The programme for combatting venereal diseases in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany (SOZ), the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Polish Peoples’ Republic (PPR) after the Second World War ...was adopted from the Soviet healthcare model. In order to maintain the spread of infections, both countries introduced specific legislation. The analysis of the regulations shows several similarities, such as establishment of easy access to anti-venereal health services, interruption of the chain of infection, and special treatment of individuals who constituted a danger of spreading the infection through compulsory hospitalisation. However, some differences are also visible. In the PPR, the decision about compulsory hospitalisation was left to individual evaluation of the attending physician. Closed venereology facilities or reformatories for treatment of venereal diseases, which existed in the GDR, were not established through legal regulations in the PPR. Since 1964, Polish law specifically targeted prostitutes and alcoholics as sources of spreading venereal diseases. These groups were not mentioned in the German legal acts. Analysis of praxis of compulsory commitment in the SOZ and GDR shows that mostly young women characterized as “drifters” were sent to closed venereology wards with breach of legal regulations. The number of prostitutes constituted only a very small fraction. In the PPR, the data from contemporary literature also indicates a considerable number of young women, the so-called “drifters”, committed to venereology ward.
This article discusses some current research claims on gender and state socialism in Eastern Europe from 1945 to 1989. It raises questions about claims by Revisionist Feminist Scholars that official ...state socialist women’s organizations were ‘agents’ on behalf of women, or women’s movements, perhaps feminist, and not ‘transmission belts’ of communist parties. State socialist policies are described as ‘friendly towards women’ and ‘pro-women’. In contrast, the author claims that these organizations both were and were not agents on behalf of women, and also prevented women’s agency. Meaningful women’s agency is not actually shown to occur intermittently throughout their history, but in two contexts – before 1955 or in moments of political rupture. Scholars do not distinguish the who, when, and what – Who could be agents? When could they be agents? And what kind of agents could they be? State policies, the author claims, were also at one and the same time ‘friendly’ and ‘unfriendly’ towards women, sometimes harming women. The author explores why this research is happening now, discussing research on Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the Democratic Women’s Organization of Germany (DFD), the Democratic Association of Hungarian Women (MNDSZ), later renamed MNOT, the Romanian National Council of Women (CNF) and the Yugoslav Anti-Fascist Women’s Organization (AFZ).
Family Law in the SOZ/GDR during the Stalinistic Period is characterized by a legislation that initially realizes Weimarian reform postulates, for example a new family procedural law or the law on ...women’s rights. Since 1952, the reforms follow the Soviet model: A new court constitution is established, based on the Soviet judicial system and a new marriage regulation also comes into force. The Supreme Court uses family law as a lever for the reorganization of society in accordance with constitutional postulates and political ideas.
Udział polskich aktorów w produkcjach wschodnioniemieckiej Defy jest na ogół znany, choć nie dość wyczerpująco opisany. Oczywiście nie chodzi jedynie o koprodukcje, choć i one (jak chociażby pierwsza ...z nich, Milcząca gwiazda Kurta Maetziga, 1960) zaświadczają o aktorskim transferze między Warszawą a Berlinem. Deficyt aktorów w NRD, ale także dobra marka kina polskiego w NRD sprawiły, że często korzystano z zasobów polskiego rynku aktorskiego. Autor skupia się na analizie oraz interpretacji zjawiska przechodniości sztuki aktorskiej między kinematografiami narodowymi. Niezwykła w tym względzie okazała się zwłaszcza rola młodej i pięknej pani inżynier w wykonaniu Krystyny Stypułkowskiej, która zagrała w kultowym filmie Ślad kamieni (1966) Beyera – wystylizowanym na western produkcyjniaku, odesłanym przez NRD-owską cenzurę na półki do roku 1990. Na szczególne miejsce w takiej perspektywie oglądu zasługuje sztuka aktorska Franciszka Pieczki w rozliczeniowym filmie Jadup i Boel (1980/1988) Rainera Simona, a zwłaszcza jego tytułowa rola właściciela objazdowego teatru lalek w filmie Fariaho…! (1983) Rolanda Gräfa. Pieczka zagrał także m.in. w zachodnioniemieckim Dawidzie (1979) Petera Lilienthala (pierwszym filmie produkcji RFN, który otrzymał Złotego Niedźwiedzia w kategorii filmu fabularnego – na Berlinale 1979). Obok niego kinematografię Niemiec Zachodnich zasilili m.in. aktorzy grający w filmach Volkera Schlöndorffa, a wśród nich Jerzy Skolimowski jako dziennikarz na walczącym Bliskim Wschodzie (Fałszerstwo, 1981). W artykule Andrzej Gwóźdź szuka odpowiedzi na pytania dotyczące zjawiska eksportu aktorów jako faktu głównie kulturowego.
