GDR bread frozen for 36 years exhibited in Berlin

The Deutschlandmuseum in Berlin has opened a new exhibition which includes a loaf of bread baked in the GDR and frozen for nearly four decades.

A slice of GDR life

On June 26, 1990, Berliner Michael Hagedorn made a spontaneous purchase that would be committed to the history books. Germany was just five days away from abolishing the East German mark and adopting the Western Deutsche Mark nationwide.

On a trip to the cooperative supermarket Konsum at the corner of Auguststraße/ Tucholskystraße, Hagedorn and his wife impulsively decided to buy a second loaf of bread for 80 pfennig.

“I wasn’t entirely sure beforehand how things would go the following Monday,” Hagedorn told Berliner Kurier. "Who knew if you’d still be able to buy bread in the shops once you had the Deutsche Marks?”

When home, they put the loaf of bread, baked the day before at the VEB Aktivist bakery in Prenzlauer Berg, in their East German Foron fridge-freezer. October 3 came and went, and suddenly the frozen loaf felt a little more special. 

Hagedorn and his wife began changing the plastic bag it was stored in every now and then. Schröder came and went; the loaf shared a freezer with the Hagedorn children’s lice-infested cuddly toys; the family moved house twice; Merkel came and went. 

"The thought of actually eating the bread one day never even crossed our minds,” the now 59-year-old told the local newspaper.

Hagedorn’s "frozen family member" now on show

Now, the Mischbrot loaf that was “just sitting in the freezer” is getting its 15 minutes. Berlin’s Deutschlandmuseum has built a special display case with sub-zero temperatures in which to display Hagedorn’s "frozen family member".

In a press release, museum director Robert Rückel said, “The Last Bread of the DDR” was “such a fascinating museum artefact, precisely because it was never originally intended to be one”. 

Plus, it is accompanied by the kind of slice-of-life story which “make[s] historical upheavals immediately understandable”. 

Speaking to Berliner Zeitung, Hagedorn said he had a surprising feeling after handing over the bread. “I’m actually a bit relieved to have got rid of it,” the software company owner told the newspaper. 

Anyone who wants to immediately understand life in the GDR can pay 17 euros to see the frozen loaf and more.