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East Germany Introduction
THE GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC (East Germany) came into existence
on October 7, 1949, when the German Economic Commission formed a
provisional government in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany.
This move occurred in response to the action taken by the United
States, Britain, and France, which in 1948 had agreed to unite
their respective occupation zones into a West German republic.
The division of Germany and the founding of an East German state
signified several historical reversals. First, the postwar
partition of Germany represented a return to the country's
previous existence as a divided nation. As of 1945, Germans had
been united in a single sovereign state for only the last
seventy-four years. Second, for at least 1,000 years Germans had
expanded eastward, conquering territories previously controlled
by Slavs and the Baltic peoples. As part of the settlement ending
World War II, Germany lost territories to Poland and the Soviet
Union that German rulers had controlled for centuries. Third, the
lines of economic, cultural, military, and political influence
had historically run from Germany to Eastern Europe and Russia.
However, after World War II the Soviet Union imposed on East
Germany a brand of Marxism-Leninism developed on Russian soil,
the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische
Einheitspartei Deutschlands--SED), patterned itself after the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and East Germany
adopted a governmental system modeled in most respects on that of
the Soviet Union.
Historically, East Germany has been the Soviet Union's most
pliant and loyal ally in Eastern Europe. Lack of international
recognition made East Germany dependent on the Soviet Union.
Until the Four Power Agreement on Berlin and the signing of the
Basic Treaty by the two Germanies in the early 1970s, the
noncommunist world treated the Federal Republic of Germany (West
Germany) as the "real Germany" and East Germany as nothing more
than an artificial state lacking international legitimacy. For a
time, this sentiment seems to have been shared by the Soviet
leadership as well. In 1954 Viacheslav Molotov, the Soviet
representative at the Four Power Foreign Ministers Conference in
Berlin, proposed simultaneous elections in both Germanies leading
to the creation of a unified German state. If such elections had
been held, the SED would have lost power. The presence of West
Germany also made the SED regime more dependent on the Soviet
Union. Before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, 2.5
million East German citizens had walked across the border to live
in West Germany. A common language, family ties, and access to
West German media left the East Germans much less isolated from
West European culture than were their counterparts in Eastern
Europe. All these factors tended to impede SED efforts to win
popular legitimacy for the Marxist-Leninist regime in East
Germany. Without legitimacy, both in the eyes of most of the
world and in the eyes of its own people, the SED could turn only
to the Soviet Union and its allies for support. To ensure Soviet
loyalty to the cause of the SED regime, East Germany had to act
as Moscow's model ally.
East Germany is a one-party state. Although four other
parties exist, they have been co-opted by the SED. These four
parties--the Christian Democratic Union, the Liberal Democratic
Party of Germany, the Democratic Peasants' Party of Germany, and
the National Democratic Party of Germany--have the appearance of
power without actually sharing it with the SED. In fact, these
four parties act as "transmission belts" for SED decisions and
policies to social strata such as the intelligentsia and the
peasantry
(see Alliance Policy
, ch. 4).
The operative principle of SED decision making is the
Leninist precept of "democratic centralism." According to this
principle, free discussion of policy alternatives by all SED
members concerned with a given decision is followed by a vote;
then the minority submits to the position of the majority. In
fact, the SED is a monolithic party in which the lines of
decision making run from top to bottom. In East Germany, as in
the Soviet Union and the other Marxist-Leninist regimes in
Eastern Europe, the communist party is the real locus of power.
In mid-1987 Erich Honecker, who took over as first secretary of
the SED from Walter Ulbricht in 1971 (the title changed to
general secretary in 1976), was the most powerful political
figure in East Germany by virtue of his party position. The top
governmental position, that of the chairman of the Council of
Ministers, had long been occupied by Willi Stoph, who held a
position subordinate to that of Honecker in the SED Politburo.
Other leading governmental figures--such as Horst Sindermann, the
president of the People's Chamber, and Erich Mielke, the minister
of state security--were also members of the Politburo. According
to the operative rules of democratic centralism, at any given
level government officials carry out decisions made by the party.
Stated simply, the government implements and administers policies
decided by the SED.
Throughout its tenure, the Honecker regime has attempted to
form a distinct East German political culture. This undertaking
involves the inculcation of values, attitudes, and casts of mind
that strengthen the citizenry's sense of the regime's legitimacy
and authority. Since the early 1970s, for example, the Honecker
regime has pursued a policy of
Abgrenzung (demarcation-- see Glossary)
to stress differences in political values, history,
and culture between the two Germanies
(see The German Question Today: One Nation or Two?
