History of Germany (1945–1990)
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The history of Germany from 1945 to 1990 encompasses the period following World War II. The period began with the Berlin Declaration, marking the abolition of the German Reich and Allied-occupied period in Germany on 5 June 1945, and ended with the German reunification on 3 October 1990.
Following the
At the end of World War II, there were some eight million
With the beginning of the Cold War, the remaining territory of Germany was divided between the Western Bloc led by the United States, and the Eastern Bloc led by the USSR. Two separate German countries emerged:
- the parliamentary democracy with an ordoliberaleconomic system and free churches and labor unions;
- the German Democratic Republic, established on 7 October 1949, commonly known as East Germany, was a Marxist–Leninist socialist republic with its leadership dominated by the Soviet-aligned Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).[6]
Under Chancellor
Division of Germany
Four military occupied zones
At the
In addition, under the Allies'
Flight and expulsion of ethnic Germans
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The northern half of East Prussia in the region of
The Potsdam Conference subsequently sanctioned the "orderly and humane" transfer to Germany of individuals regarded as "ethnic Germans" by authorities in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary. The Potsdam Agreement recognized that these expulsions were already underway and were putting a burden on authorities in the German Occupation Zones, including the re-defined Soviet Occupation Zone. Most of the Germans who were being expelled were from Czechoslovakia and Poland, which included most of the territory to the east of the Oder-Neisse Line. The Potsdam Declaration stated:
Since the influx of a large number of Germans into Germany would increase the burden already resting on the occupying authorities, they consider that the Allied Control Council in Germany should in the first instance examine the problem with special regard to the question of the equitable distribution of these Germans among the several zones of occupation. They are accordingly instructing their respective representatives on the control council to report to their Governments as soon as possible the extent to which such persons have already entered Germany from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, and to submit an estimate of the time and rate at which further transfers could be carried out, having regard to the present situation in Germany. The Czechoslovak Government, the Polish Provisional Government and the control council in Hungary are at the same time being informed of the above and are being requested meanwhile to suspend further expulsions pending the examination by the Governments concerned of the report from their representatives on the control council.
Many of the ethnic Germans, who were primarily women and children, and especially those under the control of Polish and Czechoslovakian authorities, were severely mistreated before they were ultimately deported to Germany. Thousands died in forced labor camps such as
Altogether, around 8 million ethnic German refugees and expellees from across Europe eventually settled in West Germany, with a further 3 million in East Germany. In West Germany these represented a major
The intended governing body of Germany was called the Allied Control Council, consisting of the commanders-in-chief in Germany of the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union; who exercised supreme authority in their respective zones, while supposedly acting in concert on questions affecting the whole country. In actuality however, the French consistently blocked any progress towards re-establishing all-German governing institutions; substantially in pursuit of French aspirations for a dismembered Germany, but also as a response to the exclusion of France from the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. Berlin, which lay in the Soviet (eastern) sector, was also divided into four sectors with the Western sectors later becoming West Berlin and the Soviet sector becoming East Berlin.
Elimination of war potential and reparations
Denazification
A key item in the occupiers' agenda was denazification. The swastika and other outward symbols of the Nazi regime were banned, and a Provisional Civil Ensign was established as a temporary German flag. It remained the official flag of the country (necessary for reasons of international law) until East Germany and West Germany (see below) were independently established in 1949.
The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union had agreed at Potsdam to a broad program of decentralization, treating Germany as a single economic unit with some central administrative departments. These plans never materialized, initially because France blocked any establishment of central administrative or political structures for Germany; and also as both the Soviet Union and France were intent on extracting as much material benefit as possible from their occupation zones in order to make good in part the enormous destruction caused by the German Wehrmacht; and the policy broke down completely in 1948 when the Russians blockaded West Berlin and the Cold War began. It was agreed at Potsdam that the leading members of the Nazi regime who had been captured should be put on trial accused of crimes against humanity, and this was one of the few points on which the four powers were able to agree. In order to secure the presence of the western allies in Berlin, the United States agreed to withdraw from Thuringia and Saxony in exchange for the division of Berlin into four sectors.
Future President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower and the US War Department initially implemented a strict non-fraternization policy between the US troops and German citizens. The State Department and individual US congressmen pressured to have this policy lifted. In June 1945 the prohibition against speaking with German children was loosened. In July troops were permitted to speak to German adults in certain circumstances. In September 1945 the entire policy was dropped. Only the ban on marriage between Americans and German or Austrian civilians remained in place until 11 December 1946 and 2 January 1946 respectively.[14]
Industrial disarmament in West Germany
The initial proposal for the post-surrender policy of the Western powers, the so-called
The "Level of Industry plans for Germany" were the plans to lower German industrial potential after World War II. At the Potsdam Conference, with the U.S. operating under influence of the Morgenthau plan,[18] the victorious Allies decided to abolish the German armed forces as well as all munitions factories and civilian industries that could support them. This included the destruction of all ship and aircraft manufacturing capability. Further, it was decided that civilian industries which might have a military potential, which in the modern era of "total war" included virtually all, were to be severely restricted. The restriction of the latter was set to Germany's "approved peacetime needs", which were defined to be set on the average European standard. In order to achieve this, each type of industry was subsequently reviewed to see how many factories Germany required under these minimum level of industry requirements.
