Ottokar Domma

Ottokar Domma was regarded as a children's author during the lifetime of the GDR, and continues to be seen as such today. This article argues that, while Domma's stories about the mischievous schoolboy Ottokar did appeal to GDR children, they should also be acknowledged as satirical. It further argues that this satire can be read in two ways, as regime‐supporting or regime‐critical. It first re‐locates the stories in their original context of publication in a regime‐supporting satirical magazine and shows that Ottokar's use of language, in particular, served the officially defined purposes of satire by alerting adult readers to their careless misunderstandings of socialism's priorities. It then interrogates Domma's self‐portrayal, the use of parallel literary forms for satirical purposes, and the stories’ themes to argue that the stories can alternatively, or additionally, be read as regime‐critical satire. It proposes that Domma was a far more ambiguous and multi‐faceted figure in the GDR literary and satirical landscape than was recognised during the lifetime of the GDR or has been recognised since. His ambivalent position is fruitful in prompting us to review and expand our understanding of the production and circulation of both official and unofficial satire in the GDR

Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Appeal · Art · Communism · Context (archaeology · Literature · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Socialism · Sociology · European history and politics · German History and Society · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Psychology