Refugees in the Soviet Occupation Zone/German Democratic Republic

2018 ◽  
pp. 197-233
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
Soviet Occupation Zone

Hanns Eisler and Faust in the German Democratic Republic

2019 ◽  
pp. 202-220
Author(s):  
Joy H. Calico
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
East German ◽  
National Identity Formation ◽  
Soviet Occupation Zone

When Austrian composer and committed Marxist Hanns Eisler was forced out of the United States in 1948, he returned to Vienna and hoped to settle there. Instead, a commission for Goethe’s bicentennial celebration the following year drew him to East Berlin and the SBZ (Soviet Occupation Zone), soon to be the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany), and set him on the path to be that country’s most prominent composer. This chapter examines the piece Eisler wrote for that commission, Rhapsodie für großes Orchester (Rhapsody for large orchestra) (1949), which set text from Goethe’s Faust II, as well as his libretto for a proposed opera entitled Johann Faustus. East German reception of these pieces reveals the centrality of Goethe’s Faust for national identity formation in the fledgling GDR.

scholarly journals Comments on the Article, Combatting Venereal Diseases as an Instrument of Politicised Medicine. An analysis of the example of the Soviet Occupation Zone in Germany, the German Democratic Republic, and the Polish Peoples’ Republic by Marcin Orzechowski, Maximilian Schochow and Florian Steger

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 83-92
Author(s):  
Juris Salaks ◽  
◽  
Aistis Žalnora ◽  
Toomsalu Maie ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Venereal Diseases ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
Polish People ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
Soviet Occupation Zone

The publication of articles by F. Steger, M. Schohow, M. Orzechowski 1 and I. Lipša 2 in the last two issues of the journal on the control of venereal diseases in the GDR, the Polish People Republic (PPR) and the Latvian SSR made it possible to expand joint academic interdisciplinary (historical, medical and socio-anthropological) research on this topic in four universities in Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

scholarly journals Policy Approaches Toward Combatting Venereal Diseases in the Soviet Occupation Zone in Germany (1945–1949), the German Democratic Republic (1949–1989), and the Polish People's Republic (1945–1989)

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcin Orzechowski ◽  
Katarzyna Woniak ◽  
Maximilian Schochow ◽  
Florian Steger
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Second World War ◽  
High Morbidity ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
World War ◽  
Venereal Diseases ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
Soviet Occupation Zone ◽  
Second World

The spread of venereal diseases after the Second World War constituted a grave public health danger in Europe. Especially in all four occupation zones in Germany and the Polish People's Republic high morbidity rates were observed. In order to limit the spread of diseases, respective administrations adopted specific regulations. The aim of this research is the analysis and comparison of legal regulations for controlling and combating venereal diseases in these countries. We have analyzed legislative and administrative acts concerning combatting venereal diseases issued by the official organs of the Soviet Occupation Zone, the German Democratic Republic, and the Polish People's Republic from 1945 to 1989. Subsequently, the analyzed sources were evaluated in light of the existing literature on the topic. Our analysis shows that policy approaches in both countries were based the Soviet Union's model for fighting venereal diseases. Visible are similarities of the approaches. They include organization of anti-venereal services, compulsory hospitalization, and actions against social groups perceived as sources of venereal diseases. Beside the purpose of breaking the spread of the epidemics, the approaches had also a political aim of sanctioning behavior that diverged from prescribed socialist moral norms.

Breaking with bourgeois rules and traditions

2015 ◽  
Vol 83 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 487-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Löhnig
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Socialist Society ◽  
World War ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
The Family ◽  
East German ◽  
Soviet Occupation Zone ◽  
Family Models

When World War II ended in 1945, the plan was to build a society in the Soviet occupation zone and, later on, in the German Democratic Republic, which would break with the previously dominant bourgeois rules and traditions. Marriage and the family were utilized to achieve this goal. As the marriage law in force was the same in all parts of Germany between 1938 and 1955, this development has to be illustrated by analyzing the divorce files of the East German courts of Dresden and Leipzig in the late 1940s. By reviewing these documents, one cannot only reveal political and economic influences, but also discover the new household and family models of a socialist society.


scholarly journals Combatting Venereal Diseases as an Instrument of Politicised Medicine: Analysis on the Example of the Soviet Occupation Zone in Germany, the German Democratic Republic, and the Polish Peoples’ Republic

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 58-82
Author(s):  
Marcin Orzechowski ◽  
◽  
Maximilian Schochow ◽  
Floria Steger ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Women ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Legal Regulations ◽  
Venereal Diseases ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
Healthcare Model ◽  
Soviet Occupation Zone

The programme for combatting venereal diseases in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany (SOZ), the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Polish Peoples’ Republic (PPR) after the Second World War was adopted from the Soviet healthcare model. In order to maintain the spread of infections, both countries introduced specific legislation. The analysis of the regulations shows several similarities, such as establishment of easy access to anti-venereal health services, interruption of the chain of infection, and special treatment of individuals who constituted a danger of spreading the infection through compulsory hospitalisation. However, some differences are also visible. In the PPR, the decision about compulsory hospitalisation was left to individual evaluation of the attending physician. Closed venereology facilities or reformatories for treatment of venereal diseases, which existed in the GDR, were not established through legal regulations in the PPR. Since 1964, Polish law specifically targeted prostitutes and alcoholics as sources of spreading venereal diseases. These groups were not mentioned in the German legal acts. Analysis of praxis of compulsory commitment in the SOZ and GDR shows that mostly young women characterized as “drifters” were sent to closed venereology wards with breach of legal regulations. The number of prostitutes constituted only a very small fraction. In the PPR, the data from contemporary literature also indicates a considerable number of young women, the so-called “drifters”, committed to venereology ward.

Occupation, Reparations, and Rebellion: The Soviets and the East German Uprising of 1953

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-250
Author(s):  
Wayne Geerling ◽  
Gary B. Magee ◽  
Russell Smyth
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Internal Resistance ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Local Production ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
East German ◽  
Regional Factors ◽  
Local Companies

Abstract Analysis of the link between the Soviet occupation of East Germany and internal resistance within the German Democratic Republic reveals that ongoing payment of reparations by East Germans out of local production—via the Soviet’s ownership of prominent local companies—affected both the incidence and the intensity of unrest at the precinct level during the uprising of June 17, 1953. This result is robust when controlling for variation in the presence of Soviet military bases and deaths in Soviet nkvd Special Camps, as well as a host of regional factors potentially correlated with differences in unrest.

Piecework and the Sovietization of the East German Workplace

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 717-743
Author(s):  
Wayne Geerling ◽  
Gary B. Magee
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Cautionary Tale ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
East German ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Early Formative

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the significance of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and all that it purported to stand for has been largely cast aside. Other than as a cautionary tale, the GDR has been widely seen as offering little to contemporary political discourse. By contrast, in recent years, its experience, especially in its early formative period, has attracted a lot of attention from historians. In part this burst of activity can be attributed to the opening of closed archives in eastern Europe, but it is also related to the desire to understand better how a flawed system could maintain such seeming stability for so long, and then, how all that could collapse so suddenly and ignobly in 1989. Was its demise inevitable, rooted, as it were, in the DNA of the system, or were there alternative paths that could have been taken? Much of the recent research is founded on the premise that insights and answers to such questions can be uncovered by going back to the origins of the system. This article is written in the same vein. Its aim is to shed light on how aspects of the East German workplace evolved in the period between the beginnings of Soviet occupation and the establishment of a Soviet-style planned economy by 1949–50.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document