In this case study of the impact of West German television on public support for the East German communist regime, we evaluate the conventional wisdom in the democratization literature that foreign ...mass media undermine authoritarian rule. We exploit formerly classified survey data and a natural experiment to identify the effect of foreign media exposure using instrumental variable estimators. Contrary to conventional wisdom, East Germans exposed to West German television were more satisfied with life in East Germany and more supportive of the East German regime. To explain this surprising finding, we show that East Germans used West German television primarily as a source of entertainment. Behavioral data on regional patterns in exit visa applications and archival evidence on the reaction of the East German regime to the availability of West German television corroborate this result.
Every year more and more Europeans, including Germans, are embracing Islam. It is estimated that there are now up to one hundred thousand German converts-a number similar to that in France and the ...United Kingdom. What stands out about recent conversions is that they take place at a time when Islam is increasingly seen as contrary to European values.Being German, Becoming Muslimexplores how Germans come to Islam within this antagonistic climate, how they manage to balance their love for Islam with their society's fear of it, how they relate to immigrant Muslims, and how they shape debates about race, religion, and belonging in today's Europe.
Esra Özyürek looks at how mainstream society marginalizes converts and questions their national loyalties. In turn, converts try to disassociate themselves from migrants of Muslim-majority countries and promote a denationalized Islam untainted by Turkish or Arab traditions. Some German Muslims believe that once cleansed of these accretions, the Islam that surfaces fits in well with German values and lifestyle. Others even argue that being a German Muslim is wholly compatible with the older values of the German Enlightenment.
Being German, Becoming Muslimprovides a fresh window into the connections and tensions stemming from a growing religious phenomenon in Germany and beyond.
This article deals with the so-called Gemischte Gesellschaften (joint ventures), a special form of economic cooperation between the GDR and the West. Using the example of the Gemischte Gesellschaft ...of the foreign trade organization of Carl Zeiss Jena in London, the article outlines its foundation in the 1960s and its development from the 1970s to 1989. The article reveals that the Gemischte Gesellschaft was a comparably successful form of distribution for the VEB Carl Zeiss but also points out the different problems it faced. Furthermore, the article argues that the Gemischte Gesellschaften were a space of cooperation between West and East, but also assisted the GDR to assert its economic interests against the Western competition in capitalistic markets. The case study illustrates that in order to overcome the contradictions between cooperation and competition between East and West, control mechanisms were necessary to ensure that the interests of the socialist state were enforced within the Gemischte Gesellschaften.
Skating toward Americanization Lim, Wesley
German politics and society,
07/2019, Letnik:
37, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
At the 1987 World Figure Skating Championship, Katarina Witt skated to instrumental music from West Side Story playing the role of Maria. But how could her performance to Broadway show tunes be in ...line with SED ideology? Through histoire croisée—establishing multiple intersections with different cultures and tracing their continuing effects—this article examines how Witt’s, her coach Jutta Müller’s and choreographer Rudy Suchy’s privileged exposure to Western culture through dance, music, film, experiences abroad, and other skaters’ choreography and costuming inspired reappropriated manifestations through an East German lens into the packaging of Witt’s skating programs in the 1980s. Using television broadcasts, I analyze the gradual to overt Americanization of her programs as her government loosened its grips by granting her more artistic freedom.
Fundamental changes in the management of technological innovation took place over the course of the 40-year history of the German Democratic Republic. This article analyzes management culture in ...electronics and microelectronics R&D, as well as at Carl Zeiss Jena. R&D directors of the 1950s and 1960s, whose careers started in the Weimar or Nazi era, had a professional ethos and managerial style not rooted in state socialism. This article analyzes their approaches to management according to criteria such as reliance on authority and hierarchy, promotion of communication, and importance attached to political conformity. Developments in R&D management at Carl Zeiss are traced up into the 1980s. The role of the Stasi (secret police) in high tech R&D is discussed.
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