Commemorating German Reunification

German Unity Day is celebrated on October 3rd. Tag der Deutschen Einheit celebrates the 1990 reunification of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic with ceremonial acts and the citizens’ festival Bürgerfest.
In the spirit of this day, we have compiled some of our German Studies titles below.
You can browse our books by area: Germany here.

Shifting Paradigms in Contemporary German Politics and Policy
Edited by Eric Langenbacher
Germany has undergone more change in the past two years than it has experienced in decades. In the fall of 2021, the Social Democratic Party unexpectedly surged to first place in the Bundestag elections, going on to lead a coalition of SPD, Greens, and Free Democrats that promised to “dare more progress” domestically. Then just two months after the new government was installed, Russia invaded Ukraine. The contributions in this volume investigate the altered state of German politics and predict the trajectory of Europe’s leading power in the transformed geopolitical environment.
Read freely available introduction.

A Twentieth-Century History of West German, Cold War, and Global Futures Studies
Elke Seefried
“This new book marks a milestone in the still young field that investigates the history of the future.” • Historische Zeitschrift
Read freely available introduction.

African Americans and Germany since 1933
Nadja Klopprogge
Intimate Histories focuses on intimate relations as sites of shared pasts connecting African American and German history in the years between 1933 and 1990. By tracing topics that include anti-miscegenation laws, forced sterilization, casual sexual encounters, marriage, and friendships, Intimate Histories broadens our understanding of African American–German relations during the so-called “century of extremes.”
Volume 12, Explorations in Culture and International History
Read freely available introduction.

Western Culture in East Germany and the Fall of the Berlin Wall
Gerd Horten
“Horten has written a fascinating, very readable, analytically sharp monograph, based on an impressive amount of primary and secondary sources… The average East German, not the few dissidents or the few fanatics on top, are the real heroes of his narrative.” • H-Soz-Kult
Read freely available introduction.

Conspicuous Reproduction and Childlessness in Reunified Berlin
Meghana Joshi
“There are some unique and important discussions [in this book] that I have not seen elaborated elsewhere and certainly not brought together in one place.” • Heide Castañeda, University of South Florida
Volume 53, Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives
Read freely available introduction.

German Division as Shared Experience
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Postwar Everyday
Edited by Erica Carter, Jan Palmowski, and Katrin Schreiter
“All told, this volume successfully brings together its fascinating chapters into a powerful interdisciplinary analysis. German Division as Shared Experience is a significant achievement that will serve as a bedrock for future research on the ‘entanglement’ of the Cold War Germanies. The editors and contributors have produced a genuinely pathbreaking book.” • The Journal of Modern History
Read freely available introduction.

Women’s Stories of Power, Politics, and Everyday Life across East and West Germany
Phil Leask
“Beginning and advanced students can learn much from this highly readable book. Its bottom-up view of postwar German history is revealing even to the expert. Its subtle and perceptive interpretations of attitudes about gender and womanhood, Heimat and the German past, politics and everyday life are enlightening. It provokes one to think about friendship, the psychology of groups, and ageing in new and refreshing ways. A most worthwhile read.” • German History
Read freely available introduction.

The Politics of Personal Information
Surveillance, Privacy, and Power in West Germany
Larry Frohman
“This is an important book crafted by a master of intellectual history. It will be widely consumed and discussed among German historians and a wide range of intellectuals interested in the origins of the modern surveillance state. Essential.” • Choice
Read freely available introduction.

Organizational Culture and Practice of Rule in the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Rüdiger Bergien
Everyday life in the East German Socialist Unity Party revolved heavily around maintaining the “party line” in all areas of society, whether through direct authority or corruption. Spanning a long period of the GDR’s history, from 1946 through 1989, Rüdiger Bergien presents the first study that examines the complexities of the central party’s communist apparatus. He focuses on their role as ideological watchdogs, as they fostered an underbelly and “inner life” for their employees to integrate the party’s pillars throughout East German society. Inside Party Headquarters reviews not only the party’s modes power and state interaction, but also the processes of negotiation and disputation preceding formal Politburo decisions, advancing the available detail and discourse surrounding this formative and volatile stretch of German history.

