Berlin: Verlag Neues Leben, 1972. Hardback, orginal linen with dust jacket.
A profusely illustrated book about life in the German Democratic Republic (GDR/DDR) by two Moscovians. Henrick Gurkow was a journalist and a correspondent for the Soviet newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda in the GDR and West-Berlin. Michail Trachman was a press photographer and a war correspondent who documented some of the Red Army's campaigns during the 'Big Patriotic War', 'der grosse Vaterländische Krieg'.
The book is a kind of travel report on the development of East-Germany under communism, and a more subtle example of propaganda as it 'naturalizes' ideological choices.
On the other hand, the book makes the mechanism of indoctrination explicit, in saying that 'socialism' has to be instilled and reproduced in the minds and behavior of people: 'Niemand kommt als Sozialist auf die Welt. Sozialistische Bewusstsein vererbt sich nicht, sondern muss erst in die Köpfe hineingetrafen werden. Auch revolutionäre Eigenschaften sind nicht angeboren, sond müssen erst anerzogen werden'