Dissolution—The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany

Against the backdrop of one of the great transformations of our century,
the sudden and unexpected fall of communism as a ruling system,
Charles Maier recounts the history and demise of East Germany.
Dissolution is his poignant, analytically provocative
account of the decline and fall of the late German Democratic
Republic.

This book explains the powerful causes for the
disintegration of German communism as it constructs the complex
history of the GDR. Maier looks at the turning points in East
Germany's forty-year history and at the mix of coercion and consent by
which the regime functioned. He analyzes the GDR as it evolved from
the purges of the 1950s to the peace movements and emerging youth
culture of the 1980s, and then turns his attention to charges of Stasi
collaboration that surfaced after 1989. In the context of describing
the larger collapse of communism, Maier analyzes German elements that
had counterparts throughout the Soviet bloc, including its systemic
and eventually terminal economic crisis, corruption and privilege in
the SED, the influence of the Stasi and the plight of intellectuals
and writers, and the slow loss of confidence on the part of the ruling
elite. He then discusses the mass protests and proliferation of
dissident groups in 1989, the collapse of the ruling party, and the
troubled aftermath of unification.

Dissolution is the
first book that spans the communist collapse and the ensuing process
of unification, and that draws on newly available archival documents
from the last phases of the GDR, including Stasi reports, transcripts
of Politburo and Central Committee debates, and papers from the
Economic Planning Commission, the Council of Ministers, and the office
files of key party officials. This book is further bolstered by
Maier's extensive knowledge of European history and the Cold War, his
personal observations and conversations with East Germans during the
country's dramatic transition, and memoirs and other eyewitness
accounts published during the four-decade history of the
GDR.