Endurance Test
Détente and East European Research
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Just like any field of research, German East European Studies depends on political climate. Benefiting from the start of the Cold War, West German East European Studies was strongly promoted in the 1950s and could draw on the institutional and research methods of the period before 1945. The détente policy of the 1960s and 1970s influenced East European Studies so profoundly that the field’s entire structure of institutions and content was shaken to the core. The slow departure from the paradigm of Ostforschung as well as the introduction of greater thematic and methodological differentiation were important steps on the way to making German East European Studies more scientific in the post-war era.
(Osteuropa 12/2005, pp. 149–162)