Demolition on Karl Marx Square : cultural barbarism and the people's state in 1968 / Andrew Demshuk.

9780190645151 (electronic book)

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2017.

English

1 online resource : illustrations.

DD901.L58 D46 2017

943.1087

Communist East Germany's demolition of Leipzig's perfectly intact medieval University Church in May 1968 was an act decried as 'cultural barbarism' across the two Germanies and beyond. Although overshadowed by the crackdown on Prague Spring mere weeks later, the willful destruction of this historic landmark on a central site symbolically renamed Karl Marx Square represents an essential turning point in the relationship between the Communist authorities and the people they claimed to serve. As the largest case of public protest in East German history between the 1953 Uprising and 1989 Revolution, this intimate local trauma exhibits the inner workings of a 'dictatorial' system and exposes the often gray and overlapping lines between state and citizenry, which included both quiet and open resistance, passive and active collaboration.

Communist East Germany's demolition of Leipzig's perfectly intact medieval University Church in May 1968 was an act decried as 'cultural barbarism' across the two Germanies and beyond. Although overshadowed by the crackdown on Prague Spring mere weeks later, the willful destruction of this historic landmark on a central site symbolically renamed Karl Marx Square represents an essential turning point in the relationship between the Communist authorities and the people they claimed to serve. As the largest case of public protest in East German history between the 1953 Uprising and 1989 Revolution, this intimate local trauma exhibits the inner workings of a 'dictatorial' system and exposes the often gray and overlapping lines between state and citizenry, which included both quiet and open resistance, passive and active collaboration.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on September 15, 2017).

Print version: 9780190645120

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