The East German CDU

Abstract

The East German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was a bloc party of the ruling SED but also had historical roots in the pre-fascist German past. In the political crisis in 1989 part of the party intelligentsia of the eastern CDU reinterpreted their former political orientation and also used the party history of their personal relations to the churches. This group gained the party leadership in the autumn of 1989 and became the leading politicians of the 41st year of the GDR. But from the summer of 1991 onwards a second wave of elite changes took place. Now the new party members without ties to the bloc party of the past were victorious in the political contest. Both the radical elite replacements and the difficulties in reformulating political identities show that the process of change in the East German CDU after 1989 was characterized by typical post-communist problems.