Download or read book East German Intellectuals and the Unification of Germany written by Dan Bednarz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-12-31 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Power of Intellectuals in Contemporary Germany written by Michael Geyer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2001-12-17 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Intellectuals Socialism and Dissent written by John C. Torpey and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book German Unification and the Jurists of East Germany written by Howard J. De Nike and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 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 25 Years Berlin Republic written by Todd Herzog and published by Verlag Wilhelm Fink. This book was released on 2019-02-21 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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?"
Download or read book German Unification in the European Context written by Peter H. Merkl and published by Penn State University Press. This book was released on 2004-05-01 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The New Germany in the East written by Christopher Flockton and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2000 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Voices in Times of Change written by David Rock and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2000-09-01 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book When the Wall Came Down written by Harold James and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Wall Came Down provides a wide-ranging compendium of responses in Germany and other countries to the events of 1989-90, and includes essays by Henry Kissinger, Vaclav Havel, Ralf Dahrendorf and Timothy Garton Ash.
Download or read book In Search of Germany written by Michael Mertes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-01-16 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much that has happened in the world since 1989 gives cause for elation, but there is also much that gives reason for alarm. The euphoria that attended the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism has been compromised by tragic events in recent years, such as the bitter ethnic rivalries in Yugoslavia, the civil war in Rwanda, and the terrorist bombings in New York City and Oklahoma City. In Search of Germany seeks to accomplish three purposes: to initiate a review of the whole of the post-World War II period and consider what actually happened in the Federal Republic and in the German Democratic Republic during those forty years; to acknowledge that the present "age of anxiety" did not originate in 1989; and to see that Europe today is indeed in trouble and the difficulties that the world is experiencing have social, political, and intellectual roots. In Search of Germany is an augmented and enlarged collection derived from a special issue of Daedalus. Additions that have been made to the book include a chapter by Timothy Garton Ash entitled "Germany's Choice," a concluding section by the editors, and an index. While the book focuses on Germany, it serves a wider purpose as well by also studying Europe, democracy, and modernity. The prejudices and fears of Germany, precisely because they are specific to and yet not peculiar to Germany, tell a great deal of why an earlier European (and American) optimism has been lost, and why so much contemporary political discourse avoids explicit consideration of really sensitive issues. Half a century after the end of World War II, there is interest not only in the policies pursued by the Nazi regime, the crimes it perpetrated throughout Europe, and the suffering it inflicted on hundreds of millions, but also on what preceded that unprecedented tragedy and what has followed it. In Search of Germany is a timely and significant analysis of contemporary world politics and will be necessary reading for political scientists, historians, and scholars of international studies.
Download or read book Between Anti fascism and Opposition written by John Christopher Torpey and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Germany s New Right as Culture and Politics written by R. Woods and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-01-10 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first full-length study in English of the New Right in Germany and it breaks new ground by considering the New Right as a political and a cultural movement. The book examines the often contradictory motives that feed into New Right political pronouncements and explores the cultural thinking that feeds into extreme political commitment.
Download or read book Spirit and System written by Dominic Boyer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1906 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining ethnography, history, and social theory, Dominic Boyer's Spirit and System exposes how the shifting fortunes and social perceptions of German intellectuals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries influenced Germans' conceptions of modernity and national culture. Boyer analyzes the creation and mediation of the social knowledge of "German-ness" from nineteenth-century university culture and its philosophies of history, to the media systems and redemptive public cultures of the Third Reich and the German Democratic Republic, to the present-day experiences of former East German journalists seeking to explain life in post-unification Germany. Throughout this study, Boyer reveals how dialectical knowledge of "German-ness"—that is, knowledge that emphasizes a cultural tension between an inner "spirit" and an external "system" of social life —is modeled unconsciously upon intellectuals' self-knowledge as it tracks their fluctuation between alienation and utopianism in their interpretations of nation and modernity.
Download or read book The People s State written by Mary Fulbrook and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-12-02 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What was life really like for East Germans, effectively imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain? The headline stories of Cold War spies and surveillance by the secret police, of political repression and corruption, do not tell the whole story. After the unification of Germany in 1990 many East Germans remembered their lives as interesting, varied, and full of educational, career, and leisure opportunities: in many ways “perfectly ordinary lives.” Using the rich resources of the newly-opened GDR archives, Mary Fulbrook investigates these conflicting narratives. She explores the transformation of East German society from the ruins of Hitler's Third Reich to a modernizing industrial state. She examines changing conceptions of normality within an authoritarian political system, and provides extraordinary insights into the ways in which individuals perceived their rights and actively sought to shape their own lives. Replacing the simplistic black-and-white concept of “totalitarianism” by the notion of a “participatory dictatorship,” this book seeks to reinstate the East German people as actors in their own history.
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.
