00:00:03:

00:00:18: Welcome to our second episode of the English language edition at the Leipniz Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam.

00:00:41: He completed his BA and MA at McGill University, Montreal Canada ,and his PhD at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

00:00:49: .He was previously a Freigeist Fellow In the Department Of History At The University Of Airfort, leading the Volkswagen-Stiftung funded research group.

00:00:58: The Other Global Germany Deviant Globalization And Transnational Criminality.

00:01:05: He is the author of The Human Rights Dictatorship, Socialism, Global Solidarity and Revolution in East Germany from Cambridge University Press published in on the Volkswagen-Stiftung funded project towards illiberal constitutionalism in East Central Europe, historical analysis and comparative and transnational perspectives.

00:01:44: For he's researching uses of GDR history by The German Far Right In both its online social media outreach And in pursuit an ethno nationalist constitutional order.

00:01:55: Ned thank you for joining us.

00:01:57: Thank You for having me.

00:02:00: I want to start by asking you a personal question.

00:02:02: How did you become interested in German history?

00:02:04: Was there a moment when you thought this is what i wanted do with my life?

00:02:08: It wasn't the single moment, but uh... When I got to university..I really get drawn into Cold War History!

00:02:15: I grew up on an environment in Canada in the nineteen nineties where My local surroundings and politics of that era were very post ideological.

00:02:25: it was very much sort of end-of-history.

00:02:27: uh, it was a period where you had this sort of total hegemony Of the centrist liberal party and yet almost everyone I knew growing up were people who had fled from much more interesting National histories but people.

00:02:39: I knew we're coming From places that have been through civil war gone Through different conflicts And had come to Canada To basically get away from too Much history to go to A place.

00:02:48: whether People seem to think there wasn't very much of It.

00:02:52: um i Think getting into The Cold War is the question about Having such a commitment to different forms of ideology.

00:02:59: this were question about sort big ideas of politics was so incredibly foreign to me and where I'd come from.

00:03:06: And This is really serve my gateway into German history.

00:03:10: It wasn't so much Germany specifically, but really GDR History as A Gateway Into the rest Of German History.

00:03:19: Your Most Recent Publication Is The German Democratic Republic The Rise and Fall of Cold War State?

00:03:26: What is the book about and how did this book come out?

00:03:30: The book initially came because of a series that Bloomsphere was putting together.

00:03:35: And it's really meant to be two books at once.

00:03:38: on one hand, It's meant To Be A Readable Narrative History Of The GDR.

00:03:42: So if you just want to know generally what occurred over the fortier life of East Germany How it Was Founded At the same time, it's also meant to be an introduction to the most recent development in the field and really an effort to try create a synthesis of the last thirty years of academic scholarship so that one readable text you can get a sense what has been happening.

00:04:18: What people have been innovating on?

00:04:20: And where are the latest areas still in development?

00:04:26: And this book is a rather slim volume considering you're packing so much into it.

00:04:31: What were the challenges in writing this book for you?

00:04:33: I was under very strict word limit from The Publisher because they really wanted to keep at certain price point, a certain size that could sell up for students based on... ...the writing of This.

00:04:43: I Ended Up Blowing So That Word Limit and Having To Get Into A Bit Of A Fight With The Publer All Worked Out In The End.

00:04:48: But..in the end one of biggest challenge like making sure Having to talk about the same topic twice and having to restrain yourself from going down The many enjoyable rabbit holes that you come across on one hand.

00:05:05: You're trying to provide this sort of big picture political history.

00:05:09: So people sort know who Volta Ulbricht an air conic or are two main leaders in the Socialist Unity Party?

00:05:14: Are they get a sense of the geopolitics of how our country is created but then getting into things like film production, gay subcultures.

00:05:25: What it meant to be Afro-German and East Germany?

00:05:29: The experiences of people who were involved in dissident movements?

00:05:35: How does the stasi function?

00:05:36: there's all these different topics that people find interesting That you have to cater too because that's what they're expecting In a book like this as well As to cover all of the topics that have generally been neglected And I've really been on the cutting edge of academic scholarship.

