| Abstract: | The fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 led to the collapse of the communistic regimes in the Soviet‐dominated Eastern and Central European countries. The so‐called ‘East’ Germany, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which in West German terminology means ‘Central’ or ‘Middle’ Germany, became part of the German Federal Republic on 3 October 1990. In the treaty on the establishment of German unity, the German Science Council (Wissenschaftsrat,) was given the task by the Federal Government and by those of the States (Länder) to undertake a survey of publicly financed facilities for science and research in the former GDR and make proposals for necessary renewal. The author was a member of two of the working groups of the German Science Council, in charge of producing an expert opinion on the future structure of engineering education in the five new Länder and Berlin (East). Having known the situation in the GDR long before the Wall came down, the author describes briefly the training of civil engineers and architects before and after German unification. Not every step in the legal procedure in the new five Länder can be documented here, and it is also not intended to discuss scientific research in the GDR in great detail. All the data produced in the following tables are taken from the reports of the German Science Council 1, 2]. For a better understanding of German school and university training, see 3]. When statements by ‘insiders’ are cited, colleagues in the GDR, well known to the author before 1990, are meant. |
