Creating German Communism, 1890-1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State / Edition 1

by Eric D. Weitz

Overview

Eric Weitz presents a social and political history of German communism from its beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century to the collapse of the German Democratic Republic in 1990. In the first book in English or in German to explore this entire period, Weitz describes the emergence of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) against the background of Imperial and Weimar Germany, and clearly explains how the legacy of these periods shaped the character of the GDR to the very end of its existence.

In Weimar Germany, social democrats and Germany's old elites tried frantically to discipline a disordered society. Their strategies drove communists out of the workplace and into the streets, where the party gathered supporters in confrontations with the police, fascist organizations, and even socialists and employed workers. In the streets the party forged a politics of display and spectacle, which encouraged ideological pronouncements and harsh physical engagements rather than the mediation of practical political issues. Male physical prowess came to be venerated as the ultimate revolutionary quality. The KPD's gendered political culture then contributed to the intransigence that characterized the German Democratic Republic throughout its history. The communist leaders of the GDR remained imprisoned in policies forged in the Weimar Republic and became tragically removed from the desires and interests of their own populace.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691026824
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	01/12/1997
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	472
Product dimensions:	7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Eric D. Weitz (1953–2021) was Distinguished Professor of History at City College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He was also the author of A World Divided: The Global Struggle for Human Rights in the Age of Nation-States; Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy, which was named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice; and A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation (all Princeton).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Ch. 1 Regimes of Repression, Repertoires of Resistance

Ch. 2 War and Revolution and the Genesis of German Communism

Ch. 3 Reconstructing Order: State and Managerial Strategies in the Weimar Republic

Ch. 4 Contesting Order: Communists in the Workplace

Ch. 5 Contesting Order: Communists in the Streets

Ch. 6 The Gendering of German Communism

Ch. 6 Forging a Party Culture

Ch. 8 The Anni terribili: Communists under Two Dictatorships

Ch. 9 The Weimar Legacy and the Road to the DDR 1945-

Ch. 10 The Primacy of Politics: State and Society in the DDR

Conclusion: The End of a Tradition

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

"This fully researched and readable account of German communism demonstrates the complexities of Germany's society and politics through the rise and fall of communism."

Choice

"This fully researched and readable account of German communism demonstrates the complexities of Germany's society and politics through the rise and fall of communism."—Choice

From the Publisher