State and Minorities in Communist East Germany; CONTENTS; CHAPTER 1 -- STATE, SOCIETY AND MINORITY GROUPS IN THE GDR; CHAPTER 2 -- BETWEEN TORAH AND SICKLE: JEWS IN EAST GERMANY, 1945-1990; CHAPTER 3 -- JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES: FROM PERSECUTION TO SURVIVAL; CHAPTER 4 -- ASIAN AND AFRICAN WORKERS IN THE NICHES OF SOCIETY; CHAPTER 5 -- FOOTBALL FANS, HOOLIGANS AND THE STATE; CHAPTER 6 -- SUB-CULTURES: PUNKS, GOTHS AND HEAVY METALLERS; CHAPTER 7 -- SKINHEADS AND RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM IN AN ANTI-FASCIST STATE; CHAPTER 8 -- CONCLUSION: MINORITIES, PRESENT AND PAST; REFERENCES; INDEX
Summary
Based on interviews and the voluminous materials in the archives of the SED, the Stasi and central and regional authorities, this volume focuses on several contrasting minorities (Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, "guest" workers from Vietnam and Mozambique, football fans, punks, and skinheads)and their interaction with state and party bodies during Erich Honecker's rule over the communist system. It explores how they were able to resist persecution and surveillance by instruments of the state, thus illustrating the limits on the power of the post-totalitarian East German dictatorship and shedding li
