Autobiographies also show that the unfortunate individuals who were considered a serious threat faced massive retribution with methods reminiscent of Nazi brutality. While vigilance against Cold War enemies was understandable, the NKVD and Stasi operated unpredictably and without legal restraint. In April 1946 Günter Krause was arrested by the Soviet police for having distributed a flyer that promised that Germans would one day return to Silesia from where his family had been expelled. After escaping, he was caught again and was told, “Why you flee, we now shoot you!? [sic]” Krause was accused of spying and beaten with clubs until he finally signed a confession—in Russian. In a sham trial without defense he was condemned to ten years of hard labor for spreading “anti-Soviet propaganda.” Thereafter he was sent to the Spezlager in Sachsenhausen on the grounds of the former Nazi concentration camp. Starving, freezing, and working hard, he fell ill several times. After five years he was released, weighing only eighty pounds and sworn to silence.17 Fear was a constant companion in the early GDR.
26. East Berlin Stalinallee. Source: Kempowski photo collection.
To counter the influence of the “decadent, capitalist entertainment industry,” the SED attempted to offer an attractive “cultural life” that combined “amusement with cultivation.” In the first postwar years the FDJ revived dances and shows in villages and towns. In the cities, intellectuals such as Fritz Klein participated in “anti-Fascist democratic” lectures and discussions of leading authors and cultural critics, organized by the League of Culture (Kulturbund). But the core of the party’s effort was to bring culture to the toiling masses in the factories through “the Bitterfeld way,” which encouraged workers to take up writing and acting themselves. In the clubhouse of the Warnow shipyard in Rostock, Gerhard Joachim sponsored a diverse set of entertainers’ shows, proletarian plays, writing circles, dancing groups, and even dialect discussions. While some of these productions were stylistically innovative, they were ultimately constrained by the petit-bourgeois taste of “socialist realism” emanating from a Stalinist Soviet Union.18
Another SED effort to strengthen links to Russia was the Society for German-Soviet Friendship (DSF), which brought Red Army officers together with German civilians. In part, this initiative tried to overcome negative stereotypes by demonstrating the “deep humanity” of the Russians; in part it also tried to show “gratitude to the Soviet Union for having liberated us from the Hitler gang and ended the war.” Beyond cultural lectures, there were banquets to celebrate various Soviet holidays such as the anniversary of the October Revolution with copious food and endless toasts with vodka. Delegation voyages and holiday trips to the Soviet Union were special rewards that let awed visitors admire the shining Moscow subway or enjoy the beaches at the Crimea. For Werner Feigel’s daughter, the encounter was so impressive that she ended up marrying a Tartar from the south of Russia. While some scientists were willing to work with the Soviets, many citizens remained skeptical, viewing a DSF membership as merely a lesser evil.19
In the GDR, education was a potent weapon in the class struggle. The old elite were excluded and those who advanced were the children of workers and peasants. The SED tried to reach the labor movement aim of “breaking the privilege of cultivation” through polytechnical training combining school and work. On the one hand, the party discriminated against the offspring of professionals, only allowing them advanced training in cases of exceptional talent. On the other, it pushed children from uneducated families into continued education, offering them upward mobility through additional qualification. Energetic youths such as Werner Feigel and Karl Härtel were encouraged to embark on correspondence courses, with the former earning a law diploma and the latter an engineering degree. Feigel complained, “These four and one half years of distance learning were a tough time, because all of that came on top of the hard work and overtime hours.” By earning advanced degrees, Gerhard Joachim and Fritz Klein became grateful members of the new socialist elite.20
