Transformation as Biographical Experience. Personal Destinies of East Berlin Graduates before and after Unification

Abstract

The transformation of East German society can be seen as a contingent turning point in the life planning of individuals. It destabilized professional careers and forced individuals to make unexpected choices under conditions of great uncertainty and risk, for which their biographical experiences had not prepared them. Adaptation to the new social environment was relatively successful, but was only accomplished at considerable personal cost and/or a large amount of soul searching. A comparison of personal destinies before and after unification also suggests that political capital did not succeed in supplanting cultural capital in importance, and that autonomous life planning had not been eliminated in the socialist state, in spite of central planning and ideological control. The broader context of German history and early socialization must be taken into account in order to make sense of personal continuity across systemic changes.

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