Die kollektive Erinnerung von Staatsverbrechen

By Jürgen Schraten

Subjects: Politics and government, discourse analysis, Germany, Dictatorship, Political persecution, Germany (east), politics and government, Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, History, Germany. Enquete-Kommission "Überwindung der Folgen der SED-Diktatur im Prozess der deutschen Einheit."

Description: The book reconstructs the parliamentary discourse on the German unification that took place between 1992 and 1998. Its main question is: Why accepted the German parliament *Deutscher Bundestag* the adhesion of the former German Democratic Republic without a plebiscite instead of interpreting this step as building of a new state? The analysis shows that the German Democratic Republic had lost any legitimacy in the eyes of an overwhelming majority of its population - a fact that couldn't be denied even by the apologists of socialism. That way, the protests of 1989 and the elections held in Germany (East) in March 1990 and in Germany (East and West) in December 1990 had the effect of a plebiscite. Methodologically, this book tests the analytical capacities of Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas and Max Miller.