From Transformation to Transfer The Transformation of the East German Academic System 1989/90-1995

Abstract

The transformation of the East German academic system in the wake of the unexpected collapse of communism in autumn 1989 can be roughly divided into three stages: In a “romantic” phase during the last year of the GDR, academic freedom and free access to university were re-established. In a second phase (1990-1992), external political actors initiated an extensive exchange of academic personnel. Finally, the third phase (1990-1995) consisted in a simultaneous transfer of West German academic structures and personnel to East German universities. The result was the integration of East German higher education institutions into the West German academic system without many of their academics. Excluded from the university, a few middle-aged East German scholars established an active parallel scholarly structure and thereby created what could be considered as the only institutional innovation during the transformation process. But due to the obvious need for reforms of the adopted West German academic system, the end of the transfer process to East Germany in 1995 did not mean a return to routine. The transfer process was only a prelude to further reforms like New Public Management and finally the Bologna Process, but these reforms showed no traces of the vanished communist academic system. This article reconstructs this unique transformation process following its structural, personal and cognitive dimensions.