The first plan, from 29 March 1946, stated that German heavy industry was to be lowered to 50% of its 1938 levels by the destruction of 1,500 listed
By 1950, after the virtual completion of the by then much watered-down plans, equipment had been removed from 706 factories in the west and steel production capacity had been reduced by 6,700,000 tons.[18]
Timber exports from the U.S. occupation zone were particularly heavy. Sources in the U.S. government stated that the purpose of this was the "ultimate destruction of the war potential of German forests".[23]
With the beginning of the Cold War, the Western policies changed as it became evident that a return to operation of the West German industry was needed not only for the restoration of the whole European economy but also for the rearmament of West Germany as an ally against the Soviet Union. On 6 September 1946 United States Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes made the famous speech Restatement of Policy on Germany, also known as the Stuttgart speech, where he amongst other things repudiated the Morgenthau plan-influenced policies and gave the West Germans hope for the future. Reports such as The President's Economic Mission to Germany and Austria helped to show the U.S. public how bad the situation in Germany really was.
The next improvement came in July 1947, when after lobbying by the
The dismantling did however continue, and in 1949 West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer wrote to the Allies requesting that it end, citing the inherent contradiction between encouraging industrial growth and removing factories and also the unpopularity of the policy.[26]: 259 Support for dismantling was by this time coming predominantly from the French, and the Petersberg Agreement of November 1949 reduced the levels vastly, though dismantling of minor factories continued until 1951. The final limitations on German industrial levels were lifted after the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, though arms manufacture remained prohibited.[26]: 260, 270–71
Relations with France
Germany's second largest center of mining and industry, Upper Silesia, had been handed over by the Allies to Poland at the Potsdam Conference and the German population was being forcibly expelled.[27] The International Authority for the Ruhr (IAR) was created as part of the agreement negotiated at the London Six-Power conference in June 1948 to establish the Federal Republic of Germany.[28] French support to internationalize the Ruhr through the IAR was abandoned in 1951 with the West German agreement to pool its coal and steel markets within European Coal and Steel Community.
In the speech
In August 1954 the French parliament voted down the treaty that would have established the
Dismantling in East Germany
The Soviet Union engaged in a massive industrial dismantling campaign in its occupation zone, much more intensive than that carried out by the Western powers. While the Soviet powers soon realized that their actions alienated the German workforce from the Communist cause, they decided that the desperate economic situation within the Soviet Union took priority over alliance building. The allied leaders had agreed on paper to economic and political cooperation but the issue of reparations dealt an early blow to the prospect of a united Germany in 1945. The figure of $20 Billion had been floated by Stalin as an adequate recompense but as the United States refused to consider this a basis for negotiation The Soviet Union was left only with the opportunity of extracting its own reparations, at a heavy cost to the East Germans. This was the beginning of the formal split of Germany.[citation needed]
Marshall plan and currency reform
With the Western Allies eventually becoming concerned about the deteriorating economic situation in their "
The Soviets had not agreed to the
Reparations to the U.S.
The Allies confiscated
Nutritional levels
During the war, Germans seized food supplies from occupied countries and forced millions of foreigners to work on German farms and factories, in addition to food shipped from farms in eastern Germany. When this ended in 1945, the German rationing system (which stayed in place) had much lower supplies of food.
Forced labour reparations
As agreed by the Allies at the
Mass rape
States in Germany
On 17 December 1947, the Saar Protectorate had been established under French control, in the area corresponding to the current German state of Saarland. It was not allowed to join its fellow German neighbors until a plebiscite in 1955 rejected the proposed autonomy.[40] This paved the way for the accession of the Saarland to the Federal Republic of Germany as its 12th state, which went into effect on 1 January 1957.
On 23 May 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, Bundesrepublik Deutschland) was established on the territory of the Western occupied zones, with Bonn as its "provisional" capital. It comprised the area of 11 newly formed states (replacing the pre-war states), with present-day Baden-Württemberg being split into three states until 1952). The Federal Republic was declared to have "the full authority of a sovereign state" on 5 May 1955. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republic (GDR, Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR)), with East Berlin as its capital, was established in the Soviet Zone.
The 1952
In English, the two larger states were known informally as "West Germany" and "East Germany" respectively. In both cases, the former occupying troops remained permanently stationed there. The former German capital, Berlin, was a special case, being divided into East Berlin and West Berlin, with West Berlin completely surrounded by East German territory. Though the German inhabitants of West Berlin were citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany, West Berlin was not legally incorporated into West Germany; it remained under the formal occupation of the western allies until 1990, although most day-to-day administration was conducted by an elected West Berlin government.
