East German

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The German Democratic Republic (GDR), German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), often known in English as East Germany, existed from 1949 to 1990.[1] It covered the area of the present-day German states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Berlin (excluding West Berlin), Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, and Thüringen. This area was occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, with the remaining German territory to the west occupied by the British, American, and French armies. Following the economic and political unification of the three western occupation zones under a single administration and the establishment of the German Federal Republic (GFR, known colloquially as West Germany) in May 1949, the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) was founded on 7 October 1949 as a sovereign nation.
East Germany's political and economic system reflected its status as a part of the Eastern Bloc of Soviet-allied Communist countries, with the nation ruled by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and operating with a command economy for 41 years until 3 October 1990 when East and West Germany were unified with the former being absorbed into the latter's existing system of liberal democracy and a market economy.
At the Yalta Conference, held in February 1945, the United States, United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union agreed on the division of Germany into occupation zones. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin favored the maintenance of German unity, but supported its division among the Allies, a view that he reiterated at Potsdam.[2] Estimating the territory that the converging armies of the western Allies and the Soviet Union would overrun, the Yalta Conference determined the demarcation line for the respective areas of occupation. It was also decided that a "Committee on Dismemberment of Germany" was to be set up. The purpose was to decide whether Germany was to be divided into several nations, and if so, what borders and inter-relationships the new German states were to have. Following Germany's surrender, the Allied Control Council, representing the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, assumed governmental authority in postwar Germany. Economic demilitarization however (especially the stripping of industrial equipment) was the responsibility of each zone individually.
The Potsdam Conference of July/August 1945 officially recognized the zones and confirmed jurisdiction of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (German: Sowjetische Militäradministration in Deutschland, SMAD) from the Oder and Neisse rivers to the demarcation line. The Soviet occupation zone included the former states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The city of Berlin was placed under the control of the four powers. The German territory east of the Oder-Neisse line, equal in size to the Soviet occupation zone, was handed over to Poland and the Soviet Union for de facto annexation. This territory transfer was seen as a compensation for Nazi German military occupation of Poland and parts of the Soviet Union. The millions of Germans still remaining in these areas under the Potsdam Agreement were over a period of several years expelled and replaced by Polish settlers (see Expulsion of Germans after World War II), while millions of ethnic Germans from other Eastern European countries poured into Allied-occupied Germany. This migration was to such an extent that by the time the German Democratic Republic was founded, between a third and a quarter of the population of East Germany was Heimatvertriebene, i.e. ethnic German migrants who fled or were expelled as part of a wider trend of population transfer among the countries and regions of Eastern Europe following World War II.[3]
Each occupation power assumed rule in its zone by June 1945. The powers originally pursued a common German policy, focused on denazification and demilitarization in preparation for the restoration of a democratic German nation-state. Over time, however, the western zones and the Soviet zone drifted apart economically, not least because of the Soviets' much greater use of disassembly of German industry under its control as a form of reparations. Reparations were officially agreed among the Allies from 2 August 1945, with 'removals' prior to this date not included. According to Soviet Foreign Ministry data, Soviet troops, organised in specialised "trophy" battalions, removed 1.28m tons of materials[clarification needed] and 3.6m tons of equipment, as well as large quantities of agricultural produce).[4] No agreement on reparations could be reached at the Potsdam Conference, but by December 1947 it was clear that Western governments were unwilling to accede to the Soviet request for $10bn in reparations (which the Soviets placed into perspective by calculating total war damage of $128bn).[5] (In contrast the Germans estimate a total loss of German property, due to the border changes promoted by the USSR and the population expulsions, of 355.3 billion Deutschmarks).[6] As a result, the Soviets sought to extract the $10bn from its occupation zone in eastern Germany, in addition to the trophy removals[clarification needed]; Naimark (1995) estimates that $10bn was transferred in material form by the early 1950s, including in 1945 and 1946 over 17,000 factories, amounting to a third of the productive capital of the eastern occupation zone.[7]
In the western zones, dismantling and/or destruction of German industry continued until 1951 in accordance to the (several times modified) "German level of industry" agreement connected with the Potsdam conference whereby Germany was to be treated as a single unit and converted into an "agricultural and light industry economy". By the end of 1948 the US had dismantled or destroyed all war-related manufacturing capability in its occupation zone.[3] In accordance with the agreements with the USSR, shipment of dismantled industrial installations from the west began on March 31, 1946. Under the terms of the agreement the Soviet Union would in return ship raw materials such as food and timber to the western zones. When the Soviets did not fulfil their side of the agreement, the US temporarily halted shipments east, and they were never resumed. It was later shown that although utilized for cold war propaganda reasons, the main reason for halting shipments east was not the behavior of the USSR but rather the recalcitrant behavior of France.[8] Material received by the USSR included equipment from the Kugel-Fischer ballbearing plant at Schweinfurt, the Daimler-Benz underground aircraft-engine plant at Obrigheim, the Deschimag shipyards at Bremen-Weser, and the Gendorf powerplant.[4],[5]
Military industries and those owned by the state, by Nazi activists, and by war criminals were confiscated by the Soviet occupation authority. These industries amounted to about 60% of total industrial production in the Soviet zone. Most heavy industry (constituting 20% of total production) was claimed by the Soviet Union as reparations, and Soviet joint stock companies (German: Sowjetische Aktiengesellschaften -SAG-) were formed. The remaining confiscated industrial property was nationalized, leaving 40% of total industrial production to private enterprise.
