3 Old Concepts in Changing Societies? Continuities and Transformation of Nationalism in East Germany, 1871–2019

Abstract

After the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of real existing socialism, it was common to discuss the end of nation states and the era of a transnational order to come. After a period of globalization and internationalization, nation states played only a minor role in processes of decision-making, economic integration as well as historical development in general. Referrals were repeatedly made to Europe, to name one example here, because the EU significantly represented this global trend. Thus, when Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) wrote a new prologue to the German edition of his famous book Nations and Nationalism since 1780 in 2005, he claimed that nations were disappearing, and that is the time for scientific research because exploring nationalism was possible as recently as the phenomenon had gone. This perception changed over a couple of years. Several states have renationalized and thus apparently interrupted this development. To describe this process, we only need to mention a few keywords: Brexit, “Make America great again,” or border control, and everyone already knows that nationalism is still a vivid political concept. Last but not least, the consequences of the coronavirus as a nightmare for a totally globalized economy led to the complete isolation of individual countries in the northern hemisphere within a few days. The economic and political consequences are not yet foreseeable – a re-nationalization of states cannot be excluded.