The German Democratic
Republic
HI136: History of Germany
Totalitarianist interpretations
• Popular in 1950s West German interpretations; revival post-1989
– Comparisons drawn with brown dictatorship of NS
• Stress illegitimacy of Soviet occupation & East German ‘puppets’
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State ideology of ‘socialist personality’ within collective
‘Leading role’ of ruling party enshrined in constitution
Stasi secret police
State control of economy
Control of media
Control of economy
• Berlin Wall as epitome of state control of individual
– Breached UN human rights on freedom of travel
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Klaus Schroeder, Der SED-Staat (1998)
Eckard Jesse (ed.), Totalitarismus im 20. Jahrhundert (1998)
Anthony Glees, The Stasi Files (2003)
Also popular with many former GDR citizens; but is this because it
denies personal responsibility?
Modernising dictatorship?
• Complex industrial economy required ‘rational’ not ‘ideological’ elite
– More university graduates enter party apparatus from 1960s
– Peter C. Ludz, The Changing Party Elite in East Germany (1968/72)
• Economic reforms of 1960s (New Economic System)
– Attempt at decentralisation and incentivisation of economy
• Technological revolution
– Special role of intelligentsia in GDR (see dividers on state emblem)
– Precision engineering from Dresden & Leipzig
– 1980s gamble on microchip technology (too high investment costs)
• Welfare dictatorship (Konrad Jarausch)
– Indirect use of ‘social power’ to predispose groups to choose socialism
– Full employment, hospitals, education system > fond memories
• Educational dictatorship (Erziehungsdiktatur)?
– Party ‘in loco parentis’, knowing what was good for the people
– Rolf Henrich, The Guardian State (1989); party man turned dissident
Collective biographies & everyday histories
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GDR lasted more than one generation;
post-1949 generation ‘born into’ socialism
Are we patronising GDR citizens by
treating them all as ‘released prisoners’ &
victims?
Gaus, Locating Germany (1983): ‘niche
society’, relatively normal private life
The Children of
possible behind public conformity
Golzow (7-up TV
Mary Fulbrook, The People’s State
biography, 1961 ff.)
(2005)
Material culture: 1990s growing interest
in popular culture of GDR
Ostalgie/’Eastalgia’: re-issuing of GDR
brands (see the Spreewald gherkin
episode in Goodbye Lenin); fight to
preserve minor symbols of difference
(traffic light man)
Goodbye Lenin (2003):
Danger of ‘commodifying’ the GDR past Alex with his allegorical
mother/motherland who
& relativising idealistic motivations
Born in Year
One, Wierling’s
2002 collective
biography
cannot survive the fall of GDR green man –
is nothing sacred?
the Wall
The Achievements of Socialism
Katarina Witt,
Olympic iceskating
champion &
GDR ‘ice
princess’: the
GDR measured
its success
against the FRG
in gold medals
Charité hospital,
Berlin: GDR
polyclinics are one
of the few legacies
adopted by united
Germany
First GDR
cosmonaut in
1976; from the
1960s astronomy
was on all GDR
school
curriculums
East Germany’s
‘honours system’:
the state was
adept at rewarding
participation with a
mania for badges
Walter Ulbricht, SED leader 1946-71
• Reliable but uncharismatic functionary
• Weimar KPD leader in Berlin in 1930s
• Nazi exile spent mainly in Moscow,
avoiding purges of later 30s; viewed as
Stalinist even after Stalin’s death
• Favoured ‘hard line’ of constructing
socialism in half a country rather than
pursuing reunification; in 1953 under
heavy fire from Politburo colleagues, but
‘saved’ by 17 June uprising
• Activist role in pushing Khrushchev into
aggressive stance over Berlin Crisis; WU
devoted most of later time to foreign pol.
