German-German History

The end of the GDR also brought about a sea change for the scientific community in the East of Germany. Scientific and academic research in the GDR was a question of “the class point of view”. The East-German communist party, SED, (Socialist Unity Party) took the liberty of deciding what was true and what was false.

For the social sciences this often meant that unpopular historical figures, like Trotzky, were wiped off the pages of history books without a trace. For the natural sciences it meant that the all-powerful party determined what they were to research. Chemists had to develop colour film that would be on a par with Western products, computer scientists copied computer processors and biologists tested doping substances that would help GDR athletes to win even more medals.

And in the Federal Republic of Germany? There, too, research served certain purposes – Western athletes, after all , were also doped. In the West however the driving force behind research was the market. If a medication or a type of drive like the Wankel motor no longer yielded a profit, research funding petered out. The social sciences on the other hand experienced virulent fundamental debates that were often irreconcilable. Research freedom in the West might well have been just a catch phrase, but at least most people involved knew just how precious this freedom was and is.

After the fall of the Wall in 1989/90 these two, so very different, academic systems were supposed to merge with each. Twenty years later, towards the end of the Year of Science 2009, a symposium in Berlin brought together some of the players from that time with people who were affected, politicians and scientists for a discussion on the opportunities that were both used and missed.

Phased out in grand style

Peer Pasternack, Director of Research at the Institut für Hochschulforschung (Institute for Research on Higher education) at the University of Halle-Wittenberg supplied us with some sobering figures: at all the former universities of the GDR a total of 60 percent of staff lost their jobs. The Akademie der Wissenschaften (National Academy) that used to have about 23,000 permanently employed researchers underwent a similar process. In the field of industrial research as many as 85 per cent of the work force had to go. At the beginning of the 1990s academics were suddenly forced to give up their lifetime posts and start dealing with temporary contracts, competitive pressure and new areas of employment – that is, if they wanted to stand a chance at all of getting anywhere.

One thing these figures reveal – the old Federal Republic of Germany was calling the shots, the academic community of the GDR ceased to exist. Right from the start the baseline conditions had been lopsided, as Manfred Bierwisch said (1957 till 1991 member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, from 1992 till 1998 Professor of linguistics at the Humboldt University in Berlin). “A big country and a small country were to be unified – a successful social system and a failed one.” Bierwisch went on to say that this resulted in the unification of the academic communities of both countries simply being drawn into the general spreading out or transfer of the system of the West onto the new “Länder” in the East.

The structures and processes of the Federal Republic of Germany were simply imposed on the area that was to be absorbed, the circumstances left no leeway for any innovations, the institutions and personnel of the GDR’s academic landscape disappeared if they did not fit in with the new set-up. Bierwisch criticises the fact that amidst all the (justified) scrutinising of the deficits in the legacy left by the GDR, there was no questioning of any deficits in the “old Länder” of West Germany. “In all the committees dealing with this problem all the talking was of course done by the “old Länder”.” A further strain was the fact that the process of unification was under considerable deadline pressure.

No free access

The physicist, Dagmar Schipanski (TU Ilmenau) was able to recount some of the things she experienced directly. She emphasised just how different the starting positions of the two German academic systems had been 20 years ago. On the one hand there was the liberal system of discourse, on the other an academic set-up that was ideologically controlled, even in the technical disciplines - the system that Ms Schipanski went through. “We had no free access to study at university. Access was strictly limited.”

Later on, social background was a decisive factor for a successful career. “Your achievements alone were not the main thing, one’s political conduct and compliance with the state were equally as important.” This was also confirmed by Jens Reich, the biologist and civil rights activist. “The ideological factor may well have had much more impact in the humanities, but even in my subject one’s Weltanschauung – one’s political views - also played an important role.” Reich was in no doubt at all that the political turnaround of 1990 was an absolute boost to the realm of academia. Research in the GDR, at least in his field, never really got beyond the level of mediocrity. No wonder, indeed, as the “young, active and middle generations were more or less cut off from any international exchange of ideas.”

Today in places like Jena, Greifswald, Dresden, Rostock, Leipzig and Potsdam, to name but a few, there has been a revival of Germany’s old university traditions that radiate an innovative force throughout each respective region, as the development was described in an appraisal by the West German historian, Gerhard A. Ritter. Ritter was significantly involved in the restructuring of the humanities faculty at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

Manfred Erhardt, Berlin’s Senator for Science from 1991 till 1996, is one of the people who helped fashion the transformation process. For him, Berlin today is one of Germany’s leading areas for scientific and academic research. “At the Excellence Initiative Competition for German universities the Humboldt University as well as the Free University of Berlin were short-listed, whereby the latter actually won the laurels.” The field of science – according to Erhardt – is the one area, compared with others, in which the unification of Germany was accomplished - both successfully and amazingly quickly.

Researchers played no role in the 1989 revolution

The Berlin historian, Jürgen Kocka, pointed out that research in the GDR in certain disciplines, for example, the study of Turkic peoples, did in fact enjoy world renown. In other subjects however hardly any impulses of consequence were generated and the possibility of winning a Nobel Prize was never on the cards for the GDR research community. Kocka remembers the general conditions under which research took place in the GDR, the political machinations and the limited resources. Nevertheless there was of course a little leeway that enabled people in certain fields to pursue innovative, exciting research.

“This then often led to a desire to cooperate with West German researchers, but due to the restriction on foreign contact with the West this only took place on a very small scale.” Kocka goes on to emphasise that researchers however played no role in the peaceful revolution of 1989/90. After all any critical or rebellious troublemakers had been weeded out beforehand.