German-German History

Only one in two schoolchildren in Germany knows which year the Wall was built. Around 45 per cent of them believe that construction of the Wall was authorised by the Soviet Union. And Konrad Adenauer and Willy Brandt were politicians from the GDR, weren’t they? A study conducted by two political theorists caused a furore with these results last summer.

Do the answers given by schoolchildren from East and West Germany really reflect what teenagers think they know about the GDR 18 years after Reunification? Critics accuse the survey of technical problems and exaggerated conclusions. Yet even they confirm: young people know far too little about the second German dictatorship.
Kritiker werfen der Befragung technische Mängel und überzogene Schlussfolgerungen vor. Doch auch sie attestieren: Junge Menschen wissen viel zu wenig über die zweite deutsche Diktatur.

Political scientists Klaus Schroeder and Monika Deutz-Schroeder from the Freie Universität Berlin questioned 5 219 schoolchildren, mainly 16 and 17 year-olds, between Autumn 2005 and Spring 2007 in Berlin, Bavaria, Brandenburg and North-Rhine-Westphalia about the GDR. They document the results in their book Soziales Paradies oder Stasi-Staat? Das DDR-Bild von Schülern - Ein Ost-West-Vergleich (Social paradise or Stasi state? The GDR as seen by schoolchildren – an East-West comparison). The study was financed by the Forschungsverbund SED-Staat (SED State Research Association) as well as the Landeszentralen für politische Bildung (State Offices for Political Education) in Bavaria and North-Rhine-Westphalia.

The Stasi – a normal secret service?

The results of the investigation confirmed terrible fears: the GDR often came across as a cosy, socially just country in the students’ statements. For instance not even two-thirds of East German young people believed that the achievements of the economic system in the West were better than the economy in the GDR. In the West it was around 80 per cent. The political system in the Federal Republic only met with the approval of just 57 per cent of young people from the East German survey regions – as opposed to a good 83 per cent from the Western Bundesländer. Many of those questioned judged the Stasi in a relatively positive light, especially East Germans and students at Hauptschule and Gesamtschule: only around one in two denied that the Ministry of State Security was a secret service like one you would have in a democracy.

The students barely knew the facts of GDR history. For example one in four of them claimed that Konrad Adenauer and Willy Brandt were active in the GDR – in the East more than one in three actually believed that. Even Helmut Kohl was placed in the SED state by around one in ten.

According to the study, if there was knowledge available it didn’t come from school, but from conversations within the families – with according consequences: West German schoolchildren favoured the old Federal Republic, the majority of East Germans the GDR. Klaus Schroeder, one of the study’s two authors, criticises: “Many parents and grandparents only tell young people about the supposedly positive daily routine in the GDR, but blank out the negative side in the process.” Even if the teachers did tell their students about the Wall deaths and Stasi methods, the parents made light of this information or denied it completely.

Influence from the schools

Despite this, the schools also have influence over the youngsters’ knowledge, according to the study: it states that Gymnasium students in Brandenburg know less about the GDR than Bavarian Hauptschule pupils. Two-thirds of students claimed that they had learnt too little or nothing at all about the SED state in school. The verdict of the study’s authors is clear-cut: “The more schoolchildren know about the SED state, the more critically they judge it.” For this reason they are calling for schools to tailor the curriculum to focus more intensively on the subject of the GDR. In the new Länder, parents and teachers are “afraid of confronting children with the negative aspects of the GDR”.

Wolfgang Tiefensee (SPD), the government minister for the new Bundesländer, views the matter in a similar way. Parents should tell their children “about the nice experiences, but also about life behind the Wall and barbed wire”. On this theme the former Mayor of Leipzig remembers “torture prisons, dead bodies at the borders, mistrust and spying on each other”.

Results of other studies

Some people don’t want to accept the apportionment of blame to the teachers. When the first study results about the knowledge of Berlin schoolchildren were made public in November 2007, the responsible school authority made this statement: “The results are surprising inasmuch as a national study in 2006 ended up with completely different results.” The earlier investigation apparently showed that Berlin schoolchildren know the most about GDR history of anyone in the country.For this study, which was commissioned by the Stiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur (foundation for the reappraisal of the Communist dictatorship in East Germany) (and the Association of History Teachers in Germany), more than 5600 students from the 9th class and above (14+) in all Bundesländer took part in a written survey in 2005 – admittedly they all attended Gymnasium. By contrast one in four of the more recent survey attended a Gesamtschule or Realschule.

The Stiftung Sächsische Gedenkstätten (Foundation for Saxon Monuments) has criticism regarding the apportionment of blame to East German teenagers. One of the concerns of the Dresden-based foundation is dealing with Saxony’s Stasi past. Their scientific colleague Bert Pampel complains: “The East German students’ evaluation of the GDR, which was to some extent more positive, does not seem so much to be caused by their supposed lack of knowledge.” This could also be due to “identity conflicts because of their East German origins”. Not to put too fine a point on it: East German schoolchildren if anything feel threatened in their identity and for this reason they try to justify their origins excessively.

But the bottom line is that the authors and critics are in agreement: in this country young people know far too little about the history of the GDR. To change that, families, schools and institutions are being called upon. There are enough reasons: 1989, the year of the Wende, will be well and truly celebrating its 20th anniversary starting this coming January.

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