Broken Lives

by Konrad H Jarausch

  Many memoirs indicate that the political effect of shutting the last escape route to the West was quite paradoxical. In the short run, the Wall helped stabilize the GDR by forcing its citizens and the international community to accept the permanence of the German division. Now the East German state was here to stay. Though initially somewhat successful, people’s efforts to escape by jumping out of windows, digging tunnels, hiding in hollowed-out car seats, and swimming through canals only led to the state’s perfection of the Wall by raising its height, creating a “death strip,” and emptying out a restricted zone behind it. The party quickly suppressed spontaneous shouts of protests such as “SED, no way!” with the persecution of hundreds of culprits and countless propaganda sessions. But in the long run, the Wall was a public relations disaster for the GDR. Approximately 138 East Germans died while trying to cross it in Berlin. Harrowing news pictures were sent around the world, such as when would-be escapee Peter Fechter bled to death without help.35 Ultimately the Wall became a symbol of Communist repression that invited incessant criticism from abroad.

  Protected by the Wall, Walter Ulbricht could experiment with the transition to socialism by tightening control in some areas and relaxing pressure in others. Gerhard Joachim considered the SED general secretary a “labor functionary steeled in revolutionary struggle” and an “ice-cold dictator” who had survived the Stalinist purges in Moscow. Personally modest, Ulbricht proclaimed a “socialist human community” to indicate “a historically new political-moral and intellectual-cultural quality of living and working together in GDR socialism.” In practice, that meant introducing elements of competition and cost pricing in a New Economic System of Economic Planning and Direction (NÖSPL) in 1964 in order to galvanize a stagnant economy. Fascinated by the potential of cybernetics to direct planning, Ulbricht promoted the “scientific-technical revolution,” initiated by the transition to computers. But his campaign of “overtaking the West without catching up to it” failed due to the low productivity of the economy.36

  In order to make the GDR a full-fledged member of the Warsaw Pact, Ulbricht also initiated an open militarization of East German society. Erich Hasemann described how special units of the “people’s police” were transformed into a National People’s Army (NVA) “tactically integrated into the fraternal alliance of the Eastern armies.” After the building of the Wall, the SED could dare to impose military conscription on a reluctant population who did not really want to wear a uniform again. Although they were supported by some Protestant pastors, young men who refused service were punished by imprisonment until a compromise was worked out that allowed them to become “construction soldiers” without weapons. Fearing another counterrevolutionary putsch, the party also instituted “factory militias” in which able-bodied men were forced to serve. At the same time, it geared up military instruction in schools under the slogan “fighting for peace.” As a result, the militarized GDR was honeycombed with “countless installations” of the Red Army and NVA.37

  By contrast, cultural life behind the Wall was somewhat less constrained. The party allowed creative spirits more latitude to push the limits of what was permitted. In spite of the firm Stalinist limits set by doctrinaire apparatchiks, the Kulturbund continued to be a place to meet “interesting people” for “anti-Fascist democratic” intellectuals such as Fritz Klein. “Here we could really discuss pro and contra in the true sense of the word,” because all participants were in agreement about striving for a better socialism. While independent spirits such as Gerhard Joachim loved to provoke audiences with shocking plays, these time and again ran into censorship by narrow-minded functionaries who imposed a restrictive party line. Much of the factory-level cultural production consisted of shallow popular entertainment and was stultifying. Horst Johannsen resented the compulsory “integration of the private sphere into the social puppet show,” since “personal freedom gradually collapsed entirely under the rule of the dogmatists.”38

