(SED) Lasts Forty Years in the GDR, and Dissent Is Articulated Against It the Enti
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PIcture: Andreas Schoelzel Youth opposition in the German Democratic republic (GDr) The dictatorship of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) lasts forty years in the GDR, and dissent is articulated against it the entire time. Young people searching for guidance and truth confront over and over again the limits set by the regime. Music and litera ture are censored, music bands and writers forbidden; the militarization of the entire society gives the lie to offi cial peace policies; elections are rigged. Whoever desires something else is penalized by the state, arrested, condemned. There are nevertheless people – from the Baltic Sea to the Thuringian Forest, in the cities and in An exhibition of the Robert the co untryside – who resist and stand up for their ideals. Havemann Society and the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of It is often young people who take a stand. This exhibition the SED Dictatorship. presents some of the actors who emerged from this great variety of opposition and resistance. arno esch * 1928 † 1951 rno Esch, who has not yet A reached his sixteenth birthday, is drafted into the army in January 1944. After the war his family moves from Memel to Mecklenburg, where Esch begins to study at the Universi Photo Archive Marburg / LA 420915 The University of Rostock around 1950. Arno Esch studies ty of Rostock in 1946. He aspires to law and economics here. In the fall of 1947, at the age of nineteen, he becomes the university advisor of the LPD an academic career, is considered to state organization of Mecklenburg. be extraordinarily talented and very hardworking. According to Arno Esch’s liberal be liefs, individual liberty is the bedrock of human society. He helps expand the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Mecklenburg and becomes a mem ber of the party’s executive commit tee in 1948. Esch calls for a democratic state governed by the rule of law, as well as for conscientious objection. As one of its first members, he brings his liberal values to the Free German Association of Former Rostock Students Youth (FDJ), the – at first – seemingly nonpartisan and ecumenical youth Rostock University Archive, Personnel File of Student Arno Esch Arno Esch’s University of Rostock student ID. Shortly organization. Arno Esch is also active before his first state law exam, Esch is arrested – along ly engaged in establishing independ with other mostly liberal students – by the Soviet secret police on October 18, 1949. ent youth organizations alongside “I feel closer to a liberal the FDJ. All of this is a thorn in the side of the Soviet occupation power. Chinese person than to a While the FDJ is quickly made into a cadre training school for the commu German communist.” nis t SED, the S ov ie t se cre t p olice arres t Arno Esch in 1949. A Soviet Mili tary Tribunal charges him with “counter revolutionary activities”, “spy ing“, “antiSoviet propaganda”, and “the creation of illegal groups”. Arno Esch is sentenced to death in July 1950 and is shot in Moscow on Robert Havemann Society July 24, 1951. He is only twentythree There are several resistance groups at the University of Rostock at this time. In the photo an excursion by years old. a rowing group on Ascension Day in 1951. The follow- ing persons pictured here are condemned by a Soviet mili tary tribunal in 1951: Hartwig Bernitt, Karl Alfred Gedowski, Alfred Gerlach, Otto Mehl. Association of Former Rostock Students Following Soviet penal law, a Soviet military tribunal in Schwerin gives either the death penalty or twenty-five years of hard labor to Arno Esch and thirteen other The Liberals enter the 1946 accused in 1951. Esch’s sentence is confirmed on April elections in the Soviet zone 4, 1951 in Moscow. He is shot. In the document shown of occupation with this here, the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union completely poster. The twenty-year-old rehabilitates Arno Esch on May 30, 1991. Arno Esch helped formulate his party’s program and rejects the idea of the LDP as a so-called “block party” forced to toe the SED’s line. Norddeutsche Zeitung (newspaper), January 13, 1949 Federal Archive / Poster 103-005-008 The clear thinker and sharp-tongued discussant writes numerous political newspaper articles. Excerpt from an article written by Arno Esch. Youth Opposition in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) 2 hermann FlaDe * 1932 † 1980 n 1944 at age twelve, Hermann IFlade, who is raised Catholic, takes an extremely unusual step: he quits the Hitler Youth. After the war Her mann Flade goes to school in Olbern hau in Saxony. In October 1949 he takes a year of absence from school in order to help support his