German Democratic Republic
- DDR redirects here. For the video game, see Dance Dance Revolution.
The German Democratic Republic (GDR, or in German, Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or DDR), also commonly referred to as East Germany, was one of the two states that emerged from the division of Germany at the end of the Second World War. During the war (in 1943-1944), the Allies had agreed on dividing a defeated Germany into occupation zones[1], and on dividing Berlin, the German capital, among the Allied Powers as well. Initially this meant the construction of three zones of occupation (American, British, Soviet). Later, the British and Americans sought to include the French as one of the occupying powers. The Soviet leadership agreed, but on the condition that the French occupation zone be carved out of the British and American zones.
Contents
Origins
In 1947, the British and Americans consolidated their zones into "Bizonia," with the French maintaining separate control of their zone, while the Soviets consolidated their zone, which became more strongly Communist. When the British and Americans moved to consolidate their occupation zones in West Berlin as well (which was entirely surrounded by the Soviet occupation zone), Stalin imposed a blockade on West Berlin, preventing traffic from delivering supplies to West Berlin. President Truman responded by supplying West Berlin from the air, making the Berlin Airlift a sign of American determination to counter Soviet aggression. At its apex, the Berlin Airlift saw planes landing every five minutes in West Berlin, delivering food, clothing, machinery and coal. The standoff over Berlin also led to the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in April 1949. And in May 1949, the French merged their occupation zone with the Anglo-American Bizonia to form the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschlands) or FRG, commonly known as West Germany. In response, Stalin lifted the Berlin Blockade and established the German Democratic Republic, also in 1949. The creation of the two states showed that the postwar division of Germany would not be temporary, and was likely to persist for as long as the escalating Cold War persisted.[2] However, the division of Germany should not be seen as an inevitable result of the East-West conflict in the Cold War. Austria experienced a similar division into occupation zones, yet these were reunited in 1955, when the foreign occupations of Austria ended and the country regained full sovereignty while promising to remain neutral in the East-West conflict, which it did until the end of the Cold War.
Whereas West Germany envisioned itself as the legal successor to the Third Reich, shouldering the burdens of legal responsibility for its crimes, East Germany renounced ties to the Nazi past, styling itself the "anti-fascist rampart" and proclaiming itself the first socialist state on German soil. The existence of two Germanies created questions of legitimacy for both states, particularly in the 1950s when the outcome of the Cold War and the future of Germany remained much in doubt. Both German states used consumerism to promote their unique visions of Germanness. For West Germany, the resumption of prewar patterns of consumption would signify a return to normalcy. This meant not only an end to the difficult shortages of the "hungry years," but also the curtailing of female employment outside the home. Ideal economic roles were gendered in West Germany. The phenomenon of widespread female wage labor was associated with the crisis years of the Third Reich and the devastated condition of Germany after the war, when "rubble women" (Trummerfrauen) were seen literally rebuilding Germany brick by brick. By trying to enable women to return to their traditional roles as homemakers (where they were also expected to be primary household consumers), West German political and cultural elites sought to put the dislocations of fascism and war behind them. East Germany, by contrast, found the phenomenon of female employment outside the household less problematic. Indeed, female employment was officially promoted by the ruling SED (Sozialistiche Einheitspartei Deutschlands) regime, since gender equality in the field of labor was one of the ideals of socialism. But equality in employment (which was limited largely to the proportion of women employed outside the home, since women were relegated mainly to textile, craft and other "feminine" occupations, and remained vastly underrepresented in management jobs and professions other than teaching) did not bring equality in consumer patterns. East German elites still expected women to be the primary household consumers, creating what scholars and many of the women themselves term a "double burden" where women participated in the economy as both consumers and workers. Moreover, consumption consistently proved more challenging in East Germany, owing to the endemic shortages of consumer goods and basic household items, and the unofficial and informal patterns of procuring goods, which required a great deal of effort on the part of women. Female consumers also had to devote large amounts of time to waiting in long lines for limited quantities of goods, and many women complained that this was compounded by the failure of most East German men to pick up the slack in other household chores.