  In spite of its difficult starting conditions, the GDR economy made gradual progress in achieving a smaller but nevertheless impressive miracle of its own. Wits in neighboring countries quipped that if anyone could make socialism work, it would be the Germans. After the rebuilding, the planned economy targeted priorities such as “the extension of chemical industry … metallurgy, electronics, machine building,” and so on. The Five-Year Plans created a series “of economically important industrial sites” such as the chemical complex at Leuna, the Wismut uranium mines, the Lübbenau power station, Brandenburg’s metal industry, and car production in Eisenach. In such “socialist model cities” as Eisenhüttenstadt, Marxist planners created new kinds of communities that combined industrial work with improved housing and socialized public space. Working in Leuna, Horst Johannsen was impressed that “the capacity and effectiveness of the GDR developed astonishingly well in spite of many counterproductive practices.” Yet, the Eastern economy never quite overcame its “scientific-technological backwardness.”39

  For consumers, East Germany nonetheless remained a “scarcity economy,” characterized by bottlenecks and standing in line to acquire coveted goods. When she was reassigned to work in an industrial plant, Werner Feigel’s wife was shocked: “The discussions among the workers, but also in the party meetings, revolved solely around deficits in production and provision.” When Pastor Braune wanted to improve facilities for the handicapped, he first had to search far and wide until he found the right electrical water pump; moreover, his church had to patch together a transformer station, which the town then shared. While trying to repair his house, Klaus Hübschmann time and again had to trade one rare item for another in order to get hold of a third. Compared to the West, durables such as refrigerators, TV sets, and cars arrived years later, were of inferior quality, and often looked ugly. Neither dryers nor dishwashers existed, and home computers were years behind. The difference between a plastic Trabi and a shiny VW Rabbit was startling. Because the economy was unable to provide the right kinds of consumer goods, individuals constantly had to improvise.40

  Those East Germans who agreed with the socialist vision but were frustrated by its practice experienced the failure of the Czech attempt at liberalization in the summer of 1968 as a major disappointment. To reform the economy by reintroducing market incentives, Slovak party chief Alexander Dubcek lifted censorship and allowed free speech, hoping to create “socialism with a human face.” After the Prague Spring inspired “great hopes,” its crushing was all the more devastating. On a visit to the Czech capital, Günter Manz witnessed “trucks with demonstrators driving through the streets, women crying in front of shops, closed gas stations and an explosive mood.” The brutal “suppression by Soviet tanks and the public suicide of the student Jan Palach” made it all too clear that orthodox Communists would not allow the system to be democratized from within. Mortally afraid that something similar would happen in the GDR, the SED vigorously suppressed all protests among intellectuals and students. Though it retained power, the regime thereby proved to be unreformable.41

  To forestall unrest in East Germany, its new leader, Erich Honecker, offered a paradoxical mixture of Communist orthodoxy and consumer economy. With Soviet help, he had pushed aside the aging Ulbricht in 1971 by accusing him of economic and diplomatic deviation from the party line. In contrast to the Great Depression, Honecker claimed that the GDR had become “a developed socialist society” in order to indicate that it had reached a new and higher stage of development. As a kind of socialist Keynesianism, “the unity of economic and social policy” would improve economic productivity through the provision of more attractive consumer goods. In a grand bargain, the SED would provide an improved standard of living in exchange for the political acquiescence of the population. Gerhard Joachim was glad to use the greater freedom for “a happy synthesis of entertainment, cultivation, and sociability.” But all too soon he found out that “real existing socialism” set clear limits on the public discussion of its shortcomings.42


  West German Ostpolitik, switching from confrontation to accommodation to improve relations with its eastern neighbors, provided new opportunities and threats to the GDR in the early 1970s. As mayor of Berlin, foreign minister, and then chancellor, Willy Brandt had pursued a “policy of small steps” of limited negotiation with the SED in order to obtain “humanitarian relief” for the divided city. In exchange for hard-currency fees, a series of “crossing permit agreements” allowed West Berliners to visit their relatives in the East during the holidays, thereby providing a temporary passage through the Wall. More substantial was the Basic Treaty of 1972, which de facto recognized the GDR, although a supplementary letter stressed that the FRG retained its right to pursue German unification. As a result, both Germanys joined the United Nations and the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 reaffirmed the sanctity of the postwar borders in Europe.43 While such recognition was a great short-term success for the SED, in the long run it also allowed the magnetism of the West to undermine its rule.

