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.

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.

Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Concept of ‘Normalisation’ and the GDR in Comparative Perspective
Mary Fulbrook

PART I: NORMALISATION AS STABILISATION AND ROUTINISATION? SYSTEMIC PARAMETERS AND THE ROLES OF FUNCTIONARIES

Chapter 1. ‘Aggression in Felt Slippers’: Normalisation and Western Covert Activities in the Context of Détente and Ostpolitik
Merrilyn Thomas

Chapter 2. Economic Politics and Company Culture: The Problem of Routinisation
Jeannette Madarász

Chapter 3. The Professionalisation of Agriculture: Functionaries on the Land
George Last

Chapter 4. The Societalisation of the State: Sport for the Masses and Popular Music
Dan Wilton

Chapter 5. Communication and Compromise: The Prerequisites for Cultural Participation
Esther von Richthofen

Chapter 6. Local Functionaries and Renegotiations of Heimat
Jan Palmowski

PART II: NORMALISATION AS INTERNALISATION? CONFORMITY, ‘NORMALITY’ AND ‘PLAYING THE RULES’

Chapter 7. Practices of Survival - Ways of Appropriating ‘the Rules’: Reconsidering Approaches to the History of the GDR
Alf Lüdtke

Chapter 8. The GDR – A Perfectly Normal Country, in the Centre of Europe
Ina Merkel

Chapter 9. How Do the 1929ers and the 1949ers Differ?
Dorothee Wierling

Chapter 10. Producing the ‘Socialist Personality’? Socialisation, Education and the Emergence of New Patterns of Behaviour
Angela Brock

Chatper 11. 1977: The Most Normal Year of the GDR?
Mark Allinson

Notes on contributors
Bibliography
Index