Encyclopedia
The
German Democratic Republic was a Socialist state, which existed from 1949 to 1990 in the Soviet Zone of occupied
Germany . The German Democratic Republic was proclaimed in
East Berlin on October 7, 1949 in the
Soviet-occupied zone of Germany, following the proclamation in May 1949 of the Federal Republic of Germany in the zones of Germany formerly occupied by the United States, Britain and France. It claimed Berlin as its capital, although this status was disputed by the western allies, who considered the city under occupation and formally not part of any state.
The Republic was declared fully sovereign in 1955; however, Soviet troops remained based on the four-power
Potsdam agreement. East Germany was a member of the
Warsaw Pact. Following the fall of the
Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 and strong popular pressure, free elections were held on March 18, 1990, and the ruling communist party lost its majority in the Volkskammer . On August 23 the Volkskammer decided that the territory of the Republic would accede to the ambit of the
Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany on October 3, 1990. As a result of
German reunification on that date, the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist.
History
The territories of East Germany were settled by
Germanic peoples during the last few centuries BC. During the post-Roman
migration period, many of these populations left for other lands, and
Slavic Wends settled in their wake. German imperial rulers conquered the area during the
Middle Ages. The newly acquired land was organised in margravates, German feudal states on the land of Slavs. Consequent waves of German settlements, which in subsequent centuries later included French
Hugenots and Jews, gradually modified the originally Slavic composition of the land, except for the small community of
Sorbs in
Lusatia, and eventually most of what is now East Germany formed a large part of the historical
Kingdom of Prussia.
In
Imperial Germany and later during the time of the
Weimar Republic, territory that would become East Germany was situated in the center of the state. This territory was known as "Mitteldeutschland" , while the designation "East" was reserved for provinces such as eastern
Pomerania, eastern
Brandenburg,
Silesia and
East and West Prussia. During WWII, Allied leaders decided at the
Yalta Conference that post-war borders of Poland would be moved westward to the
Oder-Neisse line, just as Soviet borders were also moved westward into formerly Polish territory.
Discussions at Yalta and Potsdam also outlined the planned occupation and administration of post-war Germany under a four-power
Allied Control Council, or ACC . At the end of
World War II, at the
Potsdam Conference in 1945, four of the victorious countries
France, the
United Kingdom, the United States and the
Soviet Union decided to divide
Germany into four occupation zones. Each country would control a part of
Germany until its sovereignty was restored.
The
Länder of
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
Brandenburg,
Sachsen,
Sachsen-Anhalt,
Thüringen, and the eastern sector of Greater Berlin fell in the Soviet Sector of Germany, or SBZ. Soviet objections to economic and political reforms in western occupation zones led to Soviet withdrawal from the ACC in 1948 and subsequent evolution of the SBZ into East Germany. Concurrently, the western occupation zones consolidated to form West Germany .
Just as
Germany was divided after the war,
Berlin, the former capital, of Germany was divided into four sectors. Since
Berlin was entirely enclosed in the Soviet part of Germany, the areas of Berlin being held under the control of the UK, the United States and France soon became known as
West Berlin while the Soviet sector became known as
East Berlin.
Conflict over the status of
West Berlin led to the
Berlin Airlift. The increasing prosperity of West Germany and growing political oppression in the East led large numbers of East Germans to flee to the West.
East Germany adopted a socialist republic and became part of the
Warsaw Pact, while West Germany became a liberal parliamentary republic and part of
NATO.
The first leader of East Germany was
Wilhelm Pieck. He was the first President of the Republic. The East German Constitution defined the country as a "republic of workers and peasants."
The 1952
Stalin Note proposed
German reunification and Superpower disengagement from
Central Europe but the
United States and its allies rejected the offer as they saw it as insincere.
On June 17, 1953, following a production quota increase of 10 percent for workers building East Berlin's new showcase boulevard, the
Stalinallee, demonstrations broke out in
East Berlin and other industrial centers. Later that day, Soviet troops and tanks suppressed the demonstrations killing at least 125 .
Since the 1940s, refugees had been leaving the Soviet zone of Germany to start a new life in the west. The ongoing exodus of East Germans further strained the troubled East German economy. Although the inter-German border was largely closed by the mid-1950s , the sector borders in Berlin were relatively easy to cross. Due to the lure of a better quality of life in the West, many skilled workers crossed into the West, causing a 'brain drain' in the East. However, in the night of August 13 1961, East German troops sealed the border between West and East Berlin, and started to build the
Berlin Wall, literally and physically enclosing West Berlin. Travel was greatly restricted into, and out of, East Germany. The
Stasi spied extensively on the citizens to suppress dissenters through its network of 175,000 informants and 90,000 agents.