  For ordinary folks, the turn to détente meant an increasing SED effort to stop such “aggression in slippers” by painting the West as class enemy in a policy of demarcation. East Germans’ letters were consistently opened and packages rifled, with forbidden goods then sold in shops for the secret service. Though about half a dozen cross-border telephone lines were switched on, East-West calls were monitored and taped in order to gather evidence of subversion. Once TV sets became available to the general public, FDJ groups tried to tear down antennas that could receive Western programs—only to be foiled by the passive resistance of viewers “who started to mount replacements under the roof.” Travel to the West was allowed only for the retired (“erst vergreisen, dann verreisen”) or for especially trustworthy members of the party, the so-called travel cadres (Reisekader). Allowing coveted Western goods such as coffee, chocolate, and alcohol to be sold in hard-currency Intershops ultimately reinforced the popular conviction that Western wares were superior.44

  Fear of Western subversion also inspired a rapid expansion of the Ministry of State Security (MfS), known colloquially as the Stasi. Established as a separate ministry in 1957, this “sword and shield of the party” was led for decades by Red Front fighter Erich Mielke. In order to have complete control over the population, the Stasi created a vast network of formal spies and informal informants (IM) in all parts of society. Even the well-known historian Fritz Klein was persuaded to write reports about his foreign travels and contacts with Westerners. He admitted, “I agreed—without feeling pressured.” Moreover, the MfS insisted on keeping GDR problems secret. When Paul Frenzel called the exchange of banknotes in 1957 a “complete fiasco” he got into trouble, for “divulging of secrets” was punishable by up to fifteen years’ imprisonment. It was “clear that we were under permanent observation and had to take that into account in our political statements.” But Klaus Hübschmann shrugged off this surveillance, believing that “the outsized apparatus” choked on its own information.45

  Academic autobiographies reveal that even scholarship was supposed to participate in the class struggle against the capitalist West. Not only was there no academic freedom, but research materials such as computers were inferior and access to Western literature restricted. For natural scientists and physicians such as Klaus Hübschmann, “politics played no role”; lip service to Marxism sufficed and ideology did not touch upon their cognitive core. But according to Fritz Klein, “historians were exposed to an incomparably greater pressure to conform to the party line than in earlier periods” due to the SED’s monopoly of interpretation. Economists such as Paul Frenzel faced ever-stronger demands “to support the demarcation policy of the party” by demonstrating to students “the inevitability of the ‘defeat of imperialism’ and the ‘global victory of socialism’” with concrete examples. In disciplines such as philosophy, where Marxism/Leninism itself was supposed to provide the answers, research was severely compromised by having to follow ideological dictates.46

  The enormous pressure to exhibit conformity led to the widespread practice of “split thinking” and doubletalk in the populace. Because access to education or career advancement depended upon public declarations of loyalty, it was necessary to mouth the shifting ideological vocabulary. But one’s personal integrity also required keeping a critical distance from the regime, which could be voiced only in one’s own family or with close friends. Paul Frenzel noticed the clash between “expressions of thought that conformed with the party or state on the one hand and maintaining a personal, independent way of thinking as ‘private individual’” on the other. The critical loyalist Fritz Klein concluded that “this way of reasoning led into a trap, which I did not see clearly enough for a long time.” Supporting the basis of the regime while trying to reform its imperfections “created an inner contradiction,” because in case of doubt it required defending the SED in spite of “the reform-resistant pursuit of power and violence of its rulers.”47

