Paul Betts
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199208845
- eISBN:
- 9780191594755
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199208845.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Social History, Economic History
The Epilogue tackles 1989 and its aftermath, mostly in terms of the manifold forms of the reassertion of private life in the 1990s. How and why private life has featured so prominently in post-1989 ...
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The Epilogue tackles 1989 and its aftermath, mostly in terms of the manifold forms of the reassertion of private life in the 1990s. How and why private life has featured so prominently in post-1989 memory-making is the main focus of this final section. It dovetails with the book's overall aim, which is to investigate the changing meaning of the private sphere across a variety of fields, ranging from law to photography, religion to interior decoration, family life to memoir literature, and to point to the myriad ways that private life was articulated and staged by citizens living in communist society.Less
The Epilogue tackles 1989 and its aftermath, mostly in terms of the manifold forms of the reassertion of private life in the 1990s. How and why private life has featured so prominently in post-1989 memory-making is the main focus of this final section. It dovetails with the book's overall aim, which is to investigate the changing meaning of the private sphere across a variety of fields, ranging from law to photography, religion to interior decoration, family life to memoir literature, and to point to the myriad ways that private life was articulated and staged by citizens living in communist society.
Laura Bradley
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199589630
- eISBN:
- 9780191595479
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589630.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, European Literature
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the authorities in the German Democratic Republic always denied that they practised censorship. Their denial had a major impact on the language and ...
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Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the authorities in the German Democratic Republic always denied that they practised censorship. Their denial had a major impact on the language and experience of theatre censorship. It left theatre practitioners doubly exposed: they remained officially responsible for their productions, even if the productions had passed pre‐performance controls. In the absence of a fixed set of criteria, cultural functionaries had to make difficult judgements about which plays and productions to allow, and where to draw the line between constructive criticism and subversion. Drawing on a wealth of new archive material, the book explores how theatre practitioners and functionaries negotiated these challenges between 1961 and 1989. The chapters in Part I explore theatre censorship in East Berlin, asking how the controls affected different genres and how theatre practitioners responded to the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Prague Spring, and the expatriation of Wolf Biermann. Part II broadens the focus to the regions, investigating why theatre practitioners complained of strong regional variations in theatre censorship, and how they responded to Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika. By examining a range of case studies, from banned stagings to those that met with official approval, the book puts high‐profile disputes back into context. It shows how censorship operated through human negotiation, illuminating the patterns of cooperation and conflict that influenced the space available for theatrical experimentation.Less
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the authorities in the German Democratic Republic always denied that they practised censorship. Their denial had a major impact on the language and experience of theatre censorship. It left theatre practitioners doubly exposed: they remained officially responsible for their productions, even if the productions had passed pre‐performance controls. In the absence of a fixed set of criteria, cultural functionaries had to make difficult judgements about which plays and productions to allow, and where to draw the line between constructive criticism and subversion. Drawing on a wealth of new archive material, the book explores how theatre practitioners and functionaries negotiated these challenges between 1961 and 1989. The chapters in Part I explore theatre censorship in East Berlin, asking how the controls affected different genres and how theatre practitioners responded to the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Prague Spring, and the expatriation of Wolf Biermann. Part II broadens the focus to the regions, investigating why theatre practitioners complained of strong regional variations in theatre censorship, and how they responded to Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika. By examining a range of case studies, from banned stagings to those that met with official approval, the book puts high‐profile disputes back into context. It shows how censorship operated through human negotiation, illuminating the patterns of cooperation and conflict that influenced the space available for theatrical experimentation.
Paul Maddrell
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199267507
- eISBN:
- 9780191708404
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199267507.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter discusses that traditional espionage using human spies peaked in Germany in the years 1945-1961. It explains two goals in conducting espionage in East Germany: to provide warning of any ...