00:05:51: So really, it's sort of making sure that on the one hand including as much possible doing justice to these topics but also coming into terms with a fact you're never going actually be able cover anything in any great amount of depth and having to trust if people are excited about something.

00:06:07: The book is very heavily end-noted so that there's a trail of breadcrumbs you can follow to get to much longer text on basically any topic in it.

00:06:16: So,

00:06:16: you said that Bloomsbury wanted this book be published for students and they could get an accessible overview history the GDR also interesting scholarship going about the GTR even today.

00:06:28: My question too was perhaps why should undergraduate student learn more?

00:06:33: I think East Germany still are really interested Both within larger field of German history and in general, the twentieth century.

00:06:41: Within German History The problem you've always got sort at the black hole of interest in the Nazi period That this is something that's a huge draw And I think it's really unfortunate.

00:06:52: It tends to overshadow A broader understanding Of both how Germany came To the period of Nazi rule And also the fallout from it.

00:07:02: But GDRs are interesting for me as looking at the radically different pathways that one can take out of a fascist period.

00:07:11: That when we come especially in comparison with West Germany, but When you look at the GDR as A way a group Of people and a group of states tried to figure what You do?

00:07:21: In The wake of dictatorship And this case it was creating a Different dictatorship But One was very self-consciously organized around the idea that in the wake of The Third Reich, radical changes need to be made in order to recreate a country.

00:07:36: These decisions are being made by people in the Soviet Union as an occupying power... ...by German communists who were trying to create these things on below and then also shaped By a diverse range of the population Some people who're ex Nazis some Who had been victims or the Nazis Trying together to figure out how make this.

00:07:53: I think beyond just its founding that East Germany is really a compelling case for trying to understand how dictatorships work on the mass level, understanding them not just as sort of single person barks some orders.

00:08:10: Their secret police minions go out and brainwashed population does their bidding but in the case of East Germany In particular The complexity of how you create an authoritarian society under a totalizing ideology.

00:08:27: And when you get into the nuts and bolts of this, how much society is organized not just around the threat to the secret police even though it's ubiquitous in GDRs or mass networks of informants but also all more mundane ways that construct these systems through mandatory membership in mass organizations?

00:08:46: How do we create systems where basic necessities like housing food are tied up with your workplace?

00:08:54: And generally, how do you create sort of this dense social web of dictatorship where everyone has to participate and enthusiastically participate in a lot ways?

00:09:03: Well at the same time under circumstances when we have massive asymmetry power.

00:09:10: Where actual decision making is concentrated on top but people are incredibly dependent I think it really highlights these contradictions and the complexities of what it means to be a functional dictatorship.

00:09:26: So, how can this case study at GDR be understood in more global context?

00:09:32: This is where the last ten-fifteen years of scholarship comes into play with the synthesis that this book represents.

00:09:43: East German history was in the nineteen nineties really framed around second German dictatorship.

00:09:51: that needs to be Understood on its own terms.

00:09:54: It needs we sort of processed as part of this democratic transition and a lot of the work was focusing on East Germany specifically when this within his national context for the purposes of The German liberal Democratic state understanding itself.

00:10:12: And This is really broadened out not just in terms of trying to understand he's.

00:10:17: Germany has an entangled history with West Germany, it's one that you really can't write without having to understand what is happening at West Germany.

00:10:26: Because the two countries' politics are always so connected both on a high level term in terms of diplomacy but also everyday life consumption and how they understood what normal country was.

00:10:38: All these things were referenced as its capitalist Western counterpart.

00:10:43: At the same time, there's been a real push to try and embed East German history in the rest of Eastern Europe.

00:10:49: Because you have unification in nineteen ninety often east Germany sort gets pulled out of the larger narrative trajectory of eastern Europe because it has now been pulled into Western European country or Central European Country.

00:11:03: but Eastern was very closely tied in economically culturally politically with the rest movement of labor, you had economic integration.

00:11:17: And these were also countries where the politics of reaction reform dissent Were incredibly important in shaping what was happening on the ground and the GDR even if East Germany is always retreated as a country somewhat apart As this frontline state always in a privileged position and has the only Eastern Bloc Country with a Western counterpart Always one that was slightly different.

