Institutionalizing Volkskunde in Early East Germany

The article deals with the institutionalization of the post-war field of Volkskunde in the Soviet Occupation Zone and early East Germany. After a short summary of post-war science policy in the Eastern zone, the main focus is on two primary initiators of the field, Adolf Spamer and Wolfgang Steinitz. The author analyzes the scientific approaches and strategies they used to establish the field in the Eastern part of Germany. Both Spamer and Steinitz are examined with respect to how scholarship abandoned the personnel, institutional, and ideological structures left over from earlier nationalist and National Socialist contexts, while simultaneously accepting the new political circumstances. Thus, the concepts of continuity and change play a particular role.