Professional advancement into higher echelons was strictly controlled by a “cadre system” that followed the Soviet pattern of personnel management. Every prospect for an important job had a personal file in which evaluations of technical competence and political reliability decided upon the course of his or her career. Gerhard Joachim recalled that cadres were not only the party functionaries who “were recorded as SED-nomenklatura,” but also occupants of “key positions in all social areas,” which gave the SED complete control. Candidates for advancement like Paul Frenzel had to undergo “cadre conversations” with party managers that covered everything from their ability to meet the demands of their new jobs to their “ideological weaknesses,” which they had to remedy through Marxist study. Only in areas like medicine or engineering where performance really mattered would competence be allowed to prevail. Werner Feigel and other conformists were rewarded with prizes, premiums, vacations, and cars—allowing them to enjoy a good life GDR style.21
According to many recollections, the massive politicization of the GDR as a “thoroughly ruled society” made private life even more important than in the West. Surprisingly enough, the bourgeois family pattern continued with only minor modifications. When his girlfriend told Klaus Hübschmann that she was pregnant, he immediately married her: “That was the custom even among students, there was no flinching or hesitation.” Because Communists were supposed to obey the dictates of “socialist morality,” established by Walter Ulbricht, those offenders “caught in sex adventures with female students” were subject “to discipline and party punishment.” Due to meager pay it went without saying that wives would continue to work, whether as teachers, like Erna Härtel, or party functionaries, like Feigel’s spouse. When children arrived, the household and work burden on women usually doubled. Nonetheless, the memoirs describe the family as an almost sacred space of retreat from politics. Dissident Vera Lengsfeld’s betrayal by her husband, who was a Stasi informer, was therefore especially shattering.22
Living in East Germany was also complicated by the comparison to the larger and more prosperous West; in fact, remaining there required constant justification. Officially West Germany was “NATO, imperialists, exploiters, enemies of workers, warmongers, speculators—in principle only evil things.” Privately those East Germans like Horst Johannsen who traveled West before the building of the Wall were amazed: “At first blush the appearance of the western economy was akin to a fairy paradise compared to the conditions in the GDR.” But on closer inspection, “the financial situation of some strata of the population was not so rosy.” Most of the East Germans who were directly persecuted by the SED chose to leave for as long as they could. But others who had family, friends, possessions, and careers in the GDR, such as Paul Frenzel, were more reluctant to start over in the competitive West. While continually tempted to go, they nonetheless decided to stay, as Klaus Hübschmann did, and devoted their energies to making a meaningful life in the East.23
Aware of widespread resentment against it, the SED made strenuous efforts to establish political uniformity in order to impose its will on a reluctant populace. Merging Communists and Social Democrats into a single working-class party had been complicated enough, for the former understood itself as a revolutionary vanguard while the latter emphasized intraparty democracy. Using the cadre system as an instrument and unleashing repeated purges of the membership, the Communists pushed most of the Social Democrats like Paul Frenzel aside in order to assert their own control. Moreover, Stalin’s rejection of Anton Ackermann’s proposal of “a German path toward socialism” created deep cleavages within the SED by compelling the party to follow the Soviet lead. Time and again moderates such as agronomist Heinrich Buschmann lost leading positions, accused of “a lack of partisanship and objectivism.” Even socialist idealists admitted in retrospect that as a result of the suppression of “free exchange of opinions,” the party became progressively Stalinized.24
The popular uprising on June 17, 1953 came as a rude surprise because th
e SED had lost touch with the actual lives of the working masses. When the party raised production targets by 10 to 20 percent, angered construction workers in Berlin went out on strike, calling for their revocation. When the news was spread by Western radio stations, popular resentment exploded all over the GDR, with demands escalating from economic reforms to the overthrow of the dictatorship and German reunification: “The goatee [Walter Ulbricht] must go!” Incensed demonstrators ripped off Paul Frenzel’s party badge and demanded, “the mismanagement in the East must cease.” Shocked functionaries like Karl Mewis blamed “the putsch on counterrevolutionary forces, in part directed by the West,” who had misled “honest workers.” More thoughtful commentators such as Günter Manz were willing to admit that it was the Politburo’s fault. But after Russian tanks quickly restored order, the party leadership had to make only minimal concessions to remain in control. Leithold recalled that “gradually quiet returned. The people knuckled under.”25