00:11:42: And then finally the real push to try and look at the GDR in a global context, which seems counterintuitive on first contact because it's key thing that most people understand what East Germany is its isolation.

00:11:54: There's this perception of totalitarian state hermit kingdom hiding behind his concrete wall where no one can really get too.

00:12:03: The people who are behind don't know much about outside world element of East German history that we can't pretend aren't there.

00:12:15: But this really cuts out the importance of people who are migrating to the GDR, you start having foreign students coming in their nineteen fifties You have political refugees, you've communists fleeing from Baptist Iraq, you got Chileans escaping form the Pinochet coup after the fall of Allende government and a very small cluster of Cambodians escaping the Cambodian genocide.

00:12:40: And this idea of East Germany as a safe haven for refugees, even while it's the state that is shooting its own citizens for trying to leave without permission.

00:12:50: Is something that really important?

00:12:53: to grapple with sort-of central contradiction Of The State At the same time again understanding how east germany fits into global economics That This is always A hard Sell Trying To Get Students To Care About Global Economic Systems Because They Think It Sort-Of This Dry Complicated topic that involves currency exchange systems, which are beyond their interest.

00:13:13: But one of the things you see with GDR is it gets into this vortex of external debt in order to provide enough consumer goods for a population and maintain the political monopoly on the Socialist Unity Party?

00:13:26: And how foreign financing works—the capacity And also to find trade deals with other countries where they can barter is really at the heart of whether or not East Germany survives in the seventies and eighties.

00:13:44: So you could have things like coffee prices skyrocketing because of a blight in Brazil, and this has a downstream effect of suddenly causing domestic unrest in east Germany.

00:13:54: that political elite had to contend with Because people come see coffee as basic element everyday life of what it means to live in a civilized country.

00:14:06: So on the other hand, you have uh... The GDR sort of touted itself as this great peaceful country one that's there defending against the resurgence of fascism.

00:14:15: and East Germany is also significant arms dealer because It's One Of The Things That The Gdr Can Produce Is Want On The International Market.

00:14:25: They're Good At Producing Military Trucks.

00:14:27: they're good at producing collage knockoffs um And When They're Trading With Countries particularly in the global south and the Middle East, sort of military arms for oil.

00:14:37: For coffee...for other products that you can't make in east Germany like cocoa.

00:14:43: This becomes really the lifeblood of how the country sustains itself.

00:14:48: And if you take away this global lens and just make it into a series of domestic choices It really leaves out the constraints the political elite were under because Well, they have seemingly unrestricted political power.

00:15:02: They're really at the whim of a lot of these sort global economic forces.

00:15:06: I wanted to come back to this issue of refugees who came from other countries and GDR.

00:15:11: Now what was attractive for outsiders about the GDR?

00:15:15: If you ended up in that GDR as a refugee it's for political reasons.

00:15:19: So in case... Really first refugees would come.

00:15:23: there are people fleeing Greece after the royalists had crushed the communists in civil war immediately after World War II.

00:15:32: It's a fairly small population, only a few hundred people.

00:15:35: this extends into other groups who are usually fleeing brutal crackdowns by authoritarian regimes and often fleeing very real possibility of death.

00:15:49: so in case of Greek Communists but then also looking at say Iraqi communists in the nineteen seventies who are trying to flee the Bathis regime under Saddam Hussein They're actually put under specific protection of Lashdazi as students.

00:16:03: Who were then sort of also Treated is quasi-political refugees.

00:16:10: And Then has mentioned you have some people who happened to be in the GDR from Cambodia when the genocide starts under the Khmer Rouge.

00:16:18: There's An ambiguity there too.

00:16:22: You have people who come to the GDR as students and then try to avoid going back to their home country for political reasons, so again with Iraq... People don't want go back to fight near on a rock war in the nineteen eighties.

00:16:33: And also once you get into the contract worker program The guest worker system that they had in East Germany Where you had people initially from other Eastern Baw countries like Hungary and Poland this expanded out to Cuba Algeria And then in the largest numbers, Mozambique Angola and Vietnam by the eighties.

