"This is not a Politburo, but a madhouse," The post World War II Sovietization of East Germany up to the 1953 worker's uprising.
i
The East German leadership, 1946-1973 : conflict and crisis
Chapter One The Stalinization of the SED, 1946-1953: the defeat of Ackermann and the "special German way to socialism" the defeat of the former social democrats the purge of Merker and Dahlem. Chapter Two The Zaisser-Hernstadt opposition, 1950-53: conflict, 1950 - May 1953 opposition, June-July 1953 the aftermath. Chapter Three The anti-Ulbricht opposition, 1956-58: Merker or Dahlem - a "German Gomulka" in waiting? the Schrdewan-Oelssner opposition in the politburo the opposition in the central committee. Chapter Four The fall of Ulbricht: Ulbricht and economic reform Ulbricht, foreign policy and the German question the end of the Ulbricht era, 1970-73.
Shoeless Joe: Fantasy and the Humor of Fellow-Feeling
In his essay on Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, Thomas Carlyle writes of a humor that manifests itself in smile rather than laughter. "Richter is a man of mirth," says Carlyle, whose humor is "capricious . . . quaint . . . [and] heartfelt" (15). The three adjectives represent for Carlyle the essence of what he terms "true humor" because they suggest Richter's enormous respect for humanity. "True humor," he goes on to say, "springs not more from the head than from the heart; it is not contempt, its essence is love; it issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper" (17). These smiles are not Hobbesian smirks of superiority1 but genuine signs of compassion for, sympathy toward, and empathy with the object of the humor. Carlyle further provides a direct link between humor and both pathos and nobility; the link is the smile of the caring man. For Carlyle, this smile is one of "fellow-feeling":