In 1971,
Erich Honecker replaced
Walter Ulbricht in what was technically a coup, with the blessing of the USSR. East Germany was generally regarded as the most economically advanced member of the
Warsaw Pact. Before the 1970s, the official position of West Germany was that of the Hallstein Doctrine which involved non-recognition of East Germany. In the early 1970s,
Ostpolitik led by
Willy Brandt led to a form of mutual recognition between East and West Germany. The Treaty of Moscow , the Treaty of Warsaw , the
Four Power Agreement on Berlin , the Transit Agreement , and the Basic Treaty helped to normalise relations between East and West Germany and led to both Germanies joining the
United Nations.
Competition with the West was carried on also on an athletic level. East German athletes dominated several
Olympic disciplines. Of special interest was the only football match ever to occur between West and East Germany, a first round match during the
1974 World Cup. Though West Germany was the host and the eventual champion, East beat West 1-0.
In September 1989
Hungary removed its border restrictions and unsealed its border and several thousand people fled East Germany by crossing the "green" border into Hungary and then on to
Austria and West Germany. Many others peacefully demonstrated against the ruling party, especially in the city of Leipzig. These demonstrations eventually forced the resignation of Honecker; in October he was replaced, albeit briefly, by Egon Krenz.
On November 9, 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, resulting in emotional scenes as hundreds of thousands of East Germans crossed into West Berlin and West Germany for the first time. Soon the whole authoritarian system of East Germany fell apart. Although there were some small attempts to create a permanent non-authoritarian East Germany, these were soon overwhelmed by calls for reunification with West Germany. After some negotiations , conditions for
German reunification were agreed upon. Thus, on October 3 1990 the East German population was the first from the
Eastern Bloc to join the
European Economic Community as a part of the reunified
Federal Republic of Germany. The East German territory was reorganized into what is now the city of Berlin and five states, reconstituting political entities that had been abolished in 1950.
To this day, there remain many differences between the former East Germany and West Germany and thus it is still common to speak of eastern and western Germany distinctly. The Eastern German economy has struggled since German re-unification, and large subsidies are still transferred from west to east.
Politics
General
The equivalent of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in East Germany was the
Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands , which along with other parties, was part of the National Front of Democratic Germany. It was created in 1946 through the merger of the
Communist Party of Germany and the
Social Democratic Party of Germany in the Soviet controlled zone. Following reunification, the SED was renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism .
The other political parties ran under the joint slate of the National Front, controlled by the SED, for elections to the Volkskammer, the East German Parliament. In West Germany, the
KPD was banned in 1956. 1968 the party was refounded under the name DKP which still exists.
- Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands , merged with the West-German CDU after reunification
- Demokratische Bauernpartei Deutschlands . This party was of special importance because of farmers' role in the economy. The party merged with the West German CDU after reunification.
- Liberal-Demokratische Partei Deutschlands , merged with the West German FDP after reunification
- Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands , merged with the West German FDP after reunification.
Later nationalist found the NPD after 1989.
The Volkskammer also included representatives from the
mass organisations like the
Free German Youth , or the
Free German Trade Union Federation. In an attempt to include women in the political life of East Germany, there was even a Democratic Women's Federation of Germany with seats in the Volkskammer.
Non-parliamentary mass organisations which nevertheless played a key role in East German society included the German Gymnastics and Sports Association and People's Solidarity . Another society of note was the
Society for German-Soviet Friendship.
Persons of note in East Germany
Political Representatives
- Hermann Axen, editor-in-chief of the SED paper "Neues Deutschland" 1956-1978, SED secretary for international relations 1966-1989
- Johannes R. Becher, first minister for culture 1954-1958, wrote the lyrics of the national anthem
- Hilde Benjamin, vice president of the supreme court 1949-1953, minister for justice 1953-1967, dubbed "red guillotine" for her relentless persecution of political opponents
- Otto Grotewohl, Chairman of the East German SPD 1945-1946; joint chairman of the SED 1946-54; Chairman of the Council of Ministers 1949-64
- Erich Honecker, General Secretary of the SED 1971-89; Chairman of the Council of State, 1976-89
- Margot Honecker née Feist, minister for education 1963-1989
- Heinz Keßler, minister for defence 1985-1989
- Egon Krenz, General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and chairman of Council of State October - December 1989, he was Honnecker's deputy and "crown prince" since 1983
- Erich Mielke, Stasi Minister 1957-1989
- Günter Mittag, SED secretary for economics 1962-1973, 1976-1989
- Hans Modrow, SED district secretary for Dresden 1973-1989, last SED prime minister November 1989 - March 1990
- Wilhelm Pieck
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, Chairman of the East German
KPD 1945-1946; joint chairman of the SED 1946-54; State President 1949-60
- Günter Schabowski, SED district secretary for Berlin 1985-1989; as party spokesperson he caused the fall of the Berlin wall
- Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, head of the department of "commercial coordination" in the ministry of foreign trade.