00:16:52: Particularly people coming from Mozambic that going to work on the GDR was also a way to escape having to fight against the anti-communist insurgency That was raging at Mozambica time.

00:17:05: So you have this situation where Foreigners who are into GDR You really run a gamut sometimes of Students who are also refugees, people there as guest workers trying to flee something.

00:17:18: In the case of Southwest Africa what becomes Namibia?

00:17:22: There's a number children sent to be educated away from war zone in ongoing conflict with apartheid South Africa and Civil War that is taking place.

00:17:34: so on this one hand you have a lot of people in East Germany who are willing to risk their life and sometimes lose their life trying to flee the country.

00:17:43: To move off into the West, particularly West Germany where they're immediately given citizenship... And at the same time you have much smaller stream of people that try get into East Germany as matter-of-life or death.

00:17:59: In this case I think it's global context.

00:18:02: for some people East Germany is an intolerable place One where they're continuously conscious of a sense that there lacking political freedom, their lack in economic opportunity.

00:18:13: On the other hand you look at say some Vietnamese workers who came to GDR for them are leaving post unification Vietnam which is still in rubble.

00:18:22: it's an extremely poor country one thats also subject very intense political controls as well and for then East Germany is place were They can work on factory usually fairly safe, and a lot of people did side hustles working in the gray market.

00:18:38: A lot of Vietnamese people who worked into textile industry could make jeans for people on this site using that buy-a-lot products.

00:18:46: so they were unavailable in Vietnam shipped them home to create transnational sort of grey market economy Working on the side to get money to buy goods to ship back to Vietnam where their relatives can then sell it.

00:19:00: So there's all these sort of micro histories Of different groups who are coming through Which is if you just start looking at this on the surface level, the political history completely invisible but Under-the-surface.

00:19:15: There's a lot going on

00:19:17: so it's difficult to miss.

00:19:18: The global dimensions of the story You're telling here and have the recent research that has been going into the GDR.

00:19:25: And I wanted to ask for those in the audience Who were not professional historians?

00:19:30: Could you explain where the Leibniz Center for Contemporary Historical Research in Potsdam fits, and overall research landscape?

00:19:39: It's a really great place to finish off a project like this because since the nineteen nineties its founding has been dedicated to trying expand perspectives on what it means it's usually called the cultural turn, trying to sort of move outside of Cold War totalitarian perspectives and understand new ways of looking at East Germany both as a political history social-history economic.

00:20:14: And there was time.

00:20:16: instead of just looking at this or question of state versus society dissent versus collaboration you had really interesting projects by people like Patrice Putlis, who got into our consumer history looking at the development of particularly this chain of rotisserie chicken restaurants.

00:20:37: And look at these.

00:20:37: problems are how do you fulfill the needs of people in a modern consumer society under the conditions of a socialist shortage economy and their dictatorship?

00:20:47: The pressures that were under to create good consumer experiences for gray totalitarian image of everyone subsiding on old potatoes.

00:21:00: This is sort this ongoing problem, how to reconcile these two aspects in the state-the coercive side but also one that's trying make people happy as modern day consumers?

00:21:11: On the other hand try and look at everyday history which was really pioneered by another great recently departed historian Alphanudka.

00:21:21: You have a lot of people who are crucial in trying to understand everyday experiences and the sites of negotiation between people, entities or the state.

00:21:35: In their every day lives.

00:21:36: so things like working at factories where there's a degree of freedom that they couldn't be easily replaced as workers because you had huge worker shortages due all the amount of emigration, demographic problems from so many people who died in the war.

00:21:56: But instead of simply seeing this just through the lens of an all-powerful state—all powerful managers looking at how people —through everyday willfulness and being difficult deciding to creatively interpret directives they were given you don't have outright resistance or outright challenging a political authority But you have a lot of people who are trying to shape their everyday life, too.

00:22:23: Their own interests requirements and needs in ways that don't actually rise to the level of outright resistance or armed struggle In any way.

00:22:35: And so this we're trying to get at this sort.

00:22:38: one Of The real paradoxes of East German history is This long-term period of stability the seeming total control of the state followed by An incredibly rapid collapse at the end of the nineteen eighties where everything just falls apart like a house of cards.

