Constructing Socialism at the Grass-Roots: the Transformation of East Germany, 1945-1965
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Constructing Socialism at the Grass-Roots: The Transformation of East Germany, 1945-1965 by Corey David Ross Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University College London ProQuest Number: U641949 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest U641949 Published by ProQuest LLC(2015). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract The thesis examines how the socialist transformation of East Germany during the two decades following the defeat of the Third Reich was received, implemented, refashioned and adapted at the grass-roots. Concentrating on the region of East Berlin and Brandenburg, it focuses on a selected number of points where the personal lives and interests of ‘ordinary’ people intersected most closely and were confronted most immediately by the ruling Socialist Unity Party’s (SED) attempt to refashion society in the Soviet Occupation Zone/German Democratic Republic: 1.) increasing industrial productivity in raw materials and heavy industry, which meant mobilizing and disciplining workers to produce more; 2.) dispossessing old agrarian elites and later coaxing and coercing farmers into large collective farms; and 3.) protecting these ‘achievements’ through the creation of armed forces, which meant recruiting East German youths into the army. The popular reaction towards these three ambitious policies, the manner and extent of their realization at the grass-roots level and the role of local officials form the subject of three chapters of the thesis. The fourth substantive chapter examines the problem of Republikflucht (‘fleeing the republic’, or illegal emigration to the West), a unique and most conspicuous popular response to the transformation of East Germany which typified many of the problems the regime had in exerting control at the grass-roots and which placed certain constraints on the entire process of ‘constructing socialism’. Together, these chapters argue that what was a radical social and political transformation of East Germany at the macro-level was more a slow, patchy and inconsistent transition at the grass-roots. East German socialism was not just a new ‘totalitarian’ construction, but rather a mixture of different structures and mentalities inherited from German past, various Soviet imports, occasional dictatorial intervention as well as unplanned human actions by ‘ordinary’ East Germans. Acknowledgements For their help and encouragement throughout, I would like to thank in particular my Ph.D. supervisor. Prof. Mary Fulbrook, as well as Judd Stitziel and Sebastian Simsch for their comments on the text and for numerous profitable conversations about the East German past. Many archivists in Berlin and Potsdam have also patiently entertained my questions and helped open up to me the vast world of paper produced in the GDR. Without the generous financial support of both the Berlin Programme of the Social Science Research Council and the German Academic Exchange Service, this project could not have come to fruition. My greatest debts of gratitude are emotional, and go to my wife, Deborah Smail, for agreeing to hop between the U.K. and Germany for a number of years as well as play the various roles of intellectual foil, editor and 1 proofreader, and to my parents, who have supported me in every way from beginning to end. Table of Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 Table of Contents 4 List of Figures 5 1.) Introduction 6 a.) East Germans and the History of the GDR 6 b f Subjects of Enquiry, Methods, Aims 10 c.) Argument and Structure of Portrayal , 18 d.) Geographic Scope, Sources 20 2.) ‘Socialist Work’: Transforming the East German Shopfloor 27 - Dare to Discipline? Workers and the Problem of Productivity after the 29 War a.) The Shopfloor Reshaping of Order 234 29 b.) Workers and the Hennecke Movement 43 - The Origins and Effects of 17 June 50 - 'Erziehung\ Protest and Indifference on the Shopfloor 59 - Undermining the Produktionsaufgebot: Subtle Opposition and Shopfloor 74 Arrangements - Scepticism and Passive Consensus: the NES and Outlook onto the 1960s 87 3.) Constructing Socialism in the Villages 94 - The Land Reform and its Effects 95 a.) Confiscation, Redistribution and the Village Milieu 96 b.) From Hope to Disappointment: The New Farmers 105 c.) The New Village Elite and the Path to Collectivization: the ^ 114 Grofibauem - The ‘Unforced’ Collectivization, 1952-53 118 a. ) Farmers and Functionaries 118 b.) ‘New Course’, Old Problems 129 - The ‘Coercive Economy’: Material Discontent and Political Opinion in 136 the Countryside - The Coercive State: Forced Collectivization, 1958-61 144 a.) Coercion, Opposition and LPGformation in the Villages 145 b.) ‘From Paper into Practice’: Continuity and Change in the 157 ‘Socialist Village ’ - From Collectivization to Rationalization: Passivity and Pragmatism in 164 the 1960s 4.) Protecting the Accomplishments of Socialism: East Germans and the Armed 176 Forces - The Kasemierte Volkspolizei 178 a.) 