East German-west German Relations And The Fall Of The Gdr PDF Download

Author: Ernest D. Plock
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429714858
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
This book investigates inner-German economic ties, travel contacts, and national consciousness that proved to be of greater consequence after Gorbachev's accession to power. It addresses the inevitability of the German Democratic Republic revolution and unification with the Federal Republic.

Author: Hope M. Harrison
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400840724
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
The Berlin Wall was the symbol of the Cold War. For the first time, this path-breaking book tells the behind-the-scenes story of the communists' decision to build the Wall in 1961. Hope Harrison's use of archival sources from the former East German and Soviet regimes is unrivalled, and from these sources she builds a highly original and provocative argument: the East Germans pushed the reluctant Soviets into building the Berlin Wall. This fascinating work portrays the different approaches favored by the East Germans and the Soviets to stop the exodus of refugees to West Germany. In the wake of Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviets refused the East German request to close their border to West Berlin. The Kremlin rulers told the hard-line East German leaders to solve their refugee problem not by closing the border, but by alleviating their domestic and foreign problems. The book describes how, over the next seven years, the East German regime managed to resist Soviet pressures for liberalization and instead pressured the Soviets into allowing them to build the Berlin Wall. Driving the Soviets Up the Wall forces us to view this critical juncture in the Cold War in a different light. Harrison's work makes us rethink the nature of relations between countries of the Soviet bloc even at the height of the Cold War, while also contributing to ongoing debates over the capacity of weaker states to influence their stronger allies.

Author: David Childs
Publisher: Longman Publishing Group
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Author: Patrick Major
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019924328X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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On 13 August 1961 eighteen million East Germans awoke to find themselves walled in by an edifice which was to become synonymous with the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. Patrick Major explores how the border closure affected ordinary East Germans, from workers and farmers to teenagers and even party members, 'caught out' by Sunday the Thirteenth.

Author: Quinn Slobodian
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1782387064
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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In keeping with the tenets of socialist internationalism, the political culture of the German Democratic Republic strongly emphasized solidarity with the non-white world: children sent telegrams to Angela Davis in prison, workers made contributions from their wages to relief efforts in Vietnam and Angola, and the deaths of Patrice Lumumba, Ho Chi Minh, and Martin Luther King, Jr. inspired public memorials. Despite their prominence, however, scholars have rarely examined such displays in detail. Through a series of illuminating historical investigations, this volume deploys archival research, ethnography, and a variety of other interdisciplinary tools to explore the rhetoric and reality of East German internationalism.

Author: Charles S. Maier
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691007462
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Against the backdrop of the sudden and unexpected fall of communism, Harvard history teacher Charles Maier traces the demise of East Germany". . . . an historian whose writing talks both to political scientists and to lay readers . . . combines probing historical examination with disciplined and informed political analysis".Richard H. Ullman, Princeton Universtiy.

Author: Christian F. Ostermann
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503607631
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 566

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Book Description
In the aftermath of World War II, American policymakers turned to the task of rebuilding Europe while keeping communism at bay. In Germany, formally divided since 1949,the United States prioritized the political, economic, and, eventually, military integration of the fledgling Federal Republic with the West. The extraordinary success story of forging this alliance has dominated our historical under-standing of the American-German relationship. Largely left out of the grand narrative of U.S.–German relations were most East Germans who found themselves caught under Soviet and then communist control by the post-1945 geo-political fallout of the war that Nazi Germany had launched. They were the ones who most dearly paid the price for the country's division. This book writes the East Germans—both leadership and general populace—back into that history as objects of American policy and as historical agents in their own right Based on recently declassified documents from American, Russian, and German archives, this book demonstrates that U.S. efforts from 1945 to 1953 went beyond building a prosperous democracy in western Germany and "containing" Soviet-Communist power to the east. Under the Truman and then the Eisenhower administrations, American policy also included efforts to undermine and "roll back" Soviet and German communist control in the eastern part of the country. This story sheds light on a dark-er side to the American Cold War in Germany: propaganda, covert operations, economic pressure, and psychological warfare. Christian F. Ostermann takes an international history approach, capturing Soviet and East German responses and actions, and drawing a rich and complex picture of the early East–West confrontation in the heart of Europe.

Author: Ernest D. Plock
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000314820
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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The Basic Treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) for the first time provided a framework for the exchange of permanent missions and laid the foundation for expanded bilateral cooperation between the two German states. This book charts the progress of inner-German relations in the formative years of the 1970’s and explains how the revival of the German question in the l980's followed from striking changes in East and West German priorities and policies. Dr. Plock assesses the degree of practical cooperation in such areas as trade, travel, and the exchange of media representatives and also identifies the impact of Soviet interests on the inner-German relationship. Dr. Plock notes that despite a clear upgrading in FRG-GDR relations under Chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt, inner-German progress continues to be hostage to the overall East-West political and security climate. Yet the author sees a bipartisan West German commitment to partnership with the GDR as well as East Berlin's pragmatic approach to the relationship as stabilizing features of the European political landscape, even though the goals of future "Deutschlandpolitik" will continue to remain ill-defined.

Author: Jeffrey Gedmin
Publisher: American Enterprise Institute
ISBN: 9780844737942
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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An examination of the roots of the reunification of Germany, arguing that Erich Honecker's rigid communist regime was undermined by the conflict between Moscow and East Berlin. In the end, Gorbachev's objective - a radical renewal of socialism - turned out to be unattainable.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Europe, Eastern
Languages : en
Pages : 30

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