Training Socialist Citizens

Sports and the State in East Germany
Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-90-04-16957-9
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 44, 234 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 244 mm, Gewicht: 544 g

Reihe: Studies in Central European Histories

Offering a counterbalance to previous scholarship on elite Olympics sports and doping scandals, this study analyzes how the East German government used participatory sports programs, sports festivals, and sports spectatorship to transform its population into new socialist citizens. It illuminates the power of the East German dictatorship over its population, the ways that citizens participated in, accommodated to, and resisted state goals, and the government’s ultimate failure to create eager socialist citizens. It also highlights the orchestration of participation in modern dictatorships, the role of mass participatory sports as both a valuable political tool and a popular leisure activity, and elements of continuity and change in twentieth-century German history.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Johnson, Molly W

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Freizeitsoziologie, Konsumsoziologie, Alltagssoziologie, Populärkultur
• Sozialwissenschaften Sport | Tourismus | Freizeit Sport Sport, Sportwissenschaft: Allgemeines

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Between German Tradition and Soviet Hegemony: The Postwar Reconstruction of Sports
2. Training New Socialist Citizens through Sports
3. Voluntary Campaigns and Socialist Society
4. The Embodiment of East German Socialism: The Gymnastics and Sports Festivals
5. Socialist Spectatorship: The Friedensfahrt and Champion Täve Schur

Epilogue

Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Molly Wilkinson Johnson earned a Ph.D. in Modern European History from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 2003. She is an assistant professor of history at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.