West Germany was allied with the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. A western democratic country with a "social market economy", the country would from the 1950s onwards come to enjoy prolonged economic growth (Wirtschaftswunder) following the Marshall Plan help from the Allies, the currency reform of June 1948 and helped by the fact that the Korean War (1950–53) led to a worldwide increased demand for goods, where the resulting shortage helped overcome lingering resistance to the purchase of German products.
East Germany was at first occupied by and later (May 1955) allied with the Soviet Union.
West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany)
The Western Allies turned over increasing authority to West German officials and moved to establish a nucleus for a future German government by creating a central Economic Council for their zones. The program later provided for a West German
In 1949 the new provisional capital of the Federal Republic of Germany was established in Bonn, after Chancellor
After the
The outbreak of the Korean War (June 1950) led to Washington calling for the rearmament of West Germany in order to defend western Europe from the Soviet threat. But the memory of German aggression led other European states to seek tight control over the West German military. Germany's partners in the Coal and Steel Community decided to establish a
Though the EDC treaty was signed (May 1952), it never entered into force. France's Gaullists rejected it on the grounds that it threatened national sovereignty, and when the French National Assembly refused to ratify it (August 1954), the treaty died. The French had killed their own proposal. Other means had to be found to allow West German rearmament. In response, the
Between 1949 and 1960, the West German economy grew at an unparalleled rate.[42] Low rates of inflation, modest wage increases and a quickly rising export quota made it possible to restore the economy and brought a modest prosperity. According to the official statistics the German gross national product grew in average by about 7% annually between 1950 and 1960.
1951 | 1952 | 1953 | 1954 | 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | 1959 | 1960 |
+ 10.5 | + 8.3 | + 7.5 | + 7.4 | +11.5 | + 6.9 | + 5.4 | +3.3 | + 6.7 | +8.8 |
[43]: 36
The initial demand for housing, the growing demand for machine tools, chemicals, and automobiles and a rapidly increasing agricultural production were the initial triggers to this 'Wirtschaftswunder' (economic miracle) as it was known, although there was nothing miraculous about it. The era became closely linked with the name of Ludwig Erhard, who led the Ministry of Economics during the decade. Unemployment at the start of the decade stood at 10.3%, but by 1960 it had dropped to 1.2%, practically speaking full employment. In fact, there was a growing demand for labor in many industries as the workforce grew by 3% per annum, the reserves of labor were virtually used up.[43]: 36 The millions of displaced persons and the refugees from the eastern provinces had all been integrated into the workforce. At the end of the decade, thousands of younger East Germans were packing their bags and migrating westwards, posing an ever-growing problem for the GDR nomenclature. With the construction of the
In October 1961 an initial agreement was signed with the Turkish government and the first Gastarbeiter began to arrive. By 1966, some 1,300,000 foreign workers had been recruited mainly from Italy, Turkey, Spain, and Greece. By 1971, the number had reached 2.6 million workers. The initial plan was that single workers would come to Germany, would work for a limited number of years and then return home. The significant differences between wages in their home countries and in Germany led many workers to bring their families and to settle—at least until retirement—in Germany. That the German authorities took little notice of the radical changes that these shifts of population structure meant was the cause of considerable debate in later years.[citation needed]
In the 1950s Federal Republic, restitution laws for compensation for those who had suffered under the Nazis was limited to only those who had suffered from "racial, religious or political reasons", which were defined in such a way as to sharply limit the number of people entitled to collect compensation.[44]: 564 According to the 1953 law on compensation for suffering during the National Socialist era, only those with a territorial connection with Germany could receive compensation for their suffering, which had the effect of excluding the millions of people, mostly from Central and Eastern Europe, who had been taken to Germany to work as slave labor during World War II.[44]: 565 In the same vein, to be eligible for compensation they would have to prove that they were part of the "realm of German language and culture", a requirement that excluded most of the surviving slave laborers who did not know German or at least enough German to be considered part of the "realm of German language and culture".[44]: 567 Likewise, the law excluded homosexuals, Gypsies, Communists, Asoziale ("Asocials" – people considered by the National Socialist state to be anti-social, a broad category comprising anyone from petty criminals to people who were merely eccentric and non-conformist), and homeless people for their suffering in the concentration camps under the grounds that all these people were "criminals" whom the state was protecting German society from by sending them to concentration camps, and in essence these victims of the National Socialist state got what they deserved, making them unworthy of compensation.[44]: 564, 565 In this regard it is significant[according to whom?] that the 1935 version of Paragraph 175 was not repealed until 1969.[45] As a result, German homosexuals – in many cases survivors of the concentration camps – between 1949 and 1969 continued to be convicted under the same law that had been used to convict them between 1935 and 1945, though in the period 1949–69 they were sent to prison rather than to a concentration camp.[45]
A study done in 1953 showed that of the 42,000 people who had survived the
In regards to the memory of the Nazi period in the 1950s Federal Republic, there was a marked tendency to argue that everyone regardless of what side they had been on in World War II were all equally victims of the war.