fami ly financially. He becomes a hewer for Wismut, a Soviet uranium min ing company. The strenuous under BStU, MfS, Ast Chemnitz ground manual labor pays well. Hermann Flade is sentenced to death at a show trial because of “rabblerousing”, “the plying of military propa- He speaks often with a Catholic ganda”, “attempted murder”, and “resisting arrest”. A priest about deficiencies in the GDR passport photograph from the arrest file in Waldheim. in the GDR, and witnesses the propa ganda during the leadup to the East German parliamentarian elections of October 15, 1950. Flade is supposed to vote in favor of the predetermined election list. He finds that appalling. He spontaneously expresses his criti ullstein bild cism about the electoral procedure. Flade uses a rubber stamp to make approximately 190 leaflets, which Robert Havemann Society he distributes at night in Olbernhau. The communists want to consolidate their power in East Germany. Parliamentary and municipal elections While distributing the leaflets on Oc are held in the fall of 1950 in line with the following motto by Walter Ulbricht, the head of the SED: “It has “I distributed the leaf tober 14, 1950, he is surprised by a to appear democratic, but everything has to be in our police patrol. Flade injures one of the control”. All of the seats are already assigned before election day, according to a preset distribution ratio, policemen with a pocket knife dur among the SED as well as the so-called block parties lets because of the political and mass organizations tolerated under their rule. An ing a scuffle, and flees. He is arrest absolute majority is guaranteed for the SED since the majority of deputies from the mass organizations are recog nition that one had ed two days later and sentenced to SED members. death on January 10, 1951. There are hefty protests against this in the GDR to struggle passively and and in western Germany. The SED re gime is forced to reduce the penalty actively against the GDR to fifteen years imprisonment. and its institutions.” Robert Havemann Society Pupils from the town of Werdau formulate their protest against the death sentence in this leaflet. Because of such actions the youths are condemned a few months later to long-term prison sentences. BStU, MfS, ZA / AS 41 / 57, p. 49 ullstein bild / dpa A January 1951 leaflet opposing the fifteen-year jail Trauenstein in December 1960. Hermann Flade sentence with his mother a few days after his release from prison and emigration to the Federal Republic. Flade dies in 1980, shortly before his forty-eighth birthday, as a result of the long-term effects of imprisonment. BStU, MfS, Ast Chemnitz, AU 12 / 52, vol. 1 Flade makes such leaflets spontaneously and without any accomp lices. He places them in mailboxes in his hometown Olbernhau. Youth Opposition in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) 3 thomas ammer * 1937 homas Ammer goes to school T in Eisenberg in Thuringia. In 1952 the SED launches a campaign in the GDR, which is only three years old, against the Youth Community (Junge Gemeinde), the Protestant Robert Havemann Society The 1955 graduating class at the high school in Eisen- Church’s youth organization. Thou berg. The members of the Eisenberg Circle include Thomas Ammer (in the front on the left), Joachim sand of youths are harassed and ex Marckstadt (behind him), and Hubert Gumz (all the way pelled from schools and universities. in the back on the left). The teacher Irene Geyer (in the middle in the front) encourages the pupils to develop a At the time, Ammer, who comes from critical attitude toward the SED. an antifascist family, is the FDJ secre tary of his school class. Outraged, he tries to defend his classmates affec ted by these measures. On June 17, 1953, Ammer witnesses the suppres sion of the East German people’s up rising. His views of the GDR and the power politics of the SED become more and more critical. BStU, MfS, Ast Gera, AU 33 / 58 Thomas Ammer conducts discussions As a sign of protest against militarization, members of the group set aflame a firing range run by the Society with classmates and, together with for Sport and Technology, a paramilitary organization, in January 1956. The photo is from the files of the Ministry Robert Havemann Society eleven other youths, establishes a of State Security and serves as evidence in the trial. resistance group in the fall of 1953. The socalled Eisenberg Circle works in a strictly conspiratorial fashion and is set up similarly to the communist par “Given the recent experience ty cell model. That is why all of them never meet together at the same of National Socialism, time. Few besides Thomas Ammer know every member. The group de no one should be able to mands free elections, freedom of the press, the withdrawal of Soviet troops, and the release of political prisoners.