, ch. 2). Another important component of
political culture is tradition, which justifies the existence of
a given polity and gives it a sense of rootedness. Hence, the SED
has portrayed itself as the culmination of the German
revolutionary tradition, as represented by theoreticians and
activists such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Karl
Liebknecht. In an effort to locate its rule within the broader
course of German history, the SED depicts itself as the heir to
the positive achievements of historical figures such as Martin
Luther, Carl von Clausewitz, and Otto von Bismarck. These
personages have no connection with Germany's revolutionary past
(in fact, Bismarck made every effort to suppress the Social
Democratic Party of Germany), and the regime had previously
linked them to the discredited ideology of German nationalism.
During Honecker's tenure as SED party chief, official East German
political culture has evolved to incorporate a significant
element of the German national heritage.
Over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, East Germany has
managed to make itself economically and politically indispensable
to the Soviet Union in a variety of ways. Economically, East
Germany has demonstrated to the world that a centralized, planned
economy modeled on that of the Soviet Union can work
(see Economic Policy and Performance
, ch. 3). East Germany, for
example, boasts the highest standard of living among the
socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Its economy is highly
developed, and chemicals and machinery constitute its most
important products. It was the first among the socialist
economies to move into the field of high technology and other
intensive forms of production. East Germany is also important to
the Soviet Union because it acts as a conduit between the Council
for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) and the European
Economic Community (EEC). The origin of this role lies in West
Germany's desire to facilitate an eventual German reunification.
In the West German view, creating a special economic relationship
with East Germany has been one means of achieving this objective.
This relationship has eased the transfer of EEC goods to East
Germany. From East Germany, the merchandise can be exported to
other Comecon countries
(see Appendix B).
Equally important, the
special relationship between the two Germanies has also provided
East Germany (and hence Comecon as a whole) with a much-needed
source of hard currency.
Throughout its existence, East Germany has proved to be a
vital political ally of the Soviet Union. In 1956 the Ulbricht
regime roundly condemned the Hungarian revolt. Twelve years
later, East German troops, together with those of the Soviet
Union, Hungary, Poland, and Bulgaria, marched into Czechoslovakia
to quell the reform movement initiated during the Prague Spring.
The East Germans also heavily criticized the Solidarity labor
union movement in Poland as well as the Polish United Workers
Party, which allowed the Solidarity reform movement to persist on
Polish soil. The East Germans routinely call for tighter
integration of the Soviet alliance system in Eastern Europe and
for adoption of a unified position on political issues ranging
from the United States Strategic Defense Initiative to those of
strategy and tactics in the Soviet-led world communist movement.
Indeed, because East Germany has so often followed the Soviet
political lead and has continually tried to persuade other Soviet
allies to do so, Western observers describe East Germany as the
Soviet Union's "junior partner" within the Warsaw Pact
(see Appendix C).
East Germany's role as the Soviet Union's junior partner also
comes into play in the Third World. Here, East Germany has carved
out a role for which it has no peer in the Soviet alliance. East
Berlin provides many forms of military and economic assistance,
police training, and technical education to selected Third World
allies of the Soviet Union
(see Policy Toward the Third World
, ch. 4). To be sure, in extending this aid East Germany has gained
political recognition from other countries as well as access to
raw materials. However, in undertaking these activities East
Germany acts for the Soviet-dominated socialist community. East
German aid serves primarily as a means to extend Soviet influence
throughout the world.
For most of its existence, East Germany has been a model
socialist state in the sense that it has experienced little
public dissent. The spontaneous uprising in 1953 against
communist rule in East Germany confined itself to the most
important industrial centers and did not grip the country in the
way that rebellions or reform movements in Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, or Poland were able to do. From 1953 to the early
1980s, the SED used both rewards and punishments to keep the East
German citizenry politically passive. Because food and rent were
subsidized by the government, consumer prices remained low. Thus,
East German workers had no economic impetus to follow their
Polish counterparts and organize an independent labor union to
press for economic reform. The party also penetrates into most
aspects of daily life in East Germany. With no areas of social
life free of party domination, it has been difficult for East
Germans interested in independent political action to join
together, create a program, and attempt to further their common
political ends. To repress manifestations of open dissent, forces
of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of State
Security combine to form a powerful and pervasive police
apparatus. The ultimate guarantors of SED rule in East Germany,
however, are the National People's Army (Nationale Volksarmee--
NVA) and the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG). The NVA
unites the border guards and ground, air, air defense, and naval
forces into a total strength of 175,000. The NVA is a competent,
well-trained force
(see Armed Forces
, ch. 5). The GSFG numbers
over 380,000, it ensures the political quiescence of East German
society as well as East Germany's continued membership in the
Warsaw Pact.
