Download or read book Socialist Reformers and the Collapse of the German Democratic Republic written by Dietrich Orlow and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-10-29 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Socialist Reformers and the Collapse of the German Democratic Republic explores a neglected aspect of the collapse of Communism in the former East Germany. It focuses on the East Germans' enthusiastic support for re-unification and the transfer of West Germany's political and economic institutions to the East, ignoring those in the German Democratic Republic who wanted to 'reform' socialism within, not destroy it. Their aim was to preserve an independent German Democratic Republic that would pursue an alternative 'third way' between Western capitalism and Stalinist repression. Their vision was a 'better, more beautiful' socialism instead of the 'push and shove society' that they associated with Western capitalism. In their view the 'better, more beautiful' socialism would combine the Western ideals of individual freedom with Marxist concept of collective decision-making and shared wealth. The reformers failed, of course, but their ideas and activities in the fall of 1989 are an essential part of the story that led to present-day Germany.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic written by Feiwel Kupferberg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-04 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book How Socialist East Germany s Elite Turned Capitalist written by Gerhard Schnehen and published by Algora Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When East and West Germany re-united, the world was amazed — but this great moment should have been foreseen. East Germany, the GDR, was not transformed by a counterrevolution from the outside; the leadership was always capitalist at heart. The author shows how they were undermining the socialist foundations even in the 1950s, as soon as Stalin died. Gerhard Schnehen leads us through the historic events that led to the formation of the German Democratic Republic, GDR. He documents what others have left out of the story, explaining the underlying causes why the supposedly 'Communist' part of Germany collapsed in 1989, to be completely integrated into the capitalist Federal Republic of Germany. The reunited and imperialist Germany today is the dominant force in the European Union and the main ally of US imperialism, globalism and neoliberalism. With the rise to power of the Khrushchev clique, the GDR also changed colors. Guided by Khrushchev and his group, they introduced economic reforms leading to the restoration of a type of capitalism in the country where the profit principle was reinstated as the main regulator of social production. This in turn caused numerous and chronic crises in the country which in the West were then happily attributed to socialism or communism as a whole, inviting attacks on 'a system that cannot work.' However, such commentators completely ignore and do not want to discuss the fact that GDR’s 'socialism' was brought down very early, in the early sixties, by leading officials of the ruling party themselves, who introduced a whole series of capitalist 'reforms' in order to 'modernize socialism' and to make it 'more effective' (as the Ulbricht reformers put it). These so-called reforms are analyzed here at length, illustrating how they did away with socialist principles and restored capitalist principles into the economy in a way that made the country prone to the chronic crises typical of capitalism. This then led to a substantial part of the dissatisfied population turning away from socialism, the 'socialist' state and the SED ruling party, and looking toward West Germany for a better lifestyle. In late 1989, the GDR imploded and within months it was swallowed up by West German banks and corporations.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic 1945 1990 written by Mike Dennis and published by Longman Publishing Group. This book was released on 2000 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new book investigates communist rule in East Germany from the end of World War II to its rapid collapse after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Using newly available archival material, the early chapters trace the emergence of the GDR in 1949 from out of chrysalis of the Soviet zone of occupation. Later chapters cover the dramatic episodes of the 1953 uprising against Soviet dominance and the buildling of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The subsequent stabilization of the GDR and the establishment of an uneasy compromise between the ruling elites and the population in the later 1960s and 1970s are explained with reference to a range of internal social, economic and political factors. The disintegration of the regime in 1989, despite the comprehensive system of surveillance operated by the infamous Stasi, is explained in the light of * the chronic weakness of Gorbachev's Soviet Union * the bravery of the protestors * the enduring appeal of West Germany's social market economy and political pluralism.This clear and comprehensive survey marshals secondary and original primary sources in order to give a unique insight into the GDR's struggles and achievements.Mike Dennis is Professor of Modern History, University of Wolverhampton. His many publications include `The German Democratic Republic' (1988).
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic written by Feiwel Kupferberg and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The German Democratic Republic Pillar of Peace and Socialism written by Erich Honecker and published by New York : International Publishers. This book was released on 1979 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Hidden Hand written by Jeffrey Gedmin and published by American Enterprise Institute. This book was released on 1992 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the roots of the reunification of Germany, arguing that Erich Honecker's rigid communist regime was undermined by the conflict between Moscow and East Berlin. In the end, Gorbachev's objective - a radical renewal of socialism - turned out to be unattainable.
Download or read book Becoming East German written by Mary Fulbrook and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013-09-01 with total page 313 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.
Download or read book Creating German Communism 1890 1990 written by Eric D. Weitz and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eric Weitz presents a social and political history of German communism from its beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century to the collapse of the German Democratic Republic in 1990. In the first book in English or in German to explore this entire period, Weitz describes the emergence of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) against the background of Imperial and Weimar Germany, and clearly explains how the legacy of these periods shaped the character of the GDR to the very end of its existence. In Weimar Germany, social democrats and Germany's old elites tried frantically to discipline a disordered society. Their strategies drove communists out of the workplace and into the streets, where the party gathered supporters in confrontations with the police, fascist organizations, and even socialists and employed workers. In the streets the party forged a politics of display and spectacle, which encouraged ideological pronouncements and harsh physical engagements rather than the mediation of practical political issues. Male physical prowess came to be venerated as the ultimate revolutionary quality. The KPD's gendered political culture then contributed to the intransigence that characterized the German Democratic Republic throughout its history. The communist leaders of the GDR remained imprisoned in policies forged in the Weimar Republic and became tragically removed from the desires and interests of their own populace.
Download or read book Dreams of Oranges written by Desmond Fennell and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 176 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.
Download or read book German Democratic Republic written by Mike Dennis and published by Burns & Oates. This book was released on 1988 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Communism s Collapse Democracy s Demise written by L. McFalls and published by Springer. This book was released on 1994-11-21 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on original research, this book explores East German political culture and its role in the revolution of 1989 and in reunification. Specifically the book shows how a set of common values stabilised the communist regime until the 1980s, how the undermining of these values motivated revolutionary mobilization, and how the partial survival of this specific culture and its conflict with West German culture have contributed to the post-unification political crisis.
Download or read book The German Democratic Republic Pillar of Peace and Socialism written by Erich Honecker and published by . This book was released on with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The German Democratic Republic written by Arthur Monroe Hanhardt and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book was released on 1968 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Stasi State Or Socialist Paradise written by Bruni De la Motte and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Much has been written about how awful the German Democratic Republic supposedly was: a people imprisoned by a wall and subjugated by an omnipresent Stasi security apparatus. Such descriptions are based largely on prejudice, ignorance and wilful animosity. This book is an attempt to provide a more balanced evaluation and to examine GDR-style socialism in terms of what we can learn from it. The authors, while not ignoring the real deficiencies of GDR society, emphasise the many aspects that were positive, and demonstrate that alternative ways of organising society are possible. This volume is an updated and much expanded edition of the authors' booklet first published in 2009. Thee have added more detail on how the GDR came into being as a separate state, about how society functioned and what values determined the every-day life of its citizens. There is also a whole new section on what happened in the aftermath of unification, particularly to the economy. While unification brought East Germans access to a more affluent society, freedom to travel throughout the world and the end to an over-centralised political system, it also brought with it unemployment, social breakdown and loss of hope, particularly in the once thriving rural areas." -- From back cover.
Download or read book German Democratic Republ h written by Lyman H. Legters and published by Westview Press. This book was released on 1978-01-29 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
