ABSTRACT
Based on their power over educational content and on their identification with the Soviet leadership, East German cadres institutionalized a Marxist historiography in education in the early years of the German Democratic Republic. A materialist perspective on history in general and the development of the (German) nation in particular remained the dominant Leitmotiv of East German history education until the demise of the GDR in 1989/90. At the same time, the 1970s and especially the 1980s saw a distinct development away from the internationalism of the early years toward a “re-emotionalized” (Meuschel 1992) emphasis on German history. Although this trend was most obvious in discussions about German unification in 1871, it is visible in all five historical episodes covered by my analyses and represents a significant subtext to the dominant materialist orthodoxy. As the East German leadership was closely aligned with and focused on the
Soviet Union, the trajectory of East German portrayals of history closely followed larger Soviet Bloc trends. From the late 1950s on, when Stalin’s nationalities policy was supplanted by policies that were more focused on individual nation-states, the party leadership in the GDR (in the 1970s and especially the 1980s) re-emphasized particularly German aspects of history. Soviet Bloc trends provided a legitimated source for East German attempts to bind its citizenry more closely to the East German nation-state in the face of labor shortages and rapprochement with (West) Germany.