00:22:53: So what Berlin Wall opens and East Germany stop existing?

00:22:58: And that sets it up was always really a pioneering institution for this, and there's dozens of people whose work I've cited in the book who have worked to set that up different times.

00:23:08: And my understanding on the shoulders of giants standing on the shoulder is many different People Who Are Now My Colleagues.

00:23:15: so has been real privilege to have a chance To Really highlight That Work and show how it all comes together.

00:23:20: I'd like to pivot now away from your most recent book, and toward one of your current projects which is the Volkswagen Stiftung or the Volkswagen Foundation funded project, The Liberal Constitutionalisms.

00:23:35: For those listeners who are not familiar with this project could you tell us a bit about this project?

00:23:46: primarily looking at Hungary and Poland in recent years, but also trying to look in general at the post-socialist central European countries.

00:23:56: The trend amongst authoritarian conservative right is that they try to take the language of the liberal transition into a vehicle for an increasingly illiberal society.

00:24:16: And the term is one taken from Victor Orban in Hungary, where he talks about these ideas are creating an illiberal democracy.

00:24:24: One of things we're trying to explore this problem that's come up a number of movements not just contesting the idea of liberal democracy as it is but trying to recreate society and constitutional order around an illegal vision while doing so in the name of liberal freedoms, rights or democracy.

00:24:51: Realizing the wills of the majority and civil

00:24:54: society.".

00:24:55: And one of the arguments we wanted to try and make was that when we started this project it sort seemed like East Central Europe was... This problematic backwards place that was sliding towards authoritarianism again uniquely compared in France with Donald Trump United States, this increasingly illiberal authoritarian trend.

00:25:19: that's happened where East Central Europe has moved from being the deviant outlier who just people would never quite got around to realizing transition.

00:25:31: To possibly be a guide of future how forces can work within existing liberal democratic constitutional systems and recreate them in order to realize an illiberal future.

00:25:46: You just talked about taking these liberal moments or liberal traditions and turning them into a liberal ones, can you give me a few examples of what liberal traditions might mean?

00:25:57: So the case that I'm working on is particularly The German Far Right That one of things we see in german public democratic culture Is the idea that nineteen ninety nine within public memory as an important event for the realization of human rights both as parliamentary democracy, political right to free speech but also the protection of a larger pluralistic public sphere one in which there's protection from minorities while at the same time sort of the former East Germany and now a larger scene in Germany today is that you see particularly, The AFD as a party but then a lot of other movements people in far-right intellectual circles from coming from the new right so called That they're trying to recreate east German history alongside.

00:26:57: The german present So trying to take nineteen eighty nine And move it from beings or have a triumph for an international movement dedicated to human rights democracy pluralism And making it into a triumph of the German nation, which had never truly been realized.

00:27:12: So this is an unfinished revolution that needs to be completed now by reinforcing rights for Germans over rights for non-Germans implementing systems to reinforce rights along ideas or patriarchal families in which families have more control over children and Education in a way that is specifically designed around the idea of trying to reduce recognition of LGBTQ communities.

00:27:42: The idea of minority rights for ethnic groups, religious groups and particularly the idea sort of cementing A specific hierarchy.

00:27:52: who's particularly German has constitutional rights And two is outside That space of protection.

00:28:00: One other places you see this now This conflict between those are a liberal understanding of national self-determination, Of Germany as a free democratic country under the rule of law.

00:28:12: And to push in different direction of self determination As The Self Determination of the German Folk specifically an ethno nationalist project To create politics around just Those who were members of the folk and The argument that giving political civil freedoms to non-Germans is a violation of the self determination of the German nation.

00:28:38: So it's really trying to push not just the idea that we should take away rights from people, but in order to realize constitutional rights In their true form What we need to do is implement.

00:28:51: A very hierarchized society one that specifically separates People out on an ethno nationalist basis And this is done in the name of completing a revolution for democracy.

00:29:05: So I think, and this way it's instead sort of uh... The traditional line to the far right of basically saying that German constitution is bunk.

00:29:12: It's a Western imposition we need to get rid of.

