Heike Wolter, 'Ich harre aus im Land und geh, ihm fremd': Die Geschichte des Tourismus in der DDR, Frankfurt/New York, Campus (2009), 547 pp. €45,00

摘要

As is true of dictatorships in general, their social realities challenge simple models of command and control from on high and the passive, if sullen, obedience from below. Despite its determination to transform its citizens into the embodiments of socialism's benefits, the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED) tempered the imposition of its short and long-term goals with its often begrudged accession to popular desires and expectations. Heike Wolter's thorough study of tourism in the German Democratic Republic underscores the tensions between popular yearnings and the construction of socialism centered on the principles of democratic centralism.