Designing one nation : the politics of economic culture and trade in divided Germany Designing One Nation explores how East and West Germans negotiated their countrys postwar division at the juncture of economic and cultural politics. It is especially concerned with historical interconnections between the two Germanies in industrial design economic structures corporate ethos trade economic foreign policy and consumer culture all of which are subsumed under the term economic culture. It shows that post war reconstruction as envisioned and realized by a network of politicians entrepreneurs and cultural brokers did more than to modernize the respective parts of Germany. Rather through the national re inscription of their material culture here explored in the realm of interior design and furniture production the two German states pursued an unprecedented effort to regain economic stability and political influence in post war Europes order. Significantly what started as a Cold War competition for ideological superiority quickly turned into a shared politically legitimizing quest for an untainted post fascist modernity. Following products from the drawing board into the homes of ordinary Germans this book thus offers unique insights into how converging visions of German industrial modernity created shared expectations about economic progress and living standards. The resulting economic culture linked the two Germanies together and acted internationally in a pan German interest The histories of East and West Germany traditionally emphasize the Cold War rivalries between the communist and capitalist nations. Yet even as the countries diverged in their political directions they had to create new ways of working together economically. This book examines the material culture of increasing economic contacts in divided Germany from the 1940s until the 1990s. Trade events such as fairs and product shows became one of the few venues for sustained links and knowledge between the two countries after the building of the Berlin Wall. The book uses industrial design epitomized by the furniture industry to show how a network of politicians entrepreneurs and cultural brokers attempted to nationally re inscribe their production cultures define a postwar German identity and regain economic stability and political influence in postwar Europe. What started as a competition for ideological superiority between East and West Germany quickly turned into a shared politically legitimizing quest for an untainted post fascist modernity. This work follows products from the drawing board into the homes of ordinary Germans to offer insights into how converging visions of German industrial modernity created shared expectations about economic progress and living standards. The book reveals how intra German and European trade policies drove the creation of products and generated a certain convergence of East and West German taste by the 1980s.