Policing a Socialist Society: The German Democratic Republic, by Nancy Travis WolfePolicing a Socialist Society: The German Democratic Republic, by Nancy Travis Wolfe. New York, Greenwood Press, 1992. xx, 244 pp.

The rise of neo-Nazism in the capital of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) was not inspired by a desire to recreate Hitler's Reich, but by youthful rebellion against the political and social culture of the GDR's Communist regime. This is detailed in Fuehrer-Ex: Memoirs of a Former Neo-Naxi by Ingo Hasselbach with Tom Reiss (Random House, New York, 1996). This movement, however, eventually worked towards returning Germany to its former 'glory' under the Third Reich under the guidance of 'professional' Nazis.

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Everyday Communism: New Social History of the German Democratic Republic

Contemporary European History ◽

10.1017/s0960777304001699 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 233-247 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

SANDRINE KOTT

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

North Carolina ◽

Cultural History ◽

Social History ◽

German Democratic Republic ◽

Democratic Republic ◽

Daily Life ◽

Chapel Hill ◽

History Of ◽

East German

Konrad Jarausch, ed., Dictatorship as Experience. Toward a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1999), 388 pp., £14.00 (pb), ISBN 1-57181-182-6.Thomas Lindenberger, ed., Herrschaft und Eigensinn in der Diktatur (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1999) 367 pp., €39.90 (hb), ISBN 3-412-13598-4.Annegret Schüle, ‘Die Spinne’. Die Erfahrungsgeschichte weiblicher Industriearbeit im VEB Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2001), 398 pp., €18.00 (pb), ISBN 3-934565-87-5.Patrick Major and Jonathan Osmond, eds., The Workers' and Peasants' State. Communism and Society in East Germany under Ulbricht 1945–71 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 272 pp., £15.99 (pb), ISBN 0-7190-6289-6.Joshua Feinstein, The Triumph of the Ordinary. Depictions of Daily Life in the East German Cinema 1949–1989 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 331 pp., £19.50 (pb), ISBN 0-8078-5385-2.

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L'Église dans la société socialiste

Social Compass ◽

10.1177/003776868102800105 ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 79-91

Author(s):

Günther Krusche

Keyword(s):

German Democratic Republic ◽

Democratic Republic ◽

Second World War ◽

Socialist Society ◽

World War ◽

Protestant Churches ◽

Marxist Ideology ◽

Second World

The main characteristic of the place and part held by Protes tant churches in the German Democratic Republic lies in the change from a popular and state church status to that of a mino rity church and even of «diaspora». Having mentioned the diffe rent transition and adaptation phases theses churches went throught after the second world war - denazification, anticlerical struggles challenges from Marxist ideology, the founding of the Federation of Protestant Churches in the G.D.R. - the author goes on to explain what understanding this Church has of itself today, the areas that still remain controversial, and finally, the tasks that it has set itself in a socialist society.

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Peter C. Caldwell. Dictatorship, State Planning, and Social Theory in the German Democratic Republic. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2003. Pp. x, 220. $60.00

The American Historical Review ◽

10.1086/ahr/109.5.1668 ◽

2004 ◽

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Social Theory ◽

German Democratic Republic ◽

Democratic Republic ◽

State Planning ◽

Cambridge University

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State Power and ‘Everyday Criminality’ in the German Democratic Republic, 1961–1989

German History ◽

10.1093/gerhis/ghaa048 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 38 (3) ◽

pp. 440-460

Author(s):

Richard Millington

Keyword(s):

Everyday Life ◽

German Democratic Republic ◽

Democratic Republic ◽

Socialist Society ◽

Tunnel Vision ◽

Friedrich Engels ◽

Causes Of Crime ◽

Opinion Polls ◽

Citizens Attitudes ◽

Socialist Unity

Abstract Friedrich Engels claimed that the removal of the perceived causes of crime in a society—capitalist economic and societal conditions—would automatically lead to the eradication of crime. This did not prove to be the case in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), where instances of everyday criminality such as theft, robbery and assault never fell below 100,000 per annum throughout the period of the state’s existence, from 1949 to 1989. This article examines the ruling Socialist Unity Party’s (SED) perceptions of the causes of everyday criminality in the GDR. It shows that the SED concluded that crime persisted because citizens’ ‘socialist sense of legal right and wrong’ (sozialistisches Rechtsbewußtsein) was underdeveloped. The regime measured this by the extent to which citizens supported and participated in socialist society. Thus, crime could be eliminated by co-opting as many citizens as possible into the Party’s political project. The SED’s ideological tunnel vision on the causes of everyday criminality meant that it dismissed hints about the real causes of crime, such as poor supply and living conditions, identified by its analysts. Its failure to address these issues meant that citizens continued to break the law. Thus, the Party’s exercise of power contributed to the creation of limits to that power. Moreover, analysis of opinion polls on GDR citizens’ attitudes to criminality shows that they accepted crime as a part of everyday life.

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