Andrew Beattie's doctoral thesis, now in book form with Berghahn Books, offers the first sustained analysis and critique in any language of the Federal Parliament's two commissions of inquiry into the legacy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR): “Working through the History and Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in Germany” (1992-1994), and “Overcoming the Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in the Process of German Unity” (1995-1998). In addition, the book provides, in the form of an appendix, the author's own translation into English of the terms of reference adopted by these two commissions.

At the beginning, Beattie sets out to debunk the myth that the work of the committees was an exercise in western German “victor's justice.” After all, as Beattie shows, there were quite a number of East Germans involved in the work of the committees, even if this number did reduce over time; and the fault lines in the assessment of the GDR ran not so much between East and West Germans as between political parties. Certainly the clearest divide ran between the conservative Christian Democrats on the one hand, and the Party of Democratic Socialists on the other. But former dissidents from East Germany involved in the committees' work often shared the views of the more West German Christian Democrats, and there were some points of agreement (with differences of emphasis) between the successor party to the SED and the Social Democrats.

Nevertheless, despite significant differences between political parties on particular issues, it seems clear from Beattie's account that both committees, overall, did endorse a view of East Germany that confirmed the long-standing West German view of East Germany as a totalitarian state. While the SED's victims were given a chance to express their suffering and their views, the commissions were more committed to a focus on perpetration. While the issue of everyday life in the GDR was touched on, the commissions seemed more interested in exploring the mechanisms of top-down control in what was called the “SED dictatorship.” While there were discussions within the commissions as to whether the GDR was a more complex and malleable state than interpretations that emphasized the dogmatic primacy of ideology would allow, the commissions ultimately did much to underpin the notion of the GDR as a kind of purist experiment in Marxist Leninism—a notion itself dependent upon an understanding of ideology and praxis in the GDR as the ultimate realization of what Marx and Lenin had envisaged.

Moreover, while there were some comparisons of East Germany with West Germany, these were usually of a very generalized, axiomatic kind, with East Germany appearing as inferior in all regards. Even antifascism was discredited as a state-imposed instrument of propaganda, overlooking its arguably more positive aspects. Given this tendentiousness, it is not surprising that the commissions did little to achieve that part of their remit directed toward fostering inner unity or conciliation. It is certainly a pity that no attempt was made to identify weaknesses in the West German democratic system, or aspects of GDR life that compared favorably with the situation in the west. The fixation was on the negative. Only when it came to assessing the conduct of the bloc parties such as the GDR liberals (LDPD) or GDR Christian Democrats (CDU) did West German representatives of the Free Democrats and Christian Democrats respectively discover a tone of understanding, even praise—for had these much maligned also-rans not preserved ideals of democracy, plurality, and national unity as best they could under the coercive dominance of the SED? The SPD had a harder time defending its merger with the KPD as the CDU and FDP tried to tar the Social Democrats with the brush of the totalitarianism of which the GDR stood accused. Party-political wrangling, as Beattie shows, could be intense within the commission; political reputations in the present, after all, are to a degree dependent on perceptions of performance in the past. But when all was said and done, CDU, FDP, as well as some SPD and Allianz 90 members of the commission were broadly in agreement in the generally blanket condemnation of the GDR.

Beattie has written an excellent book. His research is painstaking, the referencing thorough, the analysis for the most part painstakingly balanced, perceptive, and nuanced. All the more reason, then, to believe that his ultimately rather low opinion of the commissions' achievements is justified. That the second commission was not without influence on a subsequent decision to invest more heavily in “sites with a double past” is indication enough that it may have served to support a process of equating socialism in the Soviet-occupied zone and in the GDR with National Socialism—a process which, some fear, will lead to a relativization of National Socialist crime.