Shadows of the Past: National Socialist Backgrounds of the GDR's Functional Elites

Although antifascism was a constitutive ideologeme of the GDR, there was no thorough cleansing of its functional elites from persons with a National Socialist past or family background. An analysis of the Central Cadre Database of the GDR Council of Ministers shows that among higher administrative executives, managers, and other leading personnel the share of former members of National Socialist organizations or descendants of (pre-1945 service class) parents with National Socialist affiliation was several times higher than the share of cadres with a personal or family background in pre-1945 working-class parties (including Social Democrats) or a record of anti-fascist resistance.