GDR research

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The subject of GDR research is the German Democratic Republic . Rule , politics , society , economy , international relations , culture, everyday life and history of this state are at the center. If the research activities aimed at a systematic comparison with conditions in the Federal Republic, one also spoke of the comparative research on Germany . Until 1990 GDR research provided both contemporary and historiographical analyzes. After German reunification , it is considered part of the historiography of German and European contemporary history .

Original goals and approaches

Research results were and are material for political-educational purposes in the context of school , university and adult education . Until 1990, the researchers also provided information for decision-making in German parliaments, governments and authorities as well as for the mass media .

The interpretation of the development of the GDR after 1949 took place above all against the normative background of the totalitarianism theory , to which politics, the parties and their foundations as well as the most important media and science were predominantly since the uprising of June 17, 1953 until about 1969 at the latest oriented. The GDR research, shaped by the totalitarianism paradigm, which annually produced the information for the SBZ handbook from A – Z and also addressed the public directly via numerous other media, has been increasingly representative of a system -immanent or critical-immanent since the mid-1960s The approach that measured the situation in the GDR (which was mostly referred to as the Soviet zone of occupation until 1969 ) against the standards postulated by the SED and advocated a separation of research and value judgment (→ freedom from values  ).

GDR research was coordinated by a research advisory board for questions relating to the reunification of Germany, which had existed since 1952, in cooperation with political authorities. This was originally intended to explore the requirements for an integration of the Soviet Zone into the political and economic system of the Federal Republic. When this perspective disappeared after the construction of the Berlin Wall , the Advisory Board initiated a turn towards basic research around 1969, including a. also because of the Federal Audit Office's criticism of the small scope and inefficiency of the advisory board's work to date. For this reason, the Advisory Board planned to publish a comprehensive GDR handbook for the first time in 1970, alongside an already existing series of monographs , which was primarily intended to measure the economic and social conditions in the GDR against its own guidelines. However, this announced book did not appear. The publication of the reference work SBZ from AZ by the Federal Ministry for all-German issues , which was no longer up-to-date during the negotiations on the Moscow Treaty and the Basic Treaty , was discontinued in 1969.

The Free University of Berlin was an important center of GDR research . In 1967 , Peter Christian Ludz completed his habilitation here with his study Party Elite in Transition as the first West German scientist to deal with a GDR topic and took a clear opposite position to research on totalitarianism. In the study based on modernization theory, he predicted that academically educated, pragmatically oriented economic experts would build up a counter-position to the old party leadership while it was losing influence. However, such a development was not confirmed in the 1970s. In 1975 Ludz and Johannes Kuppe finally published the GDR manual , the second edition of which came out in 1979.

1978-1990

In the late 1970s, the normatively oriented research direction regained importance. It found its focus in the Gesellschaft für Deutschlandforschung , founded in 1978 , the establishment of which was unsuccessfully prevented by the Federal Ministry for Internal German Relations in order not to impair the policy of détente. The researchers in this group stuck to the totalitarian paradigm. Above all, they focused and documented non-compliance with human and civil rights, but neglected the economic and social policy of the GDR. Their approach regained its reputation under the Helmut Kohl government .

Critics accused West German GDR research of not having foreseen the end of the GDR. This accusation was directed at left-wing and liberal as well as conservative scholars and publicists , who were partly surprised by the politicization of what Günter Gaus called "niche society" in the 1980s. This model served to explain the contradiction between the alleged rejection of the GDR by its population and the relative satisfaction with which a large part of this population lived in the GDR. The conservative scholars were accused of underestimating the socio-economic problems of the association.

Outside of the Federal Republic, research on the GDR was also carried out at various German and regional studies institutes abroad. In the United States, for example, the annual New Hampshire Symposium on the German Democratic Republic (1977–1997) played an important role. The corresponding conference proceedings were edited by Margy Gerber of Bowling Green State University until her retirement .

Since 1990

After reunification, research initially concentrated on overcoming the problems of unification. Ordoliberal economists in particular misjudged many aspects of the unification from today's perspective. B. the actual huge investment needs, since they had the model of the currency reform 1948 in mind. The report on the advantages of rapid unification for the Chancellery, with which Hans Willgerodt , who had not previously emerged as a GDR researcher , was commissioned in 1990 , anticipated a strong emigration, but also low wages as a locational advantage, which would make it possible To export products from GDR locations of West German companies without causing high unemployment. This report has significantly shaped the decisions of the federal government with regard to the association. As early as mid-1990, however, it became clear that the researchers were not even remotely informed about the true state of the GDR.

In the 1990s, two Enquete Commissions of the German Bundestag made a significant contribution to the initiation of historical research on the GDR, first the Enquete Commission “Dealing with the History and Consequences of the SED Dictatorship” , followed by the Enquete Commission “Overcoming the Consequences of the SED -Dictatorship in the process of German unity " . Their discussions and results were published in two multi-volume print and CD-ROM editions, which are now fully available on the Internet. One of the results of these inquiry commissions was also the establishment of the federal foundation for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship . Since the beginning of the millennium, it has played a key role in promoting more civil society- oriented research. At the state level, mention should be made above all of the state representatives for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship, each of whom appear under slightly different names. The following research institutions are particularly active in the field of scientific research: The Education and Research Department of the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service (BStU) in Berlin, the SED State Research Association at the Free University of Berlin , the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism in Dresden, the establishment of which was largely brought about by the GDR opposition, the Institute for Contemporary History Munich with its Berlin department and the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History Research in Potsdam. In addition, there are chairs at German universities and other non-university research institutions that conduct GDR research more or less intensively.