Instead of democratizing East German socialism, the 1956 upheavals further cemented the dictatorial course of the SED. When Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev accused his predecessor of atrocities and corruption during the twentieth congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Ulbricht was willing only to denounce excesses of Stalin’s “cult of personality” without really liberalizing the system. The Polish disturbances that brought Wladyslaw Gomulka into power and the Hungarian Uprising in the fall that was put down with Russian tanks had the opposite effect in the GDR, inspiring the party to tighten political controls. Gerhard Joachim was disappointed that his wish for “a somewhat more liberal course of cultural policy” was largely ignored. Feeling doubly insecure, the SED leaders launched a massive campaign against all kinds of “revisionism” by Communist intellectuals such as Wolfgang Harich and Walter Janka, eliminating any potential rivals. As a result, historian Fritz Klein lost the editorship of the Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft.26
In the late fifties the SED leaders used a combination of repression and incentives to retain their hold on power. Under Erich Mielke’s guidance, the secret police expanded surveillance, while the people’s police added a new kind of “community policeman” to keep better tabs on popular opinion. Independent socialist intellectuals such as Gerhard Joachim were “relegated to production for a couple of years” so that they would rehabilitate themselves through physical labor, and Fritz Klein was removed to the Academy of Sciences to do academic research. Mortally afraid of autonomous social initiatives, the SED “handed over practically all of public life to the mass organizations” to which citizens had to belong in order to prove their reliability. Horst Johannsen explained, “Through dependence on job, position, and rank, through wishes for career, advancement, training and entitlement, everything was directed according to the official views.” This process established “an arrogant, undemocratic rule by functionaries” of the SED.27
For many East Germans, “the growth of such an unlimited dictatorship and its consequences were no longer tolerable.” Horst Johannsen recalled that the departure of dispossessed business owners, independent professionals, collectivized farmers, church members, and union activists “resembled a mass flight” to the West. Many a valued colleague disappeared overnight only to resurface in the Federal Republic. Karl and Erna Härtel waited until he had finished his studies and then systematically prepared for their escape. First Erna went to her sister-in-law in the Rhineland to scout the terrain. Then they mailed their possessions in sixteen boxes across the Iron Curtain. Caught during an attempt to go to a Catholic convention in West Berlin, Karl managed to obtain another identity card needed for travel. After he received his degree in 1959, the Härtels finally used the Pentecost holidays to take separate trains to Berlin. She was detained for twelve hours, but in the end was released. Both were happy to be free in the West at last.28
East German memoirs show that the imposition of Communism was accompanied by a considerable degree of compulsory Sovietization that did not really fit the country. Some intellectuals genuinely admired the creativity of Russian writers and composers and joined the Society for German-Soviet Friendship. Many World War II veterans were impressed by the inexhaustible manpower of the Red Army that had defeated them and were happy to have such a powerful protector. Party functionaries also looked to the Soviet version of Marxism/Leninism for inspiration in their own effort to create a “workers’ and peasants’ state.” The SED leaders in particular paid eager attention to Moscow so as to follow the correct party line for their own survival. But other East Germans resented the military occupation, the loss of the Eastern provinces, and the economic exploitation. Students who were supposed to learn Russian in school showed “open distaste for the language.”29 Hence the relationship with their so-called friends remained quite equivocal.