West German authorities made great efforts to end the
Until the end of occupation in 1990, the three Western Allies retained occupation powers in Berlin and certain responsibilities for Germany as a whole. Under the new arrangements, the Allies stationed troops within West Germany for NATO defense, pursuant to stationing and status-of-forces agreements. With the exception of 45,000 French troops, Allied forces were under NATO's joint defense command. (France withdrew from the collective military command structure of NATO in 1966.)
Political life in West Germany was remarkably stable and orderly. The Adenauer era (1949–63) was followed by a brief period under
1960s: a time for reform
The grand old man of German postwar politics had to be dragged—almost literally—out of office in 1963.[tone] In 1959, it was time to elect a new president and Adenauer decided that he would place Erhard in this office. Erhard was not enthusiastic, and to everybody's surprise, Adenauer decided at the age of 83 that he would take on the position. His aim was apparently to remain in control of German politics for another ten years despite the growing mood for change, but when his advisers informed him just how limited the powers of the president were he quickly lost interest.[43]: 3 An alternative candidate was needed and eventually the Minister of Agriculture, Heinrich Lübke took on the task and was duly elected.
In October 1962, the weekly news magazine
The proceedings of the War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg had been widely publicised in Germany but, a new generation of teachers, educated with the findings of historical studies, could begin to reveal the truth about the war and the crimes committed in the name of the German people. In 1963, a German court ruled that a KGB assassin named
In the early sixties, the rate of economic growth slowed down significantly. In 1962, the growth rate was 4.7% and the following year, 2.0%. After a brief recovery, the growth rate petered into a recession, with no growth in 1967. The economic showdown forced Erhard's resignation in 1966 and he was replaced with Kurt Georg Kiesinger of the CDU. Kiesinger was to attract much controversy because in 1933 he had joined the National Socialist Legal Guild and NSDAP (membership in the former was necessary in order to practice law, but membership in the latter was entirely voluntary).
In order to deal with the problem of the economic slowdown, a new coalition was formed. Kiesinger's 1966–69 grand coalition was between West Germany's two largest parties, the CDU/CSU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). This was important for the introduction of new emergency acts—the grand coalition gave the ruling parties the two-thirds majority of votes required for their ratification. These controversial acts allowed basic constitutional rights such as freedom of movement to be limited in case of a state of emergency.
During the time leading up to the passing of the laws, there was fierce opposition to them, above all by the
In 1968, the Bundestag passed a Misdemeanors Bill dealing with traffic misdemeanors, into which a high-ranking civil servant named Dr. Eduard Dreher who had been drafting the bill inserted a prefatory section to the bill under a very misleading heading that declared that henceforth there was a statute of limitations of 15 years from the time of the offense for the crime of being an accomplices to murder which was to apply retroactively, which made it impossible to prosecute war criminals even for being accomplices to murder since the statute of limitations as now defined for the last of the suspects had expired by 1960.[46]: 249 The Bundestag passed the Misdemeanors Bill without bothering to read the bill in its entirety so its members missed Dreher's amendment.[46]: 249 It was estimated in 1969 that thanks to Dreher's amendment to the Misdemeanors Bill that 90% of all Nazi war criminals now enjoyed total immunity from prosecution.[46]: 249–50 The prosecutor Adalbert Rückerl who headed the Central Bureau for the Prosecution of National Socialist Crimes told an interviewer in 1969 that this amendment had done immense harm to the ability of the Bureau to prosecute those suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity.[46]: 249
The calling in question of the actions and policies of the government led to a new climate of debate by the late 1960s. The issues of emancipation, colonialism, environmentalism and grass roots democracy were discussed at all levels of society. In 1979, the environmental party, the Greens, reached the 5% limit required to obtain parliamentary seats in the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen provincial election. Also of great significance was the steady growth of a feminist movement in which women demonstrated for equal rights. Until 1979, a married woman had to have the permission of her husband if she wanted to take on a job or open a bank account. Parallel to this, a gay movement began to grow in the larger cities, especially in West Berlin, where homosexuality had been widely accepted during the twenties in the Weimar Republic. In 1969, the Bundestag repealed the 1935 Nazi amendment to Paragraph 175, which not only made homosexual acts a felony, but had also made any expressions of homosexuality illegal (before 1935 only gay sex had been illegal). However, Paragraph 175 which made homosexual acts illegal remained on the statute books and was not repealed until 1994, although it had been softened in 1973 by making gay sex illegal only with those under the age of 18.
