298 CHRISTOPHER NEUMAIER AND ANDREAS LUDWIG
later.^21 In the GDR, there was a doubled system of reference when it came
to the perception of consumption. Although the level of consumption in
the country was one of the highest in the COMECON states alongside the
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic itself,^22 the East German people were
more interested in what was going on in West Germany. The GDR thus
developed into an affl uent society within this framework, but it did not
become a Western-style consumer society. Citing this shift, historians
have argued that the notion of a “consumer society” does not aptly re-
fl ect the specifi c way in which elements of consumption were adapted in
East Germany under the Communist regime. Since a comparison of the
two German states along these lines would only serve to point out the
shortcomings of the GDR, they have suggested that speaking of a distinct
East German “consumer culture” off ers a more promising perspective.^23
Indeed, the lives of most East Germans refl ected the lasting discrepancy
between expectations and reality that had resulted from economic prior-
ities and changing consumer policy strategies.
On another note, the transformation of sales outlets in both East and
West points to the signifi cance of sites of consumption as well as the ex-
tent to which they pervaded everyday life. After the mid-1950s, a major
transition to self-service occurred within just a few years. By 1968, more
self-service shops existed than stores off ering full service in West Ger-
many, most of which had been constructed by modifying retail stores.
Within almost no time at all, supermarkets off ering a steadily growing
selection of goods became the primary place to buy food, as well as
nonfood items. Between the second half of the 1960s and the end of the
1980s, superstores, cash-and-carry stores, and food discounters spread
across the country, especially on the outskirts of towns and cities. De-
spite a vast variety of available brands, the range of goods and the man-
ner in which goods were displayed were standardized. Thus, marketing
strategies involving product presentation, package design, and adver-
tising had to be developed in order to attract shoppers from diff erent
consumer groups.^24
Retail sales outlets in the GDR went through a comparable modern-
ization process. They generally fell into three diff erent categories: the
co-ops that had been revived back in 1945, the state-run stores, and
private retailers. East Germany’s fi rst self-service store opened in 1956,
and it was quickly followed by many others in the 1960s. Most of these
stores were built by modernizing existing, usually smaller, shops. Among
the co-ops, which accounted for about 30 percent of retails sales in the
GDR, there were already 12,500 self-service stores by 1965.^25 Beginning
in the mid-1960s, Kaufhallen were introduced as the East German equiv-
alent of a supermarket. Many of them were built as standardized stores