The work looked at east German senior industrial managers in transition under the condition of radical environmental change that followed the introduction of the west German political, economic, and societal system in eastern Germany. The enhancement of the understanding of managers in change in the transitional economies of central and eastern Europe is significant to the improvement of the effectiveness of western support in the introduction of market forces. Of wider significance is the study's contribution to the understanding of the issues at individual level that might equally emerge within the fundamental structural changes of current western industries. For decades, research into the management of change has focused on the group and systems level and failed widely to consider the crucial significance of individual behaviour in the realisation of change at organisational level. In view of the questions and the objectives of the research, a qualitative approach was adopted because it provides a particularly strong method for investigating processes, cultures, and new fields of scientific research. The analysis drew on a basis of 73 in-depth interviews with senior level managers in east German industrial organisations and structured questionnaires on the individual, organisational, and change profile of the sample. The work contributes to the understanding of managerial transition in transformative contexts. A model of the individual transition process was elicited from the data. It suggests that east German managers emerged from the experience of fundamental change with a transformed world-view. The initial belief in the existence of equilibria had been replaced by the notion of the permanency of change. Because of the way in which the experience of economic transformation was found to impact deeply on individuals' self-concept, the study concludes that individual development is a key transformation instrument, since it can specifically target the cultural and ideological underpinning of successful transformation.

In the last decade, everyday life in the GDR has undergone a mnemonic reappraisal following the Fortschreibung der Gedenkstättenkonzeption des Bundes in 2008. No longer a source of unreflective nostalgia for reactionaries, it is now being represented as a more nuanced entity that reflects the complexities of socialist society. The black and white narratives that shaped cultural memory of the GDR during the first fifteen years after the Wende have largely been replaced by more complicated tones of grey. Films and museums depicting the quotidian in East Germany have advanced this transformation of the everyday, as they instigate vital public discourses on how to remember the GDR. By focussing on objects and narratives as transmitters of memory, this thesis brings together museums and films in order to investigate the process of cultural memory formation. This comparative approach, which brings together seven museum and eight film case studies from the last decade, thus demonstrates wider trends in the German memory landscape pertaining to the GDR. Although both nostalgic and hegemonic accounts persist, this thesis finds that memory of East Germany is undergoing a process of democratisation, pluralisation and 'normalisation', which I call post-ostalgia. This is particularly illustrated by a rise in biographical and regionalised remembering in films and museums, in which counter-mnemonic readings of East Germany come to the fore. More pluralistic and balanced representations of the quotidian in the GDR are also emerging through a renegotiation of memory icons and narratives. By contesting the idea of a distinct East German identity and challenging Cold War-rooted stereotypes about former GDR citizens, visual culture is dismantling the notion of the GDR as the 'other' Germany. Instead, as this thesis demonstrates, East Germany is in the process of being normalised in cultural memory by approximation to Western societal norms.

“Finding Heidi’s Story: The Evolution of ‘Dynamo Berlin’” examines the creative process of Margot Newcomer’s feature length script, “Dynamo Berlin.” It chronicles the thought process and revisions throughout a seven-month period. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2000. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 194 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 176-186).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1997. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 196-210).

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Since reunifying in 1990, Germany has been working to develop an identity that represents the people of the two former German states. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the country still faced unique challenges as it reconciles the stories of the former capitalist and communist states. First, this study investigates the role of nation-building historical narratives and how they developed in the German context. Then it looks at the introduction of the East German uprising of 1953 into the national history of unified Germany and how this event has been used to shape the narrative around the 1989 revolution. Finally, it reflects on the significance of such a comparison for the historiography of the events.