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This chapter discusses that traditional espionage using human spies peaked in Germany in the years 1945-1961. It explains two goals in conducting espionage in East Germany: to provide warning of any attack on Western Europe by the Soviet army, and to use the DDR's (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) connections with the Soviet Union to penetrate the latter. It also discusses the large programmes of arrests carried out by the Stasi of large numbers of Western spies and anti-Communist resistance fighters. It explains that despite losing many of its sources, the CIA claims that it achieved great success in Germany that resulted from the number of their spies and the depth of their penetration of East Germany's ministries, factories, political parties, armed forces, and Western services. It adds that the open border in Berlin allowed the Western secret services to fully exploit flight from the SED regime and resistance to it.Less
This chapter discusses that traditional espionage using human spies peaked in Germany in the years 1945-1961. It explains two goals in conducting espionage in East Germany: to provide warning of any attack on Western Europe by the Soviet army, and to use the DDR's (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) connections with the Soviet Union to penetrate the latter. It also discusses the large programmes of arrests carried out by the Stasi of large numbers of Western spies and anti-Communist resistance fighters. It explains that despite losing many of its sources, the CIA claims that it achieved great success in Germany that resulted from the number of their spies and the depth of their penetration of East Germany's ministries, factories, political parties, armed forces, and Western services. It adds that the open border in Berlin allowed the Western secret services to fully exploit flight from the SED regime and resistance to it.
Christiane Lenk
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199759392
- eISBN:
- 9780199918911
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199759392.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Das Leben der Anderen shows surveillance by the Stasi as an integral part of the East German past. Yet surveillance is not solely achieved through sight, but more ...
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Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Das Leben der Anderen shows surveillance by the Stasi as an integral part of the East German past. Yet surveillance is not solely achieved through sight, but more importantly through sophisticated methods of eavesdropping. Aural surveillance is the focus of this chapter, which uses Michel Foucault’s Panopticon as the basis for analyzing the power relations between observer and observed, and how the observed internalizes the system of oppression. This chapter explores the two functions of sound in the film: sound as a means of oppression, and at the same time as a vehicle to overcome it.Less
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Das Leben der Anderen shows surveillance by the Stasi as an integral part of the East German past. Yet surveillance is not solely achieved through sight, but more importantly through sophisticated methods of eavesdropping. Aural surveillance is the focus of this chapter, which uses Michel Foucault’s Panopticon as the basis for analyzing the power relations between observer and observed, and how the observed internalizes the system of oppression. This chapter explores the two functions of sound in the film: sound as a means of oppression, and at the same time as a vehicle to overcome it.
Laura Bradley
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199589630
- eISBN:
- 9780191595479
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589630.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, European Literature
This chapter introduces the challenges that theatre presented to those seeking to control it in the GDR. It argues that an inclusive approach is necessary in order to understand GDR theatre ...
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This chapter introduces the challenges that theatre presented to those seeking to control it in the GDR. It argues that an inclusive approach is necessary in order to understand GDR theatre censorship, as a complex system of controls and rewards helped to constitute how theatrical processes worked. It relates this approach to theories of constitutive censorship, drawing particularly on the work of Pierre Bourdieu. The chapter goes on to explore the origins and implications of the GDR authorities' denial of censorship, showing how a euphemistic discourse evolved to describe the controls on culture. It introduces the key institutions involved in theatre censorship, explaining how the controls were rooted in theatres themselves. Stasi informers were just one part of this internal network. The final sections outline the source materials, methods, and structure of the book.Less
This chapter introduces the challenges that theatre presented to those seeking to control it in the GDR. It argues that an inclusive approach is necessary in order to understand GDR theatre censorship, as a complex system of controls and rewards helped to constitute how theatrical processes worked. It relates this approach to theories of constitutive censorship, drawing particularly on the work of Pierre Bourdieu. The chapter goes on to explore the origins and implications of the GDR authorities' denial of censorship, showing how a euphemistic discourse evolved to describe the controls on culture. It introduces the key institutions involved in theatre censorship, explaining how the controls were rooted in theatres themselves. Stasi informers were just one part of this internal network. The final sections outline the source materials, methods, and structure of the book.
Patrick Major
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199243280
- eISBN:
- 9780191714061
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243280.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Turns to the counter‐measures to the open border in the fifties, adopted by East German authorities forced to walk a tightrope between repression and liberalization, either of which could accelerate ...
