Power and Society in the GDR, 1961-1979 : : The 'Normalisation of Rule'? / / ed. by Mary Fulbrook.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2000-2013
• MitwirkendeR: Allinson, Mark,; Brock, Angela,; Fulbrook, Mary,; Last, George,; Lüdtke, Alf,; Madarász, Jeannette,; Merkel, Ina,; Palmowski, Jan,; Richthofen, Esther von,; Thomas, Merrilyn,; Wierling, Dorothee,; Wilton, Dan,
• HerausgeberIn: Fulbrook, Mary,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2009]; ©2009
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (348 p.)

The communist German Democratic Republic, founded in 1949 in the Soviet-occupied zone of post-war Germany is, for many people, epitomized by the Berlin Wall; Soviet tanks and surveillance by the secret security police, the Stasi, appear to be central. But is this really all there is to the GDR¹s history? How did people come to terms with their situation and make new lives behind the Wall? When the social history of the GDR in the 1960s and 1970s is explored, new patterns become evident. A fragile stability emerged in a period characterized by 'consumer socialism', international recognition and détente. Growing participation in the micro-structures of power, and conformity to the unwritten rules of an increasingly predictable system, suggest increasing accommodation to dominant norms and conceptions of socialist 'normality'. By exploring the ways in which lower-level functionaries and people at the grass roots contributed to the formation and transformation of the GDR ­ from industry and agriculture, through popular sport and cultural life, to the passage of generations and varieties of social experience ­ the contributors collectively develop a more complex approach to the history of East Germany.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Chapter 1 The Concept of ‘Normalisation’ and the GDR in Comparative Perspective -- PART I NORMALISATION AS STABILISATION AND ROUTINISATION? SYSTEMIC PARAMETERS AND THE ROLES OF FUNCTIONARIES -- Chapter 2 ‘Aggression in Felt Slippers’: Normalisation and the Ideological Struggle in the Context of Détente and Ostpolitik -- Chapter 3 Economic Politics and Company Culture: The Problem of Routinisation -- Chapter 4 Rural Functionaries and the Transmission of Agricultural Policy: The Case of Bezirk Erfurt from the 1960s to the 1970s -- Chapter 5 The ‘Societalisation’ of the State: Sport for the Masses and Popular Music in the GDR -- Chapter 6 Communication and Compromise: The Prerequisites for Cultural Participation -- Chapter 7 Learning the Rules: Local Activists and the Heimat -- PART II NORMALISATION AS INTERNALISATION? CONFORMITY, ‘NORMALITY’, AND ‘PLAYING THE RULES’ -- Chapter 8 Practices of Survival— Ways of Appropriating ‘The Rules’: Reconsidering Approaches to the History of the GDR -- Chapter 9 The GDR—A Normal Country in the Centre of Europe -- Chapter 10 How Do the 1929ers and the 1949ers Differ? -- Chapter 11 Producing the ‘Socialist Personality’? Socialisation, Education, and the Emergence of New Patterns of Behaviour -- Chapter 12 1977: The GDR’s Most Normal Year? -- Chapter 13 ‘Normalisation’ in the GDR in Retrospect: East German Perspectives on Their Own Lives -- Contributors -- Select Bibliography -- Index