Chauliac, Marina <br/><br/>
The Jugendweihe: Continuities and Changes in a Rite Inherited from the GDR 

 -  2003.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> Jugendweihe is a rite of passage in New Länder originating in the nineteenth century as an alternative to confirmation and instituted by the authorities of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as a quasi-obligatory socialist rite for 14-year-old teenagers. Today, it reveals continuity with the GDR in practices and institutions, as well as in its reaction to the reunification and the claim of an East-German cultural identity. Succeeding the anticlerical policy of the GDR, Jugendweihe takes part in the reappropriation of citizens’ pasts as East Germans and clarifies the methods of transmission of a rite independent of a religious or political institution.