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Turns to the counter‐measures to the open border in the fifties, adopted by East German authorities forced to walk a tightrope between repression and liberalization, either of which could accelerate flights to the West. The regime's inbuilt tendency to identify ideological factors and conspiracy theories as motives was coupled with a blind spot to the fundamental reasons driving away its citizenry. Instead, the apparatus was often blamed for the superficial handling of policy. Schemes in the early 1950s to recruit West Germans proved fanciful. More problematic was the drastic curtailment of legal travel to the Federal Republic in 1952, which petitions reveal to have caused considerable internal discontent, only partially defused by travel liberalization following the June 1953 uprising. Certain key groups such as the intelligentsia were bought off with privileges which antagonized other sections of the population. The author's research also reveals the importance of ‘legal’ defections on holiday visas in the mid‐1950s, and of the criminalization of Republikflucht in December 1957 in shifting the pattern of flights to Berlin as the easy outlet to the West. The chapter finishes by showing the police and Stasi's frantic efforts to seal off Greater Berlin with a human cordon in 1960, followed by the final decision in 1961 to resort to a physical wall.Less
Turns to the counter‐measures to the open border in the fifties, adopted by East German authorities forced to walk a tightrope between repression and liberalization, either of which could accelerate flights to the West. The regime's inbuilt tendency to identify ideological factors and conspiracy theories as motives was coupled with a blind spot to the fundamental reasons driving away its citizenry. Instead, the apparatus was often blamed for the superficial handling of policy. Schemes in the early 1950s to recruit West Germans proved fanciful. More problematic was the drastic curtailment of legal travel to the Federal Republic in 1952, which petitions reveal to have caused considerable internal discontent, only partially defused by travel liberalization following the June 1953 uprising. Certain key groups such as the intelligentsia were bought off with privileges which antagonized other sections of the population. The author's research also reveals the importance of ‘legal’ defections on holiday visas in the mid‐1950s, and of the criminalization of Republikflucht in December 1957 in shifting the pattern of flights to Berlin as the easy outlet to the West. The chapter finishes by showing the police and Stasi's frantic efforts to seal off Greater Berlin with a human cordon in 1960, followed by the final decision in 1961 to resort to a physical wall.
Patrick Major
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199243280
- eISBN:
- 9780191714061
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243280.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Uses petitions to the Security section of the East German communist party to monitor the Wanderlust of East Germans seeking to take advantage of the travel reforms enacted in the wake of Ostpolitik ...
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Uses petitions to the Security section of the East German communist party to monitor the Wanderlust of East Germans seeking to take advantage of the travel reforms enacted in the wake of Ostpolitik in the early 1970s. The fact that only East Germans with western relatives could partake of these exceptions created a two‐tier mentality in the GDR, undermining egalitarian claims. The Stasi's involvement in vetting travellers is considered, and the paradox that ‘regime‐carriers' such as soldiers and teachers were least likely to be granted travel to the West, generating resentments against punishment for loyalty. The chapter then proceeds to the more serious step of applications to leave the country once and for all, and the Stasi's attempts to stifle what became a nascent civil rights movement in the 1980s. It concludes by considering the tensions which arose between emigration seekers and reformers who wanted to stay in the GDR to work from within—rifts which have left their mark in the historiography of East German dissidence.Less
Uses petitions to the Security section of the East German communist party to monitor the Wanderlust of East Germans seeking to take advantage of the travel reforms enacted in the wake of Ostpolitik in the early 1970s. The fact that only East Germans with western relatives could partake of these exceptions created a two‐tier mentality in the GDR, undermining egalitarian claims. The Stasi's involvement in vetting travellers is considered, and the paradox that ‘regime‐carriers' such as soldiers and teachers were least likely to be granted travel to the West, generating resentments against punishment for loyalty. The chapter then proceeds to the more serious step of applications to leave the country once and for all, and the Stasi's attempts to stifle what became a nascent civil rights movement in the 1980s. It concludes by considering the tensions which arose between emigration seekers and reformers who wanted to stay in the GDR to work from within—rifts which have left their mark in the historiography of East German dissidence.
Andrew Demshuk
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190645120
- eISBN:
- 9780190645151
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190645120.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
Communist East Germany’s demolition of Leipzig’s intact medieval University Church in May 1968 was an act widely decried as “cultural barbarism”. Although overshadowed by the crackdown on Prague ...
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Communist East Germany’s demolition of Leipzig’s intact medieval University Church in May 1968 was an act widely decried as “cultural barbarism”. Although overshadowed by the crackdown on Prague Spring mere weeks later, the willful destruction of this historic landmark on a central site called Karl Marx Square represents an essential turning point in relations between the Communist authorities and the “people” they claimed to serve. As the largest case of East German protest between the 1953 Uprising and 1989 Revolution, this intimate local trauma exhibits how the inner workings of a “dictatorial” system operated more broadly and exposes the often gray and overlapping lines between State and citizenry. Through deep analysis of untapped periodicals and archives, it introduces a broad cast of characters who helped make the demolition possible and restores the voices of ordinary citizens who dared in the name of culture, humanism, and civic pride to protest what they saw as an inconceivable tragedy. In this city that later started the 1989 Revolution triggering the fall of the Berlin Wall, residents from every social background desperately hoped to convince their leaders to step back from the brink. But as the dust cleared in 1968, they saw with all finality that their voices meant nothing, that the DDR was a sham democracy awash with utopian rhetoric that had no connection with their everyday lives. If Communism died in Prague in 1968, it had already died in Leipzig just weeks before, with repercussions that still haunt today’s politics of memory.Less
Communist East Germany’s demolition of Leipzig’s intact medieval University Church in May 1968 was an act widely decried as “cultural barbarism”. Although overshadowed by the crackdown on Prague Spring mere weeks later, the willful destruction of this historic landmark on a central site called Karl Marx Square represents an essential turning point in relations between the Communist authorities and the “people” they claimed to serve. As the largest case of East German protest between the 1953 Uprising and 1989 Revolution, this intimate local trauma exhibits how the inner workings of a “dictatorial” system operated more broadly and exposes the often gray and overlapping lines between State and citizenry. Through deep analysis of untapped periodicals and archives, it introduces a broad cast of characters who helped make the demolition possible and restores the voices of ordinary citizens who dared in the name of culture, humanism, and civic pride to protest what they saw as an inconceivable tragedy. In this city that later started the 1989 Revolution triggering the fall of the Berlin Wall, residents from every social background desperately hoped to convince their leaders to step back from the brink. But as the dust cleared in 1968, they saw with all finality that their voices meant nothing, that the DDR was a sham democracy awash with utopian rhetoric that had no connection with their everyday lives. If Communism died in Prague in 1968, it had already died in Leipzig just weeks before, with repercussions that still haunt today’s politics of memory.
Andreas Glaeser
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226297934
- eISBN:
- 9780226297958
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226297958.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Theory
A monolithic intentionality, the unity and the purity of the party (and ideally of the whole population), was the best way to move socialism forward on its inevitable path to communism. This chapter ...
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A monolithic intentionality, the unity and the purity of the party (and ideally of the whole population), was the best way to move socialism forward on its inevitable path to communism. This chapter describes the organizational principles understood by the party as assuring central control, the principles of democratic centralism and central planning. Socialist consciousness, the Marxist-Leninist way of differentiating and integrating the world, also needed to be produced substantively the vast propaganda apparatus of the party conducted a politics of education. Since the party assumed that the class enemy would aim at interfering with this task, the smooth operation of the propaganda apparatus needed to be safeguarded against “sabotage” and the “soddening” influence of the class-enemies' attempts to interfere in the party's project. The party state employed a politics of disablement and disarticulation, trying to prevent the GDR's populations from having access to certain ideas or people. Furthermore, this chapter discusses the Stasi and the ways in which it figured into the party's project of creating a monolithic intentionality.Less
A monolithic intentionality, the unity and the purity of the party (and ideally of the whole population), was the best way to move socialism forward on its inevitable path to communism. This chapter describes the organizational principles understood by the party as assuring central control, the principles of democratic centralism and central planning. Socialist consciousness, the Marxist-Leninist way of differentiating and integrating the world, also needed to be produced substantively the vast propaganda apparatus of the party conducted a politics of education. Since the party assumed that the class enemy would aim at interfering with this task, the smooth operation of the propaganda apparatus needed to be safeguarded against “sabotage” and the “soddening” influence of the class-enemies' attempts to interfere in the party's project. The party state employed a politics of disablement and disarticulation, trying to prevent the GDR's populations from having access to certain ideas or people. Furthermore, this chapter discusses the Stasi and the ways in which it figured into the party's project of creating a monolithic intentionality.
Andreas Glaeser
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226297934
- eISBN:
- 9780226297958
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226297958.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Theory
This chapter provides an understanding of how particular understandings become stabilized, are maintained, and decay among a particular set of people. It investigates the structure and dynamics of ...
