Socialist mountains out of capitalist molehills: ownership and use of land in the German Democratic Republic

Legal Studies ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-169
Author(s):  
Caroline Forder
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Public Land ◽  
Property Law ◽  
Property System ◽  
The Creation ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Right ◽  
Contractual Rights ◽  
Mixed Property

To understand the rights in land of a person in the GDR the first task of an English lawyer is to consider the rules being applied in terms of concepts and institutions in operation in England. The GDR have opted for a ‘mixed’ property system, retaining ‘pure’ personal ownership (similar to the rights given to landowners under English law) alongside the socialist creatures: contractual rights (use-contracts) and the hybrid use-rights in public land. Property law has long provided for the creation of rights which provide at the outset for the conditions under which the right will end; this is one of the principal attributes of leasehold tenure in England. It is indeed striking how many of the characteristics of use rights can be discovered among the provisions and decisions upon the security of tenure of tenancies in England.

What Is and to What End Does One Study the History of East German Literature?

PMLA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 133 (3) ◽  
pp. 594-609
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Emmerich ◽  
Nicole G. Burgoyne ◽  
Andrew B. B. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Literary Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
East German ◽  
The Right

East german literary history is a case study of how political and cultural institutions interact. the state's cultural regime mo-nopolized the right to publish within its borders and demanded that the nation's new art describe contemporary life or its precedents. Even authors seen in the West as dissidents understood themselves, more often than not, as pursuing that goal and the broader aims of socialism with their work. During the lifespan of the German Democratic Republic, this political albatross weighed on all literary scholarship. Even now, whatever their feelings toward the socialist state, scholars, critics, and readers are bound to approach a text from East Germany as an artifact of its political culture—and rightly, because the political sphere encroached heavily on the artistic. But since German unification, the rise and fall in the stock of so many East German authors has directly resulted from political revelations, raising a number of troubling questions. Though historical distance seemed to have sprung up as abruptly as the Berlin Wall had come down, to what extent does scholarship from the German Democratic Republic represent only a heightened case of what is always true of literary history— namely, that political motivation colors critical evaluation? Is it possible to consider a work of literature with no recourse to the social and political circumstances under which it was written? And would it even be desirable to do so?

The Creation of a “True Antient and Indubitable” Right: The English Bill of Rights and the Right to Be Armed

1993 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 226-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyce Lee Malcolm
Keyword(s):  
New Right ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
The People ◽  
Conservative Revolution ◽  
Single Flower ◽  
The Creation ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

The seventh of the thirteen “ancient and indubitable” rights proclaimed in the English Declaration of Rights was neither ancient nor indubitable. It declared “that the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by Law.” The right of ordinary subjects to possess weapons is perhaps the most extraordinary and least understood of English liberties. It lies at the heart of the relationship between the individual and his fellows and between the individual and his government. Few governments have ever been prepared to make such a guarantee, and, until 1689, no English parliamentary body was either. Its elevation that year to the company of ancient and indubitable rights unmasked the deep-seated distrust between the governing classes and the crown. Together with the equally novel article that gave Parliament greater control over standing armies, this right was meant to place the sword in the hands of Protestant Englishmen and the power over it in the hands of Parliament.The actual novelty of this right had eluded historians for a variety of reasons. First, its framers were taken at their word when they described it as ancient and indubitable. Indeed, Whig historians preferred to believe there had been a conservative revolution. Thomas Macaulay rejoiced that “not a single flower of the crown was touched. Not a single new right was given to the people. The whole English law, substantive and adjective, was, in the judgment of all the greatest lawyers … almost exactly the same after the Revolution as before it.

Protest Voting in Eastern Germany

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-88
Author(s):  
David F. Patton
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Eastern Germany ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Right ◽  
Favorable Conditions

In 1989-1990, peaceful protests shook the German Democratic Republic (GDR), ushered in unification, and provided a powerful narrative of people power that would shape protest movements for decades to come. This article surveys eastern German protest across three decades, exploring the interplay of protest voting, demonstrations, and protest parties since the Wende. It finds that protest voting in the east has had a significant political impact, benefiting and shaping parties on both the left and the right of the party spectrum. To understand this potential, it examines how economic and political factors, although changing, have continued to provide favorable conditions for political protest in the east. At particular junctures, waves of protest occurred in each of the three decades after unification, shaping the party landscape in Germany.

The Origins of Party Discipline: Evidence from Eastern Germany

2006 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise K. Davidson-Schmich
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Party Discipline ◽  
Eastern Germany ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Party Voting

In Germany, the Bundestag and the Landtage (state parliaments) in the old Länder (states) have such consistently high levels of party discipline that there is not enough variance to determine the cause of this behavior. The creation of five new democratic state legislatures after the fall of the German Democratic Republic, however, provides a unique opportunity to investigate the origins of party voting. I test which of three hypothesized institutional mechanisms for this practice—the need to keep an executive in office, efficiency incentives, or electoral concerns—was primarily responsible for the emergence of party discipline in the new Länder. The evidence indicates that the need to support the executive branch is the primary cause of party voting. This finding helps explain both the unexpected rise of western German-style party discipline in the eastern states following unification, well as the persistence of the seemingly outdated practice of party discipline in contemporary Germany as a whole.

Building the Stasi in the German Democratic Republic

2020 ◽  
pp. 251-282
Author(s):  
Molly Pucci
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
East German ◽  
Mass Organization ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Radical Shift ◽  
Socialist Unity

This chapter examines the creation of the East German Stasi in February 1950 and the training of new officials in the 1952 Campaign to Build Socialism. It places the founding of the Stasi in the context of a radical shift in the internal culture of the leading Socialist Unity Party, which was transformed from a mass organization to a ruling elite through terror and expulsions between 1948 and 1951. Throughout, it explores the shift from Soviet to East German jurisdiction in the security forces, police, and courts. It concludes with a discussion of the uprising in Germany in June 1953 and its consequences for the Stasi’s structure and personnel.

Penitentiary Tutors’ Activities with Muslims Prisoners. Between Uniformisation and Identity Shaping

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 70
Author(s):  
Arkadiusz Urbanek
Keyword(s):  
Field Research ◽  
Prison Staff ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Right

This article discusses securing the right to respect for one's own religion, identity, and culture. However, it confronts them with penitentiary practice in Polish organizational and legal conditions. There emerges an interesting space for analysing different tendencies to uniformize the conditions of punishment and protection of individualization. Not only are procedural issues involved, but, above all, the mentality and attitudes presented by penitentiary officers. The deliberations are focused on a kind of conflict between yielding under the demands of a different culture and the resistance of prison staff against respecting them. Presented conclusions are the results of field research among penitentiary officers in Poland, but they all start a discussion on the creation of penitentiary policy in this area, especially in countries with poor experience in working with Muslims.

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