In the 1980s, an independent peace movement had succeeded in
establishing itself in East Germany
(see Dissent
, ch. 2). Several
factors explain the emergence and persistence of this form of
political dissent. First, the movement revolves around peace and
disarmament, issues to which the SED has publicly committed
itself. The independent peace movement seeks to compel the East
German regime to abide by its own rhetoric; it does not question
the fundamental political bases of the Marxist-Leninist regime,
such as one-party rule, alliance with the Soviet Union, and a
planned economy. Second, from its inception the independent peace
movement has been nonviolent. Third, the independent peace
movement grew out of the Lutheran Church, an institution that is
somewhat independent of the regime. The church offered peace
activists throughout the country channels of communication
insulated from regime control, an institutional setting in which
activists could come together and formulate a program, and a
forum in which to air the program for a nationwide constituency.
Having gained in strength, the peace movement has proceeded to
speak out against the militarization of East German society,
environmental pollution, and the development of nuclear power in
East Germany.
In the 1980s, other events have diminished East Germany's
status as a model ally of the Soviet Union. East Germany derives
many economic and political benefits from its relations with West
Germany. As a result, East Germany's desire to maintain good
relations with West Germany has clashed with the Soviet interest
in curtailing relations between Warsaw Pact countries and those
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Soviet policy
changed because of a general cooling of superpower relations
brought on by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the declaration
of martial law in Poland, and NATO's decision to deploy Pershing
intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) in West Germany. In
this public quarrel, Hungary backed the East German position,
while Czechoslovakia, East Germany's hardline ally in alliance
affairs, together with Poland, supported the Soviet position. The
disagreement culminated in 1984 with Honecker's indefinite
postponement of a planned trip to West Germany.
The SED leadership has also differed with the Soviet Union on
the need to emulate the economic and political reform program of
CPSU general secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Soviet reforms under
Gorbachev envisage the institutionalization of measures to
encourage efficiency and innovation in the Soviet planned
economy; the introduction of greater openness, reform of the
party, and new electoral procedures in the political sphere; and
the liberalization of the cultural sphere. The East German
response has been generally to maintain that reforms tailored to
Soviet conditions are not necessarily applicable to East Germany.
The Honecker regime has argued that for years East Germany has
been introducing measures to facilitate technological innovation
and economic modernization and that East German economic
successes prove the viability and vigor of its economic system.
If changes are required, the Honecker regime contends that
solutions must correspond to local conditions. Politically, the
SED leadership has averred that problems such as corruption and
immobilisme, which the party reforms advocated by Gorbachev seek
to eliminate, do not exist in East Germany. In the realm of
culture, the Honecker regime offers the dubious claim that it has
already introduced many measures to ease state control of the
arts.
East Germany's success as the Soviet Union's junior partner
provided the foundation for its resistance to Soviet policies in
foreign and domestic policy. East German economic performance,
partially due to the special relationship it enjoys with the Bonn
government but primarily due to indigenous factors, increased
East Germany's clout within the Soviet alliance. East Germany's
status and power enabled it to pursue policies contrary to Soviet
interests, if only to a limited degree. Hence, Soviet-East German
friction demonstrates the emergence of East Germany's coming of
age as an actor within the socialist interstate system. Like
other small states of Eastern Europe, East Germany has achieved a
sufficient amount of legitimacy, international recognition, and
economic power to be able to express occasional public
disagreement with the Soviet Union.
* * *
From September 7 to September 11, 1987, First Secretary Erich
Honecker paid an unprecedented visit to West Germany. Several
factors accounted for this trip, which had been scheduled for
1984 but indefinitely postponed since that time. The prospect of
a Soviet-American agreement on IRBMs in Europe had increased the
chance for better inter-German relations. West Germany had
facilitated the prospect of an accord when Chancellor Helmut Kohl
pledged to scrap his country's seventy-two IRBMs, which carry
American nuclear warheads. In addition, in 1987 the Soviet Union
itself had been seeking better relations with West Germany.
Honecker had to obtain Soviet permission for the trip, and Soviet
approval may be seen as an effort to reward West Germany for its
missile stance and as an attempt to improve relations with that
country. From the East German perspective, Honecker's trip marked
another effort to obtain West German recognition of East
Germany's independent statehood. The practical significance of
Honecker's trip was rather limited. East Germany and West Germany
signed agreements on scientific-technical cooperation,
environmental protection and nuclear safety, and several measures
to ease travel and communications between the two countries.
Ultimately, the primary importance of Honecker's visit lay in its
reaffirmation of the existence of two independent German states
in the heart of Europe.
September 15, 1987
Stephen Burant
Data as of July 1987
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