The Closed World of East German Economists
Hopes and Defeats of a Generation

The collective biography of the only generation of economists who lived their entire professional life in GDR's socialism.

Till Düppe (Author)

9781009233095, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 May 2023

340 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.3 cm, 0.64 kg

'Düppe's book is undoubtedly a labor of love, based as it is on exhaustive multi-archival research supplemented by extensive interviews conducted with relatives and colleagues of the men he covers. The author has also mastered a very sizable literature on the GDR and the history of economic thought, including the published writings of the economists in question. Indeed, the book is the most thorough analysis to date on this subject and is likely to become definitive … It is a book about a generation of men who formed the core of the GDR's intelligentsia, revealing how the SED manufactured consent and generated stability, two areas where it undoubtedly excelled.' Erik Grimmer-Solem, Wesleyan University

History is replete with examples of scientists and social scientists working under the yoke of oppressive regimes. In The Closed World of East German Economists, Till Düppe tells the story of a generation of economists whose entire careers coincided with the forty-one-year existence of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In a micro-historical fashion, he examines the world of East German economists through the formative episodes in the lives of five different economists from this “hope” generation. Using both the perspective of the actors as expressed in interviews and archival material unknown to the actors, the book follows East German economics from the early days of the acceptance of Marxism-Leninism through to its interaction with Western economics and its eventual dissolution following the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It is fascinating insight into the challenges faced by economists in a unique period of European history.

Introduction: East Germany's hope generation
Part I. Growing Into a Socialist Germany: 1. Socialist awakening
2. Socialist role models
Part II. Becoming of Age During the Thaw: 3. Staging a scientific debate
4. Negotiating socialist statistics
Part III. Reforming reforms towards bailout: 5. Ulbricht's modernist reforms
6. Honecker's bourgeois reforms
Part IV. Letting Go: 7. Diverting West during the détente
8. Saving socialism from the GDR
9. Conclusion: Retiring with the state
References
Index.

Subject Areas: History of engineering & technology [TBX], History of science [PDX], Economic history [KCZ], Economic theory & philosophy [KCA], Regional government policies [JPRB], European history [HBJD]