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Unifying without Integrating: The East German Collapse and German Unity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2010

Jonathan R. Zatlin
Jonathan R. Zatlin
Affiliation:
Boston University
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Extract

The demise of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) came as a surprise to most western observers. For historians of modern Europe, its disappearance remains remarkable for at least two reasons. First, East Germany has ceased to exist in an era when new states are constantly being born. Since the French Revolution unleashed the power of national self-determination as an ordering principle more than 200 years ago, new sovereign states have continued to emerge across the globe, whether through the breakup of multiethnic and colonial empires or the dissolution of pan-Slavic states in eastern Europe. Illiberal governments have been swept aside, often with the result that new states have been cast out of imperial entities by the centrifugal force of cultural attachment. In the history of European political sovereignty during the twentieth century, the particular has triumphed over the universal. Except in the case of the GDR. Against the tide of European history, the GDR has gone from sovereign state (East Germany) to regional designation (eastern Germany). In this sense, the story of the GDR's absorption by a larger polity is a tale of modern state-building told in reverse.

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Articles
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Central European History , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , September 2010 , pp. 484 - 507
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 2010

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References

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11 Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, 145. See also the discussion in Marx, Capital, 86, 97, 107.

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16 If the planned economies of eastern Europe were inspired by a compelling critique of the social injustice and alienation produced by capitalism, they never devised a viable alternative to the market. On the contrary, the failure of Marxist economic theory to provide a convincing economic—as opposed to a sociological—account of the price discovery process forced planners to concoct a variety of schemes aimed at translating the social values that animated these regimes into everyday prices. But none of these pricing schemes really replaced market-clearing prices, much less “transformed” the sociological category of value into an economic one. As a result, the methods by which planners arrived at prices were imprecise and vulnerable to manipulation. Whether it was using units of labor-time to measure “socially necessary” labor, deploying ill-defined concepts, such as “robotic,” to permit producers to demand higher prices for machine tools, or employing social “need” to distinguish between luxury and basic goods, these pricing mechanisms scrambled financial information and economic incentives, resulting in waste, pollution, and productivity losses. In addition to these price-oriented critiques, however, I am arguing that the problems of production and consumption in Soviet-style economies began and ended with the communist attempt to suspend the coercive power of money—to cancel out its function as a provider of information about the relative scarcity of resources and thereby to banish the threat of bankruptcy. Thus, prices in the planned economy were not simply distorted reflections of the party's political preferences, but were also expressed in a currency that, like a dead language, had lost its power to communicate the material decisions made by economic actors. As a result, producers operated without regard to consumers, while consumers were confronted by a currency that possessed little purchasing power and a pricing system that contradicted communist promises of a rational and socially just distribution of resources.

17 Andreas Hergeth, “‘Wenn die Leute lachen, sind sie bereit zu kaufen.’ Ein Interview mit Isabella-Margarete von Oettingen, Autorin und Regisseurin bei ttt,” in Wunderwirtschaft. DDR-Konsumkultur in den 60er Jahren, ed. Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1996), 78.

18 Bundesarchiv Berlin (BArchB), DN10, 1898, Zywitzki, Industriebankfiliale Mansfeld Kombinat Eisleben, Staatsbank der DDR, “Stellungnahme zur Grundsatzentscheidung für das 2. Teilvorhaben zur NSW-Importablösung ‘Twist-Off-Verschlüsse für Delikaterzeugnisse,'” September 25, 1984.

19 Of course, before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, there was some clandestine trade with the west, mostly by private individuals, but even this was dwarfed by the volume of transactions starting in the late 1970s.

20 During Honecker's first five years in power, East German trade deficits with the west totaled nearly 8.9 billion DM; Zatlin, The Currency of Socialism, chapter 2.

21 The SED's harsh reaction to events in Poland after 1980 suggests that the link between price increases and a “counterrevolutionary” threat was uppermost in party leaders' minds, not least because many of them were in positions of responsibility when the SED lowered wages in June 1953, triggering a popular uprising. For more on the traumatic effects of 1953 on SED leaders' decision making, see ibid., chapters 2 and 3.

