This book’s basic thesis is that East Germans experienced a ‘freedom shock’ in 1989/1990. Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk tells the fascinating story of East Germany since the break-up of the Soviet bloc as an unfinished struggle for freedom, the outcome of which will determine the future of the entire German nation. Kowalczuk wants to encourage people, especially in the East, to take more personal responsibility. This means rejecting victimhood and accepting a realistic, non-nostalgic view of the so-called German Democratic Republic (GDR), East Germany. The West may have ‘invented’ the East. But the East also invented itself and continues to do so. The first successful revolution in Germany took place in the GDR. But what factors have led to the current questioning of liberal democracy? Why is the right-wing extremist party AfD (Alternative for Germany) particularly successful in East Germany? Why are so many East Germans friendly towards Putin’s regime and hostile to Ukraine’s struggle for independence? In this book, the GDR regime is unequivocally seen as a dictatorship and German reunification as a success story of liberation. Freedom Shock is a defense against current anti-liberal tendencies by one of the most prominent East German intellectuals today.
