The author begins his discussion of history education and textbook publishing in Germany by explaining how the reunification of Germany in 1990 came as a threat to East German professors. Though several embraced the ideas and methodologies of the West, many challenged the West’s approach to history and took less prominent or influential positions, or found themselves unemployed altogether. Pingel characterizes professors from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as threatened, cautious, skeptical, resigned, and even unyielding in the presence of historians from the West.

Pingel then reviews the way in which, before 1989, East and West German textbooks and curricula both had to address the ‘national question,’ though they did so from opposing ideological premises. In the 1950s, reunification was seen as a likely option for West Germany. In the 1960s, textbooks in the West refused to recognize East Germany as sovereign state, and treated Germany as a divided country. West German reforms in the late 1960s tried to replace this view with one of mutual recognition. Textbooks in the 1970s and 1980s furthered this by presenting partition as a fact of life – one that is unacceptable, but irreversible. In the 1980s attempts were made to compare textbooks. Some discussion emerged, but teachers were generally unwilling to analyze one another’s schoolbooks because of fundamental differences in ideology. West Germany was able to enter into formal textbook discussions with Poland, but it was not able to do so with the GDR. The GDR felt West German textbook recommendations undermined communism.

In the GDR, textbooks in the 1950s also anticipated reunification. By the 1960s, however, the two states were recognized as a more permanent reality, wherein the GDR was the inevitable product of social development. Reunification in this light would mean the Federal Republic (West Germany) being absorbed into the GDR. In the GDR, textbooks revealed history that was centered on nationalism within the context of Socialism and the Soviet Union. By the 1980s, curriculum reforms stemming from the idea of perestoika attempted to reflect a more realistic interpretation of history, but the reality of a rapidly changing political climate left history teachers confused and challenged. This fostered debate, however, which paved the way for GDR history methodologists to present reforms in the late-1989-1990 period. These reforms, however, were ultimately not implemented because textbooks from West German publishers began to replace GDR history books, even before reunification took place. Teachers who could not reorient themselves lost their jobs or were forced out of their subject area. The textbook publication section of Volkseigener Verlag Volk und Wissen was closed down, leaving no publisher in the former GDR to compete with West German publishers and their history books.

In the GDR, the history textbook had been essential to the history classroom. Initially the West German textbooks were well received in the East, but with time ideological issues arose over content. Teacher’s manuals created further issues and the author suggests that many teachers reverted to old GDR textbooks to develop their lessons. Textbook creators in West Germany found it difficult to understand the thinking of students in East Germany, and it was not until ten years after reunification that both sides worked together to develop textbooks. Initially in 1990 debate emerged, but a regional approach to history was decided, which helped satisfy ideologically driven concerns about content. Teachers in GDR struggled, however, with new language and the interpretation of concepts with undertones not familiar to their way of thinking. By the late 1990s, problematic areas had been identified and the varying interests of the students from the East in contrast to those in the West had been acknowledged and considered.