- Karl Schirdewan, SED secretary 1953-1958, dismissed for "faction building"
- Horst Sindermann, Chairman of the Council of Ministers 1973-1976; president of parliament 1976-1989
- Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler, telecaster on East German television, "famous" for his propaganda programme "Der schwarze Kanal"
- Willi Stoph, Chairman of the Council of Ministers 1964-73, 1976-89; Chairman of the Council of State, 1973-76
- Harry Tisch, head of the Free German Trade Union Federation
The
Free German Trade Union Federation, in German [i] Freier ...
1975-1989
Artists and Otherwise Important Persons
...
, dramitist, actor and director, pupil of Bertolt Brecht and one of the most important directors of German language of this time
- Frank Beyer, film director
- Wolf Biermann, singer/songwriter and dissident, citizenship withdrawn in 1976 when he was on tour in West Germany
- Ibrahim Böhme, first chairman of the East German Social Democrats in 1989-1990, resigned after being detected as a former Stasi informer
- Bärbel Bohley, painter
- Thomas Brasch, writer, poet and dramatist
- Bertolt Brecht, dramatist, poet and director, reopened the "Berliner Ensemble" in 1949, important person of Communistic Exile and Resistance
- Rainer Eppelmann, Protestant pastor, minister for defence and disarmament March - October 1990
- Klaus Fuchs, physicist
- Erwin Geschonneck, actor
- Gregor Gysi, lawyer to artists, chairman of the SED/PDS November 1989 - 1998
- Nina Hagen, punk singer
- Peter Hacks, dramitist
- Wolfgang Harich, intellectual sentenced to prison for counterrevolutionary activities
- Robert Havemann, chemist and intellectual critic of government, communistic resistance fighter in World War 2
- Johnny Heartfield, photographer
- Bernhard Heisig, painter
- Henry Hübchen, actor
- Walter Janka, publisher, sentenced to prison in 1957 for "counterrevolutionary activities", communistic resistance fighter in World War 2
- Gustav Just, journalist
- Uwe Kraab, racing cyclist
- Manfred Krug, actor and jazz singer
- Till Lindemann, singer
- Olaf Ludwig, racing cyclist
- Lothar de Maizière, first freely elected prime minister April - October 1990
- Wolfgang Mattheuer, painter
- Markus Meckel, Protestant pastor, deputy chairman of the East German Social Democrats 1989-1990, GDR foreign minister April - August 1990
- Armin Mueller-Stahl, actor
- Heiner Müller
...
, writer and dramatist, worked with the director Benno Besson at
Volksbühne- Wolfgang Schnur, lawyer to dissidents, opposition politician *Erwin Strittmatter, writer
- Werner Tübke, painter
- Katarina Witt, figure skater
- Christa Wolf, writer
- Sigmund Jähn
...
, cosmonaut
Subdivisions
In 1952, as part of the reforms designed to centralise power in the hands of the SED's
Politbüro, the five
Länder of East Germany were abolished, and East Germany was divided into fifteen
Bezirke , each named after the largest city: the northern
Land Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was divided between the
Bezirke Rostock, Schwerin and Neubrandenburg;
Brandenburg was reorganised into the
Bezirke of
Potsdam,
Frankfurt and Cottbus;
Sachsen-Anhalt split into the
Bezirke of
Halle and
Magdeburg; the south-western
Land Thüringen was unpicked to produce the
Bezirke of
Erfurt, Gera and Suhl; finally, the south-eastern
Land Sachsen was divided between
Leipzig,
Dresden and
Karl-Marx-StadtEconomy
Like other
East European socialist states, East Germany had a centrally planned economy , similar to the one in the former
Soviet Union, in contrast to the market economies or
mixed economies of most Western states. The state established production targets and prices and allocated resources, codifying these decisions in a comprehensive plan or set of plans. The means of production were almost entirely state owned. In 1985, for example, state-owned enterprises or collectives earned 96.7 percent of total net national income. To secure constant prices for inhabitants, the state bore 80% of costs of basic supplies, from bread to housing.
