Mike Dennis and Norman LaPorte,State and Minorities in Communist East Germany

Reviewed by: Paul Maddrell, Loughborough University, UK

Mike Dennis and Norman LaPorte have written a thoughtful, well-conceived and well-argued book. Its arguments are not original; the book will therefore be of more use to students of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) than to scholars. The theme of the book is the relationship between the aggressive Communist East German state and selected groups it sought to eliminate. These groups are Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Asian and African contract workers, football hooligans, skinheads, and followers of alternative music (punk rock, Goth music and heavy metal). Dennis and LaPorte might have chosen other group, such as gay people or the disabled or gypsies or Christians other than Jehovah's Witnesses. Those chosen put the focus of the book on groups the regime wanted to suppress or, in the case of foreign guest workers, confine within very strict social limits.

All the main arguments are familiar and are to be found in plenty of other books. For example, Dennis and LaPorte stress that minority cultures such as football hooliganism, punk music and the skinhead scene were regarded by the regime and its security service, the Stasi, as the result of Western subversion, which they called ‘political-ideological diversion’. They add that this attitude prevented them from uncovering the real causes. The references in the book show that this is a familiar argument – one put, above all, in the German-language literature. The book underlines how deluded an understanding of their own society East German Communists had.

A further point that consistently arises is how hostile the regime was to social or ethnic diversity and minority cultures. This, again, is well known. The astonishing narrow-mindedness of Marxism-Leninism comes across repeatedly as a fatal weakness: society was not allowed to develop in any way other than that envisaged by the regime. None of these groups was doing the GDR any significant harm. Their activities did not justify the Stasi's immense, long-lasting repressive effort. Indeed, as Dennis and LaPorte stress, the hostility of the Marxist-Leninist regime to social diversity encouraged racist and Fascist attitudes in society and even among supporters of the regime, particularly since the failure of Communism meant, for many East Germans, the regime offered them no identity other than an ethno-national one. There were racists in the Stasi itself. The very political culture of the GDR helped to produce the racist-nationalist xenophobia which flared up so viciously in 1990–91 when the Germans were reunited in one state. Dennis and LaPorte argue this well – but it is, again, a very familiar argument.

The book's main conclusion is that the Stasi failed. Despite cruel repression, not one of these groups was suppressed. Dennis and LaPorte find the reasons for this in the solidarity of the groups concerned, differences between the regime's leaders over policy, and the fact that the Stasi had too much to do to devote enough resources to the suppression of these groups (it had its hands full with suppressing the majority of the GDR's population as well). Surely the answer is simpler: Communism failed. These groups’ activities expressed an ineradicable human desire for autonomy. It is strange that the Stasi had such faith in Marxism-Leninism that it believed that a Communist society would naturally eliminate minority cultures. Moreover, it would have been impracticable to suppress these groups completely since they engaged in activities – prayer, discussion, listening to music – that can be done in small groups of people which can avoid state surveillance much of the time. Some of the groups were very successful in establishing private societies of which the state was little aware. The Vietnamese contract workers were very hard-working entrepreneurs who established profitable businesses which operated under the state's nose. Since the state was ‘post-totalitarian’ – that is to say, unwilling to engage in mass killings – surely it was not ruthless enough to have a real chance of suppressing minority cultures entirely?

Despite its lack of originality, the book is thoughtful and well researched and reaches sound judgements. The authors’ German is evidently very good. Good use is made of Stasi records and of the secondary literature to support the arguments put. Dennis and LaPorte's analysis of the Stasi's operations is set against the background of a good understanding of the character of the Socialist Unity Party regime, which they regard as ‘post-totalitarian’. The book's presentation is good (though, oddly, use is made throughout the book of both the Harvard and the Chicago systems of referencing). The book will be a valuable aid to teaching undergraduate and Masters students of German history.