The agrarian reform (Bodenreform) expropriated all land belonging to owners of more than 100 hectares of land as well as former Nazis and war criminals and generally limited ownership to 1 square kilometre (0.39 sq mi). Some 500 Junker estates were converted into collective people's farms (German: Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft -LPG-), and more than 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq mi) were distributed among 500,000 peasant farmers, agricultural laborers, and refugees. State farms were also set up, called Volkseigenes Gut (State-owned Property).
Growing economic differences combined with developing political tensions between the US and the Soviet Union (which would eventually develop into the Cold War) were manifested in the refusal in 1947 of the SMAD to take part in the USA's Marshall Plan. In March 1948, the United States, Britain and France met in London and agreed to unite the Western zones and to establish a West German republic. The Soviet Union responded by leaving the Allied Control Council, and prepared to create an East German state. The division of Germany was made clear with the currency reform of 20 June 1948, which was limited to the western zones. Three days later a separate currency reform was introduced in the Soviet zone. The introduction of the Deutsche Mark to the western sectors of Berlin, against the will of the Soviet supreme commander, led the Soviet Union to introduce the Berlin Blockade to try to gain control of the whole of Berlin. The Western Allies decided to supply Berlin via an airbridge. This lasted 11 months until the Soviet Union lifted the blockade on 12 May 1949.
An SMAD decree of June 10, 1945 allowed the formation of antifascist democratic political parties in the Soviet zone; elections to new state legislatures were scheduled for October 1946. A democratic-antifascist coalition, which included the KPD, the SPD, the new Christian Democratic Union (Christlich-Demokratische Union—CDU), and the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (Liberal Demokratische Partei Deutschlands—LDPD), was formed in July 1945. The KPD (with 600,000 members, led by Wilhelm Pieck) and the SPD in East Germany (with 680,000 members, led by Otto Grotewohl), which was under strong pressure from the Communists, merged in April 1946 to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands—SED) under pressure from the occupation authorities. In the October 1946 elections, the SED polled approximately 50% of the vote in each state in the Soviet zone. However, a truer picture of the SED's support was revealed in Berlin, which was still undivided. The Berlin SPD managed to preserve its independence and, running on its own, polled 48.7% of the vote while the SED, with 19.8%, was third in the voting behind the SPD and the CDU.
In May 1949, elections were held in the Soviet zone for the German People's Congress to draft a constitution for a separate East German state. Members of the Nazi party were drawn and elections were held from the slate of candidates drawn from different organizations of the anti-fascist coalition. Communists won this election, thereby holding a majority of seats in the People's Congress. According to official results, two-thirds of voters approved the unity lists.
The SED modeled itself as a Soviet-style "party of the new type". To that end, German communist Walter Ulbricht became first secretary of the SED, and the Politburo, Secretariat, and Central Committee were formed. According to the Leninist principle of democratic centralism, each party body was controlled by its members. Ulbricht, as party chief, carried out the will of the members of his party.
Incidentally, the party system was designed to allow reentry of only those former NSDAP adherents who had earlier decided to join the National Front, which was originally formed by emigrants and prisoners of war in the Soviet Union during World War II. Political denazification in the Soviet zone was thus handled rather more transparently than in the Western zones, where the issue soon came second to considerations of practicality or even just privacy.
In November 1948, the German Economic Commission (Deutsche Wirtschaftskomission—DWK), including antifascist bloc representation, assumed administrative authority. Five months after declaration of the western Federal Republic of Germany (better known as West Germany), on October 7, 1949, the DWK formed a provisional government and proclaimed establishment of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Wilhelm Pieck, a party leader, was elected first president. On October 9, the Soviet Union withdrew her East Berlin headquarters, and subsequently it outwardly surrendered the functions of the military government to the new German state.
The SED controlled the National Front coalition, a federation of all political parties and mass organizations that preserved political pluralism. The 1949 constitution formally defined East Germany as a quasi-unitary republic with a bicameral parliament comprising an upper house called the Länderkammer (States Chamber) and a lower house called the Volkskammer (People's Chamber). The Volkskammer, defined as the highest state body, was vested with legislative sovereignty. The SED controlled the Council of Ministers and reduced the legislative function of the Volkskammer to that of acclamation. Election to the Volkskammer and the state legislatures (later replaced by district legislatures) was based on a joint ballot prepared by the National Front: voters could register their approval or disapproval.
