Power and Society in the GDR, 1961-1979

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Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 184545913X
Total Pages : 349 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (454 download)

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Book Synopsis Power and Society in the GDR, 1961-1979 by : Mary Fulbrook

Download or read book Power and Society in the GDR, 1961-1979 written by Mary Fulbrook and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The communist German Democratic Republic, founded in 1949 in the Soviet-occupied zone of post-war Germany is, for many people, epitomized by the Berlin Wall; Soviet tanks and surveillance by the secret security police, the Stasi, appear to be central. But is this really all there is to the GDR1s history? How did people come to terms with their situation and make new lives behind the Wall? When the social history of the GDR in the 1960s and 1970s is explored, new patterns become evident. A fragile stability emerged in a period characterized by 'consumer socialism', international recognition and détente. Growing participation in the micro-structures of power, and conformity to the unwritten rules of an increasingly predictable system, suggest increasing accommodation to dominant norms and conceptions of socialist 'normality'. By exploring the ways in which lower-level functionaries and people at the grass roots contributed to the formation and transformation of the GDR from industry and agriculture, through popular sport and cultural life, to the passage of generations and varieties of social experience the contributors collectively develop a more complex approach to the history of East Germany.

Power and Society in the GDR, 1961-1979

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Author :
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 9781845454357
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (543 download)

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Book Synopsis Power and Society in the GDR, 1961-1979 by : Mary Fulbrook

Download or read book Power and Society in the GDR, 1961-1979 written by Mary Fulbrook and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2009 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The communist German Democratic Republic was founded in 1949 in the Soviet-occupied zone of post-war Germany. This book looks at its history and how people came to terms with their new lives behind the Wall. In the 1960s and 1970s, a fragile stability emerged characterized by 'consumer socialism', international recognition and détente. Growing participation in the micro-structures of power, and conformity to the unwritten rules of an increasingly predictable system, suggest increasing accommodation to dominant norms and conceptions of socialist 'normality.' These essays explore the ways in which lower-level functionaries and people at the grass roots contributed to the formation and transformation of the GDR ? from industry and agriculture, through popular sport and cultural life, to the passage of generations and varieties of social experience.

Becoming East German

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Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 0857459759
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (574 download)

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Book Synopsis Becoming East German by : Mary Fulbrook

Download or read book Becoming East German written by Mary Fulbrook and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013-09-30 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For roughly the first decade after the demise of the GDR, professional and popular interpretations of East German history concentrated primarily on forms of power and repression, as well as on dissent and resistance to communist rule. Socio-cultural approaches have increasingly shown that a single-minded emphasis on repression and coercion fails to address a number of important historical issues, including those related to the subjective experiences of those who lived under communist regimes. With that in mind, the essays in this volume explore significant physical and psychological aspects of life in the GDR, such as health and diet, leisure and dining, memories of the Nazi past, as well as identity, sports, and experiences of everyday humiliation. Situating the GDR within a broader historical context, they open up new ways of interpreting life behind the Iron Curtain – while providing a devastating critique of misleading mainstream scholarship, which continues to portray the GDR in the restrictive terms of totalitarian theory.

The Politics of Personal Information

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Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1789209471
Total Pages : 405 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (892 download)

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Book Synopsis The Politics of Personal Information by : Larry Frohman

Download or read book The Politics of Personal Information written by Larry Frohman and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2020-12-09 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1970s and 1980s West Germany was a pioneer in both the use of the new information technologies for population surveillance and the adoption of privacy protection legislation. During this era of cultural change and political polarization, the expansion, bureaucratization, and computerization of population surveillance disrupted the norms that had governed the exchange and use of personal information in earlier decades and gave rise to a set of distinctly postindustrial social conflicts centered on the use of personal information as a means of social governance in the welfare state. Combining vast archival research with a groundbreaking theoretical analysis, this book gives a definitive account of the politics of personal information in West Germany at the dawn of the information society.