Today, many historical studies deal with the question of the causes and conditions of the turnaround and with the Ministry of State Security . However, many researchers stuck to the totalitarian paradigm even after 2000; B. Günther Heydemann at the Hannah Arendt Institute. Overall, research today achieves a higher level of accuracy, variety of methods and reflection than it did before 1990. a. is due to the better source situation and the greater historical distance. However, it has not yet been possible to bring the image of the GDR “down to a generally recognized formula”: “We are talking about a totalitarian or post-totalitarian state, a guardianship state, a supply state or a corporate state with caste rule one of modern dictatorship, educational dictatorship, of party bureaucratic rule or of a new type of patrimonial bureaucracy [...] ”.

literature

Books
  • Rainer Eppelmann , Bernd Faulenbach , Ulrich Mählert (Hrsg.): Balance and perspectives of GDR research . On behalf of the foundation to come to terms with the SED dictatorship. Schöningh, Paderborn / Munich / Vienna 2003, ISBN 978-3-506-70110-7 .
  • Jens Hacker: German errors. Schönfärber and accomplices of the SED dictatorship in the West , Ullstein, Berlin [u. a.] 1992, ISBN 3-550-07207-4 .
  • Heinz Peter Hamacher: GDR research and policy advice 1949-1990. A branch of science between self-assertion and the need to adapt , science and politics (Library Science and Politics, 46), Cologne 1991, ISBN 3-8046-8768-7 .
  • Jens Hüttmann: GDR history and its researchers. Actors and economic trends in West German GDR research , Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-938690-83-6 .
  • Eckhard Jesse : The political science GDR research in the Federal Republic of Germany , in: Heiner Timmermann (Hrsg.): GDR research. Balance sheet and perspectives (documents and writings of the European Academy Otzenhausen, 76), Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 1995, pp. 315–357, ISBN 3-428-08462-4 (reprinted in: Eckhard Jesse: Democracy in Germany. Diagnoses and analyzes . ed. and introduced by Uwe Backes and Alexander Gallus , Böhlau, Cologne [u. a.] 2008, pp 117-154 , ISBN 978-3-412-20157-9 ).
  • Ulrich Mählert (Hrsg.): Vademecum DDR research. A guide to archives, research institutes, libraries, political education institutions, associations, museums and memorials . A publication of the foundation for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship. Links, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-8100-1972-0 .
  • Heiner Timmermann (Ed.): GDR research. Balance sheet and perspectives (documents and writings of the European Academy Otzenhausen, 76), Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-428-08462-4 .
Magazines

Web links

  • Review of the current , newsletter of the Federal Foundation for the review of the SED dictatorship.
  • Holger Kulick: The east falls down behind. Spiegel Online . January 22, 2002, accessed January 29, 2012 .
  • Ralph Jessen: Have you already researched everything? Observations on contemporary GDR research over the past 20 years , in: Germany Archive , 6/2010, pp. 1052-1064 .
  • Jens Hüttmann: “De-De-Errology” in the crossfire of criticism. The controversies about the “old” West German GDR research before and after 1989 ; in: Germany Archive , 4/2007, pp. 671–681 .
  • Klaus Schroeder , Jochen Staadt : straightening out history. The "system-immanent GDR research" is said to have been better than its reputation. On Jens Hüttmann's Eloge on the “De-De-Errology” ; in: Germany Archive , 5/2007, pp. 890–899 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Markus Gloe: Planning for German Unity: The Research Advisory Board for Questions about the Reunification of Germany 1952-1975. Springer, 2015, p. 151 f.
  2. ^ Peter Christian Ludz: Party elite in transition. Functional structure, social structure and ideology of the SED leadership. An empirical-systematic study (writings of the Institute for Political Science Vol. 21), Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne a. a. 1968.
  3. ↑ GDR manual , edited by the Federal Ministry for Inner German Relations. Scientific director: Peter Christian Ludz. With the participation of Johannes Kuppe, 2nd completely revised and expanded edition. Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1979.
  4. ↑ Gloe 2015, p. 294 f.
  5. ^ A b GDR and East German Studies in North America. (No longer available online.) In: www.calvin.edu. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved October 18, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Gloe 2015, p. 301 f.
  7. ↑ Gloe 2015, p. 306.
  8. ^ Inquiry online. The Enquete Commissions to come to terms with the SED dictatorship. In: Federal Foundation for the Processing of the SED Dictatorship. Retrieved on July 19, 2019 (German).
  9. ^ Günter Heydemann: The internal politics of the GDR. Oldenbourg, Munich 2003.
  10. ↑ Gloe 2015, p. 295.
  11. ↑ Gerd Dietrich: Review of: Eppelmann, Rainer / Faulenbach, Bernd / Mählert, Ulrich (Eds.): Balance and Perspectives of GDR Research , in H-Soz-u-Kult , Humboldt University Berlin, July 7, 2009.