75 years of the GDR: The GDR – a miscarriage?

The GDR cannot be brought down. It still meanders in the minds of East Germans, often remembered quite differently than in the works of institutionalized historiography. While a tabloid like the “Berliner Kurier” associates the GDR with low prices and social benefits, politicians don’t think of much more than “prison,” “unlawful state,” and “second dictatorship on German soil.” “Experts” complain about the inability of East Germans to come to terms with democracy and freedom. What is not questioned is whether their understanding of democracy is perhaps a somewhat broader one that includes social security and peace policy.

Publications by a younger generation of scientists such as Katja Hoyer, Dirk Oschmann or Steffen Mau as well as some feuilleton articles that testify to a more differentiated, objective approach to the GDR are cosmetic corrections to the negative, derogatory overall image of the GDR and the so-called real socialism change nothing to the public. Many left-wing historians and politicians also bend to the pressure without necessity, perhaps in the mistaken belief that through constant self-criticism they can save something of the inherently good thing that was connected to the socialist idea. This ignores the fact that any attempt to socially and politically domesticate capitalism is viewed by capital and its ideologues as a “communist devil’s work.” What is often overlooked is that with the end of the Eastern Bloc, the much-vaunted “Social Democratic Century” also came to an abrupt end.

But how did the GDR come about? A few months after the promulgation of the Basic Law on May 23, 1949 in Bonn, which is considered the founding act of the Federal Republic of Germany, and three weeks after the election of the first German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, by the first German Bundestag on September 15, the East moved not very enthusiastic. On October 7th, the second German state came into being in the Soviet occupied zone with the adoption of the “Constitution of the German Democratic Republic” and the constitution of the first People’s Chamber. Parliament and government still had the addition “provisional”. Stalin hailed the GDR as a “turning point in the history of Europe.” In Berlin, now the capital again, Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl viewed the GDR as “an expression of the unshakable will of the democratic forces of the German people to overcome their national distress and take their fate into their own hands.” Adenauer countered this: “The Federal Republic of Germany also feels responsible for the fate of the 18 million Germans who live in the Soviet zone.” Bonn expressed its claim to sole representation for all of Germany, and soon also the claim to “liberate” the East.

The Federal Republic and the GDR, on the dividing line and front line of the already raging Cold War between the former allies against Hitler’s Germany, were integrated into the blocs of their respective occupying powers that were now emerging. The Germans had not overcome the fascist dictatorship on their own, they had to take the path to a democratic society under the orders and supervision of the victorious powers. There was a lot to be achieved materially in both the West and the East. But not only the rubble in the cities had to be cleared up, but also in people’s minds. On both sides of the Elbe, however, opinions differed as to whether responsibility for the economy should be placed back into the hands of war-profiteering capital or into those of the people.

The latter was associated with a greater risk: ordinary working people were supposed to become designers of an alternative economic order. With the aim of immediately fully securing supplies for the population and being able to present full shop windows, people in the East also wanted to break down the class divide, ensure education for everyone, and equality between women and men in everyday life and not just on paper guarantee and bridge the gap between urban and rural areas.

However, the model for this social reorientation was imported from Moscow – often in contradiction to one’s own convictions – although attempts were made from time to time to incorporate specific experiences from the German workers’ movement. A complicated, contradictory process. The prerequisite was that the economy recover quickly, which was only possible to a limited extent due to insufficient resources and cut off from the industrial centers on the Rhine and Ruhr as well as the Silesian industrial area, which now belonged to Poland. In addition, the Soviet Union insisted on reparations for suffering and destruction during the time of the German occupation. In the Federal Republic, which hardly had to bear the burden of reparations, the economy recovered quickly and the material needs of its population were largely met.

The GDR was a logical consequence of German history.

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Yes, the GDR was on the “right side” – with regard to combating fascist evil, punishing Nazi and war crimes, and understanding and reconciling former war opponents and victims of genocide in the East. She stood by the anti-colonial and national liberation fighters, not always clearly, but with all her heart. The population was happy to donate, whether it was pencils for Cuba or bicycles for Vietnam. While the Federal Republic did good business with the US-backed military dictatorships in Latin America, as well as with the apartheid regime in South Africa, despite international condemnation.

In the GDR, during its good years under Walter Ulbricht, it was well understood that the economy needed to be reformed and kept pace with the scientific and technical revolution. But the New Economic System of Planning and Management (NÖS) was stalled, and social policy was from then on implemented on credit and not coupled with corresponding economic policy.

The 1980s were not only fateful years for the GDR; the changed international economic and technological environment affected it more severely. Economic problems increased, but the party and state leadership remained stubborn in their refusal to reform. The Eastern alliance was crumbling, everyone’s shirt was closer than their coat. In the Soviet Union, itself struggling with economic misery, people sought refuge in the Western economy, sacrificing their own glacis in Eastern Europe and the previous “bargaining stock” of the GDR. In the end, it was not the citizens who took to the streets on its 40th anniversary in the fall of 1989, demanding freedom of travel and freedom of expression, opposition members and reform-minded SED members, or even completely apolitical people who wanted a better life, who gave the GDR a break dealt a fatal blow. Their “revolution” had now taken over Bonn. However, without Moscow Placet, German unification in 1990 would not have been possible.

What remains at the end of the day? The GDR was an attempt on German soil to create a better, fairer society after the failed revolutions of 1848/49 and 1918/19 and twelve years of fascist barbarism, the categorical classification of which may continue to concern generations of leftists. The GDR was not a miscarriage of German history, but rather a logical consequence of it.

Dr. Stefan Bollinger is a member of the Historical Commission of the Left and the Leibniz Society.