Medical Memories and Experiences in Postwar East Germany

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000011763
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Medical Memories and Experiences in Postwar East Germany by : Markus Wahl

Download or read book Medical Memories and Experiences in Postwar East Germany written by Markus Wahl and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-24 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book draws on the example of the major cities of Leipzig and Dresden to illustrate continuity and change in public health in the German Democratic Republic. Based on archival work, it will demonstrate how members of the medical profession successfully manipulated their pre-1945 past in order to continue practising, leading to persistence in the social conception of medicine and disease after Communism took hold. This was particularly evident in attitudes towards and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases and the pathology of deviant behaviour among young people.

Socialism with a Human Face

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Author :
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 9811906645
Total Pages : 372 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (119 download)

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Book Synopsis Socialism with a Human Face by : Gary B. Magee

Download or read book Socialism with a Human Face written by Gary B. Magee and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-03-31 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: East Germany’s economic history is typically told as a story of the unravelling of an inherently flawed system. Yet, while the system’s inefficiency is undeniable, its economic history was much richer than its comparatively poor economic performance suggests. For many who lived there, it was a system that, over its forty years, was capable of achievements and generally functioned at bearable levels. This book combines the insights of behavioural economics with archival research to peel away layers of rhetoric and assumptions about the East German economy and explore aspects of that underlying functionality. Through a series of cases studies that examine the establishment of socialist workplaces, the searches for productivity growth and efficiency, and the emergence of financial crisis, the book considers the system from the perspective of the humans who operated it and made the decisions that made it work. Unencumbered by political preconceptions, it offers a more realistic understanding of East German economic history than that derived from stagnant debates about the clash of systems. The new perspectives and approaches presented demonstrate that, extracted from its Cold War context, East Germany’s economic history can be analysed for what it was, rather than for what it symbolised.

Perceptions of Society in Communist Europe

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 135005173X
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Perceptions of Society in Communist Europe by : Muriel Blaive

Download or read book Perceptions of Society in Communist Europe written by Muriel Blaive and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on archival sources from Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, Romania and Bulgaria, Perceptions of Society in Communist Europe considers whether and to what extent communist regimes cared about popular opinion, how they obtained their information, and how it helped them implement and maintain their rule. Contrary to popular belief, communist regimes sought to legitimise their domination with minimal resort to violence in order to maintain their everyday power. This entailed a permanent negotiation process between the rulers and the ruled, with public approval of governmental policies becoming key to their success. By analysing topics such as a Stalinist musical in Czechoslovakia, workers' letters to the leadership in Romania, children's television in Poland and the figure of the secret agent in contemporary culture, as well as many more besides, Muriel Blaive and the contributors demonstrate the potential of social history to deconstruct parochial national perceptions of communism. This cutting-edge volume is a vital resource for academics, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates studying East-Central European history, Stalinism and comparative communism.

Remembering the German Democratic Republic

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 0230349692
Total Pages : 275 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (33 download)

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Book Synopsis Remembering the German Democratic Republic by : D. Clarke

Download or read book Remembering the German Democratic Republic written by D. Clarke and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memories of and attitudes to the German Democratic Republic (GDR), or East Germany, within contemporary Germany are characterized by their variety and complexity, whilst the debate over how to remember the GDR tells us a lot about how Germans see themselves and their future. This volume provides a range of international perspectives.

Four-Color Communism

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Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1800730012
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Four-Color Communism by : Sean Eedy

Download or read book Four-Color Communism written by Sean Eedy and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2021-02-03 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As with all other forms of popular culture, comics in East Germany were tightly controlled by the state. Comics were employed as extensions of the regime’s educational system, delivering official ideology so as to develop the “socialist personality” of young people and generate enthusiasm for state socialism. The East German children who avidly read these comics, however, found their own meanings in and projected their own desires upon them. Four-Color Communism gives a lively account of East German comics from both perspectives, showing how the perceived freedoms they embodied created expectations that ultimately limited the regime’s efforts to bring readers into the fold.

