities on the social platforms rose in a way that I can in addition support the work in this field.

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr and YouTube want to be supplied according to the motto "A hands-on experience of history". But in that case "hands-on" should rather be replaced with "have a say". Besides conceptional and creative tasks and tasks in terms of content, especially the community management is interesting. The DDR Museum has a unique position in the museum scene, because a lot of people experienced its content live on their own. These peoples are faced with a really big group of interested people who know a few or nothing about the GDR. But, "fans" of the DDR Museum are not always "fans" of the DDR Museum. This makes the discussions online more exciting, as I know it with other institutions. Here begins my work, because the history of the GDR is still alive and so it is my aim to stimulate this lively discussion with impetuses and to mediate according to that.

I could gain important experiences on the subject through my work in the project „Nachgemacht - Spielekopien aus der DDR". In common with Martin Thiele I initiated a collection, which is based on handmade, often west specimens vicarious board games. It explores the history of the country we scarcely experienced on our own. Martin and I were too young when the Berlin Wall fell and now we come into contact with a lot of people through Monopoly, Sagaland and Scotland Yard. They tell us in audio and video interviews their personal and intimate experiences of this time. In the mean while we realized three exhibitions, we published a book in the DDR Museum Verlag and on the 9th of November we will publish an app of a GDR game which you never could buy and which we "imitate" with our today's resources.

In 2012 I finished my studies at the college for film and TV "Konrad Wolf" in Potsdam-Babelsberg successfully. Resuming this I plan with the DDR Museum a web series with the heading "Ask Dr. Wolle". Everybody receives the opportunity to put a question to our academic head on Facebook & Co. These questions will be answered on YouTube to the best of our knowledge. Here you can write us your question!

While my work I'm glad about all ideas and suggestions from outside. Who wants to contact me to build up a head of steam or to make me happy, can do this by email to michael.geithner@ddr-museum.de.

(Translation: Valerie Holbein)