 | State and Minorities in Communist East Germany Based on interviews and the voluminous materials in the archives of the SED, the Stasi and central and regional authorities, this volume focuses on several contrasting minorities (Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, 'guest' workers from Vietnam and Mozambique, football fans, punks, and skinheads) and their interaction with state and party bodies during Erich Honecker's rule over the communist system. It explores how they were able to resist persecution and surveillance by instruments of the state, thus illustrating the limits on the power of the East German dictatorship and shedding light on the notion of authority as social practice. Mike Dennis is Professor of Modern German History at the University of Wolverhampton. He is the author of several monographs on the GDR, including Social and Economic Modernization in Eastern Germany from Honecker to Kohl (Pinter, 1993) and The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic 1945-1990 (Longman, 2000). He has co-edited numerous books on modern Germany, notably, with D. Steinert, Deutschland 1945-1990 (Wochenschau Verlag, 2005), and is currently engaged on a research project on elite sport in the GDR. Norman LaPorte is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Glamorgan. He has published widely on German Communism, including The German Communist Party in Saxony, 1924-33 (Peter Lang, 2003) and, with Stefan Berger, Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR, 1949-1990 (Berghahn, 2010). He is co-founding editor of the journal Twentieth Century Communism. Mike Dennis is Professor of Modern German History at the University of Wolverhampton. He is the author of several monographs on the GDR, including Social and Economic Modernization in Eastern Germany from Honecker to Kohl (Pinter, 1993) and The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic 1945-1990 (Longman, 2000). He has co-edited numerous books on modern Germany, notably, with D. Steinert, Deutschland 1945-1990 (Wochenschau Verlag, 2005), and is currently engaged on a research project on elite sport in the GDR. |