ABNORMAL NORMALITY
In time, the “real existing socialism” that had initially seemed abnormal became the new normality of the Weimar cohort’s adult lives. Once established, the state factories, collective farms, polytechnic schools, and prefabricated housing developments became the framework for daily existence. Although they had to deal with Soviet domination, SED dictatorship, and annoying scarcity, residents could nonetheless take pride in the GDR’s social equality, anti-Fascist commitment, and Marxist ideology. SED propaganda hammered at the expropriation of capitalists, heroism of the resistance, and certainty of progress. But even despite such heavy-handed politicization, it was possible for those who succeeded in coping with the system to “live a wonderful life” within it. Horst Johannsen explained that “in view of the unstoppable progress of socialism, one was well advised to go along, since any negative attitude was inevitably tracked down.” Many tasks that seemed easy in the West required a real struggle. Klaus Hübschmann was proud of his small triumphs: “Again we had succeeded in something even if it was only [making] marmalade.”30
Still, the GDR remained precarious as long as the exit door was open. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev tried to close it by turning Berlin into “a free city” without Allied troops in 1958. For ordinary East Germans, the Western sectors exerted a strange fascination, with their glitzy Kudamm shopping windows, subsidized movie theaters, and raucous rock concerts. For the party, “Westberlin” was the seat of capitalist corruption and decadence as well as of “numerous centers of espionage and terror”—in short, of promoting counterrevolution. As a result, the SED began a propaganda campaign to convince West Berliners to accept the Soviet ultimatum and neutralize their city. When he was sent to agitate from door to door and distribute flyers, Paul Frenzel had no luck at all. In spite of all disclaimers, Russian threats “spread the fear that ‘the free city’ would only be the beginning of the complete annexation of the West by the East.” This popular refusal opened his eyes to “how far the GDR fell short of the goal” of “overtaking the Western standard of living.”31
27. Building of the Wall. Source: Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz.
The Berlin ultimatum and SED repression heightened popular worries about being trapped, prompting an increasing number of people to flee to the West. Part of the reason was the compulsory collectivization that converted farms into larger, machine-supported, and more efficient Agricultural Production Cooperatives (LPGs). Heinrich Buschmann described how many farmers left their family properties behind rather than be reduced to agricultural laborers. Another part was the blatant discrimination against churchgoers; Youth Consecration was made mandatory to indoctrinate teenagers in the “methods of class struggle.” Yet another was the unremittent pressure on the independence of professionals that prompted “over 3,300 doctors, about 16,700 teachers and ca. 17,000 engineers” to leave for the West. According to Horst Johannsen, “hardly a day passed in which a position did not go empty overnight.” When more than two thousand East Germans fled each day, the mass exodus threatened to depopulate the GDR.32
A panic-stricken SED leadership therefore finally persuaded Khrushchev to authorize the “preposterous
operation” of building a wall that would cut off West Berlin from the eastern part of the city. Ulbricht’s logic was quite simple: “We must immediately plug the escape routes to West Berlin—with guards of the border police, perhaps with barbed wire.” On Sunday night, August 13, 1961, four NVA divisions moved into Berlin, twenty Red Army divisions stood in readiness, and twenty-five thousand factory militiamen supported the sealing of the border. News photos show eager border guards supervising its construction (image 27). Asleep in a Brandenburg FDJ camp, student Gabriel Berger suddenly woke up to “a roaring in the air” that could only come from tanks. Someone turned on a Western RIAS radio, on which an announcer reported “with an excited voice, that GDR troops had closed all border crossing points from East to West…. The purpose of the GDR leadership was evidently to prevent the mass flight of the Easterners to the West by force.” To a shocked FDJ eyewitness, the border closing was “a scenario of total military dictatorship.”33
The SED had a difficult time explaining the building of the Wall as an “anti-Fascist protection barrier” for self-defense. The official version stressed, “To interdict enemy actions of the revanchist and militarist forces in West Germany and West Berlin such a control of the GDR borders has been introduced as is customary at the frontier of every sovereign state.” Convinced Communists such as Gabriel Berger sought to justify the action: “We may not like what is going on in Berlin, but it is happening out of necessity. Or do you think that any state in the world would passively look on as it bled white without fighting back?” Some ordinary people away on summer holiday realized only gradually that they had, in fact, been imprisoned by their own government. Many intellectuals “voiced a certain degree of understanding that a situation had been ended which could not continue in that manner” without resulting in bloodshed. Unwilling to abandon the socialist experiment, Fritz Klein, an SED member, justified the Wall “as the lesser evil.”34
Broken Lives Page 38