ABSTRACT

Between the time when Gorbachev took office in the Soviet Union and the resignation of Erich Honecker in the German Democratic Republic, Germany maintained its separateness from the rest of East European developments, in particular the reform movements there, with the claim that it had ‘socialism in the colours of the GDR’. This chapter examines housing ‘in the colours of the GDR’ during this period, with some references to the brief reform discussions that immediately followed it, but ended with the absorption of the GDR into the Federal Rebublic of Germany (FRG).