The digital GDR guide covers thirty locations, including in five cities, Berlin, Jena, Leipzig, Magdeburg, and Potsdam, and the island of Rügen. It aims at covering everyday life in a variety of locations in the above-mentioned cities, from cultural spaces, such as museums and theatres, to places of leisure such as bars, restaurants, and swimming pools. The project aims at covering different themes of everyday life, including cultural opposition, work, architecture, leisure, alternative lifestyles, and subcultures. Therefore, the guide provides a comprehensive overview of various locations and contexts throughout the former GDR, showing a great variety of activities and particularities which made up everyday life.
The documentation and the selection of the locations for the digital platform is based on archival research, interviews, printed guides, local magazines, and exchange with associations and historians. Besides the visual documentation, oral interviews have also been included in the digital platform, giving voice to those who lived through of these events. Twenty-four interviews have been carried out, of a rather journalistic nature, aiming to reach a wider audience. The digital platform was constructed in order to provide users with a useful tool to navigate the recent past and discover places and events lesser known by the wider German public. Also, it aims to allow those who lived in the GDR period to continue to share their personal stories and memories. Therefore, the guided tour was designed as an interactive platform, letting contemporaries become directly involved by mapping their own personal stories. Two additional locations have been contributed by users so far: the entries presenting the Melodic breakdance group of Stralsund and the Berlin radio station on Nalepastraße.
