The political role of official statistics in the former German Democratic Republic Prof. Dr. Peter von der Lippe, Universität Duisburg-Essen,Universitätstr. 12, 45117 Essen Germany
[email protected] 1. Official statistics of the former GDR as a subject for investigation The statistical office of the former (East) "German Democratic Republic" (GDR), the so-called ‘Central Administration of Statistics’ (CAS), has been described repeatedly in terms of its organisational aspects, internal structure, and statistical responsibilities. Here, however, drawn on documents from archives,we are dealing with the political role of the CAS and its relations to the political leadership of the GDR1. It should be expressly emphasised that we do not try to make general statements regarding the quality of data published by the CAS but only to show how some of those figures were demonstrably subject to political influence. The CAS was almost entirely an instrument of the SED2 with the result that in certain fields at least the general public both at home and abroad has been deliberately deceived. A false picture of the GDR emerged in the (former) Federal Republic on the basis of CAS’ official statistics (though not without the ignominious involvement of the West Germans). It should be noted that although the competence of the statisticians3 was beyond doubt the structure of statistics along with the CAS’ communist self-image made sure that there was no question of being objective or neutral.According to ‘Western’ (democratic) thinking the information given by respondents (micro data) is subject to secrecy (confidentiality) and may leave its mark on aggregate data (macro data) in unidentifiable form only whereas, by contrast, statistical findings (macro data) are made available to everyone and are considered public property, an ‘informational infrastructure’ that no-one is excluded from using.