Publication: "Allein unter vielen"

Carolin Wiethoff
Allein unter vielen – Alltag, Ausbau und Krise der Kinderkrippen in der DDR 1950–1968
publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2025
series of publications: Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte
ISBN 978-3-11-165587-1
259 pages (paperback)
24,95 EUR

Alone among many – these were the children in the day care centres of the GDR. Some of them were placed in state day, weekly or permanent care centres from an early age and had to experience the construction of socialism first-hand. In 1950, for ideological and economic reasons, the SED regime began expanding the crèche system, which was soon to enter a serious crisis. Medical research showed the negative effects of the institution on the children. Although the SED dictatorship was able to sanction and direct science, solutions still had to be found for the concrete everyday problems. The state relied, sometimes in vain, on pedagogical concepts to avoid developmental delays and to educate children to become "socialist personalities". Carolin Wiethoff takes a critical look at the everyday life, expansion and crisis of day nurseries in the GDR up to the late 1960s.

The author
Carolin Wiethoff studied modern and contemporary history, Eastern European history and folklore at the University of Münster. She is a research assistant at the Chair of General Education at the University of Erfurt. Her research focuses on the history of education in the GDR, medicine in dictatorships, and the history of social policy and social security in Germany.