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This chapter provides an understanding of how particular understandings become stabilized, are maintained, and decay among a particular set of people. It investigates the structure and dynamics of the authority networks in which these people operate. It explores the principles according to which officers in socialist East Germany learned to ascribe authority over their political understandings to others and describes how the structure of their networks of authority was influenced by the organizational cultures and structures of Stasi. The open border between both parts of Germany, together with West Germany's refusal to recognize an independent GDR citizenship, implies that those people who felt socialism to be insufferable could leave the country without many of the more traumatic consequences that refugee status usually entails. Furthermore, this chapter analyzes the discursive cultures that characterize these networks because the very precondition for understandings to be recognized is that they are allowed to emerge and develop in interaction.Less
This chapter provides an understanding of how particular understandings become stabilized, are maintained, and decay among a particular set of people. It investigates the structure and dynamics of the authority networks in which these people operate. It explores the principles according to which officers in socialist East Germany learned to ascribe authority over their political understandings to others and describes how the structure of their networks of authority was influenced by the organizational cultures and structures of Stasi. The open border between both parts of Germany, together with West Germany's refusal to recognize an independent GDR citizenship, implies that those people who felt socialism to be insufferable could leave the country without many of the more traumatic consequences that refugee status usually entails. Furthermore, this chapter analyzes the discursive cultures that characterize these networks because the very precondition for understandings to be recognized is that they are allowed to emerge and develop in interaction.
Andreas Glaeser
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226297934
- eISBN:
- 9780226297958
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226297958.003.0010
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Theory
This chapter describes and analyzes the means used by the secret police to control the formation of dissident groups and their activities in socialist East Germany. It interprets these efforts of the ...
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This chapter describes and analyzes the means used by the secret police to control the formation of dissident groups and their activities in socialist East Germany. It interprets these efforts of the Stasi as a particular form of politics undertaken with the intention to prevent, hinder, or undo the formation of party-critical institutions. These efforts were oriented and directed by the party state's political understandings about how dissident activities come about. This chapter is devoted to the exploration of “PID/PUT/'opposition'” theory and its institutionalization in rules and regulations as well as in actual practices. It shows how this theory acquired credibility among party officials and Stasi officers within the international context in which it was developed and the first cases to which it was applied. Analyzing the relationship between the Stasi's guidance officers and their informants leads to the question of how socialism produces knowledge about itself and how this knowledge informs actions to maintain its institutional order, that is, in the language of political epistemology, to engage in self-politics.Less
This chapter describes and analyzes the means used by the secret police to control the formation of dissident groups and their activities in socialist East Germany. It interprets these efforts of the Stasi as a particular form of politics undertaken with the intention to prevent, hinder, or undo the formation of party-critical institutions. These efforts were oriented and directed by the party state's political understandings about how dissident activities come about. This chapter is devoted to the exploration of “PID/PUT/'opposition'” theory and its institutionalization in rules and regulations as well as in actual practices. It shows how this theory acquired credibility among party officials and Stasi officers within the international context in which it was developed and the first cases to which it was applied. Analyzing the relationship between the Stasi's guidance officers and their informants leads to the question of how socialism produces knowledge about itself and how this knowledge informs actions to maintain its institutional order, that is, in the language of political epistemology, to engage in self-politics.
Annette R. Hofmann
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496809889
- eISBN:
- 9781496809926
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496809889.003.0014
- Subject:
- Sociology, Sport and Leisure
German figure skater and Olympic darling Katarina Witt is the focus of this chapter. Witt was trained at an early age as a figure skater in the then East German sporting program. As a successful ...
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German figure skater and Olympic darling Katarina Witt is the focus of this chapter. Witt was trained at an early age as a figure skater in the then East German sporting program. As a successful athlete, Witt was afforded a lifestyle significantly better than the average East German citizen and was able to travel and enjoy Western culture in ways her fellow East Germans could not. However, her sport stardom also left her under the control of the East German government and a target of the Stasi. After the fall of the Berlin War, Witt was able to successfully travel and compete around the world, gaining greater recognition around the world, and representing a new united Germany.Less
German figure skater and Olympic darling Katarina Witt is the focus of this chapter. Witt was trained at an early age as a figure skater in the then East German sporting program. As a successful athlete, Witt was afforded a lifestyle significantly better than the average East German citizen and was able to travel and enjoy Western culture in ways her fellow East Germans could not. However, her sport stardom also left her under the control of the East German government and a target of the Stasi. After the fall of the Berlin War, Witt was able to successfully travel and compete around the world, gaining greater recognition around the world, and representing a new united Germany.
Jonathan Haslam and Karina Urbach (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804783590
- eISBN:
- 9780804788915
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804783590.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Like secret intelligence itself, the history of secret intelligence is elusive, for unknowns abound regarding the reliability and completeness of sources, and the motivations behind their release, ...
