Fashion Week: Glitzer and Grauen: A fashion show for GDR compulsory options

A healthy baby is declared dead by government agencies and conveyed to adoption – and the biological parents remain orphaned with the trauma of these lie. Forced adoptions in the GDR. The Berlin fashion designer Kilian Kerner chose this topic for the new collection, which he presented at Berlin Fashion Week.

It was not an ordinary fashion show. A round structure protruded over the gray tread in the Uber-Arena that looked like a watchtower. “Attention, you are now leaving West Berlin,” was initially on large monitors. During the actual presentation, Kerner showed broad-shouldered cuts in the 80s look, also glitter and floral.

But there was also a male model in a rough, coarse suit with a baby doll in his arms. In the end, the models marched in hoodies with the inscription “Where are our children?” and handwritten demopla boxes. “Where are you?” Asked one. “Refurbishment now!” Asked another.

Kerner knows that all of this raises questions. “Fashion has nothing to do with forced adoption or alleged infant death, of course,” says the 46-year-old of the German Press Agency. “And I can also understand that people ask: Why does he do that?”

The topic packed him personally since he saw a documentary about alleged infant stodes and adoptions in the GDR eight years ago. “I was shocked and deeply touched that there was something like that,” says Kerner.

Thousands of unexplained cases

He informed himself for years and contacted the association “Stolen Children of the GDR”. According to his information, the history of the “stolen children” began in the late 1950s. A total of 15,000 cases would be suspected of supposed infant stodes and about 10,000 forced adoptions. So far, only five cases of allegedly died babies have been informed. There are about 20 to 40 cases for compulsory adoptions.

The Bundestag had already asked the government to take care of the injustice in 2019. A “central information and placement and placement agency of the federal government” was then established. The Federal Ministry of the Interior launched a study in 2021 to collect information. Results should be available in early 2026.

Officially, there is talk of “politically motivated child abolition”, often in connection with “anti -social behavior”, political detention or exit of exit from the parents. The children often came to state and party-loyal households in order to be brought up in the sense of socialism.

Denim as a symbol of the 80s

So how do you put such a topic into fashion? “The high phase of the compulsory adoption and the alleged infant death was in the 1980s,” says Kerner. “So it quickly became clear to me that it would be an 80s collection.” 80s in the GDR, that was Denim as a symbol of the West and the USA, but in a very specific gray tone, as Kerner says.

“I researched a lot about fashion in the GDR. And at first I thought: how do you do it because I already do glamorous things and the GDR didn’t seem glamorous at all. But that was a fallacy. They had really glamorous clothes, a lot of glitter. I was totally fascinated.”

Points that are uncomfortable

His show should draw attention to the topic. “No anxiety should be created,” says Kerner. “But I think if you get involved, it just happens. We try to realistically present it. There are points that are not pleasant.” In the Uber-Arena, the audience donated long applause.

Kerner cannot be accused of all of this. “It’s not about promoting fashion. I make this topic from the bottom of my heart.” Sure, he wanted his fashion to be seen. But this time he has other goals: “That a DNA bank is set up, that the parents who have doubts are allowed to look into the adoption files or in their files. Only the children are allowed to report.” It is not about financial equalization or punishment. If everything goes, as Kerner imagines, at least ten more cases are informed in one year.