• 1960s attempted to play the moderniser,
with focus on technology
• 1971 ousted by ‘palace coup’ by
Honecker, with Soviet backing of
Brezhnev; died in 1973
Erich Honecker, SED leader, 1971-89
• Spent most of Third Reich in prison
• 1946 leader of Free German Youth
• From late 1950s responsible for internal
affairs in GDR
• 1971 acquired Moscow’s backing to
remove Ulbricht
• EH formed an unwritten ‘social pact’ (the
Unity of Economic and Social policy)
which subsidised popular standard of
living (at height in mid-70s); increasingly
paid for by loans from West, turning GDR
into loan junkie by 1980s
• Gorbachev’s arrival as a Soviet reform
communist leader in 1985 caused SED a
succession crisis as ‘gerontocracy’ hung
on to power; EH was hospitalised at
crucial points of the 1989 crisis
• Famous in GDR for panama hat & natty
pale suits; died 1994 in exile in Chile
Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED)
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June 1945 Soviets relegalise political parties
Autumn Communists decide on merger with Social
Democrats; local resistance from some SPD, but
pressure from SMAD
United workers’ party of SED founded April 1946
(debates: was this the spontaneous will of workers,
learning lessons of divided labour movement in 1933,
or creature of Soviets?)
1948-51: SED Stalinised into ‘New-Type Party’; purge
of former Social Democrats & loss of parity principle
1946 free elections: SED polls 48%
SED functions as hub of Antifascist Bloc including
Christian Democrats and Liberal Democrats, and later
National Democrats and Farmers; elections also
fought as single Bloc list (aka National Front)
SED membership: rose from 1.3 (1946) to 2.3 million
(1986), including many careerist members; women’s
shared only reached 35.5%; functionaries (i.e.
officials) liked to list themselves as ‘workers’ but had
they functionally become middle-class?
‘Politbureaucracy’ lived sheltered existence in
Wandlitz compound, including all mod cons
‘Foot soldiers’ often true believers, working hard &
living frugally (see Landolf Scherzer, Der
Erste/Number One, 1988, shadowing hardworked
local party secretary)
Wilhelm Pieck (KPD) shakes hands
with Otto Grotewohl (SPD) on
formation of SED, April 1946
Propaganda poster for unity
The Stasi (MfS): Shield and Sword of the Party
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Founded as clone of KGB under Soviet occupation
Early on used mainly for counter-intelligence (to keep
out or kidnap western spies)
Markus Wolf’s Foreign Section scored notable
successes in planting moles with West German
Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1970s
1952 Stasi given control of border; later policed the
border troops
Poor early warning for 1953 uprising & temporarily
demoted from ministerial status
Central Evaluation & Information Group (ZAIG)
monitored popular mood
Erich Mielke,
Self-image as pro-active ‘social workers’ or agents of the
‘invisible frontier’; ‘operative missions’ included infiltration Minister of State
Security, 1957-89
& decomposition from within of suspected dissident
groups
1960s MfS adopts more sophisticated techniques & ‘total
surveillance’
Informelle Mitarbeiter (IMs) (‘informal collaborators’ or
informants: growing reliance for ‘total surveillance’ on
coopted members of public
‘Destasification’: prominent cases show difficulty of
proving if suspect was indirectly reported or IM (Manfred
Stolpe, minister-president of Brandenburg)
Timothy Garton Ash, The File (1997)
Mike Dennis, The Stasi: Myth and Reality (2003)
Stasi HQ at
Manfred Stolpe,
dogged by IM
accusations
Normannenstrasse, Berlin
17 June 1953: A People’s Uprising?
• March 1953: Stalin dies; power vacuum?
