How Did GDR Socialization in Adolescence Shape Political Attitudes More Than Thirty Years Later?

Abstract In this article, we investigate the question of whether political socialization in the German Democratic Republic before the fall of the Berlin Wall has had an effect on current attitudes toward German unification and the role of intra-German migration in this context. We used the data of the Saxon Longitudinal Study to measure gdr identification of the respondents in 1987 and to test their influence on attitudes toward unification more than 30 years later. Results show that a consolidation of gdr identity in adolescence shapes the affinity for socialism in the further course of life, but does not seem to play a role in the later approval of unification and in the feeling of being disadvantaged as an East German.