The German Democratic Republic (GDR) existed for forty-one years. This gave time for a single generation to spend their entire professional lives in this state. Those born around 1930 made their vocational choices in the first years of the new state that was founded in 1949, were intellectually shaped during the years of the Thaw, built up their careers at the time of the consolidation of the GDR after the building of the wall, were at the peak of their careers in the 1970s, and allowed moderate but not radical reforms while retaining their posts in the 1980s. In 1989, they witnessed the ultimate reform that resulted in the end of the state. By then, they were close to retirement and could age with the unbroken belief in a better form of socialism to come. This book tells the story of this unique generation of economists.

This chapter discusses the important influence of the Old Communists on the hope generation of economists. Old Communists taught them on the basis of very different, more violent memories of World War II and tended to consider Stalinism necessary to force socialism into being. Regarding economic knowledge, this chapter describes the historical situation that nourished their beliefs in the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism: anti-fascism, anti-capitalism, class conflict, the single party system, and historical determinism.

This chapter shows how academia maintained relative autonomy in the face of party interests during the so-called Thaw. A young academic outsider, Ernst Strnad (1928), tried to mobilize, without success, his party relations against the best known senior economists in order to receive a doctoral degree. The question at stake was the status of political economy as an exact science, in particular regarding the role of statistical methods. Considering the significant changes economics experienced in Western countries after the rise of the econometric movement in the 1930s, what would a socialist critique of “bourgeois” statistics look like and what would be the role of quantitative methods in political economy? Strnad’s thesis tackled these questions, but it was written unsolicited without supervision. Facing difficulties in finding academic approval, he tried to mobilize high-party officials in his favor. In spite of the increased party influence, universities were not willing to give up their academic ethos and maintained the traditional mechanism of academic inclusion and exclusion.

This chapter tells the story of the hope generation’s contribution to Perestroika through the example of Dieter Klein (1931), a progressive political economist of capitalism and science manager at Humboldt University. Welcoming the changes in light of the vision of overcoming Stalinism and inviting the young generation into the reformist movement against the Old Communists that stubbornly occupied the Politburo, the reform of socialism turned into a battle for its very survival. Contributing to the reformist research during Perestroika at first with a political economy of capitalism based on peace rather than class conflict, he was increasingly disconnected from the civil rights movement due to his confidence in inner-party reform. He was in the position of realizing his reformist ideas at the Party Congress in December 1989 when the party transformed from a force with constitutional power into parliamentary opposition in the system of the class enemy.

This chapter describes the role of economists during Honecker’s consumer-oriented Unity of Social and Economic Policy. Drawing on the example of Erwin Rohde (1927–2010), professor of public finance at Humboldt University, it illustrates the professional practices of university economists including functionary positions, teaching reforms, and research efforts subject to revised plans and institutional control. The chapter argues that this organization resulted in an increasing turn inward that was inherent in the epistemic regime of East German economists and deprived them of a critical role in social discourse. To a large extent, the ongoing reforms had the ideological function of creating political stability through future promises, while the actual strategic activities that were incompatible with this ideology were covered by a veil of secrecy. This is illustrated with the example of the so-called area for commercial coordination.

The book concludes with the dismantling of East German economics after the reunification of Germany in 1990. The cleansing of the teaching staff was more radical than in any other reform seen in twentieth-century economics. In a very short time, Western research standards and teaching practices were enforced. The economists of the hope generation, however, were spared having their careers cut and retired jointly with the GDR. They continued holding on to the basic belief that had endured throughout their career: that the future of socialism remains to be built.

Part III tells how, after the building of the wall, economists arranged themselves with the regime and developed an ethos of continuous reform. This chapter describes the first major reform of this period: Ulbricht’s attempt to modernize socialism through his New Economic Policy including the so-called third university reform. While economists have gained prominence, and also freedom, in developing new methods such as in economic cybernetics, political stability and the logic of class conflict put limits on their effectiveness. Thus, the Prague Spring, at the latest, marked the end to the heyday of the East German economists.

As a result of the period of détente, East and West German scientists interacted more frequently. This chapter reconstructs the clash of cultures by focusing on East Germany’s role at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. IIASA was founded to bring together scientists from East and West to research shared problems and thus to build a “bridge” between the two opposing systems – with systems analysis referring to a set of technical theories of management, transport, and climate, as well as growth, innovation and education. The underlying image of knowledge was in stark contrast to the intellectual culture that developed in the preceding decades in East Germany. Even if participation was considered important for displaying East German science, its contribution was caught up in the precepts of the Western scholar as a class enemy. The chapter presents the best-documented case, the economist Harry Maier (1934–2010), who was one of the few social scientists who visited IIASA for two years between 1978 and 1980, and then, in 1986, used a conference visit to escape from East Germany.

Part I introduces the five protagonists of the book by discussing their childhood and youth during and after World War II. What made them choose economics? What made them amenable to the ideology of Marxism-Leninism as taught in their undergraduate studies? This chapter focuses on their experiences with Nazism, their socialization in the Hitler Youth, and the discrimination they were subjected to because of their ethnic or religious identity. It also highlights the postwar tumults that made them prone to the postwar propaganda on securing peace in the name of socialism and the opportunities to engage in ideological confrontation during the first cleansing waves at university.