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Like secret intelligence itself, the history of secret intelligence is elusive, for unknowns abound regarding the reliability and completeness of sources, and the motivations behind their release, which are often the product of ongoing propaganda efforts as well as competition among agencies. Indeed, these difficulties lead to the challenge of both overestimating and underestimating the importance of secret intelligence for foreign policy and statecraft. In recent decades, however, traditional perspectives have shifted ground and judgments can be revised in light of new evidence. This volume brings together a collection of essays that avoid the traditional pitfalls, while carrying out the essential task of analyzing the recent evidence concerning the history of the European states system of the last century. The essays offer an array of insight across countries and across time. Together they highlight the critical importance of the prevailing domestic circumstances—technological, governmental, ideological, cultural, financial—in which intelligence operates. A keen interdisciplinary eye focused on these developments leaves us with a far more complete understanding of secret intelligence in Europe than we have ever had before.Less
Like secret intelligence itself, the history of secret intelligence is elusive, for unknowns abound regarding the reliability and completeness of sources, and the motivations behind their release, which are often the product of ongoing propaganda efforts as well as competition among agencies. Indeed, these difficulties lead to the challenge of both overestimating and underestimating the importance of secret intelligence for foreign policy and statecraft. In recent decades, however, traditional perspectives have shifted ground and judgments can be revised in light of new evidence. This volume brings together a collection of essays that avoid the traditional pitfalls, while carrying out the essential task of analyzing the recent evidence concerning the history of the European states system of the last century. The essays offer an array of insight across countries and across time. Together they highlight the critical importance of the prevailing domestic circumstances—technological, governmental, ideological, cultural, financial—in which intelligence operates. A keen interdisciplinary eye focused on these developments leaves us with a far more complete understanding of secret intelligence in Europe than we have ever had before.
Oliver Bange
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804783590
- eISBN:
- 9780804788915
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804783590.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Looking at East Germany (or the German Democratic Republic, GDR), Oliver Bange points out how intelligence gathering and analysis under dictatorship is hindered by mirror-imaging the adversary’s ...
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Looking at East Germany (or the German Democratic Republic, GDR), Oliver Bange points out how intelligence gathering and analysis under dictatorship is hindered by mirror-imaging the adversary’s intentions, and thereby misdirecting an expensive intelligence effort to futile ends, while consuming precious, limited material and human means. Namely, the GDR, convinced that it had built a truly socialist society whose only threat lay in external states, led the ruling decision-makers to chronically underestimate the possibility of dissent within their own society. As a result, intelligence efforts were expended on collecting information about “counterrevolution” initiatives from the West—a misguided anxiety, as détente-minded politicians on the other side of the Iron Curtain had long deserted the cause of liberating those under Communist rule. The East German regime, here as elsewhere, undermined its own security through a lack of self-questioning and subordination to doctrine.Less
Looking at East Germany (or the German Democratic Republic, GDR), Oliver Bange points out how intelligence gathering and analysis under dictatorship is hindered by mirror-imaging the adversary’s intentions, and thereby misdirecting an expensive intelligence effort to futile ends, while consuming precious, limited material and human means. Namely, the GDR, convinced that it had built a truly socialist society whose only threat lay in external states, led the ruling decision-makers to chronically underestimate the possibility of dissent within their own society. As a result, intelligence efforts were expended on collecting information about “counterrevolution” initiatives from the West—a misguided anxiety, as détente-minded politicians on the other side of the Iron Curtain had long deserted the cause of liberating those under Communist rule. The East German regime, here as elsewhere, undermined its own security through a lack of self-questioning and subordination to doctrine.
Mark Coté
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474409483
- eISBN:
- 9781474426954
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474409483.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Metadata has jumped from the specialist vernacular of the archivist and programmer to public discourse in the wake of the Snowden revelations. Yet the precise nature and import of this seemingly ...