• May: new Moscow leadership order more
liberal ‘New Course’; Ulbricht criticised
• But workers excluded from some reforms
(ration cards, work quotas increased)
• 16 June: building workers on Berlin’s
Stalinallee strike for economistic reasons
• 17 June am: spontaneous strikes in cities;
Berlin strikers march on ministerial district
• 17 June pm: more political demands (free
elections, national unity); late afternoon
Soviet tanks impose martial law
• East German explanation: CIA-organised
putsch (‘Tag X’) using teenager thugs
• West German explanation: people’s revolt
against Soviet tyranny
‘The People’s Uprising of 17
June’, West German poster
The Open Border
1961
1960
1959
1958
1957
1956
1955
1954
1953
1952
1951
1950
1949
• 1945 interzonal borders policed by Allies
•Berlin: quadripartite city with access via
U-Bahn & S-Bahn
• Grenzgaenger (border-crossers): by
1961 50-60,000 E. Germans commuted to
W. Berlin; others simply shopped there
• Currency speculation across BerlinBerlin border at 1:5 East:West marks
Potsdamer Platz, 1952, before the Wall
• Republikflucht (flight from the Republic):
60,000
Republikflucht
defection by ca 1 in 6 of GDR population
Berlin Wall
(FRG figures)
• 1952 Stasi fortify inner-German border; 50,000
17 June crisis
Emigrants
40,000
tourist visits to FRG cut drastically
Immigrants
Pass Law
• 1953 travel liberalised, but abused for
30,000
Returnees
Khrushchev
Westbound
more defections; 1957 plans to leave
ultimatum
20,000
criminalised with 3 years’ prison; Berlin
10,000
Army recruitment
became chief exit point
begins
Collectivization
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• Hirschman’s ‘exit/voice’ model of flight &
Eastbound
protest; remaining E. Germans could
-10,000
blackmail system for goods such as
Movements across German-German border, 1949housing; regime unable to introduce
61: note peaks in 1953, mid-50s when tourist viasa
conscription
available, & eve of Wall
The Berlin Wall, 13 August 1961
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Failure of 1958 economic drive to overtake West
German consumer production
1960 economic problems & growing E. European
subsidies
1961 Warsaw Pact states agree to seal off W. Berlin;
initially fences were erected (see right) to test the
West’s response; since the barrier was within E.
Berlin territorial limits it was treated as internal affair
1964 old age pensioners allowed to visit West
1971 Berlin Agreement permits ‘grade-1 relatives’ to
visit West; in the 1980s West German loans were tied
to the human rights liberalisation
Shoot to kill: all told approx. 1,000 persons died at the
inner-German border; it was also mined until 1984;
after fall of the Wall border guards who shot received
suspended sentences fro manslaughter; those higher
up in the Army or Politburo received prison sentences
Temporary barriers on 13.8.61
Border troops’ sketch of Berlin Wall
(post-1975 version): a double wall
with a sandy area between &
alarmed fences & anti-grip final wall
Antifascism: a legitimatory ideology
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Marxist-Leninist doctrine always interpreted
fascism as an outgrowth of capitalism;
therefore antifascism linked to anti-capitalism
(big business as Hitler’s stringpullers)
Fascism also interpreted as a political class
war (mainly v. KPD), rather than racial war (v.
Jews); GDR paid no reparations to Israel &
antisemitic attacks on graveyards persisted
West German Federal Republic viewed as
haven of former Nazis, protected by AngloAmericans (especially in 1950s/60s);
antifascism thus had contemporaneous
function of anti-westernism (e.g. Berlin Wall
officially labelled ‘Antifascist Defence
Rampart’)
SED leadership (mainly Soviet exiles) had
ambivalent attitude to ‘real’ antifascist
veterans (marginalised ‘inland’ resisters,
dissolved veterans’ organisations)
Antifascism an affective moral argument for
wartime generation; but younger generations
increasingly indifferent to abstract
antifascism; with unification to FRG’s public
culture of atonement many East Germans
had difficulties accepting ‘collective guilt’
Buchenwald memorial: unveiled in 1958,
this group represents the KPD’s leading
role in the resistance, with a (historically
dubious) myth of the camp’s self-liberation;
Buchenwald was the GDR’s main
memorial site for school visits & veterans’
meetings
Socialist nationalism?
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Early Stalinist/SED policy stressed national unity
(Stalin 1945: ‘The Hitlers come and go; the
German people remains’; Stalin Notes of March
1952 offering a neutral united Germany cf Austria)
GDR inferiority complex towards FRG (FRG’s
‘sole representation’ of German nation & refusal to
recognise GDR in Hallstein Doctrine); all East
German citizens reaching FRG automatically
entitled to West German passport
‘Peaceful coexistence’: 1955 Khrushchev signals
two German states in one nation; from 1980s
policy of ‘demarcation’ (Abgrenzung) from FRG
Socialist humanism stressed heritage of classical
greats (Goethe & Schiller at National Theatre at
Weimar)
1980s GDR rediscovery of tradition (national
poets Goethe & Schiller of Weimar; Luther
anniversary; Bismarck biography; Frederick the
Great statues in Berlin & Potsdam)
1987: East Berlin celebrates its 750th anniversary,
including historical reconstruction of Nikolai
quarter & its church, as well as 19th-century
Sophienstrasse
Thomas Müntzer,
leader of 1525
peasants’ revolt in a
GDR biopic: a protosocialist?
