Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the Gdr 1949-1989Founded on the ruins of Hitler's defeated Third Reich, and lacking any intrinsic legitimacy, the German Democratic Republic nevertheless became the most stable and successful state in the Soviet bloc. Yet in the gentle revolution of 1989 it collapsed with startling speed. How can this extraordinary story of political stability followed by sudden implosion be explained? With the opening of the East German archives, it is at last possible to look inside