In the SANA project (Scientific Attandance Program for the Rehabilitation of the Atmospheric Environment in the German New Federal Lands) different kinds of turbidity measurements are used to characterize the change of the turbidity state of the atmospheric boundary layer produced by atmospheric aerosols within the time span between 1990 and 1995. For this characterization the following turbidity measurements are used: 1.) continuous measurements of the humidity corrected aerosol extinction coefficient obtained with a He-Ne-Lasertransmission path (length: 810 m, wavelength: 0.633 μm) within the urban boundary layer ofLeipzig, 2.) direct measurements ofthe particilate matter (PM10) concentration, 3.) combined measurements of spectral aerosol optical thickness (within the spectral range of0.35 - 1.1 μm) and sky brightness in the solar almucantar plane for cloud free situations, 4.) integrated radiation flux density measurement (Globalradiation). In all measurements a decrease of the atmospheric aerosol turbidity could be stated in the time span of 1990/91 to 1995: for the extinction coefficient and the particulate matter within the boundary layer of approximately 60 %, the turbidity coefficient derived from the spectral aerosol optical thickness ( corrected for the influence of the stratospheric volcanic aerosol by the Pinatobo) give a reduction of 57 %. The combined measurements of spectral aerosol optical thickness and the sky brightness are used for the determination of the main climate-relevant aerosol parameters: aerosol phase function, asymmetry parameter, columnar aerosol size distribution and apparent columnar refractive index. The largest change in the columnar aerosol size distribution could be stated in the size range of 0.2 - 0.8 μm (radius), also a reduction of approximately 60 %. Together with the measurements of the downwelling flux density an estimation of the aerosol absorption in kind of the imaginary part of the refractive index is made. The imaginary part is reduced in the same way: 1991: k = 0.021, 1994 and 1995 k = 0.008. A first estimation of the anthropogenic shortwave radiative forcing produced by the old East German air pollution of the on the basis of these data gives a change in the shortwave radiative balance of approximately -8 W/m2. / Im Rahmen des SANA Projekts (Wissenschaftliches Begleitprogramm zur Sanierung der Atmosphärenumwelt) wurden verschiedene Trübungsmessungen verwendet, um die Veränderungen im Trübungszustand in der atmosphärischen Grundschicht, hervorgerufen durch Aerosole, im Zeitraum von 1990 bis 1995 charakterisieren zu können. Dazu wurden folgende Trübungsmessungen verwendet: 1.) kontinuierliche Messungen des feuchtekorrigierten Aerosolextinktionskoeffi.zienten mit Hilfe einer Laser- Transmissionsstrecke (Länge 810 m, He-Ne-Laser Wellenlänge: 0.633 μm) in der urbanen Grundschicht von Leipzig, 2.) direkte Messungen der Schwebstaubkonzentration, 3.) kombinierte Messungen von spektraler optischer Dicke des Aerosols (im Spektralbereich von 0.35 - 1.1 μm) und Himmelshelligkeitsfunktion im Almukantar unter wolkenfreien Bedingungen, 4.) integrale Strahlungsflußdichtemessungen (Globalstrahlung). In allen Messungen konnte im Zeitraum 1990/91 bis 1995 eine Abnahme der Aerosoltrübung festgestellt werden: Für den Extinktionskoeffi.zienten und die Schwebstaubkonzentration in der urbanen Grundschicht ungefähr 60 %, für den aus den spektralen optischen Dicken des Aerosols abgeleiteten Trübungskoeffizienten (korrigiert um den Beitrag des stratosphärischen Vulkanaerosols des Pinatubo) 57 %. Die kombinierten Messungen von spektraler optischer Dicke des Aerosols und der Himmelshelligkeitsfunktion dienten der Bestimmung der wesentlichen klimarelevanten Aerosolparameter: Aerosolphasenfunktion, Asymmetrieparameter, columnarer Aerosolgrößenverteilung und columnarer Brechungsindex des Aerosols. Die größte Änderung in der columnaren Aerosolgrößenverteilung ist im Radienbereich 0.2 - 0.8 μm festgestellt worden, ebenfalls eine Reduktion von ungefährt 60 %. Zusammen mit den Messungen der abwärtsgerichteten Strahlungsflußdichte wurde eine Abschätzung der Aerosolabsorption in Form des Imaginärteils des Brechungindex vorgenommen. Der Imaginärteil verringert sich in gleicher Weise: 1991: k = 0. 021, 1994 und 1995: k = 0. 008. Auf der Grundlage dieser Daten konnte der anthropogene Anteils des kurzwelligen Strahlungsforcings, das durch die Luftverunreinigung unter den alten Ostdeutschen Bedingungen hervorgerufen wird, mit ungefähr -8 W/m2 Änderung in der kurzwelligen Strahlungsbilanz abgeschätzt werden.

This thesis uses the secular coming-of-age ritual, Jugendweihe (‘youth consecration’), as a locus for exploring the ways kinship and politics in Germany are complexly intertwined. Although Jugendweihe emerged in the mid-19th century as a substitute for ecclesiastical coming-of-age rituals, and was adopted by various movements, it is closely associated with the former GDR (German Democratic Republic/East Germany). Under the GDR, young people aged thirteen to fourteen prepared for their Jugendweihe ceremony in ten ‘youth lessons’, which aimed to craft ‘socialist personalities’. Between 1955 and 1989 more than seven million adolescents pledged allegiance to the GDR state during the public ceremony, which was followed by a family celebration. With the demise of state socialism in 1989-90, western observers and the Churches assumed the ritual would vanish, but Jugendweihe continues to be celebrated in contemporary eastern Germany – without a pledge of allegiance. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between November 2012 and January 2014 in Thuringia, this thesis investigates the changed social relations between individuals, families, and the state in eastern Germany after the political caesura of 1989-90. It explores the ritual’s abiding relevance within a different socio-political context, and considers how the ritual’s metamorphosis is mediated both through the local Jugendweihe Association and the grandparental and parental generations. The research examines what values grandparents and parents, who were socialised under the GDR, seek to transmit to their offspring born after the GDR state’s demise. It demonstrates the continued (and changing) salience of connections between kinship, ritual, and politics in contemporary Germany.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Sociology, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.