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History, Politics, and East German Film: The Thomas Müntzer (1956) Socialist Epic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2006

Robert Walinski-Kiehl
Affiliation:
University of Portsmouth (United Kingdom)

Abstract

Historians in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), unlike their western counterparts, could never allow themselves the luxury of studying the past for its own sake because, in this Marxist-Leninist state, history and politics were always inextricably linked. The GDR's leaders were committed communists who had long recognized history's apparent political power. They were convinced that, for the new “Workers' and Peasants' State” to acquire legitimacy among its own people, a German historical narrative, based on the ascertainable “scientific” laws of Marxism, was an essential requirement. East German citizens had endured twelve years of anti-communist Nazi rule and, consequently, the task of integrating them into a republic, where an entirely different set of political values predominated, was a fairly daunting undertaking.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2006 Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association

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