In October 1990, the GDR ceased to exist and East Germany was reunified with the Federal Republic of Germany. The reunification treaty provides that the Prison Act of the Federal Republic should also become binding in the former GDR. From a legal point of view, this should also be occurring in the prison system. However, matters are not that simple. The prison system of the GDR was closely linked to national developments in the eastern part of Germany, and this can be seen in its structures, its mechanisms, and its legal regulations, as well as with respect to the inmates and staff themselves. It is important to take into account these historical peculiarities of the GDR prison system as compared to the West German one; failing that, the unification of the German prison systems would be a simple takeover of West German prison standards. This could have very counterproductive results: rather than bringing East German prisons more in line with the rule of law, it might produce obstacles to reaching the rehabilitative goal of the correctional system. It is, therefore, important to pay close attention to the prison system in the former GDR, to analyze it and draw some conclusions about the difficulties of transforming it from a context within one German state to its current context within a different German state. Footnotes, references