Socialist solidarity in the German-German reality: Influences of East German dissidents on the West German radical left milieu in the 1970s

Abstract

This research sets out to examine the influence of the East German Marxist dissidents Wolf Biermann and Rudolf Bahro on the radical left milieu in West Germany in the late 1970s. In doing so, it aims to fill the historiographical lacuna of reciprocal influences between political activists on both sides of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. A more integrated history of East and West Europe has implications for contemporary debates on a common European heritage, and on the problems faced with European integration. Deploying the methodology of critical discourse analysis, within the theoretical framework of transfer history, leads to the a source selection that consists of the cultural media output of the radical left in West Germany, such as magazines, leaflets, journals, newspapers, published books, letters, and songs.