The collapse of the German Democratic Republic prompted the East Germans to confront their personal, cultural and international past. This study of the 'Wende' - the turn of events in 1989 - is based on ethnographic and anthropological research conducted in the early 1990s. Liz Ten Dyke has developed a finely nuanced portrait of the city and its residents as they were caught up in the economic, political and social turmoil that characterized the immediate post-socialist period. By weaving together scholarly research, oral history, and ""ethnographic excursions"" or narratives of salient ex