22 BArchB, DN10, 1898, VEB Mansfeld Kombinat Wilhelm Pieck, “Abschlußbericht für das Vorhaben Twist-Off-Verschlüsse für Delikaterzeugnisse,” February 23, 1988, 6–8, and VEB Mansfeld Kombinat Wilhelm Pieck, “Bestätigungsdokumentation zur Präsizierung für das Vorhaben ‘Twist-Off-Verschlüsse für Delikaterzeugnisse,’” no date, 8. Despite having one-third of the population and even less industrial output, the GDR consumed thirty percent more energy than West Germany did in the 1980's, according to the State Planning Commission. BArchB, DE1, 56285, Klopfer, “Persönliche Niederschrift über die Beratung der Wirtschaftskommission beim Politbüro am 9. Januar, 1989,” January 10, 1989, 18–19; BArchB, DE1, 56287, Klopfer, “Niederschrift über die Beratung des Ministerrates am 11. Februar 1982 zur Erfüllung des Volkswirtschaftsplanes 1982—Monat Januar,” February 11, 1982, 251.

23 BArchB, DN10, 1898, VEB Mansfeld Kombinat Wilhelm Pieck,“‘Präsizierte Grundsatzentscheidung’ zum Vorhaben ‘Fertigungslinie für geschweißte Konservendosen,’” Autumn 1987, 1.

24 BArchB, DN10, 1898, VEB Mansfeld Kombinat Wilhelm Pieck, “Abschlußbericht,” February 23, 1988, 1–3. The import-substitution amounted to 1.115 million West German marks in 1986-87, or less than half of the 2.241 million DM economic planners had hoped for—not counting various unanticipated costs, such as the purchase of electric generators. As a result, planners estimated that it would require more than six years for the GDR's investment to start paying off rather than the three years that had made the project attractive to begin with.

25 Both left- and right-wing critics have been greatly influenced by the Hayekian emphasis on price formation. See, for example, Rutland, Peter, The Myth of the Plan: Lessons of Soviet Planning Experience (Hutchinson: London, 1985)Google Scholar and The Politics of Economic Stagnation in the Soviet Union: The Role of Local Party Organs in Economic Management (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Nove, Alec, An Economic History of the U.S.S.R., 1917–1991 (Penguin Books: London, 1992)Google Scholar. Notable exceptions include the work of Gregory Grossman. See also Riese, Hajo, Geld im Sozialismus. Zur theoretischen Fundierung von Konzeptionen des Sozialismus (Regensburg: Transfer Verlag, 1990)Google Scholar.

26 For more on the state of the East German economy at this time, see Zatlin, The Currency of Socialism, chapters 2, 3, and 4.

27 BArchB, DE1, 56350, Wirtschaftskomitee, Abteilung Finanzen und Preise, “Expertise zur Rentabilitätslage von Wirtschaftsbereichen der DDR unter den Bedingungen der Einführung der D-Mark als einheitliche Währung,” March 2, 1990, Anlage 2. Author's interview with Peter Jacob, Economic Director, IFA Combine PKW (1980s), Chemnitz, Feb. 26, 1996.

28 Zatlin, The Currency of Socialism, chapter 2.

29 The misalignment between production imperatives and financial incentives also encouraged workers to take advantage of irrational benefits structures and the party's inability to enforce discipline on the factory floor, especially after the 1953 uprising. As a result, managers had to contend not only with actual worker absenteeism but also misreported work schedules. See Port, Andrew I., Conflict and Stability in the German Democratic Republic (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge and New York, 2007)Google Scholar.

30 BArchB, DL2, 995, Liberaldemokratische Zeitung, no date, and unidentified newspaper reports from early September 1978.

31 BArchB, DE1, 55834, Ministerrat Beschluß vom 13.4.89, Ministerium für Handel und Versorgung,“Stellungnahme zur Vorlage ‘Information über die Untersuchung der Ursachen für Differenzen zwischen der Abrechnung der Vetragserfüllung der Industrie und der im Handel noch nicht eingegangenen Ware,’” no date, and Stoschus, Komitee der ABI, “Stellungnahme zu den Ereignissen und Schlußfolgerungen,” June 22, 1989.