00:29:14: but it's not coming from full frontal attack on liberal democratic institutions But trying to take them repurposing them hijacking them appropriating their language and using it to push a far-right agenda.

00:29:27: You mentioned that this idea of liberal constitutionalism was originally invoked by Viktor Orban in Hungary.

00:29:34: And I wanted to ask you, now that Peter Magyar has defeated Victor Orban and his regime is been removed do think this heralds a larger sea change?

00:29:43: or Is it too early?

00:29:45: To be optimistic about that.

00:29:48: one of the things we've been looking at Every month there's a new development that's relevant to one of the countries we've been looking at which is primarily Hungary, Poland Czechia Germany That in spite it sort of euphoria of the end-of-the-orban system Institutionally what he created?

00:30:07: Is still in place and It's a system.

00:30:10: In which a lot of power has been concentrated very top And the question of reform in the future as very much in the hands his successor and a question of whether or not he will be able to personally undo all these institutional changes.

00:30:25: And looking at what happened in Poland after the peace government was voted out office, it's been very difficult process trying reestablish judiciary as an independent body.

00:30:36: A lot confusion over who is legitimately appointed judge?

00:30:42: What are legal decisions that actually valid?

00:30:46: One of the things that has been interesting in terms of looking at Poland as an example, a country sort of moving the other direction is these are changes very difficult to undo.

00:30:57: Well there's certain amount of resilience to a liberal democratic constitutional order and also this illiberal constitutionalism.

00:31:06: The process trying to unpick those things is one which is hard for voters because it often gets technical about legal institutional problems And it's one that isn't very popular for people who are hoping a new government to deliver quickly.

00:31:21: In the American parlance, throw The Bastards out and punish people from the old regime while at same time trying now re-implement pluralist democracy minority rights rule of law in all these other things There really is cross purposes That make it difficult to reverse those things.

00:31:40: We saw the resurgence.

00:31:43: The government is now divided once again between a presidency and the executive branch, which is pushing in an illiberal direction while the government is trying to sort of revert everything back to the status quo of ten years ago.

00:31:57: This was the danger in Hungary And it's In the case of Czechia or Germany.

00:32:02: these are still I imagined ideas for the future but It's one of things to consider in this case that The idea that once you let the far right into power and they fail on their own terms, people will reject them.

00:32:16: And it'll bring them down as a force.

00:32:19: I think what we've seen is at That instead of just seeing this as people come in and dismantle a system and use have to rebuild It's very sticky process Of repurposing institutions towards an liberal authoritarian agenda Almost impossible to simply wind back the clock.

00:32:39: It's really a matter of trying to move forward, too A new kind of institutional order one that hasn't been seen before and One That is much trickier just sort have come up with through Democratic means And Simply saying let's go Back To how Things Were.

00:32:55: What Might That New Institutional Order Look Like?

00:32:58: One Of The things that got us to this place in our collective projects argument is that you had a lot of liberal democratic institutions, which were increasingly understood to be illegitimate because they involved demobilizing the population.

00:33:12: They have an increasing distance between the institutions of democracy and law and any kind of popular mobilization or political engagement.

00:33:23: And it's a stereotype for these things.

00:33:25: where we need more popular engagement We need more democracy.

00:33:29: But really this problem about how do people to actually feel like they have a stake as citizens again.

00:33:37: And simply saying, we need to go back the institutions that helped create this crisis in first place is untenable.

00:33:43: but it's also problem.

00:33:45: there are no quick fix silver bullet say.

00:33:48: We simply make these constitutions authoritarian proof of future and just needed few changes.

00:33:55: This really society wide question commitment democratic values beyond Total majoritarianism sort of a nice simple list Of priorities, but I think what we're trying to do is get To a place where you can try and understand the problem better before We can even tackle the problem.

00:34:14: What's next

00:34:15: Ned?

00:34:16: We're at the end of our time And i want to thank you very much for yours.

00:34:19: Thank You so Much.

00:34:24: On the

00:34:31: upcoming episodes we're going to talk with members from The Team, a liberal constitutional project.

00:34:37: So I'll be discussing these questions and others.

00:34:40: Thank you Ned.