The ultimate directing force in the economy, as in every aspect of the society, was the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany , particularly its top leadership. The party exercised its leadership role formally during the party congress, when it accepted the report of the general secretary, and when it adopted the draft plan for the upcoming five-year period.
The private sector of the economy was small but not entirely insignificant. In 1985 about 2.8 percent of the net national product came from private enterprises. The private sector included private farmers and gardeners; independent craftsmen, wholesalers, and retailers; and individuals employed in so-called free-lance activities . Although self-employed, such individuals were strictly regulated. In 1985, for the first time in many years, the number of individuals working in the private sector increased slightly. According to East German statistics, in 1985 there were about 176,800 private entrepreneurs, an increase of about 500 over 1984. Certain private sector activities were quite important to the system. The SED leadership, for example, had been encouraging private initiative as part of the effort to upgrade consumer services.
Culture
Music
For ideological reasons artists were expected to sing songs only in German at first, which changed with the end of the sixties. This seemed a logical constraint by the Party leaders but it was rather unpopular among young people. There were strict rules that regulated that all artistic activity ought to be censored for any open or implied anti-socialist tendencies. The band Renft, for example, was prone to political misbehaviour, which eventually led to its split.
The
Puhdys and Karat were some of the most popular mainstream bands, managing to hint at critical thoughts in their lyrics without being explicit. Like most mainstream acts, they appeared in popular youth magazines such as
Neues Leben and
Magazin. Other popular rock bands were
Wir and
Dean Reed.
Influences from the West were heard everywhere, because TV and radio that came from the
Klassenfeind could be received in many parts of the East, too . The Western influence led to the formation of more "underground" groups with a decisively western-oriented sound. A few of these bands were Die Skeptiker, as well as
Feeling B.
Classical music was highly supported, so that there existed over 50 classical symphony orchestras in a country with a population about 16 million.
See also:
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in East German territory and his birthplace in
Eisenach was turned into a museum of his life, which, among other things, included more than 300 instruments from Bach's life. In 1980 this museum was receiving more than 70,000 visitors annually.
In Leipzig, an enormous archive with recordings of all of Bach's music was compiled, along with many historical documents and letters both to and from him.
Every other year, school children from across East Germany gathered for a Bach competition held in East Berlin. Every four years an international Bach competition for keyboard and strings was held.
The birthplace of
Martin Luther and the houses of
Goethe and
Schiller were also turned into museums. There were over 300 such folk museums in the GDR.
Theatre
East German theatre was in the beginning strongly dominated by Bertolt Brecht, who brought back a lot of artists from antifascist resistance and reopened
Theater am Schiffbauerdamm with his
Berliner Ensemble. On the other side, some streams tried to establish pure workers theater, played by workers with plays about workers.
After Brecht died, there were a lot of conflicts beetween the artists and his family about the heritage of Brecht. Heinz Kahlau, Slatan Dudow, Erwin Geschonneck, Erwin Strittmatter, Peter Hacks,
Benno Besson, Peter Palitzsch and Ekkehard Schall are counted among Bertolt Brecht's scholars and followers.
In the 1950s the Swiss
Benno Besson had success with "The Dragon" by Jewgenij Schwarz, so that he travelled with Deutsches Theater all-around Europe and Asia . He became the Intendant at
Volksbühne in the 1960s and worked often with
Heiner Müller.
Because of censorship a lot of artists left the GDR from 1975. A parallel development was that some artists went to small-city theaters, to create theater beyond Berlin. For example Peter Sodann founded the neues theater in
Halle/Saale and Frank Castorf was at theater Anklam.
Theatre and Cabaret had a very important status in the GDR for the people and so it was a very active and movable scene, which was reason for its contention with the state. Benno Besson said once about that:
"At least they took us serious, we had a bearing."Important theatres:
Cinema
In the GDR, the movie industry was very active. The head-group for film-productions was the
DEFA ,
Deutsche Film AG, which was subdivided in different local groups, for example
Gruppe Berlin,
Gruppe Babelsberg or
Gruppe Johannisthal, where the local teams shot and produced films. Besides folksy movies, the movie-industry became known worldwide for its productions, especially children movies .
Movies about persecution of Jews in Third Reich like "Jakob der Lügner" and the resistance against fascism "Fünf Patronenhülsen" became internationally famous.