  Proof of the improvement of living standards was the easing of the housing shortage with prefabricated buildings that created satellite cities such as Halle-Neustadt and Marzahn in East Berlin. During the postwar chaos, people were happy just to have roofs over their heads, even if they lived in close quarters without hot water, central heating, or toilets. But reconstruction efforts slowly allowed the Weimar cohort to move into more comfortable surroundings. Horst Johannsen was glad to “receive a company apartment at the edge of town, about which we were enthusiastic due to its quiet location in nature.” In order to provide attractive housing, Honecker launched a massive construction program of prefabricated concrete flats (Plattenbauten) that were easy to assemble and cheap to build. Though their space was still limited to about seventy square meters, these apartments were popular due to their modern kitchens, new bathrooms, and central heating.48 Only in the 1980s did attention shift to the rehabilitation of historic quarters in the city center and rescuing more interesting older buildings from deterioration.

  The public pressure of politics made a retreat into the private world of leisure all the more important in the GDR. Its primary symbol was the weekend home, called Datsche according to its Russian model. It took little money to rent a space in a permanent campground along the shore of one of Brandenburg’s or Mecklenburg’s many lakes. More fortunate folks might have access to a set of company-sponsored cabins at the water’s edge. But everyone really wanted to own a simple cottage in the woods in order to get away during weekends and holidays. Considering that supplies were scarce and state-controlled, it was amazing to see that “tens of thousands [of units] were built annually” from the beginning of the 1970s on with materials diverted from somewhere else. Klaus Hübschmann was fortunate enough to buy a derelict farmhouse on the island of Rügen for a pittance, turning it into “a comfortable home” with years of labor. “Each time it was a terrific feeling when we said: we are going to Polchow.”49

  Because motorization came late to the GDR, it was a special pleasure to get a car of one’s own at last. The heavily subsidized public transit system made it unnecessary to have an automobile except when one’s profession, such as as country doctor or pastor, required it. Developed out of the prewar designs of Auto Union, two types of car were produced in the GDR, the somewhat large Wartburg sedans and the smaller Trabants, encased in a plastic body. Using two-stroke engines in which gas and oil were mixed, these cars provided basic transportation but no luxury. For this purpose, the party nomenklatura imported Volvos from Sweden. Horst Johannsen and other private citizens without connections had to wait an average of ten years between placing an order and delivery. This created a booming used car and parts market. The only way to circumvent this bottleneck was to receive an automobile as a gift from Western relatives, as Klaus Hübschmann did. “One day a VW actually stood in front of my door!”50

  Another prized goal was the assignment of a coveted vacation space by the trade union secretary. The Free German Trade Union (FDGB) controlled all public holiday facilities fr
om the Baltic shores to the mountains of Thuringia and used them as rewards for its activists. Because “the prices were quite cheap, this was a popular achievement, which benefited its members.” The only problem was that demand vastly exceeded supply. As a result, Horst Johannsen chose the less-popular winter vacations for years before daring to ask for a summer space at the Baltic. “Quite impressed by the view of the sea, we quickly forgot our tiredness and from the first hour on got into the mood for a beautiful holiday.” Higher party cadres such as Werner Feigel were rewarded with trips to the warm beaches of Bulgaria or the cooler coast of the Baltic outside of Leningrad, where they admired the rebuilding and the cultural heritage “of the Venice of the North.” Only people with more resources or better connections managed to vacation in private quarters.51

  Contrary to Communist egalitarianism, “a socialist class society” with a pronounced hierarchy of its own gradually developed. On top was the nomenklatura in the party, military, and secret police, which “arrogated to itself the capacity of alone deciding about the correct interpretation of the ‘holy’ writs of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.” Below them ranked the holders of Western currency, because they could buy scarce goods in the Intershops or have them sent from abroad through a special company for buying presents with foreign currency (GENEX). Then came the skilled craftsmen such as electricians, plumbers, and carpenters, whose services were so sought after that they commanded a high price. In the working-class society of the GDR, laborers also earned as much money as the intelligentsia, which was only compensated for by higher retirement pay. Irrespective of socialist promises, there was also a large bottom layer of people left out of East German prosperity such as the retired, handicapped, asocial, or imprisoned.52