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Mike Dennis and Norman LaPorte, State and Minorities in Communist East Germany (New York: Berghahn Books, 2013)
From studies of Soviet soldiers and Sorbs to peace activists and youth counterculture, students and scholars exploring minorities in communist East Germany have benefited from a wealth of new research in recent years. Mike Dennis and Norman LaPorte's text State and Minorities in Communist East Germany makes a thoughtful and welcome contribution to this field as a collection of case studies dealing with the challenges of minority groups and their relationship with socialist authorities, particularly the Stasi (secret police).
Dennis and LaPorte examine the treatment of minority groups from 1961 through 1989, a period of post-totalitarianism during which methods of state repression were less harsh than in the early years of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) regime. They focus on themes such as the intelligence, investigative methods and repression of the police and Stasi, the recruitment of informal collaborators (IMs), and minority group responses and survival. A variety of influences such as Cold War prejudices, fear of Western influence, racism, and xenophobia help to explain the treatment of the various groups considered, from Jews and contract workers from Mozambique and Vietnam to Jehovah Witnesses and nonconformist youth groups. Ultimately, some groups fared better than others in the final years of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the years that directly followed due to domestic and international factors. The authors base their study and conclusions on secondary literature, Stasi files, dissertations defended by Stasi officers, federal and local archives, survey results of the Central Institute of Youth Research Leipzig (ZIJ), published interviews, and a few of their own interviews of foreign contract workers and program administrators.
Dennis and LaPorte's introductory chapter provides intermediate and advanced students with a discussion of historical context and theoretical models for categorizing the SED dictatorship. After reviewing the repression of GDR citizens in the 1950s, the authors argue convincingly that the socialist regime was post-totalitarian in its final three decades. The period 1961-1989 witnessed Cold War détente, attempts to improve living standards, increased and heavy Stasi surveillance, and overt and silent repression, albeit with weaker methods than in earlier years. This combination of welfare advancement and less severe, but very significant, oppression matches a...