All members of the SED who were active in state organs carried out party resolutions. The State Security Service (Staatssicherheitsdienst, better known as the Stasi) and the Ministry of State Security had a role similar to Soviet intelligence agencies.
The Third SED Party Congress convened in July 1950 and emphasized industrial progress. The industrial sector, employing 40% of the working population, was subjected to further nationalization, which resulted in the formation of the People's Enterprises (Volkseigener Betrieb—VEB). These enterprises incorporated 75% of the industrial sector. The First Five-Year Plan (1951–55) introduced centralized state planning; it stressed high production quotas for heavy industry and increased labor productivity. The pressures of the plan caused an exodus of East German citizens to West Germany. The second Party Conference (less important than Party Congress) convened on July 9–12, 1952. 1565 delegates, 494 guest-delegates, and over 2500 guests from the GDR and from many other countries in the world participated in it. In the conference a new economic policy was adopted, "Planned Construction of Socialism". The plan called to strengthen the state-owned sector of the economy, further to implement the principles of uniform socialist planning, and to use the economic laws of socialism systematically.
Under a law passed by the Volkskammer in 1950, the age at which Germany's youth may reject parental supervision was lowered from 21 to 18. The churches, while nominally assured of religious freedom, were, nevertheless, subjected to considerable pressure. To retaliate, Cardinal von Preysing, Bishop of Berlin, put the SED in East Germany under an Episcopal ban. There were also other indications of opposition, even from within the government itself. In the fall of 1950 several prominent members of the SED were expelled and arrested as "saboteurs" or "for lacking trust in the Soviet Union." Among them were the Deputy Minister of Justice, Helmut Brandt; the Vice-President of the Volkskammer, Joseph Rambo; Bruno Foldhammer, the deputy to Gerhard Eisler; and the editor, Lex Ende. At the end of 1954 the draft of a new family code was published.
In 1951 monthly emigration figures fluctuated between 11,500 and 17,000. By 1953 an average of 37,000 men, women, and children were leaving each month.
Stalin died in March 1953. In June the SED, hoping to give workers an improved standard of living, announced the New Course which replaced the Planned Construction of Socialism. The New Course in East Germany was based on the economic policy initiated by Georgi Malenkov in the Soviet Union. Malenkov's policy, which aimed at improvement in the standard of living, stressed a shift in investment toward light industry and trade and a greater availability of consumer goods. The SED, in addition to shifting emphasis from heavy industry to consumer goods, initiated a program for alleviating economic hardships. This led to a reduction of delivery quotas and taxes, the availability of state loans to private business, and an increase in the allocation of production material.
While the New Course increased the consumer goods workers could get, there were still high production quotas. When work quotas were raised in 1953, it led to the 1953 Uprising. Strikes and demonstrations happened in major industrial centers. The workers demanded economic reforms. The Volkspolizei and the Soviet Army suppressed the uprising, in which approximately 100 participants were killed.
In 1954 the Soviet Union granted East Germany sovereignty, and the Soviet Control Commission in Berlin was disbanded. By this time, reparations payments had been completed, and the SAGs had been restored to East German ownership. The five states formerly constituting the Soviet occupation zone also had been dissolved and replaced by fifteen districts (Bezirke) in 1952; the United States, Britain, and France did not recognize the fifteenth district, East Berlin. East Germany began active participation in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) in 1950. In 1955 Prime Minister Grotewohl was invited to Moscow and, between September 17 and 20, concluded the Treaty on Relations between the USSR and the GDR with the Soviet Union which entered into force on October 6. According to its terms the German Democratic Republic was henceforth "free to decide questions of its internal and foreign policy, including its relations with the German Federal Republic as well as with other states." Although Soviet forces would temporarily remain in the country on conditions to be agreed upon, they would not interfere in the internal conditions of its social and political life. The two governments would strengthen the economic, scientific-technical, and cultural relations between them and would consult with each other on questions affecting their interests. On 14 May 1955, East Germany became a member of the Warsaw Pact and in 1956 the National People's Army (Nationale Volksarmee—NVA) was created.
In 1956, at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev repudiated Stalinism. Around this time, an academic intelligentsia within the SED leadership demanded reform. To this end, Wolfgang Harich issued a platform advocating radical changes in East Germany. In late 1956, he and his associates were quickly purged from the SED ranks and imprisoned.
An SED party plenum in July 1956 confirmed Ulbricht's leadership and presented the Second Five-Year Plan (1956–1960). The plan employed the slogan "modernization, mechanization, and automation" to emphasize the new focus on technological progress. At the plenum, the regime announced its intention to develop nuclear energy, and the first nuclear reactor in East Germany was activated in 1957. The government increased industrial production quotas by 55% and renewed emphasis on heavy industry.
The Second Five-Year Plan committed East Germany to accelerated efforts toward agricultural collectivization and nationalization and c
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