Friendship without Borders: Women’s Stories of Power, Politics, and Everyday Life across East and West Germany

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Across half a century, from the division of Germany through the end of the Cold War, a cohort of thirty women from the small German town of Schoenebeck in what used to be the GDR circulated among themselves a remarkable collective archive of their lives: a Rundbrief, or bulletin, containing hundreds of letters and photographs. This book draws on that unprecedented resource, complemented by a set of interviews, to paint a rich portrait of ordinary life in postwar Germany. It shows how these women-whether reflecting on their experiences as Nazi-era schoolchildren or witnessing reunification-were united by their complex interactions with official power and their commitment to sustaining a shared German identity as they made the most of their everyday lives in both the GDR and the Federal Republic.