Arts Centres

The Socialist Unity Party’s all-encompassing control over the education of children and young people also applied to adults. Arts centres were seen as educational institutes for a new way of life and as places where “socialist personalities” could be developed. The logic behind the idea of the arts centres led to the democratic opening of high culture, which claimed to create the all-round educated “new man and woman”. Leonore Schwarzer photographed theatre and dance groups, painting courses and classes.