France and the German Question, 1945–1990
Edited by Frédéric Bozo and Christian Wenkel
“These impressively researched chapters persuasively demonstrate that France was a leader in addressing postwar concerns with West Germany. Furthermore, the authors argue that France sought a constructive relationship with West Germany as early as 1945. From the economic rebuilding of the 1950s through de Gaulle’s desire to transform the continent and negotiations with the Eastern bloc following Ostpolitik to Mitterand’s support for German reunification within a European framework, this collection makes clear that the fates of the two countries were often inextricably linked. Highly Recommended.” • Choice
Read freely available introduction.

Political Languages of Conservatism in Britain and West Germany, 1945-1980
Martina Steber
Since 1945, what ‘conservative’ means has troubled intellectuals, politicians and parties in the United Kingdom and West Germany. In Britain conservatism was an accepted term of the political vocabulary, denoting a particular tradition of political thought and practice. In West Germany, by contrast, conservatism was a difficult concept for the young democracy to swallow. It carried a heavy antiliberal and antidemocratic burden and led people to question whether there was a place for conservatism within democratic culture after all.
The Guardians of Concepts scrutinizes the debates about conservatism in the UK and the Federal Republic of Germany from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. Informed by historical semantics, it conceives of conservatism as a flexible linguistic structure, and shows the importance of language for the self-understanding of many conservatives, who not by chance, have regarded themselves as the guardians of concepts. The intense national and transnational debates about the meaning of conservatism had far-reaching consequences and continue to influence politics today.
Volume 9, Studies in British and Imperial History
Read freely available introduction.

The 1989 Revolution in East Germany
Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk
“This story is so far little known and not a big topic of the German public. Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk closes our knowledge gaps in an impressive way” • Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Volume 26, Studies in German History
Read freely available introduction.

Open Access
Military Masculinities in East German Culture
Tom Smith
“This book is important because it opens avenues of research into queerness in East Germany’s National People’s Army (NVA)… Smith’s book is commendable for breaking barriers in masculinity studies and offering a refreshing second look at the NVA… Highly Recommended. All readers.” • Choice
Read freely available introduction.

Gendering Post-1945 German History
Entanglements
Edited by Karen Hagemann, Donna Harsch, and Friederike Brühöfener
“This volume achieves a tremendous feat in its breadth, though its forte lies in its diverse contexts, uses, and understandings of gender—including its co-constituency with race and sexuality… This collection offers a much-needed re-narrativization of a divided Germany that centers gender, race, and sex in the shaping of citizenry during postwar nation-making.” • Feminist German Studies
Read freely available introduction.

Rethinking Social Movements after ’68
Selves and Solidarities in West Germany and Beyond
Edited by Belinda Davis, Friederike Brühöfener, and Stephen Milder
“A volume on social movements in the 1970s and 1980s is very welcome and timely. Now that there exists a solid corpus of monographs on the Long Sixties, serious research on the 1970s is slowly beginning to see the light of day – less so on the 1980s. Thus, Rethinking Social Movements after ’68 will begin to fill a growing need.” • Gerd-Rainer Horn, Sciences Po
Volume 31, Protest, Culture & Society
Read freely available introduction.

East and West Germany since the 1970s
Frank Bösch
“…the range and rigour make this handbook a useful point of entry for specialists and students alike interested in understanding the transformation of Germany in the last half century.” • European History Quarterly
Read freely available introduction.

East Germany’s Secret Police, 1945-1990
Jens Gieseke
“Gieseke treats… many issues with careful and lucid analysis, confining himself to the known facts. He rejects the hyperbolic in favor of more mundane explanations. The truth is bad enough… Essential.” • Choice
Read freely available introduction.

Critical Stages in the History of Divided Germany
Manfred Wilke
“…constitutes a superlative model of combining biography with the study of nationalism. The latter constitutes the most novel contribution of this well-researched, straightforward historical depiction of Kohl’s ideology and its impact upon the continuing development of German national identity… Recommended” · Choice
Berghahn Journals

Editor: Jeffrey J. Anderson, Georgetown University
German Politics and Society is a joint publication of the BMW Center for German and European Studies (of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). These centers are represented by their directors on the journal’s Editorial Committee.
German Politics and Society is a peer-reviewed journal published and distributed by Berghahn Journals. It is the only American publication that explores issues in modern Germany from the combined perspectives of the social sciences, history, and cultural studies.