Anger over the treatment of demonstrators following the death of Benno Ohnesorg and the attack on Rudi Dutschke, coupled with growing frustration over the lack of success in achieving their aims, led to growing militancy among students and their supporters. In May 1968, three young people set fire to two department stores in Frankfurt; they were brought to trial and made very clear to the court that they regarded their action as a legitimate act in what they described as the 'struggle against imperialism'.[51] The student movement began to split into different factions, ranging from the unattached liberals to the Maoists and supporters of direct action in every form—the anarchists. Several groups set as their objective the aim of radicalizing the industrial workers and, taking an example from activities in Italy of the Brigade Rosse, many students went to work in the factories, but with little or no success. The most notorious of the underground groups was the 'Baader-Meinhof Group', later known as the Red Army Faction, which began by making bank raids to finance their activities and eventually went underground having killed a number of policemen, several bystanders and eventually two prominent West Germans, whom they had taken captive in order to force the release of prisoners sympathetic to their ideas. The "Baader-Meinhof gang" was committed to the overthrow of the Federal Republic via terrorism in order to achieve the establishment of a Communist state. In the 1990s attacks were still being committed under the name "RAF". The last action took place in 1993 and the group announced it was giving up its activities in 1998. Evidence that the groups had been infiltrated by German Intelligence undercover agents has since emerged, partly through the insistence of the son of one of their prominent victims, the State Counsel Buback.[52]
Political developments 1969–1990
In the 1969 election, the SPD—headed by
Finance Minister
In January 1979, the American mini-series
In 1980, the CDU/CSU ran Strauss as their joint candidate in the elections, and he was crushingly[
Despite or perhaps because of the Bitburg controversy, in 1985 a campaign had been started to build a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in Berlin.[44]: 557 It was felt by at least some Germans that there was something wrong about the Chancellor and the President of the United States honoring the memory of the SS men buried at Bitburg while there was no memorial to any of the people murdered in the Holocaust. The campaign to build a Holocaust memorial, which Germany until then lacked, was given a major boost in November 1989 by the call by television journalist Lea Rosh to build the memorial at the site for the former Gestapo headquarters.[44]: 557 In April 1992, the City of Berlin finally decided that a Holocaust memorial could be built.[44]: 557 Along the same lines, in August 1987, protests put a stop to plans by the City of Frankfurt to raze the last remains of the Frankfurt Jewish Ghetto in order to redevelop the land, arguing that the remnants of the Frankfurt ghetto needed to be preserved.[44]: 557
In January 1987, the Kohl-Genscher government was returned to office, but the FDP and the Greens gained at the expense of the larger parties. Kohl's CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, slipped from 48.8% of the vote in 1983 to 44.3%. The SPD fell to 37%; long-time SPD chairman Brandt subsequently resigned in April 1987 and was succeeded by Hans-Jochen Vogel. The FDP's share rose from 7% to 9.1%, its best showing since 1980. The Greens' share rose to 8.3% from their 1983 share of 5.6%. Later in 1987, Kohl had a summit with the East German leader Erich Honecker. Unknown to Kohl, the meeting room had been bugged by the Stasi, and the Stasi tapes of the summit had Kohl saying to Honecker that he did not see any realistic chance of reunification in the foreseeable future.
East Germany (German Democratic Republic)
In the Soviet occupation zone, the Social Democratic Party was forced to merge with the Communist Party in April 1946 to form a new party, the Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands or SED). The October 1946 elections resulted in coalition governments in the five Land (state) parliaments with the SED as the undisputed leader.
A series of people's congresses were called in 1948 and early 1949 by the SED. Under Soviet direction, a constitution was drafted on 30 May 1949, and adopted on 7 October, the day when East Germany was formally proclaimed. The People's Chamber (Volkskammer)—the lower house of the East German parliament—and an upper house—the States Chamber (Länderkammer)—were created. (The Länderkammer was abolished again in 1958.) On 11 October 1949, the two houses elected Wilhelm Pieck as President, and an SED government was set up. The Soviet Union and its East European allies immediately recognized East Germany, although it remained largely unrecognized by noncommunist countries until 1972–73. East Germany established the structures of a single-party, centralized, totalitarian communist state. On 23 July 1952, the traditional Länder were abolished and, in their place, 14 Bezirke (districts) were established. Even though other parties formally existed, effectively, all government control was in the hands of the SED, and almost all important government positions were held by SED members.
The
Industry and agriculture in East Germany
With the formation of a separate East German communist state in October 1949, the Socialist Unity Party faced a huge range of problems. Not only were the cities in ruins, much of the productive machinery and equipment had been seized by the Soviet occupation force and transported to The Soviet Union in order to make some kind of reconstruction possible. While West Germany received loans and other financial assistance from the United States, the GDR was in the role of an exporter of goods to the USSR—a role that its people could ill afford but which they could not avoid.
