Afterword

Abstract

As mentioned in the introduction, this research project was conceptualized and carried out as a preliminary study, to generate questions, hypotheses, and models: it was never seen as a comprehensive or a definitive work, and the judgements ventured in the following pages should be seen as tentative rather than conclusive. Particularly, the fact that ten of the twelve interviews were conducted in East Berlin, but most of the documentation was found in West Berlin and New York, introduces a methodological bias. It is hoped that the German Democratic Republic will consider making its own archives more accessible to Western researchers in the near future to facilitate the development of a less biased and more refined analysis.