How free is free time? Mental hygiene and self-governance between work and leisure in the German Democratic Republic, 1960–1990

Public health education in the German Democratic Republic was greatly concerned with proper leisure-time behaviour. In this article, the author asks to what extent psychological and pedagogical approaches that sought to improve psycho-hygienic self-governance can be interpreted as a new form of socialist governmentality. To this end, the author examines the scientific publications, public health education initiatives and films of the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden, which, from the mid 1960s to the end of the 1980s, promoted forms of ‘active regeneration’ along the threshold between work and leisure. In addition to the new strategies of self-governance, the role played by psychological knowledge and gender-specific norms is analysed. The author shows how responsibility for stress was increasingly placed on the individual. East German efforts to improve mental hygiene demonstrate that socialism in the German Democratic Republic was never able to detach itself from the international trend towards individualism and self-reflection.