The S.E.D.'s intention was to transform the GDR into a socialist and later into a communist state. These processes would occur step by step according to the laws of scientific 'Marxism-Leninism' and economic planning was the key to this process. In July 1952, at a conference of the S.E.D., Walter Ulbricht announced that "the democratic (sic) and economic development, and the consciousness (Bewusstsein) of the working class and the majority of the employed classes must be developed so that the construction of Socialism becomes their most important objective."[57]: 453 This meant that the administration, the armed forces, the planning of industry and agriculture would be under the sole authority of the S.E.D. and its planning committee. Industries would be nationalized and collectivization introduced in the farm industry. When the first Five-Year Plan was announced, the flow of refugees out of East Germany began to grow. As a consequence, production fell, food became short and protests occurred in a number of factories. On 14 May 1952, the S.E.D. ordered that the production quotas (the output per man per shift) were to be increased by 10%, but wages to be kept at the former level. This decision was not popular with the new leaders in the Kremlin. Stalin had died in March 1953 and the new leadership was still evolving. The imposition of new production quotas contradicted the new direction of Soviet policies for their satellites.[57]: 454
On 5 June 1953, the S.E.D. announced a 'new course' in which farmers, craftsmen, and factory owners would benefit from a relaxation of controls. The new production quotas remained; the East German workers protested and up to sixty strikes occurred the following day. One of the window-dressing projects in the ruins of East Berlin was the construction of Stalin Allee, on which the most 'class-conscious' workers (in S.E.D. propaganda terms) were involved. At a meeting, strikers declared "You give the capitalists (the factory owners) presents, and we are exploited!"[57]: 455 A delegation of building workers marched to the headquarters of the S.E.D. demanding that the production quotas be rescinded. The crowd grew, demands were made for the removal of Ulbricht from office and a general strike called for the following day.
On 17 June 1953 strikes and demonstrations occurred in 250 towns and cities in the GDR. Between 300,000 and 400,000 workers took part in the strikes, which were specifically directed towards the rescinding of the production quotas and were not an attempt to overthrow the government. The strikers were for the most part convinced that the transformation of the GDR into a socialist state was the proper course to take but that the S.E.D. had taken a wrong turn.[57]: 457 The S.E.D. responded with all of the force at its command and also with the help of the Soviet Occupation force. Thousands were arrested, sentenced to jail and many hundreds were forced to leave for West Germany. The S.E.D. later moderated its course but the damage had been done. The real face of the East German regime was revealed. The S.E.D. claimed that the strikes had been instigated by West German agents, but there is no evidence for this. Over 250 strikers were killed, around 100 policemen and some 18 Soviet soldiers died in the uprising;[57]: 459 17 June was declared a national day of remembrance in West Germany.
Berlin
Shortly after
During the years of West Berlin's isolation—176 kilometers (110 mi.) inside East Germany—the Western Allies encouraged a close relationship between the Government of
Between 1948 and 1990, major events such as fairs and festivals were sponsored in West Berlin, and investment in commerce and industry was encouraged by special concessionary tax legislation. The results of such efforts, combined with effective city administration and the West Berliners' energy and spirit, were encouraging. West Berlin's morale was sustained, and its industrial production considerably surpassed the pre-war level.
The Final Settlement Treaty ended Berlin's special status as a separate area under Four Power control. Under the terms of the treaty between West and East Germany, Berlin became the capital of a unified Germany. The Bundestag voted in June 1991 to make Berlin the seat of government. The Government of Germany asked the Allies to maintain a military presence in Berlin until the complete withdrawal of the Western Group of Forces (ex-Soviet) from the territory of the former East Germany. The Russian withdrawal was completed 31 August 1994. Ceremonies were held on 8 September 1994, to mark the final departure of Western Allied troops from Berlin.
Government offices have been moving progressively to Berlin, and it became the formal seat of the federal government in 1999. Berlin also is one of the Federal Republic's 16 Länder.
Relations between East Germany and West Germany
Under Chancellor Adenauer, West Germany declared its right to speak for the entire German nation with an exclusive mandate.[58]: 18 The Hallstein Doctrine involved non-recognition of East Germany and restricted (or often ceased) diplomatic relations with countries that gave East Germany the status of a sovereign state.[59]
The constant stream of East Germans fleeing across the Inner German border to West Germany placed great strains on East German-West German relations in the 1950s. East Germany sealed the borders to West Germany in 1952, but people continued to flee from East Berlin to West Berlin. On 13 August 1961, East Germany began building the Berlin Wall around West Berlin to slow the flood of refugees to a trickle, effectively cutting the city in half and making West Berlin an enclave of the Western world in communist territory. The Wall became the symbol of the Cold War and the division of Europe. Shortly afterward, the main border between the two German states was fortified.
In 1969, Chancellor Willy Brandt announced that West Germany would remain firmly rooted in the Atlantic alliance, but would intensify efforts to improve relations with the Eastern Bloc, especially East Germany. West Germany commenced this Ostpolitik, initially under fierce opposition from the conservatives, by negotiating nonaggression treaties with the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Hungary.
West Germany's relations with East Germany posed particularly difficult questions. Though anxious to relieve serious hardships for divided families and to reduce friction, West Germany under Brandt's Ostpolitik was intent on holding to its concept of "two German states in one German nation". Relations gradually improved. In the early 1970s, the Ostpolitik led to a form of mutual recognition between East and West Germany. The
Aftermath
To this day, there remain vast differences between the former East Germany and West Germany (for example, in lifestyle, wealth, and political beliefs) and thus it is still common to speak of eastern and western Germany distinctly. The eastern German economy has struggled since unification, and large subsidies are still transferred from west to east.
Notes
- ^ Note: The $10 billion compares to the U.S. annual GDP of $258 billion in 1948. It also compares to the total Marshall plan expenditure (1948–1952) of $13 billion, of which Germany received $1,4 billion (partly as loans).
