In 1992, the Hamburg-based Spar Handels AG supermarket chain announced the launch of a 1.3 million DM advertising and sales campaign dedicated to the products of the rapidly disappearing GDR. The "From the New German Lands" campaign (re)introduced grocery products from the communist period to store shelves in both the western and eastern parts of unified Germany. This paper builds upon György Péteri's concept of 'sites of convergence' to historicize the role of Western European-owned supermarkets as a space in which cultural memory of the communist past was constructed via encounters between East and West after the end of communism. Using contemporary media coverage, advertising materials, and corporate documents, I examine Spar's role in amplifying East German products and therein shaping the particular narrative of the recent past and its place in historical memory. Rather than emphasize the commodification of East German nostalgia for the products of the communist past as either a internal longing for a bygone era or an artificial imposition by the West for commercial gain, however, I ask how West German retailers understood their relationship to the communist period as proprietors responsive to real consumer demand in both East and West. I emphasize the homogenisation of taste as one feature of the wave of globalization that brought Western-style supermarkets to Eastern Europe, frequently underestimated and even dismissed by claims that globalization inherently brings diversity alongside material abundance. The notion that globalization produces homogeneity with regard to both gustatory and aesthetic taste derives from the work of economist Theodore Levitt, who describes a universal desire for products sourced from the Western world and their seemingly dependable, high-quality, and standardized nature. Differences in taste, ingredients, textures, even packaging, pushed shoppers back to the tastes, smells, and textures of the defunct communist-era shops. Spar responded to this demand; engaging in the 'business of nostalgia,' to use Daphne Berdahl's phrase, indicating that retailers perceived a genuine void in the ostensibly comprehensive offerings of capitalist food retail. Ultimately, I argue, the West German retail encounter and subsequent entanglement with East German consumers produced a particular understanding of the role of material culture (and food in particular) in defining the past, offering insight into the historical context in which contemporary memory of East Germany first began to take shape. This is therefore explicitly a study in cultural and economic convergence, offering insight into how a historical memory of communism took shape amidst German unification, European integration, and late twentieth century globalization.
