Revising this work for a second edition, ten years after its first appearance, has proved an interesting experience. I first completed the original manuscript as the GDR was in the process of implosion and collapse; I hung onto the manuscript, writing the chapter on the revolution and unification as events actually unfolded in the course of 1989–90. Not only was there no secondary literature at this time on the immediate events of 1989–90; there was also remarkably little of any depth on the longer course of GDR history, polarized as this field was between state-sanctioned Marxist–Leninist accounts in the East and a predominance of rather narrowly institutional, occasionally speculative political science analyses in the West, alongside dissident critiques and ambiguous literary interpretations. With the opening of the East German archives in the early 1990s this situation has now radically changed. There is a flourishing field of GDR historical research, with the emergence of whole new areas of inquiry, lively debates and conflicting interpretations. Meanwhile, research on the Third Reich has also moved on significantly, although perhaps – given the scale of what was already happening in this most controversial field before 1990 – proportionately less dramatically. While there have also been shifts of emphasis in the fields of the Weimar Republic and pre-1990 West German history, particularly in areas of social history and in studies seeking to cross the 1945 divide, these have perhaps not produced such a radically new intellectual landscape on the scale of that for the GDR.
I have therefore made willfully lopsided corrections to the original edition of this work. I have made amendments to those parts of the text which deal with areas where debates have moved on significantly in ways which cannot be ignored. I have added a brief epilogue to Chapter 13 on Germany since unification. I have substantially updated what remains a stringently selective bibliography, in order to guide readers towards further reading in English on areas which could not be discussed more extensively in the text. But I have resisted the temptation to add too many minor amendments throughout the text which, by seeking to recognize recent research findings and accommodate all the current concerns of academia, would have effectively unbalanced the general lines of the original narrative. I have also resisted the temptation to embark on major rewriting in areas where I now would approach questions rather differently, which could in effect have turned this into a whole new book (and I am mindful of the question of whether a bicycle which, after having a total overhaul, from brakes, chain, pedals, gears and saddle to new forks and frame, is still the ‘same’ bicycle as the original). It also seems important to ensure that the historiographical as well as historical watershed of 1990 does not result in obscuring some of the major issues and perspectives which remain important. I am thus acutely conscious of the fact that I have not been able to do full justice, within the constraints of a volume of this length, to all the research that has appeared since the first edition. I can only hope that readers will be stimulated to follow some of the suggestions in the notes and bibliography to explore in greater depth topics which I have not been able to cover more fully in this particular compass.
Mary Fulbrook
London