Revenge of the Domestic

Revenge of the Domestic examines gender relations in East Germany from 1945 to the 1970s, focusing especially on the relationship between ordinary women, the Communist Party, and the state created by the Communists, the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The book weaves together personal stories, interviews, statistical material, and evidence from archival research to reconstruct the complex interplay between state policy toward women and the family, and women's reactions to that policy. Donna Harsch demonstrates that women resisted state decisions as citizens, wageworkers, mothers, wives, and consumers, and she shows how, in every guise, they maneuvered to overcome official neglect of the family. Book jacket.

Donna Harsch is professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University. She specializes in twentieth-century German history