Political travel across the ‘Iron Curtain’ and Communist youth identities in West Germany and Greece in the 1970s and 1980s

This article explores tours through the Iron Curtain arranged by West German and Greek pro-Soviet Communist youth groups, in an attempt to shed light on the transformation of European youth cultures beyond the ‘Americanisation’ story. It argues that the concept of the ‘black box’, employed by Rob Kroes to describe the influence of American cultural patterns on Western European youth, also applies to the reception of Eastern Bloc policies and norms by the Communists under study. Such selective reception was part of these groups’ efforts to devise a modernity alternative to the ‘capitalist’ one, an alternative modernity which tours across the Iron Curtain would help establish. Nevertheless, the organisers did not wish such travel to help eliminate American/Western influences on youth lifestyles entirely: the article analyses the excursions’ aims with regard to two core components of youth lifestyles in Western Europe since the 1960s, which have been affected by intra-Western flows, the spirit of ‘doing one’s own thing’ and transformations of sexual practices. The article also addresses the experience of the travellers in question, showing that they felt an unresolved tension: the tours neither served as a means of Sovietisation nor as an impulse to develop an openly anti-Soviet stance.PostprintPeer reviewe

Griechen in Bremen Bildung, Arbeit und soziale Integration einer auslaendischen Bevoelkerungsgruppe (Projektbericht)

Der 'Bericht analysiert die soziale, berufliche und kulturelle Situation der in Bremen lebenden griechischen Bevoelkerungsgruppe. Das uebergreifende Ziel der Studie besteht darin, sozialwissenschaftlich fundierte Daten und Befunde zu liefern, die insbesondere fuer eine berufliche Qualifizierung und Weiterqualifizierung von Auslaendern in Deutschland genutzt werden koennen.' (Autorenreferat)Available from IAB-96-413-00 BI 988 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman