372 JÜRGEN DANYEL AND ANNETTE SCHUHMANN
hoped to gain access to this important new sales market through the pos-
itive publicity generated by computer donations.
A discussion among computer scientists, mathematicians, and educa-
tors about the stronger integration of computer science in schools also
emerged in the mid-1980s in the GDR. Although the fi rst computers were
installed in schools as early as 1983 in the other Eastern Bloc states,
the computerization of the classroom in the GDR was initially limited
to special schools focused on mathematics, the natural sciences, and
technology. Furthermore, instruction in mathematics and computer sci-
ence was expanded, especially at the extended upper secondary schools.
Computer technology was also supposed to be promoted in the poly-
technic high schools by including more electronic data processing con-
tent in the subject area called “Introduction to Socialist Production.” In
1986, the Ministry of Education (Ministerium für Volksbildung) decided
to introduce computer science as a subject, but it held that the full-scale
introduction of this subject would not be possible until the beginning of
the 1990s. The reasons behind this were clear: the GDR microelectronics
factories were simply not in a position to supply the computers necessary
for this undertaking.^74
Of course, the establishment of computer science as a university disci-
pline was also a part of these changes in education. As early as the 1960s,
it was being taught at universities in the United States. During the 1970s,
a program launched by the Federal Ministry of Research fostered the
creation of computer science departments at West German universities.
By the beginning of the 1980s, the initial construction phase had largely
been completed.^75 In 1986/87, the new subject of computer science came
to replace the courses that had previously been off ered under “informa-
tion processing” in East Germany. Corresponding offi cial decisions made
by the party and the council of ministers determined that computer sci-
ence would be off ered as a major at several East German Universities as
part of the degree program to become a computer science engineer.
Many people could hardly imagine the extent to which computer tech-
nology would revolutionize industrial work and offi ce jobs, nor that it
would force entire sectors of industry to adopt entirely new production
processes or that these sectors in their traditional form would disappear
entirely. The rapid pace of these advances naturally instilled fear at fi rst.
The process of computerization had always been accompanied by crit-
ical self-refl ection in West German society since the 1960s, but the offi cial
rhetoric of progress remained in place in the GDR until the very end, de-
spite the country’s failures in this regard. In both German states, expec-
tations and fears about the economic and sociostructural consequences
of these developments in microelectronics clashed with one another at a