The Eastern German Studies Association was an association of scholars interested in that part of Germany once known as the German Democratic Republic. It disbanded in 2002.

This page will remain on the Internet for the foreseeable future, but will not be regularly maintained. I've had to transfer the material from elsewhere, and not everything came over, but I think the primary textual material is here.

The ESGA newsletter was published twice a year. Its past newsletters will remain available on this site.

The following issues are available:

October 2002: The latest and last news

Past issues:

Search the EGSA site for:

Other information on Eastern Germany is available at the following places:

• Bibliography on German Unification: Over 36,000 entries.
• Centre for East German Studies (University of Reading).
• The DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts
• German Historical Institute: Useful material, including a brief guide to German archives.
• The German Propaganda Archive: English translations of propaganda materials from the GDR.
• The Hannah Arendt Institut: At the Technische Universität Dresden.
• Stanford University: Cultural History of the German Democratic Republic
• Stiftung Aufarbeitung: The GDR archives.
• Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung (Potsdam).

Miscellaneous Sites Relevant to Eastern Germany:

• The Bundesarchiv: The German federal archives.
• The Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Files (Gauck Commission)
• Pictures of the GDR: An interesting collection from the Berliner Landesbeauftragter für die Stasi-Unterlagen.
• Stasiopfer: An interesting web site on various aspects of GDR State Security.

Useful Documents:

• GDR Abbreviations: Brian Zdan kindly provided me with a copy of the Kleines Abkürzungsbuch, a 1986 GDR publication that translates 6500 abbreviations. If you come across one that puzzles you, drop me a note and I'll look it up for you. My email address is bytw2calvin.edu [Replace the "2" with an "@"].
• Die Wunderbare Jahre: An essay in Dutch, with a bibliography.

Useful Commercial Sites:

• Zentrales Verzeichnis Antiquarischer Bücher: A unified catalog of used books available from many dealers in Germany. This is a remarkably easy way to find if an out-of-print book is available. The database currently has over 4,500,000 books.
• ABE Books: Another good place to find German used books.

EGSA Home Page
Last significant update 17 December 2006
Web page by Randall Bytwerk