References
- ^ a b Stragart, Nicholas (2015). The German War; a nation under arms, 1939–45. Bodley Head. p. 549.
- ^ Wachsmann, Nikolaus (2015). KL; A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. Little, Brown. p. 544.
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- ^ Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims. Facts concerning the problem of the German expellees and refugees, Bonn: 1967
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- ^ Alrich, Amy (2004). "An Exploration of the Inner Landscape of Experience". H-Net Reviews. Archived from the original on 11 June 2007. Retrieved 27 May 2014.
- ^ Stragart, Nicholas (2015). The German War; a nation under arms, 1939–45. Bodley Head. p. 556.
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- ^ Morgenthau, Henry Jr. (September 1944). "Suggested Post-Surrender Program for Germany". President's Secretary's Files (PSF), German Diplomatic Files, Jan.–Sept. 1944 (i297). Franklin D. Roosevelt Digital Archives. Retrieved 27 January 2007.
It should be the aim of the Allied Forces to accomplish the complete demilitarization of Germany in the shortest possible period of time after its surrender. This means completely disarming the German Army and people (including the removal or destruction of all war material), the total destruction of the whole German armament industry, and the removal or destruction of other key industries which are basic to military strength. ... Within a short period, if possible not longer than 6 months after the cessation of hostilities, all industrial plants and equipment not destroyed by military action shall either be completely dismantled and removed from the [Ruhr] area or completely destroyed. All equipment shall be removed from the mines and the mines shall be thoroughly wrecked.
- ^ Beschloss, Michael R. The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941–1945. p. 233.
- ^ Petrov, Vladimir (1967). Money and conquest; allied occupation currencies in World War II. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. pp. 228–229.
- ^ JSTOR 443604.
- ^ Wallich, Henry C. (1955). Mainsprings of the German Revival. p. 348.
- ^ "Economics: Cornerstone of Steel". Time. 21 January 1946. Archived from the original on 1 November 2007. Retrieved 27 May 2014.
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- ^ Hoover, Herbert (18 March 1947). The Necessary Steps for Promotion of German Exports, so as to Relieve American Taxpayers of the Burdens of Relief and for Economic Recovery of Europe (Report). The President's Economic Mission to Germany and Austria. Vol. 3. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016.
- ^ Balabkins, Nicholas (1964). Germany Under Direct Controls; Economic Aspects of Industrial Disarmament 1945–1948. Rutgers University Press. p. 119. The two quotes used by Balabkins are referenced to respectively: A Year of Potsdam: The German Economy Since the Surrender. U.S. Office of Military Government. 1946. p. 70. and The German Forest Resources Survey. U.S. Office of Military Government. 1948. p. 2.
- ^ a b Jennings, Ray Salvatore (May 2003). "The Road Ahead: Lessons in Nation Building from Japan, Germany, and Afghanistan for Postwar Iraq" (PDF). Peaceworks. p. 15. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 May 2008.
- ^ "Conferences: Pas de Pagaille!". Time. 28 July 1947. Archived from the original on 14 October 2007. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
- ^ a b Bark, Dennis L.; Gress, David R. (1989). A History of West Germany: From Shadow to Substance. Vol. 1. Oxford Press.
- ^ "French proposal regarding the detachment of German industrial regions". Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l’Europe. 8 September 1945. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
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- ^ Stern, Susan. "Marshall Plan 1947–1997 A German View". Germany Info. German Embassy's Department for Press, Information and Public Affairs, Washington D.C. Archived from the original on 9 July 2006. Retrieved 3 May 2007.
There is another reason for the Plan's continued vitality. It has transcended reality and become a myth. To this day, a truly astonishing number of Germans (and almost all advanced high school students) have an idea what the Marshall Plan was, although their idea is very often very inaccurate. ... Many Germans believe that the Marshall Plan was alone responsible for the economic miracle of the Fifties. And when scholars come along and explain that reality was far more complex, they are skeptical and disappointed. They should not be. For the Marshall Plan certainly did play a key role in Germany's recovery, albeit perhaps more of a psychological than a purely economic one.
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: Missing or empty|title=
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Works cited
- Fulbrook, Mary. [1]"The Two Germanies, 1945–90" (ch. 7) and "The Federal Republic of Germany Since 1990" (ch. 8) in A Concise History of Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 203–249; 249–257.
- Jean Edward Smith, Germany Beyond The Wall: People, Politics, and Prosperity, Boston: Little, Brown, & Company, 1969.
- Jean Edward Smith, Lucius D. Clay: An American Life, New York: Henry, Holt, & Company, 1990.
- Jean Edward Smith, The Defense of Berlin, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1963.
- Jean Edward Smith, The Papers of Lucius D. Clay, 2 Vols., Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1974.
- ISBN 0-7134-6795-9
- David H Childs and Jeffrey Johnson, West Germany: Politics And Society, Croom Helm, 1982. ISBN 0-7099-0702-8
- David H Childs, The Two Red Flags: European Social Democracy & Soviet Communism Since 1945, Routledge, 2000.
