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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
A short time ago, when I began to write this piece on the historiography of education in the German Democratic Republic, i.e., East Germany, I intended to describe the research and writing of the history of education in that country, but also to criticize the intellectual isolation and ideological narrowness of East German scholars. The GDR remains one of the most impregnable bastions of firm ideological control and rigid censorship in a part of the world where free thought and expression are as rare as water in the Sahara. Marxism still stands for more than a slogan in East Germany. Indeed, the texts, articles and journals reflect this deep ideological commitment. For example, John Dewey receives considerably less attention than such Marxist heroes as W. G. Belinski, N. G. Tschernyschewski, and N. A. Dubroljobow, in the standard East German text. This, of course, reflects the Eastern (or Russian) orientation of East German scholarship as well as its ideological stance. In addition, articles invariably deal with a social class analysis of education. One finds virtually no mention of recent Western scholarship in either bibliographies, footnotes, or book reviews. In general, an apparently stultifying situation.
1. Gunther, Karl-Heinz et. al. eds., Geschichte der Erziehung, 12th edition (Berlin, 1976).Google Scholar
2. For an excellent summary of the history of the GDR see Smith, Jean Edward, “The German Democratic Republic and the West,” in The Yale Review, 58, 3 (March. 1969):372–387.Google Scholar
3. For a good description of the educational system of the GDR see Bodenman, Paul S., “The Educational System of the German Democratic Republic” published by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (Washington, 1975).Google Scholar
4. Geschichte der Erziehung, p. 18.Google Scholar
5. Ibid., p. 18.Google Scholar
6. Ibid., pp. 20–21.Google Scholar
7. Ibid., p. 148.Google Scholar
8. Ibid., pp. 384–387.Google Scholar
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12. Ibid., pp. 131–150.Google Scholar
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