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Metadata has jumped from the specialist vernacular of the archivist and programmer to public discourse in the wake of the Snowden revelations. Yet the precise nature and import of this seemingly technical artifact remains dimly understood. This chapter will undertake a cold war archaeology of metadata, from analogue information gathered by the East German Stasi to the born digital data accessed by the NSA and GCHQ. Metadata is a key cipher for the contemporary technocultural condition, and the chapter offers a case study of broader shifts in techne (the constitutive relationship between the human and technology) and in labouring practices as afforded by our data-infused digital environment. The chapter provides a concise history of metadata as highly structured data for the information discovery of data objects. Changing surveillance practices reflect the increasingly fine granularity of the digital human to the extent that now we can be considered as data objects. The degree to which this manifests an ontological shift is addressed in relation to philosophical debates about materiality and the nonhuman. It also illustrates a changing ecosystem for new kinds of informational politics. The chapter concludes by reconceptualising the persistent generation of born-digital metadata via Simondon.Less
Metadata has jumped from the specialist vernacular of the archivist and programmer to public discourse in the wake of the Snowden revelations. Yet the precise nature and import of this seemingly technical artifact remains dimly understood. This chapter will undertake a cold war archaeology of metadata, from analogue information gathered by the East German Stasi to the born digital data accessed by the NSA and GCHQ. Metadata is a key cipher for the contemporary technocultural condition, and the chapter offers a case study of broader shifts in techne (the constitutive relationship between the human and technology) and in labouring practices as afforded by our data-infused digital environment. The chapter provides a concise history of metadata as highly structured data for the information discovery of data objects. Changing surveillance practices reflect the increasingly fine granularity of the digital human to the extent that now we can be considered as data objects. The degree to which this manifests an ontological shift is addressed in relation to philosophical debates about materiality and the nonhuman. It also illustrates a changing ecosystem for new kinds of informational politics. The chapter concludes by reconceptualising the persistent generation of born-digital metadata via Simondon.
Aribert Schroeder
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604737844
- eISBN:
- 9781604737851
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604737844.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter examines how race in America was depicted in East Germany by focusing on the life of African American cartoonist and journalist Oliver Wendell Harrington. Harrington, who used his ...
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This chapter examines how race in America was depicted in East Germany by focusing on the life of African American cartoonist and journalist Oliver Wendell Harrington. Harrington, who used his caricatures and writings to fight racism and colonialism worldwide, sought political asylum in East Berlin in November 1961 after his good friend and fellow writer, Richard Wright, died in Paris. When he criticized GDR cultural policies restricting expression and travel by artists and intellectuals, the Stasi (the East German secret service) began to spy on him, and used informants to monitor his activities. The chapter looks at Harrington’s contact with African Americans who were members of the Communist Party of the United States, upon their visit to East Germany. It also considers his insights into the perspective of the African American left and the GDR’s views on race, the African American civil rights movement, and the African national liberation struggle.Less
This chapter examines how race in America was depicted in East Germany by focusing on the life of African American cartoonist and journalist Oliver Wendell Harrington. Harrington, who used his caricatures and writings to fight racism and colonialism worldwide, sought political asylum in East Berlin in November 1961 after his good friend and fellow writer, Richard Wright, died in Paris. When he criticized GDR cultural policies restricting expression and travel by artists and intellectuals, the Stasi (the East German secret service) began to spy on him, and used informants to monitor his activities. The chapter looks at Harrington’s contact with African Americans who were members of the Communist Party of the United States, upon their visit to East Germany. It also considers his insights into the perspective of the African American left and the GDR’s views on race, the African American civil rights movement, and the African national liberation struggle.
Andrew Demshuk
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190645120
- eISBN:
- 9780190645151
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190645120.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
After establishing the main arguments and stakes of the overall project, the introduction lays out the evolving power structures of Communist East Germany to explain who was responsible for the ...
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After establishing the main arguments and stakes of the overall project, the introduction lays out the evolving power structures of Communist East Germany to explain who was responsible for the destruction of the University Church and why. Rejecting the common monolithic explanation that only SED party secretary Walter Ulbricht and local power player Paul Fröhlich destroyed the intact Gothic church, it reveals that a much larger mechanism of compliance and even enthusiasm was necessary to bring about this act of cultural barbarism, from city authorities, the university, and urban planners whose often banal motives (the desire for modern facilities, the dream of building the modern city, etc.) played just as important a role. After looking to Stasi collaboration and the grayness in individual biographies, it identifies the engaged public, the diverse populace that opposed the demolition with great verve to the end.Less
After establishing the main arguments and stakes of the overall project, the introduction lays out the evolving power structures of Communist East Germany to explain who was responsible for the destruction of the University Church and why. Rejecting the common monolithic explanation that only SED party secretary Walter Ulbricht and local power player Paul Fröhlich destroyed the intact Gothic church, it reveals that a much larger mechanism of compliance and even enthusiasm was necessary to bring about this act of cultural barbarism, from city authorities, the university, and urban planners whose often banal motives (the desire for modern facilities, the dream of building the modern city, etc.) played just as important a role. After looking to Stasi collaboration and the grayness in individual biographies, it identifies the engaged public, the diverse populace that opposed the demolition with great verve to the end.
Andrew Demshuk
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190645120
- eISBN:
- 9780190645151
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190645120.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Cultural History
The final progression toward demolishing the University Church in 1968 reveals a regime that not only veiled the whole affair in secrecy, but strove to more effectively terrify and divide its ...
