ABSTRACT
The Western-oriented Federal Republic (FRG) and the Soviet-dominated German Democratic Republic (GDR) increasingly undertook their own search for identity and developed distinctly separate roles within their respective "camps" during the Cold War. When the chapter considers the notion of a separate East German identity and political culture, it explores the matter in two directions. First, there is the possibility of an identity and a culture specifically linked to the GDR as a socialist state on German soil. The second tack includes aspects of an East German identity and culture that build upon older German traditions peculiar to the territory on which the GDR was created in 1949. The relationship between the GDR and the Prussian legacy was embedded in the larger theme of East Germany's relationship with and treatment of all-German history. An admittedly dictatorial regime may have been able to impart a noticeable ideological legacy, the elements of a possibly enduring "East" Germany.
