ABSTRACT
Epilogue expresses some preliminary thoughts on the legacy of East German antifascist education and commemorative traditions in the new federal states of Eastern Germany. Many German Democratic Republic (GDR) commemorative traditions have been transformed and continued in an altered form, revealing an incomplete rejection of Namensverleihung practices from GDR schools. The GDR practice of creating visual displays in memory of the school's namesake has also continued in a muted form in school hallways to encourage continual interaction with the patron's philosophy and biography. However, one similarity between GDR-era and contemporary schools is that student's study of and interaction with their namesake's biography and life's work are not intended to end with the Namensverleihung ceremony. The fact that some contemporary traditions are tempered and controlled versions of GDR practices suggests a certain degree of continuity between East German and contemporary forms of tradition work that grows out of familiarity with and an incomplete rejection of GDR traditions.
