ABSTRACT
A great deal has been written about the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1989—1990 and the subsequent unification of the two Germanys. The supposed attractions of doing business with the Soviet Union assumed rapturous heights in the minds of German business elites. East German policy makers, feeling the GDR position vis-a-vis the Soviet Union threatened, prevailed upon a hospitalized Erich Honecker to publicly introduce the GDR’s very own 32-bit microchip as a triumph of socialist technology. Growing dissent and dissatisfaction with the domestic situation in the GDR were observable throughout the 1980s. The Socialist Unity Party (SED) had successfully dealt with dissent both within and without the SED through jail sentences and subsequent expulsions to the West. The political culture of demonstrations spread from Leipzig and East Berlin to other parts of the GDR, including major cities such as Dresden, Karl-Marx-Stadt, Magdeburg, and Halle.
