Educated at Cambridge and Harvard, Professor Mary Fulbrook is Dean of the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences at UCL (University College London) and a Fellow of the British Academy.She is the author of numerous books, including: overviews such as A Concise History of Germany and A History of Germany 1918-2008: The Divided Nation; as well as seminal works on the GDR, such as Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR and The People's State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker, as well as Dissonant Lives: Generations and Violence through the German Dictatorships; and works on Historical Theory and German National Identity after the Holocaust. Her most recent book is the prize-winning A Small Town near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust.

Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Concept of 'Normalisation' and the GDR in Comparative Perspective
Mary Fulbrook

PART I: NORMALISATION AS STABILISATION AND ROUTINISATION? SYSTEMIC PARAMETERS AND THE ROLES OF FUNCTIONARIES

Chapter 1. 'Aggression in Felt Slippers': Normalisation and Western Covert Activities in the Context of Détente and Ostpolitik
Merrilyn Thomas

Chapter 2. Economic Politics and Company Culture: The Problem of Routinisation
Jeannette Madarász

Chapter 3. The Professionalisation of Agriculture: Functionaries on the Land
George Last

Chapter 4. The Societalisation of the State: Sport for the Masses and Popular Music
Dan Wilton

Chapter 5. Communication and Compromise: The Prerequisites for Cultural Participation
Esther von Richthofen

Chapter 6. Local Functionaries and Renegotiations of Heimat
Jan Palmowski

PART II: NORMALISATION AS INTERNALISATION? CONFORMITY, 'NORMALITY' AND 'PLAYING THE RULES'

Chapter 7. Practices of Survival - Ways of Appropriating 'the Rules': Reconsidering Approaches to the History of the GDR
Alf Lüdtke

Chapter 8. The GDR - A Perfectly Normal Country, in the Centre of Europe
Ina Merkel

Chapter 9. How Do the 1929ers and the 1949ers Differ?
Dorothee Wierling

Chapter 10. Producing the 'Socialist Personality'? Socialisation, Education and the Emergence of New Patterns of Behaviour
Angela Brock

Chatper 11. 1977: The Most Normal Year of the GDR?
Mark Allinson

Notes on contributors

Bibliography

Index