What characterizes the socialist approach to health? We will explore experiences from the German Democratic Republic, the Georgian Soviet Republic, and modern-day Belgium to understand how socialist systems of the past and present have defied economic constraints and transformed health care to serve the needs of the people rather than profit.
On 9 November 1918, the German Empire was toppled after mass uprisings brought the monarchy and First World War to an end. The achievements and limitations of the November Revolution greatly shaped the development of the German state in the fateful decades of the 1920s and 1930s. Analysing the historical lessons of the November Revolution has also been a crucial point of contention within the German workers’ movement, for it raises the question of the working class’s relation to state power.
Professional ethics and health policy do not form a dichotomy. An article on working conditions in the GDR’s health care system.
In this article, we examine the circumstances that led to the division of Germany and the development of socialist strategies during the decisive post-war period (1945–1952).
Together with the social physician Dr. Heinrich Niemann and the former head of a polyclinic in Berlin Marzahn, Dr. Wolfgang Dübel, as well as the doctor Dr. Anita Rausch, who is active in medical training and further education, we discussed the health care system of the GDR and what significance the experiences made here can play for current political debates. We looked at the health policy orientations of the GDR and how they were realised in practice, alongside the contradictions and debates that arose in the process.
Together with the Marx Memorial Library in London and our partner Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, we invited to a discussion evening on the first edition of “Studies on the DDR”.
A lecture by Matthias Krauss, given at the conference “The GDR in All-German History — Missed Opportunity, Dead End, Aftermath,” an event organized by Helle Panke e.V. and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Berlin on October 26, 2021.
Anlässlich des Todes von Mikis Theodorakis am 2. September 2021 befragte die IF DDR Hartmut König, ehemaliger FDJ-Sekretär für internationale Arbeit und Kultur und bekannter Liedermacher, über seine Erinnerungen an Mikis und dessen Einfluss auf die Singebewegung in der DDR.
On 06.05.2021, the German daily, the junge Welt interviewed two members of the International Research Center DDR (IF DDR) with regard to the backdrop, methods and objectives of the center.
