This module investigates social developments in GDR society over four decades of communist rule and social changes in Eastern Germany after the demise of the GDR. Students will be introduced to the ideological principles which that the Socialist Unity Party attempted to legitimize in the GDR as the only viable alternative to fascism for a modern society. We will then look at how this ideology was enforced through state authority in every domain of society. Based on contemporary texts (e.g. GDR propaganda, GDR writers and other intellectuals) we will further examine how people negotiated their lives within these officially imposed ideological structures, exploring a range of individual responses from conformism to non-conformism and opposition. Finally we will look at a new kind of public authority during the Wende period in the GDR, which triggered the disintegration of communist power structures, and the subsequent changes in East German society