In their research work, historians give time and its sections a form; they divide time into different phases or epochs; they create temporal frameworks by carrying out periodisations. That belongs to the historical craft. But even if this is the everyday work of historians, the division is not self-evident, because – as Osterhammel notes – historians do not do this in meticulous deduction from supposedly self-explanatory ‘facts’ (Osterhammel, 2006, p. 47). Ideas of periodisation are often based on hidden conceptions which first give meaning to facts, as those of a particular epoch, and make them conceivable and recognisable as such. Even though Osterhammel speaks about the great epochal divisions and their difficulties and about whether and how these can be carried out in the context of a global history, the difficulties also apply to the consideration of smaller temporal units. Phase divisions, for example, undertaken in the consideration of political-revolutionary event history, in no way correspond to an objectively valid periodisation. The restructuring of socio-economic, social and political structures, such as state constitutions, is not identical with a specific date, such as the adoption of a constitution, but rather takes place over longer periods of time and again does not coincide with processes of change in ideas and everyday experiences. All of these different aspects have to be taken into account if one wants to make convincing proposals for periodisation.

Periodisations or phase divisions that have so far been undertaken for the history and the history of education of the GDR testify to the difficulties of making classifications that are convincing in every respect. For the history of the GDR, a division following the decades has often become common, for example: a prehistory between 1945 and 1949, followed by a developmental phase beginning with the founding of the GDR and lasting until the building of the Wall in 1961; a subsequent stabilisation phase until 1970/71, when Ulbricht resigned as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the SED; and then, under the aegis of Honecker, two phases, often once again subdivided in 1980, of the emergence of crisis phenomena until 1990. Anselm Doering-Manteuffel and Lutz Raphael have critically described this procedure of arriving at divisions for contemporary history as “decadeological” (dekadologisch, Doering-Manteuffel & Raphael, 2012, p. 25). Different aspects are taken into account in order to identify something constant in the individual phases and something that distinguishes them from the others – be it terms of office of government personnel, drastic measures that affected decisions and the approval of the population, or course corrections in economic and social policy. For the history of education in the GDR, the divisions also appear to differ depending on what is taken into view. This becomes clear in the Handbook of German Education History (Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte); there does not exist one single overarching division that encompasses all parts of the education and upbringing system, the system level and everyday experiences. In the section on general education, five phases are distinguished. After a phase of “new beginnings” in the Soviet Occupation Zone (Sowjetische Besatzungszone, SBZ) between 1945 and 1948, a transitional phase to the socialist school extended until 1958, followed by a phase of “polytechnical education reform” between 1958 and 1963/65, then the period of a unified education system and new curricula between 1963/65 and 1980. The last phase began in 1980 and extended to the end of the GDR (cf. Baske, 1998). A different picture emerges in the consideration of “pedagogical science,” where different phase divisions are evident (cf. Tenorth & Wiegmann, 2022). All divisions of the history of GDR education, however, assume a turning point in the 1960s, often linked to the entry into force of the “Law on the Unified Socialist Education System,” with which a structure for the entire education system was created that remained in this form for the rest of the GDR’s existence. Especially when – as has now rather become common – the history of the GDR and its education system is not regarded as a development completely separate from that of the other German state, but rather as characterised on the one hand by manifold entanglements and on the other by larger epochal types, similar phases of the history of education in the GDR are seen as those in the Federal Republic. From this perspective too, a major turning point is identified in the 1960s, and the developments thereafter are diagnosed as differentiation, modernisation and expansion of the education system, in which crisis phenomena – even in cautious self-observation – can be identified (cf. Tenorth, 2010).