'National Armed Forces’ for the GDR: Mobilizing East 178 German Youth b.) 'What about Peace and Bread?’: Popular Opinion and the 185 Contradictions of the Armed Forces c.) Recruitment and Refusal: Pacifism, Disinterest and Evasion 191 - Divided Loyalties: Motives for Enlisting and the Problem of Local 199 Functionaries - Continued Aversion, Increasing Coercion: Recruiting for the NVA, 206 1955.-56 - The Demographic Crisis and the Effects of the Wall 216 - Conscription: Refusal, Relief and Resignation 227 5.) Fleeing the Construction of Socialism: 'Republikflucht’ and the Wall 233 - The Myriad Reasons and Motives for Flight 235 - Battling Republikflucht: Responses at ‘the Top’ 240 - Combatting Republikflucht at the Grass-Roots 245 - Popular Responses and the Uses of Republikflucht 255 - East Germans, the Wall and the Prospects of the 1960s 264 6.) Conclusions 282 List of Abbreviations 294 Sources, Bibliography 296 List of Figures Figure 1: Emigration from Agricultural Sector 154 - source: Bundesministerium fiir gesamtdeutsche Fragen, Die Flucht aus der Sowietzone. p. 17 Figure 2: Emigration out of the GDR, Males ages 18-24/25 214 - sources: Rudiger Wenzke, ‘Auf dem Weg zur Kaderarmee’, p. 265; H. Heidemeyer, Flucht und Zuwanderung. p. 49 Figure 3: Males in GDR, Years of Birth 222 - source: SAPMO-BA DY30/IV2/12/58, bl. 113 Figure 4: Emigration out of the GDR, Applications for Notaufhahmeverfahren 238 - source: Bundesministerium fiir gesamtdeutsche Fragen, Die Flucht aus der Sowietzone, appendix Figure 5: Emigration out of the GDR, Doctors and Dentists 261 - sources: SAPMO-BA DY30/IV2/19/53, ‘Übersicht Republik flucht’, 31 Oct. 1960, p. 1; ‘Die Lage unter der medizinischen Intelligenz’, 21 June 1958, p. 5; 1961 statistics Chapter 1 Introduction 'Der Aufbau des Sozialismus ist in erster Linie eine Erziehung der Menschen. ’ - Walter Ulbricht, 33rd SED Central Committee Convention a.) East Germans and the History of the GDR The East German Socialist Unity Party (SED) had a remarkably ambitious social and political agenda. This included not only revolutionary changes in the macro-structures of society — in patterns of ownership, wealth distribution, social hierarchy and political organization — but also, in accordance with Leninist theory, revolutionary changes at the grass-roots, even in the very people themselves, their attitudes and values. The Soviets and German communists wasted little time in working towards these goals after the end of the war. Former elites in industry and agriculture, especially those with Nazi ties, were rapidly dispossessed, the state administration and economy were within only a couple of years brought into line with SED and Soviet goals, and there was a massive ‘re-education’ and propaganda campaign to try to convince Germans that the future lay with socialism. The two decades after the end of the war was a period of extraordinarily rapid social change east of the Elbe, during which the SED attempted within a generation to realize the basic elements of its social-political programme, forcing East German social structures into a new and in many ways ill-fitting mould, coaxing and coercing East Germans themselves into accepting the roles the SED had assigned to them and at the same time trying to ‘win them over’ and turn them into ‘socialist personalities’. How ‘ordinary’ East Germans reacted to this ambitious attempt of social engineering and how it was implemented at the grass-roots level are the central questions of this study. Despite the huge popular and scholarly interest in the history of the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ) and German Democratic Republic (GDR) since 1989, these questions have as yet received relatively little attention. For a number of reasons, there has been a tendency in the wake of the regime’s collapse to concentrate on the history of the regime per se, on processes of political decision-making, dictatorial control and the organs of coercion that helped sustain party rule. First of all, there has been an understandable curiosity finally to cast a glance ‘behind the