GDR flag of 1949:
identical with FRG!
East Germany
rediscovers its
Prussian heritage:
statues of Frederick
the Great come out
of mothballs on
Unter den Linden,
1980s
GDR flag of 1959: with
added hammer, dividers
& wheat sheaves
‘The Friends’: Relations with the Soviets
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Communist poster:
‘This is how the Soviet
Union is helping us to
realise the New Course:
Handing back SAG factories
Cancelling reparations
Lowering occupation costs
Cancelling postwar debts’
Anti-communist
poster:
‘Count me out’,
alluding to rape
of women by
Red Army
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Official propaganda stressed the liberation
in 1945, GDR ‘brothers in arms’ within
Warsaw Pact; slogan: ‘Learning from the
Soviet Union means Learning to Win!’
Day-to-day relations tarnished by mass
rapes of women lasting for years after 1945
Dismantling of factories: ca. 30% of East
German plant was removed
Russian was compulsory in schools but not
pursued by many to a high level
Membership of the Society for GermanSoviet Friendship was automatic in the
mass organisations
Gorbachev: belonged
to new generation of
reform communists
Renounced Brezhnev
for ‘Sinatra’ Doctrine
‘If your neighbours
re-wallpapered
their flat would you
feel obliged to
Mikhail Gorbachev,
redecorate yours?’
face of reform
Kurt Hager
communism
Economic decline
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GDR’s ‘money man’, SchalckGolodkowski, meets Bavarian
minister-president, Franz
Josef Strauss
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Bitterfeld, most polluted
area of the GDR & heart
of her chemicals industry
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Honecker’s subsidies at cost of western loans;
increasing pressure to liberalise in return for
loans
Microchip gamble: East Germany invested
billions in flawed silicon experiment
Switch from Soviet oil to East German brown
coal (environmental problems)
9 November 1989: SED Politburo collectively
resigns over exposed debt crisis
Crisis deepened into spring 1990 with emigration
to West of key workers, including doctors
Key voting issue in March 1990 fast union with Dmark zone in West (occurred 1 July 1990)
Since reunification GDR suffered approx. twice
unemployment rate of other FRG
Treuhand (Trustee) agency set to privatise East
German industry; beset by corruption (even
Chancellor Kohl indicted)
Validation of Adenauer’s 1950s ‘magnet theory’
that West Germany would draw GDR into its
orbit?
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Civil society
SED state claimed monopoly of
representation; even strikes illegal
Artists & writers as substitute
‘Öffentlichkeit’ (public sphere)?
Wolf Biermann case: singersongwriter & left critic of SED (which
he saw as travesty of socialism);
1976 effectively deported from GDR
Earliest civil disobedience over
freedom of travel (1973 GDR joined
UN – human rights issues);
beginnings of illegal contacts &
groupings; white as dissident colour
Churches as sanctuaries for
alternative groups
Environmental issues: pollution
Political issues: vote-rigging exposed
in May 1989 local elections
Sept. 1989: several citizens’ groups
emerge, including New Forum,
Democratic Awakening & Initiative
Peace and Human Rights
Umweltbibliothek activists
Wolf Biermann, GDR’s
enfant terrible
‘Namenlos’ punks perform
in churchyard, 1983
Jens Reich & Bärbel
Bohley, founders of New
Forum in Sept. 1989
Round table between SED
& opposition, Dec. 1989
9 October 1989: Leipzig
The Fall of the Wall
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May 1989: Hungarians breach iron
curtain
Mass exodus begins; frustrated
leavers seek refuge in Prague &
Warsaw embassies of FRG
Leipzig peace marches from
Nikolaikirche swell from hundreds,
to thousands to hundreds of
thousands; 9 October Berlin
decides not to use violence
18 October Honecker relieved for
‘health reasons’; successor Egon
Krenz not trusted by most as
genuine reformer
Planned staged opening of Wall
mishandled & becomes stampede
for border crossings; GDR border
troops relinquish control
Günther Schabowski, Politburo
member, at the famous press
conference, 9 Nov. 1989
GDR citizens seek
refuge in West German
embassy in Prague