This dissertation examines the aesthetic debates, compositional practices, and critical reception of modern music in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from the post-Stalinist thaw of 1956 until the end of Walter Ulbricht's regime in 1971. Drawing from archival sources, East German publications, and interviews conducted in 2005 and 2006, it argues that composers, musicologists, and party bureaucrats developed a distinctive aesthetic of new music that engaged with socialist ideology, western modernism, and Germany's division. Chapter 1 shows that East German conceptions of musical progress diverged from those of the West in two critical respects: first, by emphasizing music's function in a new, socialist society over technical innovations; second, by insisting that new music maintain ties to tradition. It evaluates standard historiographical frameworks for studying postwar music, and argues that East Germany's failure to fit within these frameworks has contributed to its condemnation and neglect. Chapter 2 describes the competing influences of the Soviet Union and West Germany on state efforts to foster a "socialist German culture." Chapter 3 traces the changing relationship between socialist realism and western modernism. The heart of the chapter focuses on the Materialdebatten , in which musicologists debated the ideological neutrality of musical materials and the suitability of western techniques for socialist music.

Two musical case studies illustrate the theoretical arguments of the first three chapters. Chapter 4 examines tensions between official condemnations of twelve-tone technique and the critical success of dodecaphonic works by Hanns Eisler, Gerhard Wohlgemuth, and Fritz Geißler. It describes compositional and interpretative strategies composers and musicologists employed to justify twelve-tone technique and the circumstances under which dodecaphonic music found acceptance. Chapter 5 describes the role of tradition in cultural politics and the composition of new music, and argues that emphasis on tradition did not inevitably result in musical conservatism. Composers Paul Dessau, Tilo Medek, and Reiner Bredemeyer experimented with techniques of musical borrowing to express a dynamic relationship to the musical heritage. These case studies demonstrate that composers pursued alternative paths to musical innovation by transforming techniques from the classical heritage and modernist West. The conclusion connects East German music to historiographical problems of evaluating postwar musical innovation, particularly music subject to state control.