ABSTRACT
The division of Germany in 1949 provides an extremely interesting test case for theories of citizenship definition and national identity construction. Initially founded as ‘temporary’, impermanent entities, products of the emergent Cold War, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic over time became widely accepted as apparently permanent features of the geopolitical landscape of divided post-war Europe. Concepts of national identity were transformed as a result of a wide range of processes, including the changing social and economic context, the passage of generations, and a number of political considerations, not least the changing relations between the two Germanies themselves. The German case highlights particularly the dissonance between a number of aspects of citizenship definition and identity construction which suggest a growing disparity between official conceptions of citizenship and popular conceptions of nationality and belonging.
