Was war die DDR?

Rolf Hosfeld's Was war die DDR? Die Geschichte eines anderen Deutschland [What was the DDR? The history of another Germany] (2008) is a history of the German Democratic Republic (DDR, or Communist East Germany) from 1945 until 1989. The main focus is on the Walter Ulbricht years from 1945-73. He emphasizes the theme of relations with the Soviet Union.

Hosfeld spells out the fateful response of the Sozialischtische Einheitspartei (SED) - effectively the East German Communist Party - to the famous workers' revolt of July 1953, prompted by the increasing of work quotas which effectively meant a lowering of workers' salaries. That incident was actually far more widespread in the DDR than most observers and historians in the West realized until after the fall of the Wall. It wasn't limited to Berlin; cities all over the DDR were affected by it.

The SED had been trying to squeeze the workers' income to invest in industry and infrastructure. After the uprising, against which the SED found itself unable to proceed effectively was crushed by Soviet intervention, the Party decided that consumer needs must be subsidized sufficiently to prevent a recurrence. The subsidies on food supplies, rent and consumer goods weren't nearly enough to match the standard of living in the West, which was widely known in the DDR. But they were enough to chronically deprive East Germany of the investment that might have made their economy competitive over the long term. They were never able to do so. By 1989, when the Wall fell, the economic infrastructure was in far worse shape than even the most skeptical Western observers generally expected.

Hosfeld's book details various twists and turns in the economic and political changes of SED policy over the four decades of the DDR's existence. It gives a feel for how differences in opinion on economic, political and cultural matters expressed themselves within the limited confines of the SED dictatorship. Hosfeld also discusses the collaboration and disagreements between the SED and the Soviet leadership, which again took place with the confines of Soviet domination.

That is, until 1989 when the Michael Gorbachev basically cut the East German leaders loose. Then-Party-leader Erich Honecker and his supporters were so disturbed at the prospect of political liberalization in the DDR that they began banning Soviet articles on the changes taking place in the USSR.

Hosfeld's history of the democratic opposition in the 1980s is fairly cursory, almost like a postscript. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November, 1989.

Tags: ddr, deutschland, east germany, rolf hosfeld