The Dynamics of Informational Cascades: The Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany, 1989–91

1994 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Lohmann
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Hidden Information ◽  
Informational Cascades ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
East German ◽  
Informational Cascade ◽  
Cycles Of Protest

This article analyzes the dynamics of turnout and the political impact of five cycles of protest, consisting of forty-two mass demonstrations that occurred on Mondays in Leipzig over the period 1989–91. These demonstrations are interpreted as an informational cascade that publicly revealed some of the previously hidden information about the malign nature of the East German communist regime. Once this information became publicly available, the viability of the regime was undermined. The Monday demonstrations subsequently died a slow death as their informational role declined.

Moving against Disappearance

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Richard Giersdorf
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The West ◽  
Pedestrian Movement ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Social ◽  
East German

Nearly a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany was subsumed into the West German national structure. As a result, the distinct political systems, institutions, and cultures that characterized East Germany have nearly completely vanished. In some instances, this history was actively—and physically—eradicated by the unified Germany. This chapter works against the disappearance of East German culture by reconstructing the physicality of the walk across the border on the day of the opening of the Berlin Wall and two choreographic works depicting East German identities on stage. The initial re-creation of the choreography of a pedestrian movement provides a social, political, and methodological context that relates the two dance productions to the social movement of East German citizens. Both works take stances on the political situation in East Germany during and after the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989, although one is by a West German artist, Sasha Waltz, and the other by East German choreographer Jo Fabian.

Building a Rival Fourth Estate: RIAS’s Campaign against East Germany

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Professional Staff ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Fourth Estate ◽  
Personal Investment ◽  
East German ◽  
Socialist Unity

This chapter considers the development of models for news broadcasting at both RIAS and the stations of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). By this time the station had aimed to establish itself as a rival fourth estate in East Germany in order to compete with the official news organs of the Socialist Unity Party. Yet in performing this task, the station's staff confronted a range of apparent contradictions; in attempting to resolve these, RIAS crafted a style of journalism that drew on principles it had forged during the Berlin Airlift: it eschewed neutrality in favor of engagement, but worked to insure the news it broadcast was accurate. It also built a professional staff of reporters who, for a variety of reasons, felt a strong personal investment in seeing the collapse of the East German Communist regime and the reunification of Germany.

scholarly journals Stalin's German Policy After Stalin

Slavic Review ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Baras
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
German Reunification ◽  
German State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
East German ◽  
The Stability

Stalin's “last word” on German reunification was contained in the Soviet diplomatic note of March 10, 1952, which proposed a peace treaty with Germany. Until the middle of 1953, Stalin's heirs continued to press for reunification on the basis of the 1952 note. The East German uprising of June 17, 1953 (which is commemorated in West Germany, with unintended irony, as the “Day of German Unity“) marked the de facto termination of the Soviet reunification initiative. As a result of the uprising, the rulers of the Soviet Union and East Germany were forced to place greater emphasis on the consolidation of the Communist regime in the GDR—that is, the stability of East Germany required policies explicitly directed toward the development of a separate, socialist East German state. Thus, the uprising and the subsequent Soviet intervention further undermined the credibility of an already questionable Soviet reunification initiative.

The Purge of Lawyers after the Breakdown of the East German Communist Regime

1995 ◽  
Vol 20 (01) ◽  
pp. 223-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erhard Blankenburg
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Legal Profession ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
The West ◽  
The Core ◽  
East German ◽  
Communist Past

When in East Germany communist rule broke down, West Germans stood ready to take over. The end of communism also meant the end of the German Democratic Republic state; unification came as unconditional surrender to the western Federal Republic of Germany. The purge of the former regime's leaders therefore became intertwined with the West German takeover. With the takeover came Western politicians, managers, and professionals, forcing East Germans to compete fur jobs and influence. Opportunistic strategies with regard to the future buildup thus mixed with the desires for revenge and justice toward those responsible for the communist past. In this article I focus especially on the screening of the East German legal profession for reemployment in the unified Germany. In the West German tradition the legal profession forms the core of the civil services. In communist states lawyers had remained relatively marginal to the center of political power. Thus Western perceptions of the role of law account for the demise of the East German legal profession. That demise is taking place at a time when the Western regime is in need of many more legally trained people than ever worked in East Germany.

