Aim of this dissertation:

The present dissertation with the title Policy developments of teaching foreign languages at the schools of general education in the Soviet Occupation Zone and the German Democratic Republic in the time span from 1945 to 1989 with special consideration of the subject of »English«—An analysis of selected files of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany and the Ministry of Education of the GDR deals with the teaching of foreign languages in the Soviet Occupation Zone [of the German Reich] and the GDR from 1945 until 1989. Although the main focus is on the academic instruction of the English language, multiple comparisons to the teaching of Russian and other languages are included. For this purpose, a chronological overview based on the filed records of the Soviet Military Administration (SMA) and the Ministry of Education of the GDR are also provided. Additionally, three immersion chapters cover selected aspects of English instruction in a more detailed manner, i. e. (a) the two seasons of the GDR educational television series English for You in the 1960s and 1970s; (b) the only high school specializing in the learning of foreign languages in the GDR, opened in the mid-1970s; (c) the only three officially organized encounters in East Berlin between high school students of the William Penn High School in New Castle, Connecticut/USA, and the Mildred Harnack High School in East Berlin during the mid- to late 1980s.

Applied Methods:

For the analysis of the files, various methods are being used, among them procedures common in the discipline of literary studies. They are described in an extra sub-chapter of the introduction part. It is also reasoned that among the existing methods, some are not suitable for the analysis task at hand. This distinction is necessary since there are currently no established methods for the analysis of state authority files. As such, the archives of the Soviet Military Administration and the Ministry of Education of the GDR being available for academic research nowadays, presents a unique situation. A method of qualitative social research has been developed: The »Edited and Annotated Interview with Contemporary Witnesses« (German acronym: REZI). This method, published here for the first time, is described in detail in the appendix.

Summary:

As all policy decisions with regard to education in a socialist state cannot be seen and analyzed separate from the concurrent political atmosphere, relevant historic events are also highlighted throughout this thesis. Additionally, the thesis contains a conceptually organized glossary in order to name and point out the differences in meaning of selected educational terms between East and West Germany. The appendix contains (a) three unabridged interviews with contemporary witnesses who content-wise partially go far beyond the topic of »General Education« by discussing in depth their experiences in relation to the GDR and state socialism in East Germany, (b) a synoptic chronology of important events from 1945 to 1989 with associated statistics, as well as (c) selected documents such as the »Order № 40« of the Soviet Military Administration given in August 1945 in East Berlin. Therefore, this research work is of interest not only for specialists of education but also for the interested public. Finally, the dissertation also contains a comprehensive and structured bibliography as well as a section of desiderata.