Transitions from Nazism to Socialism

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Publisher : University College London (University of London), 2013.
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Transitions from Nazism to Socialism by : Dr Julie Deering-Kraft

Download or read book Transitions from Nazism to Socialism written by Dr Julie Deering-Kraft and published by University College London (University of London), 2013. . This book was released on 2013-12-10 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines transitions from Nazism to socialism in Brandenburg between 1945 and 1952. It explores the grassroots responses and their relative implications within the context of both punitive and rehabilitative measures implemented by the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD) and the communist Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). The doctoral study is based on archival and oral history sources and addresses two main research questions: First, in what ways did people at the grassroots attempt to challenge the imposition of punitive measures, and did their responses have any effect on the manner in which these policies were implemented at a grassroots level? These punitive measures were designed to remove remnants of Nazism and included punitive Soviet practices, Soviet NKVD camps and denazification and sequestering. Second, to what extent did grassroots Brandenburgers participate in political organisations which were designed to integrate East Germans during the rehabilitative stage and what impact did these responses have on the post-war transition? This study focuses on the National Democratic Party and the Society for German-Soviet Friendship as well as examining wider factors which may have impeded and facilitated the processes of post-war transitions. Two main arguments are proposed. First, the imposition of wide-ranging punitive measures often posed an existential threat at a grassroots level, and therefore at times elicited grassroots actions, albeit severely restricted by practical and political constraints. In turn, these grassroots responses could occasionally have some local impact and somewhat affect the manner in which policies were implemented at a grassroots level in Brandenburg. Second, it is argued that the rehabilitative stage, despite some challenges, generally provided a favourable system for grassroots integration in which the needs of the policy makers and a significant proportion of grassroots individuals somewhat converged, eventually contributing to the partial stabilisation of the emerging East German socialist state. Copyright remains with the author Dr Julie Deering-Kraft Citations: Deering-Kraft, JN; (2013) Transitions from Nazism to Socialism: Grassroots Responses to Punitive and Rehabilitative Measures in Brandenburg, 1945-1952. Doctoral thesis (PhD), UCL (University College London). Available at http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1416290/

Communist Parties Revisited

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Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1785337777
Total Pages : 383 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (853 download)

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Book Synopsis Communist Parties Revisited by : Rüdiger Bergien

Download or read book Communist Parties Revisited written by Rüdiger Bergien and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2018-01-31 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ruling communist parties of the postwar Soviet Bloc possessed nearly unprecedented power to shape every level of society; perhaps in part because of this, they have been routinely depicted as monolithic, austere, and even opaque institutions. Communist Parties Revisited takes a markedly different approach, investigating everyday life within basic organizations to illuminate the inner workings of Eastern Bloc parties. Ranging across national and transnational contexts, the contributions assembled here reconstruct the rituals of party meetings, functionaries’ informal practices, intra-party power struggles, and the social production of ideology to give a detailed account of state socialist policymaking on a micro-historical scale.

Local Lives, Parallel Histories

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192598252
Total Pages : 319 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis Local Lives, Parallel Histories by : Marcel Thomas

Download or read book Local Lives, Parallel Histories written by Marcel Thomas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-23 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The division of Germany separated a nation, divided communities, and inevitably shaped the life histories of those growing up in the socialist dictatorship of the East and the liberal democracy of the West. This peculiarly German experience of the Cold War is usually viewed through the lens of divided Berlin or other border communities. What has been much less explored, however, is what division meant to the millions of Germans in the East and West who lived far away from the Wall and the centres of political power. This volume is the first comparative study to examine how villagers in both Germanies dealt with the imposition of two very different systems in their everyday lives. Focusing on two villages, Neukirch (Lausitz) in Saxony and Ebersbach an der Fils in Baden-W?rttemberg, it explores how local residents experienced and navigated social change in their localities in the postwar era. Based on a wide range of archival sources as well as oral history interviews, the work argues that there are parallel histories of responses to social change among villagers in postwar Germany. Despite the different social, political, and economic developments, the residents of both localities desired rural modernisation, lamented the loss of 'community', and became politically active to control the transformation of their localities. The work thereby offers a bottom-up history of divided Germany which shows how individuals on both sides of the Wall gave local meaning to large-scale processes of change.

Inscription and Rebellion

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Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
ISBN 13 : 1571139338
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (711 download)

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Book Synopsis Inscription and Rebellion by : Sonja E. Klocke

Download or read book Inscription and Rebellion written by Sonja E. Klocke and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2015 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Employs research on the GDR's healthcare system along with feminist and queer theory to get at socialism's legacy, revealing a specifically East German literary convention: employment of symptomatic female bodies to either enforce or rebel against political and social norms.