Also movies about the problems in daily life like "Die Legende von Paul und Paula" or "Solo Sunny" were very popular.
The film industry was remarkable for its production of
westerns, in which the
Indians often took the role of displaced people, who fight for their rights, in contrast with the American western, in which they are often not mentioned or play the villains. Gojko Mitic is the most famous actor in this part, often playing the righteous, kindhearted and charming chief . He became honorary chief of the tribe of
Sioux, when he visited the
United States of America in the 90s, and the television-team accompanying him showed the tribe one his movies.
It was part of a phenomenon of Europe producing alternative films about the colonization of America, see also
Spaghetti Western and the West German
Winnetou films .
Because of censorship a certain number of very remarkable movies were forbidden at this time and reissued after the
Wende in 1990. Examples are "Spur der Steine" and "Der geteilte Himmel" .
In cinemas of the GDR, not only own productions were shown. Besides the Czech, Polish a.s.o. productions also certain foreign movies were shown, but the numbers were limited because it did cost foreign exchange to buy the licences. Certainly movies representing or glorifying capitalistic ideology were not bought. So, for example "Grease" was not shown, but "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" was. Comedies enjoyed great popularity, such as the Danish "
Olsen Gang" or movies with the French comedian
Louis de Funès.
Sports
For a small country, people of East Germany achieved some remarkable results in many sports including cycling, weightlifting, track and field, boxing, skating and other winter sports.
One reason for the success was started with late 1960s leadership of Dr. Manfred Hoeppner, when his policy of
steroid administration to many athletes was established. This program allowed East Germany, with its small population, to become a world leader in the following two decades, winning a large number of
Olympic and world gold medals and records. This success continued even after the international steroid testing policy was established, thanks to the advanced use of chemicals that made steroids detection avoidance possible.
An even much more important reason for the success was the furtherance-system for young people in GDR. When some children were aged around 6 until 10 years old sport-teachers at school were encouraged to look for certain talents in every pupil. For older pupils it was possible to attend grammar-schools with a focus on sports . This policy was also used for talented pupils with regard to music or mathematics.
Sports clubs were highly supported, especially sports in which it was possible to get international fame. For example the major leagues for ice hockey and basketball just included each 2 teams . Although the East German football national team was rarely successful in comparison to the West German national team, which won the
world championship in 1990 shortly before the reunification, football was the second-most popular sport after
handball. A lot of East German players became integral parts of the reunified national football team, for example Matthias Sammer. Other sports enjoyed great popularity like figure skating, especially because of sportswomen like
Katharina Witt.
One of the reasons for the East German ambition to be so successful in world sports, was on the one hand similar to those of the
USSR or the
United States as a part of this certain kind of competition. On the other hand it was an attempt to be accepted internationally as a state in its own right.
References
- Thomas A. Baylis, David Childs, and Marilyn Rueschemeyer, eds.; East Germany in Comparative Perspective Routledge. 1989
- Fulbrook, Mary. The People's State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker Yale University Press, 2005. 352 pp. ISBN 0-300-10884-2.
- Fulbrook; Mary. Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR, 1949-1989 Oxford University Press, 1995
- William Glenn Gray; Germany's Cold War: The Global Campaign to Isolate East Germany, 1949-1969 University of North Carolina Press. 2003
- Jonathan Grix; The Role of the Masses in the Collapse of the GDR Macmillan, 2000
- Konrad H. Jarausch and Eve Duffy; Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR Berghahn Books, 1999
Holidays
| Date | English Name | German Name | Remarks |
|---|
| January 1 | New Year's Day | Neujahr | |
| March 8 | Women's Day | Tag der Frau | |
| Moveable feast | Good Friday | Karfreitag | |
| Moveable feast | Easter Sunday | Ostersonntag | |
| Moveable feast | Easter Monday | Ostermontag | |
| May 1 | May Day | Tag der Arbeit | Labour Day |
| Moveable feast | Father's Day / Ascension Day | Vatertag / Christi Himmelfahrt | Thursday after the 5th Sunday after Easter. Was not an official Holiday in the GDR. |
| Moveable feast | Whitmonday | Pfingstmontag | 50 days after Easter Sunday
|
| October 7 | Republic Day | Tag der Republik | National holiday |
| December 25 | First Day of Christmas | 1. Weihnachtsfeiertag | |
| December 26 | Second Day of Christmas | 2. Weihnachtsfeiertag | |
See also
GermanyForces! Coat of arms
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