Further reading
- Ahonen, Pertti. "Germany and the Aftermath of the Second World War". Journal of Modern History 89#2 (2017): 355–387.
- Bark, Dennis L., and David R. Gress. A History of West Germany Vol 1: From Shadow to Substance, 1945–1963 (1992); ISBN 978-0-631-16788-4
- Berghahn, Volker Rolf. Modern Germany: society, economy, and politics in the twentieth century (1987) ACLS E-book online
- Bernhard, Michael. "Democratization in Germany: A Reappraisal". Comparative Politics 33#4 (2001): 379–400. JSTOR 422440
- ISBN 978-0-06-054036-4
- Davis, Franklin M. Jr. Come as Conqueror: The United States Army’s Occupation of Germany, 1945–49 (Macmillan, 1967).
- Gray, William Glenn. Trading Power: West Germany’s Rise to Global Influence, 1963–1975 Cambridge University Press, 2023. ISBN 978-1-108-34119-6
- Hanrieder, Wolfram F. Germany, America, Europe: Forty Years of German Foreign Policy (1989) ISBN 0-300-04022-9
- Jähner, Harald. Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945–1955 (2022)
- Jarausch, Konrad H. After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945–1995 (2008)
- Junker, Detlef, ed. The United States and Germany in the Era of the Cold War (2 vol 2004), 150 short essays by scholars covering 1945–1990 excerpt and text search vol 1; excerpt and text search vol 2
- Lovelace, Alexander G (2013). "Trends in the Western Historiography of the United States' Occupation of Germany". International Bibliography of Military History. 33 (2): 148–163. .
- Merritt, Anna J., and Richard L. Merritt. Public opinion in occupied Germany: the OMGUS surveys, 1945-1949 (University of Illinois Press, 1970), OMGUS polls.
- Naqvi, Fatima. The Insulted Landscape: Post-War German Culture 1960–1995 Königshausen & Neumann (2021)
- Miller, Paul D (2013). "A bibliographic essay on the Allied occupation and reconstruction of West Germany, 1945–1955". Small Wars & Insurgencies. 24 (4): 751–759. S2CID 143530851.
- Schwarz, Hans-Peter. Konrad Adenauer: A German Politician and Statesman in a Period of War, Revolution and Reconstruction (2 vol 1995) excerpt and text search vol 2
- Smith, Jean Edward. Lucius D. Clay: An American Life (1990), a major scholarly biography
- Smith, Gordon, ed, Developments in German Politics (1992) ISBN 0-8223-1266-2, broad survey of reunified nation
- Stark, John Robert (10 March 2003). The Overlooked Majority: German Women in the Four Zones of Occupied Germany, 1945–1949, a Comparative Study (PDF) (Thesis). The Ohio State University.[permanent dead link]
- Weber, Jurgen. Germany, 1945–1990 (Central European University Press, 2004)
- Ziemke, Earl Frederick (1975). The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany: 1944–1946. Government Printing Office. ISBN 9780160899188., the official Army history
GDR
- Fulbrook, Mary. Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR, 1949–1989 (1998)
- Jarausch, Konrad H. and Eve Duffy. Dictatorship As Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR (1999)
- Jarausch, Konrad H., and Volker Gransow, eds. Uniting Germany: Documents and Debates, 1944–1993 (1994), primary sources on reunification
- Pritchard, Gareth. The Making of the GDR, 1945–53 (2004)
- Ross, Corey. The East German Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of the GDR (2002)
- Steiner, André. The Plans That Failed: An Economic History of East Germany, 1945–1989 (2010)
- Windsor, Philip. "The Berlin Crises" History Today (June 1962) Vol. 6, p375-384, summarizes the series of crises 1946 to 1961; online.
External links
- Germany at the onset of the cold war
- James F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly (The division of Germany)
- The President's Economic Mission to Germany and Austria, Report No. 1 (1947)
- The President's Economic Mission to Germany and Austria, Report 3 (1947)
- The Struggle for Germany and the Origins of the Cold War by Melvyn P. Leffler
- Contemporary History maintained by the Institute for Contemporary Historical Research in Potsdam (in German)
- Special German series 2. The Committee on Dismemberment of Germany Allied discussions on the dismemberment of Germany into separate states, 29 March 1945.
- East Berlin, Past and Present
- Germany Under Reconstruction is a digital collection that provides a varied selection of publications in both English and German from the period immediately following World War II. Many are publications of the U.S. occupying forces, including reports and descriptions of efforts to introduce U.S.-style democracy to Germany. Some of the other books and documents describe conditions in a country devastated by years of war, efforts at political, economic and cultural development, and the differing perspectives coming from the U.S. and British zones and the Russian zone of occupation.
- For representation of the German Partition in literature, one can consult the National Socialismand hence suffered from a sort of identity-crisis.
- Post-World War II Posters from Germany, 1945–1947 From the Collections at the Library of Congress
- Chronology of the East-West-German division