Constructing the Prussia-Myth in East Germany, 1945–61

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-550
Author(s):  
Marcus Colla
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
The Political ◽  
German History ◽  
German Population ◽  
History Of ◽  
East German ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Symbolic Construction

In postwar East Germany, dealing with the history of Prussia was problematic. While ‘Prussianism’ or the ‘Spirit of Prussia’ was widely perceived as a central cause of Nazism, it also could not be ignored when developing ‘progressive’ narratives of German history. This article investigates the political, intellectual and symbolic construction of a ‘Prussia-myth’ in the early postwar years. In particular, it investigates how the ‘Prussia-myth’ was adapted to changing political conditions, the theoretical contradictions this engendered, and the manner in which historians and cultural figures dealt with these problems when educating the East German population at large.

Responding to ‘Order Without Life’? Living Under Communism

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Stone
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Structural Defects ◽  
The Political ◽  
Contributory Factor ◽  
State Security ◽  
Long Period ◽  
East German ◽  
Collapse Of Communism ◽  
The Cold War

Both during the Cold War, with the 1950s theories of ‘red fascism’ and ‘totalitarianism’, and after 1989, when debates have been no less emotive, scholars and other political commentators have condemned communism for its bloody murderousness. However, the long period of communist rule in Europe cannot be summarised as no more than sustained and untrammelled violence. It helps to explain why communism collapsed, in a way that an emphasis solely on state security and terror cannot. One way that the communist regime tried to legitimise itself was through encouraging consumerism, particularly after the death of Joseph Stalin and the East German uprising of June 1953. Consumerism in Eastern Europe meant consumerism controlled by the Communist Party for the purpose of developing communism. It is often assumed that nationalism emerged after 1989 to fill the political vacuum opened up by the demise of communism. In fact, the opposite is the case: nationalism did not cause the collapse of communism (which owed more to structural defects in the system), but it was one contributory factor.

East German Higher Education Policies and Student Resistance, 1945–1948

1995 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Connelly
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The Political ◽  
Student Resistance ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
Higher Education Policies ◽  
East German ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Disproportionate Number ◽  
Socialist Unity

Those who opposed Communist rule in East Germany often did so because Communism in practice strongly reminded them of the fascism they had experienced in the Third Reich. The new East German regime was also one that attempted total control of people's lives; therefore it became natural to describe it as totalitär. Most sensitive to the similarities between the old and new regimes were university students. They displayed stronger direct opposition to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in the years from 1946–1949 than any other social group. This is reflected in the political battles that were fought in universities during these years, leading to SED election failures in the elections of the postwar years: 1946/47 and late 1947. The latter were the last freely contested elections in East Germany until 1989. It is also reflected in the disproportionate number of students arrested by Soviet and East German authorities in the early postwar years.

Onto the Slippery Slope: East Germany and East-West Détente under Ulbricht and Honecker, 1965–1975

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 60-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Bange
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
East German ◽  
Fundamental Shift ◽  
East West

This article identifies and explains the fundamental shift of political and ideological paradigms that drew the Soviet Union's close ally, East Germany, into the détente process. Although economic and political influences and pressures, including from the Soviet Union itself, pushed the East German Communist regime to participate in this era of “peaceful coexistence,” officials in East Berlin were well aware of the dangers this posed to the Communist society in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the long term. Even at this early stage of East-West interaction, détente left the GDR with the unenviable task of squaring ideology with realpolitik—a task that East German leaders found increasingly hard to cope with.

Approaches to Dance (2): Influences

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marion Kant
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Dance Studies ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Comic Opera ◽  
Artistic Activity ◽  
Humboldt University ◽  
East German ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Weimar Culture ◽  
Intellectual Formation

This statement is an attempt to reflect on my intellectual formation and how certain influences, both from home (a place suspended between Germany with the remnants of its Weimar culture and Britain as the place of exile) and from subsequent experiences, led me to adopt an historical approach to dance studies and to emphasise the context in which artistic activity unfolds. My education at Berlin's Humboldt University and the Comic Opera shaped my perspectives on theatre and performance. The East German milieu in general forced me to confront the immediate past and think about the political and ideological legacies of the cultures in which I grew up.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document