Antifascism After Hitler

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317599284
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

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Book Synopsis Antifascism After Hitler by : Catherine Plum

Download or read book Antifascism After Hitler written by Catherine Plum and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-20 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Antifascism After Hitler investigates the antifascist stories, memory sites and youth reception that were critical to the success of political education in East German schools and extracurricular activities. As the German Democratic Republic (GDR) promoted national identity and socialist consciousness, two of the most potent historical narratives to permeate youth education became tales of communist resistors who fought against fascism and the heroic deeds of the Red Army in World War II. These stories and iconic images illustrate the message that was presented to school-age children and adolescents in stages as they advanced through school and participated in the official communist youth organizations and other activities. This text delivers the first comprehensive study of youth antifascism in the GDR, extending scholarship beyond the level of the state to consider the everyday contributions of local institutions and youth mentors responsible for conveying stories and commemorative practices to generations born during WWII and after the defeat of fascism. While the government sought to use educators and former resistance fighters as ideological shock troops, it could not completely dictate how these stories would be told, with memory intermediaries altering at times the narrative and message. Using a variety of primary sources including oral history interviews, the author also assesses how students viewed antifascism, with reactions ranging from strong identification to indifference and dissent. Antifascist education and commemoration were never simply state-prescribed and were not as "participation-less" as some scholars and contemporary observers claim, even as educators fought a losing battle to maintain enthusiasm.

The German Democratic Republic

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350307327
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis The German Democratic Republic by : Peter Grieder

Download or read book The German Democratic Republic written by Peter Grieder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-11-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A clear, concise and thought-provoking introduction to the history of East Germany which engages critically with key debates and advances new interpretations of the origins, development and demise of the GDR. Peter Grieder also offers an original conceptualization of the GDR as a totalitarian welfare state.

A History of Modern Germany

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351017977
Total Pages : 458 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis A History of Modern Germany by : Dietrich Orlow

Download or read book A History of Modern Germany written by Dietrich Orlow and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A History of Modern Germany is a well-established text that presents a balanced survey of the last 150 years of German history, stretching from nineteenth-century imperial Germany, through political division and reunification, and into the present day. Beginning in the early 1870s and covering topics such as Wilhelmenian Germany, the World Wars, revolution, inflation and putsches, the Weimar Republic, the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic, the book offers a comprehensive overview of the entire period of modern German history. Fully updated throughout, this new edition details foreign policy, political and economic history and includes increased coverage of social and cultural history, and history ‘from the bottom up’, as well as containing a new chapter that brings it right up to the present day. The book is supported by full discussion of past and present historiographic debates, illustrations, maps, further readings and biographies of key German political, economic and cultural figures within the Im Mittelpunkt feature. Fully exploring the complicated path of Germany’s troubled past and stable present, A History of Modern Germany provides the perfect grounding for all students of German history.

Amnesiopolis

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198732260
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (987 download)

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Book Synopsis Amnesiopolis by : Eli Rubin

Download or read book Amnesiopolis written by Eli Rubin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amnesiopolis explores the construction of Marzahn, the largest prefabricated housing project in East Germany, built on the outskirts of East Berlin in the 1970s and 1980s and touted by the regime as the future of socialism. It focuses particularly on the experience of East Germans who moved, often from crumbling slums left over as a legacy of the nineteenth century, into this radically new place -- one defined by pure functionality and rationality -- a material manifestation of the utopian promise of socialism. Eli Rubin employs methodologies from critical geography, urban history, architectural history, environmental history, and everyday life history to ask whether their experience was a radical break with their personal pasts and the German past. Amnesiopolis asks: can a dramatic change in spatial and material surroundings sever the links of memory that tie people to their old life narratives, and if so, does that help build a new socialist mentality in the minds of historical subjects? The answer is yes and no -- as much as the East German state tried to create a completely new socialist settlement, divorced of any links to the pre-socialist past, the massive construction project uncovered the truth buried -- literally -- in the ground, which was that the urge to colonize the outskirts of Berlin was not new at all. Furthermore, the construction of a new city out of nothing, using repeating, identical buildings, created a panopticon-like effect, giving the Stasi the possibility of more complete surveillance than they previously had.