Founded on the ruins of Hitler's defeated Third Reich, and lacking any intrinsic legitimacy, the German Democratic Republic nevertheless became the most stable and successful state in the Soviet bloc. Yet in the "gentle revolution" of 1989 it collapsed with startling speed. How can this extraordinary story of political stability followed by sudden implosion be explained?
With the opening of the East German archives, it is at last possible to look inside the apparently impregnable dictatorship. Mary Fulbrook provides a compelling interpretation of structures of power and patterns of...