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During the final decade of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), young citizens found themselves at the heart of a rigorous programme of socialist patriotic education, yet following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the emphasis of official state rhetoric, textbooks and youth activities changed beyond recognition. For the young generation growing up during this period, ‘normality’ was turned on its head, leaving a sense of insecurity and inner turmoil. Using a combination of archival research, interviews, educational materials and government reports, this book examines the relationship between young people and their two successive states in East(ern) Germany between 1979 and 2002. This time-span straddles the 1989/1990 caesura which often delimits historical studies, and thus enables not only a detailed examination of GDR socialisation, but, crucially, its influence in unified Germany. Exploring the extent to which a young generation's loyalties can be officially regulated in the face of cultural and historical traditions, changing material conditions and shifting social circumstances, the book finds GDR socialisation to be influential to post-unification loyalties through its impact on the personal sphere, rather than through the official sphere of ideological propaganda. This study not only provides insight into the functioning of the GDR state and its longer-term impact, but also advances our broader understanding of the ways in which collective loyalties are formed.
importance, but also on its history as capital of the Prussian monarchy, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the GDR. Like Hanoi, Berlin was a showcase for competing ideologies. In Cold War Germany, however, they confronted each other simultaneously on either side of the Berlin Wall, rather than holding sway consecutively. For instance, Paul Stangl ( 2006 , 353) shows that ‘ideological values, understanding of nation and
ideology and economics following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Heiner Müller’s Germania 3.Gespenster am Toten Mann ( Germania 3: Ghosts on the Dead Man ) (Müller, 2002 [1995]) documents the expansion eastwards of western ideology from the perspective of a playwright from the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and develops an image of western consumerism and
restructuring the whole housing block. Gorbachev and the 1989 revolution in East Germany Without Gorbachev, the 1989 revolutions could not have happened. Gorbachev’s refusal to overrule Hungary’s decision to start dismantling the Iron Curtain along its frontier with Austria on 2 May plunged the GDR into its deepest refugee crisis since the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. On 6 July 1989, he visited the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, declaring that the USSR would not prevent reform on the eastern side of the continent. 53 Then, at a Warsaw Pact summit in Bucharest
2 In defence of methodological nationalism In 1992 Francis Fukuyama declared the end of history, suggesting that with the fall of the Berlin Wall liberalism had triumphed as the political and economic paradigm across a globalised world.1 In 1994 Yasemin Soysal amongst others and with less fanfare argued that an era of postnational citizenship had arrived.2 The development of discourses of universal human rights had extended into the nation-state from beyond. Rights no longer strictly depended on nation-states. Cosmopolitan ideals expressed through human rights
fall of the Berlin Wall as almost ‘exclusively’ political. 1 As I have already shown through numerous examples of performative work that did not engage with politics, these instances are far more limited than Goldberg asserts. In fact, more often than not, performance and Conceptual Art offered artists an arena in which to experiment, rather than providing a vehicle for dissident political activity. There were artists who made overt or deliberately political statements in their work, but this is only part of the story of performance art in the region. That part of
neoconservatism was actually defined in the space between Reagan’s “utopianism”—notably his extraordinary attempt at the 1986 Reykjavik Summit to bargain away nuclear weapons altogether—and G. H. W. Bush’s ”pragmatic realism”. Bushite pragmatism was seen as much in Bush senior’s resolve to “avoid dancing on the Berlin Wall,” as in the allowing of Saddam to remain safe in Baghdad two
chair, past-chair and chair-elect), as well as officials of the OSCE Secretariat and CPC in Vienna, frequently provide assistance at the highest levels to the field missions and activities. 148 2504Chap8 7/4/03 12:40 pm Page 149 The OSCE role in Eurasian security The OSCE institutional capacity for conflict management in the Eurasian region In the aftermath of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the OSCE began to increase its capacity to manage conflicts despite the very modest mandate of the CPC. After the outbreak of violence that occurred in both the former
fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 led, in rapid succession over the next two years, to German unification, Baltic state independence, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its replacement by Russia and other successor countries, the fall of communist regimes all over Central and Eastern Europe, and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Capitalism, liberalised world trade and new electronics technology seemed to have carried the day. The West offered massive financial assistance to Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia, and also gave advice on how to go
coming together over the meaning, value and historical roots of democracy. By extension, there was also no prospect of common agreement across the Berlin Wall on the character and legacy of the Revolution of 1918–19, whether for the working class of that particular city or for the German and European labour movements as a whole. 1918–19, 1989 and the ‘problem