One of the first major upheavals in the Eastern bloc occurred in East Germany. After the SED regime announced an unreasonable increase in production norms for workers, strikes and demonstrations erupted in East Berlin and other industrial centers around East Germany. The disturbances, known as the East German Uprising, began on June 17, 1953, as a spontaneous outburst of discontent, and quickly spread to more than 400 locations around the country. Coming so soon after Stalin's death in March 1953, the Uprising left the SED leadership reeling. Gradually the workers' protest turned more explicitly political, with chants of "Down with communism!" and "Long live Eisenhower!" The response from Moscow was swift repression, with Soviet tanks and troops crushing the protests and killing at least 125 people. The East German Uprising and its brutal suppression caused international disgrace to the Soviet Union. Because the border between East and West Berlin was fairly open at the time, a number of Western observers knew of the events and spread the news around the world. Nonetheless, East Germany's geopolitical and strategic importance to the Soviet Union made the Kremlin more willing to tolerate world condemnation in keeping the GDR on a short leash. Indeed, the Soviet response to the East German Uprising set a pattern followed in Soviet-led interventions against the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the Prague Spring of 1968, and the overthrow of a Communist regime in Afghanistan in 1979.[3]
The Berlin Wall
Throughout the 1950s, the border between East and West Berlin remained fairly open. Many residents of East Berlin went to West Berlin to work, to attend cinemas and go to discos, or to buy tropical fruit, seamless pantyhose and other consumer goods generally unavailable in East Germany. But many East German citizens also took advantage of the porous border to immigrate to West Germany. From the establishment of the GDR in 1949 until 1961, more than 2.6 million East Germans defected to the West via West Berlin. A large number of these emigrants were talented professionals and intellectuals, facilitating a sort of "brain drain" from the GDR. As the rate of defections rose to unbearable levels, the Communist leaders of Eastern Europe decided to put a stop to it. In early August 1961, members of the Comecon decided to seal the border between East and West Berlin. The SED leader Walter Ulbricht signed the order to seal the border on August 12, 1961. On the night of August 13, East German troops sealed the border, and construction began on a massive barrier that became known as the Berlin Wall (Berliner Mauer). The Wall generated international outrage and became one of the most poignant symbols of the Iron Curtain and the Cold War division of Europe and Germany. The Wall actually existed in three different incarnations, each intended to make breaches of the border more difficult. Nonetheless, escapes through, around, over and under the Berlin Wall occurred throughout its existence. Some ingenious methods were devised for circumventing it, many of which are on display at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin. From the sealing of the border on August 13, 1961, to the fall of the Wall on November 9, 1989, 192 people were killed in escape attempts, and at least that many were wounded.[4]
As reforms in Hungary in 1989 led to the dismantling of the secure border between Hungary and Austria, large numbers of East Germans began taking "vacations" to Hungary, from which they never returned, using vacation visas to travel to Hungary, and from there via Austria to West Germany. As East German authorities began blocking travel to Hungary, East Germans began going to other Eastern bloc countries, especially Czechoslovakia, where they stormed the compounds of the West German embassy in Prague and refused to leave until granted permission to leave for West Germany. The GDR regime relented and allowed those East Germans camping out at West German embassies to travel on sealed trains through the GDR to West Germany.
At the same time, protest movements in East Germany began to growth, fueled in large part by the explosive growth of the "Prayers for Peace" demonstrations help every Monday evening at the St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig. This rising protest, along with the exodus of GDR citizens to West Germany, led to pressures for liberalized travel permissions. The SED Politburo discussed such measures in early November 1989, promising to ease restrictions. However, when Gunther Schabowski, SED chief for East Berlin, read the Politburo report on East German television at 7 p.m. on November 9, 1989, he looked surprised as he read the vague language in which the party promised the border would be opened for "private trips abroad." Immediately, thousands of East Germans began to flood the border checkpoints and crossings in East Berlin, and the torrent of people opened the borders in effect, leading to joyous celebrations around the Berlin Wall. Many Germans began to destroy the Wall literally, using sledgehammers, axes and other tools to chip away at the concrete. The symbolic and then literal fall of the Berlin Wall marked an end to an important psychological barrier separating the two Germanies, leading to widespread desires for unification of East and West Germany. On July 1, 1990, an economic, monetary and social union of the two Germanies was created, preparatory to the incorporation of East Germany's six Länder into the Federal Republic on October 3, 1990, when the GDR became part of the FRG.[5]
Ostalgie
The end of the Cold War division of Germany and unification in 1990 inspired initial euphoria. But for many East Germans, this joy quickly turned to dismay. West Germans often acted as if they had "won" and East Germans had "lost" in unification, leading many Ossis to resent Wessis. Additionally, the dislocations associated with the end of communism, the disappearance of East Germany and German unification were hardest for East Germany, where unemployment skyrocketed and many East German professionals quickly fled for better jobs in West Germany. These and other effects of unification led many East Germans to begin to think of themselves more strongly as "East" Germans rather than simply as "Germans." This produced in many former GDR citizens a longing for certain aspects of the former East Germany, such as full employment and other perceived benefits of the GDR state, termed "Ostalgia" (Ostalgie), and depicted in the Wolfgang Becker film "Goodbye Lenin!"
