Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The purpose of the data is to investigate to what degree the socialist past is constructed in the post socialist present of eastern Germany. Specifically, the project sought to explore: (1) the contentious character of memories of the socialist period, the changing and still unstable evaluations of that period, and the moral ambiguities condensed in these memories; (2) the connections between history, memorializing and remembering at various levels of dialogue and reflection, from policies about the past over public discourse to private introspection; (3) and to examine how certain versions of the past are produced and given prominence in the news media, civic life and state politics, and in the flow of daily lives in one city in eastern Germany. The study is divided in 2 settings: a newspaper editorial office, and a state government (Landesregierung) in eastern Germany. Research collection was set in two institutions at the heart of the production and promotion of discourses about the past in one eastern German city. In eastern Germany there is a multiplicity of communal memories of the former German Democratic Republic ranging from nostalgic sentiments to government-sponsored critical examinations of the 'totalitarian state', all of which are contentious in the public.

No sampling (total universe)

Face-to-face interview