This book discusses the reunification of Germany and the negative impacts that this had on East German intellectuals. The book is an ethnographic account of how the intellectuals of East Germany reacted to the demise of their nation, their “dream” of a socialist world, and unification with capitalist West Germany. Part I covers unification, 1990-91; Part II presents a quarter century later follow-up with one-fourth of those interviewed in 1990-91; and Part III examines the case from three social science perspectives.
The German Democratic Republic has become the subject of novels, memoirs and films, and the backdrop for general debates over the power of intellectuals in contemporary media and society. This collection considers the demise of the GDR and its impact on the place of intellectuals.
Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent was first published in 1995. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Once the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the people of East Germany had little use for the dissident intellectuals who had helped bring it down. Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent offers a penetrating look into the circumstances of this fall from grace, unique among the former Communist states. John Torpey traces the dissident intellectuals' fate to the peculiar situation of the East German regime, which sought to build "socialism in a quarter of a country" on the anti-fascist foundations of Communist opposition to Nazism. He shows how the regime's unusual history and subnational status helped sustain the East German intelligentsia's conviction that socialism could be reformed and humane-that there was a "third way" between Soviet-style socialism and the capitalism that took root in West Germany. How the pursuit of this third way both supported and undermined the regime, and both galvanized and alienated the East German people, becomes clear in Torpey's nuanced analysis. His book makes a powerful contribution to our understanding of the politics of intellectuals during one of the most painful chapters in modern German history. John C. Torpey is currently a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence.
Most public debate on reunited Germany has emphasized economic issues such as the collapse of East German industry, mass unemployment, career difficulties, and differences in wages and living standards. The overwhelming difficulty resulting from reunification, however, is not persisting economic differences but the internal cultural divide between East and West Germans, one based upon different moral values in the two Germanies. The invisible wall that has replaced the previous, highly visible territorial division of the German nation is rooted in issues of the past-the Nazi past as well as the German Democratic Republic past. In emphasizing economic differences, the media and academics have avoided dealing with typically German cultural traits. These include the psychological posture of West Germany, which emphasized not differences between East and West but the break with Germany's Nazi past. The adversarial posture of certain professional groups in East Germany towards the liberal and democratic values of West Germany have also been an obstacle. Reviewing the problems accompanying reunification, chapter 1 explores German culture and history and the moral lessons evolved from the Nazi past. Chapter 2 focuses on the East-West mindset and how differences in attitude affect efforts to adapt to reunification. Chapter 3 discusses the simulated break with Nazi Germany in the German Democratic Republic. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 analyze the roots of the adversary posture of the professional groups in East Germany towards the values of the Berlin Republic. Chapter 7 demonstrates the strong presence of inherited, typically German cultural traits among East Germans, such as a lack of individualism, suspicion of strangers, and obedience to authority. Chapter 8 documents the extent to which a right-wing extremist culture has remained latent in Eastern Germany. Chapter 9 documents the extent to which moral reasoning in the GDR relieves the individual of any kind of responsibility for the actions of the state, reproducing the way ordinary Germans rationalized their participation in the Nazi regime immediately after World War II. Chapter 10 concludes with an overview of the historical and sociological factors revolving around the discussion of Nazi Germany, the GDR and inner unification.This volume will be important for historians, political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and a general public interested in Germany's reunification.
Most public debate on reunited Germany has emphasized economic issues such as the collapse of East German industry, mass unemployment, career difficulties, and differences in wages and living standards. The overwhelming difficulty resulting from reunification, however, is not persisting economic differences but the internal cultural divide between East and West Germans, one based upon different moral values in the two Germanies. The invisible wall that has replaced the previous, highly visible territorial division of the German nation is rooted in issues of the past-the Nazi past as well as the German Democratic Republic past. In emphasizing economic differences, the media and academics have avoided dealing with typically German cultural traits. These include the psychological posture of West Germany, which emphasized not differences between East and West but the break with Germany's Nazi past. The adversarial posture of certain professional groups in East Germany towards the liberal and democratic values of West Germany have also been an obstacle. Reviewing the problems accompanying reunification, chapter 1 explores German culture and history and the moral lessons evolved from the Nazi past. Chapter 2 focuses on the East-West mindset and how differences in attitude affect efforts to adapt to reunification. Chapter 3 discusses the simulated break with Nazi Germany in the German Democratic Republic. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 analyze the roots of the adversary posture of the professional groups in East Germany towards the values of the Berlin Republic. Chapter 7 demonstrates the strong presence of inherited, typically German cultural traits among East Germans, such as a lack of individualism, suspicion of strangers, and obedience to authority. Chapter 8 documents the extent to which a right-wing extremist culture has remained latent in Eastern Germany. Chapter 9 documents the extent to which moral reasoning in the GDR relieves the individual of any kind of responsibility for the actions of the state, reproducing the way ordinary Germans rationalized their participation in the Nazi regime immediately after World War II. Chapter 10 concludes with an overview of the historical and sociological factors revolving around the discussion of Nazi Germany, the GDR and inner unification. This volume will be important for historians, political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and a general public interested in Germany's reunification.
