The concept of ideology as it was used in the GDR differed explicitly from other versions of the term, such as those from the sociology of knowledge (Wissenssoziologie, see Karl Mannheim), and was based on Marx and Engels's reflections on German Ideology (MEW 3), that initially linked people's ideas and worldviews with the social conditions in which they live and their position in those social conditions. Ideology was understood in the GDR as a system of social (political, economic, legal, educational, artistic, moral, philosophical, etc.) views that express certain class interests and include corresponding behavioural norms, attitudes, and evaluations (philosophical dictionary, Vol. 1, p. 546).

According to historical materialism – as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels characterised their conception of history – there is a lawful sequence of different relations of production (Produktionsverhältnisse) in different social formations, driven by the development of the forces of production (Produktionskräfte). It is assumed that consciousness reflects the social conditions in which the bearers of consciousness live, namely their social existence. Within class society (Klassengesellschaft), such as capitalism, there are different classes of people who each occupy different positions and economic conditions - in capitalism the class of wage workers and the class of the bourgeoisie, the owners of capital. Their respective worldviews, which are determined by their economic and social position, are then understood as a class ideology (Klassenideologie). The totality of the views and interests of a class reflect the social situation of its members.

What is problematic now – following the Marxist position – is not the fact of a socially determined and particular consciousness, but the ideology that declares a particular interest to be the interest of all: the ideas of the ruling bourgeoisie, the bourgeois ideology. By separating work into intellectual work (of the ruling class) and physical work (of the exploited class), consciousness becomes independent and thus obscures objective conditions (objektive Verhältnisse) of material practice. The working class possesses an ideology that can be regarded as truly scientific due to its objective position in society and this serves an integral role in overcoming capitalism. The antagonism between bourgeois and socialist ideology was seen as an irreconcilable struggle (unversöhnlicher Kampf) in which a weakening of one side inevitably means a strengthening of the other.

Socialist ideology thus became everyone's concern: one had to be on the side of the working class and its interests, to fight against bourgeois ideology and to work for the construction of socialism and communism. Based on this understanding of an ideology that needed to be developed, ideological education was set against spontaneous consciousness based on individual everyday experience and became an important educational goal in the GDR. The goal was to educate comprehensively developed socialist personalities whose skills and knowledge would be closely linked to the truly scientific ideology of the working class (cf. Neuner, 1973).