ABSTRACT
Interview with Paula an eleventh-grade student in the Goethe Gymnasium in Weimar, after her social studies class in October 1994. A Weimar native who had sought an Ausreiseantrag to leave the GDR in the 1980s, she spent two years in the west in Hamburg immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall during 1990-92. Paula is a strong critic of capitalism and engages in a class-based analysis in the Marxist spirit. Paula emphasizes the spiritual and moral aspects of the socialist ethos. Frau Ulrike Smute is Paula's social studies teacher. The social studies class featured a debate on Marxism and Karl Marx, along with discussion about the SED and PDS. For older eastern Germans, a freewheeling discussion about Marxism is an inquiry into their life experiences. They are unable to separate the issue as can pupils such as Paula, who still has her youth and a faith in a new world order.