25 Years Berlin Republic takes stock of the state of German unification a quarter of a century into the ongoing project that is the Berlin Republic. Thirteen scholars, artists, and public figures from diverse backgrounds document the changing hopes and fears, successes and challenges, that face the republic as it negotiates its way through the 21st century. Taking up a broad assessment of German culture ranging from sports to religion, painting to map-making, film to foreign policy, these studies combine personal experiences with critical analysis in order to understand the Berlin Republic today. The resulting portrait reveals a complex, diverse, and constantly-developing Republic that continues to ask the same essential question that has been at the center of discussions since the dramatic events that gave birth to the Republic: "Sind wir ein Volk?"
The collapse of the Communist regime in East Germany and the subsequent unification of East and West Germany were events of extraordinary historical importance, the ramifications of which will take years to unfold. A leading U.S. expert on West German politics, Peter Merkl, had the good fortune to be a visiting professor at the University of Göttingen in 1990 and was able to witness this incredible transition firsthand. While teaching at the Free University in Berlin in 1991, Merkl enlisted the cooperation of a leading East German expert, Gert-Joachim Glaessner, to contribute a chapter on the GDR. The result is a work that offers a careful and comprehensive account of the process of unification and its implications for the future of European and international politics. Merkl begins by laying out the historical German Question and placing the divided state in the international context of the Cold War and its consequences. He then analyzes the generational differences between Germans over fifty who rallied to the challenge with enthusiasm and the less nationalistic younger generation who feared that the pursuit of unification would preempt such goals as a better life for West Germans and a livable environment. Gert-Joachim Glaessner describes in detail the spectacular unraveling of the East German communist regime that ultimately led to the fall of the Berlin Wall amidst the disintegration of the other Communist regimes, arguing that they did not fall on their own nor as a result of West German or Western initiatives alone. Merkl analyzes the process of political unification, the several elections of the year 1990, and the agreements made between East and West Germany. He also discusses the international objections to German unification and the many obstacles that were and will need to be overcome to make German unity a reality. He examines the attitudes of East and West Germans towards each other and their sense of national identity, the transformation of institutions and constitutions, and the immense problems and expense of rebuilding the East German infrastructure and economy and of privatizing state-owned operations. Finally, he maps out the international significance of the great changes of the post-Wall and post-Communist world that will define the future role of united Germany vis-à-vis Germany's neighbors, the European community, the United States, and the world. The book ends with a glimpse of how Germans envision themselves in the year 2000.
This work considers the problems of the socialist legacy left by the unification of Germany, as East Germans adjusted to uncertainties in employment, education, family life and immigration.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this volume offers an overview of the role of writers, intellectuals, citizens, and the churches both before, but particularly after, 1989 in the GDR and the new Germany. Friedrich Schorlemmer provides the focal point, giving the book its coherence. Issues related to his role in the GDR church and citizens movement are examined, as well as his support for GDR writers both before and after unification, and his own writings on east and west German literature. After general surveys on intellectuals, civil rights groups, opposition movements, and churches in the transformation of east Germany the volume focuses on Friedrich Schorlemmer himself: a chapter on the significance of the role that he played is followed by interviews with him and an original essay by him, giving his personal view of the role of intellectuals, citizens, and writers in east Germany. The volume is rounded off by a chapter on the reactions of lesser known writers, and, finally, on the responses of prominent GDR writers to unification and on the changing role of writers in society. Combining literary and cultural with social and political analysis, this volume provides a lively and multifaceted picture of the new Germany.