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The final progression toward demolishing the University Church in 1968 reveals a regime that not only veiled the whole affair in secrecy, but strove to more effectively terrify and divide its opponents through vain promises and active intimidation. But the State had underestimated public resilience. Using a lively and diverse series of protest letters, interview transcripts, and on-site accounts, the coming pages exhibit how pending demolition of Leipzig’s University Church prompted the largest case of unrest in East German history between the 1953 Uprising and 1989 Revolution. Fear of the public ultimately prompted frantic preparations toward demolition in mere days, leading to even greater trauma and loss.Less
The final progression toward demolishing the University Church in 1968 reveals a regime that not only veiled the whole affair in secrecy, but strove to more effectively terrify and divide its opponents through vain promises and active intimidation. But the State had underestimated public resilience. Using a lively and diverse series of protest letters, interview transcripts, and on-site accounts, the coming pages exhibit how pending demolition of Leipzig’s University Church prompted the largest case of unrest in East German history between the 1953 Uprising and 1989 Revolution. Fear of the public ultimately prompted frantic preparations toward demolition in mere days, leading to even greater trauma and loss.
Astrid M. Eckert
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- October 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190690052
- eISBN:
- 9780190690083
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190690052.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Political History
In 1977, the village of Gorleben in the border county of Lüchow-Dannenberg was nominated as the potential site of a nuclear waste reprocessing and storage facility. This chapter argues that the ...
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In 1977, the village of Gorleben in the border county of Lüchow-Dannenberg was nominated as the potential site of a nuclear waste reprocessing and storage facility. This chapter argues that the presence of the Iron Curtain shaped and magnified every aspect of the ensuing siting controversy. In view of discursive patterns conceived in the 1950s that framed the border regions as areas in need of industrial development, Gorleben’s borderland location precipitated its nomination. The siting decision endowed county officials with leverage over the federal government, a newfound power they exercised along the lines of the well-established borderland lobby work. The immediate proximity of Gorleben to the inter-German border also drew the GDR into the siting dispute. Gorleben turned the periphery into the center of the longest-lasting anti-nuclear protest in the Federal Republic and changed its energy future, albeit not in ways that proponents of nuclear energy imagined in the 1970s and 1980s.Less
In 1977, the village of Gorleben in the border county of Lüchow-Dannenberg was nominated as the potential site of a nuclear waste reprocessing and storage facility. This chapter argues that the presence of the Iron Curtain shaped and magnified every aspect of the ensuing siting controversy. In view of discursive patterns conceived in the 1950s that framed the border regions as areas in need of industrial development, Gorleben’s borderland location precipitated its nomination. The siting decision endowed county officials with leverage over the federal government, a newfound power they exercised along the lines of the well-established borderland lobby work. The immediate proximity of Gorleben to the inter-German border also drew the GDR into the siting dispute. Gorleben turned the periphery into the center of the longest-lasting anti-nuclear protest in the Federal Republic and changed its energy future, albeit not in ways that proponents of nuclear energy imagined in the 1970s and 1980s.
Robert S. Leiken
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- February 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780195328974
- eISBN:
- 9780190252748
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195328974.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter examines the perceived rise of radical Islam and religious terrorism in France and the predicaments of the country's second-generation Muslims. It begins with an overview of the outbreak ...
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This chapter examines the perceived rise of radical Islam and religious terrorism in France and the predicaments of the country's second-generation Muslims. It begins with an overview of the outbreak of anti-Semitism in France starting in the autumn of 2000 before turning to a discussion of the 2005 riots that erupted in Muslim immigrant ghettos, dubbed by some French and overseas commentators as a “French intifada,” a “Palestinian-style intifada,” or a “permanent” intifada. It also considers the reports of two expert panels, the Obin Commission and the Stasi Commission, citing the alleged Islamization of suburban schools across the country.Less
This chapter examines the perceived rise of radical Islam and religious terrorism in France and the predicaments of the country's second-generation Muslims. It begins with an overview of the outbreak of anti-Semitism in France starting in the autumn of 2000 before turning to a discussion of the 2005 riots that erupted in Muslim immigrant ghettos, dubbed by some French and overseas commentators as a “French intifada,” a “Palestinian-style intifada,” or a “permanent” intifada. It also considers the reports of two expert panels, the Obin Commission and the Stasi Commission, citing the alleged Islamization of suburban schools across the country.
