This module investigates social developments in GDR society over four decades of communist rule
and social changes in Eastern Germany after the demise of the GDR. Students will be introduced
to the ideological principles which that the Socialist Unity Party attempted to legitimize in the GDR
as the only viable alternative to fascism for a modern society. We will then look at how this ideology
was enforced through state authority in every domain of society. Based on contemporary texts
(e.g. GDR propaganda, GDR writers and other intellectuals) we will further examine how people
negotiated their lives within these officially imposed ideological structures, exploring a range of
individual responses from conformism to non-conformism and opposition. Finally we will look at a
new kind of public authority during the Wende period in the GDR, which triggered the
disintegration of communist power structures, and the subsequent changes in East German
society
