East German Dissidents And The Revolution Of 1989

In contrast to the dissident movements of Eastern Europe, the East German movement remained committed to the 'revisionist' reform of the communist regime. This book tries to explain why. It is argued that the peculiarities of German history and culture prevented the possibility of a 'national' opposition to communism. As a result, East German dissidents had to remain in a paradoxical way 'loyal' to the old regime.

In contrast to the dissident movements of Eastern Europe, the East German movement remained committed to the 'revisionist' reform of the communist regime. This book tries to explain why. It is argued that the peculiarities of German history and culture prevented the possibility of a 'national' opposition to communism. As a result, East German dissidents had to remain in a paradoxical way 'loyal' to the old regime.

On the night of November 9, 1989, an electrified world watched as the Berlin Wall came down. Communism was dead, the Cold War was over, and freedom was on the rise—or so it seemed. We Were the People tells the story behind this momentous event. In an extraordinary series of interviews, the key actors in the drama that transformed East Germany speak for themselves, describing what they did, what happened and why, and what it has meant to them. The result is a powerful firsthand account of a rare historical moment, one that reverberates far beyond the toppled wall that once divided Germany and the world. The drama We Were the People recreates is remarkable for its richness and complexity. Here are citizens organizing despite threats of bloody crackdowns; party functionaries desperately trying to survive as time-honored political prerogatives crumble beneath their feet; an oppressed people discovering the possibilities of power and freedom, but also the sobering strangeness of new political realities. With their success, East Germans encountered the overpowering might of thie Western neighbor--and stand perplexed before the onslaught of real estate agents, glossy consumer ads, political professionalism--and the discovery that a lifetime of social experience has suddenly lost all usable context. They became, in the words of one participant, a people "without biography." Over all the recent events and unlikely turns recounted here, one thing remains paramount: the sweep of the initial democratic conception that animated the East German revolution. We Were the People brings this movement to life in all its drama and detail, and vividly recovers a historic moment that altered forever the shape of modern Europe. Some Voices of the People Bärbel Bohley/ "Mother of the Revolution" Rainer Eppelmann/ Protestant Pastor Klaus Kaden/ Church Emissary to the Opposition Hans Modrow/ Former Communist Prime Minister Ludwig Mehlhorn/ Opposition Theorist Ingrid Köppe/ Opposition Representative Frank Eigenfeld/ New Forum Harald Wagner/ Democracy Now Sebastian Pflugbeil/ Democratic Strategist East German Workers Cornelia Matzke/ Independent Women's Alliance André Brie/ Party Vice-Chairman Gerhard Ruden/ Environmental Activist Werner Bramke/ Party Academic

Richardson-Little exposes the forgotten history of human rights in the German Democratic Republic, placing the history of the Cold War, Eastern European dissidents and the revolutions of 1989 in a new light. By demonstrating how even a communist dictatorship could imagine itself to be a champion of human rights, this book challenges popular narratives on the fall of the Berlin Wall and illustrates how notions of human rights evolved in the Cold War as they were re-imagined in East Germany by both dissidents and state officials. Ultimately, the fight for human rights in East Germany was part of a global battle in the post-war era over competing conceptions of what human rights meant. Nonetheless, the collapse of dictatorship in East Germany did not end this conflict, as citizens had to choose for themselves what kind of human rights would follow in its wake.

Based on original research, this book explores East German political culture and its role in the revolution of 1989 and in reunification. Specifically the book shows how a set of common values stabilised the communist regime until the 1980s, how the undermining of these values motivated revolutionary mobilization, and how the partial survival of this specific culture and its conflict with West German culture have contributed to the post-unification political crisis.

Explains the extraordinary collapse of Communist East Germany

DIVA critical and comparative reexamination of the East German revolution of 1989 and its aftermath, suggesting which causal mechanisms account for the collapse of the East German state and German reunification./div