32 Author's interview with Jacob, Chemnitz, Feb. 26, 1996, and Wolfgang Sachs, Director of Production and Planning, IFA Combine PKW (1980s), Chemnitz, Feb. 26, 1996.

33 Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv (SAPMO-BA), DY30, Vorläufige SED 35649, Kruse, “Standpunkt des Direktors für Produktionsdurchführung zu falschen Angaben im operativen Meldesystem,” February 23, 1985; BArchB, DE1, 55834, Ministerrat Beschluß vom 13.4.89, Anlage, “Information über Aussagen der Industrie und des Handels über die Vertragserfüllung,” 6.

34 BArchB, DE1, 56285, Klopfer, “Persönliche Notizen aus einer Beratung beim Mitglied des Politbüros und Sekretär des ZK der SED, Genossen Günter Mittag,” November 10, 1988, 12.

35 BArchB, DE1, 55384, Klopfer, “Persönliche Notizen über eine Beratung beim Vorsitzenden des Ministerrates am 17.11.1988,” November 18, 1988, 19.

36 Early articulations of totalitarianism theory placed economic planning at the center of their criticisms, and “total” economic control remains a core assumption of recent interpretations of Soviet-style regimes. See, for example, von Mises, Ludwig, Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1944)Google Scholar; von Hayek, Friedrich, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944)Google Scholar; Friedrich, Carl Joachim and Brzezinski, Zbigniew, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956)Google Scholar; and more recently Pipes, Richard, Russia under the Bolshevik Regime (New York: Vintage Books, 1995)Google Scholar.

37 For more on the debt crisis and the GDR's rescue by the Federal Republic, see Zatlin, The Currency of Socialism, chapter 3.

38 The shortage of cement became so acute in 1988 that representatives of the National Front reported that “people do not understand why there is no cement either for the populace or handymen, yet the residential housing program is supposed to be realized.” SAPMO, DY6, Vorläufige 2910, Waszian, Bezirkssekretär, Bezirksausschuß Leipzig, “Aktuelle Information,” August 1, 1988, 5.

39 Author's interviews with Jacob and Sachs, Chemnitz, Feb. 26, 1996; and Christian Scholwin, Deputy Minister for General Machine, Agricultural Machine, and Automotive Construction (1978–1988), Berlin, Nov. 23, 1995.

40 Bundesbeauftragter für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR (BStU), HA XVIII, 6166, “Hinweise,” 1987, 12.

41 SAPMO-BA, DY30, Vorläufige SED 36639, Sektor Außenhandel, “Zu Fragen der Valutarechnung,” August 2, 1983, 2.

42 For more on the age of the GDR's plant, see Zatlin, The Currency of Socialism, 156–9.

43 Author's interview with Scholwin, Berlin, Nov. 23, 1995.

44 Zatlin, The Currency of Socialism, 260–1.

45 Author's interview with Jacob, Chemnitz, Feb. 26, 1996.

46 Given that workers feared retaliation by communist officials, they surely underreported the theft of socialist property. SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/60, “Politbüro-Sitzung vom 19.4.1988,” 43-5.

47 SAPMO-BA, Vorläufige SED 35986, ZPKK to Mittag, June 5, 1986, SED Kreisleitung Cottbus-Stadt, Kreisparteikontrollkommission, “Bericht zur Untersuchung der KPKK in der GO VEB Backwarenkombinat Cottbus,” February 27, 1986, and Bezirksparteikontrollkommission, “Information an den Kandidaten des Politbüros und 1. Sekretär der Bezirksleitung SED Cottbus, Genossen Werner Walde,” no date.

48 SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/60, “Politbüro-Sitzung vom 19.4.1988,” 43–5.

49 The Passierscheinabkommen of 1963-1966 limited travel to Easter and Christmas.

50 Zatlin, The Currency of Socialism, chapter 5.

51 See the reports in SAPMO-BA, DY 30, Vorläufige SED 42023; and BArchB, DL2 992, Panse, “Geschäftsbericht 1989,” February 2, 1990, 14.

52 BArchB, DE1, VA 56323, no date, 576, 628; SAPMO-BA, DY30, JIV 2/2A/3252, “Welchen Nutzen haben wir alle aus dem Intershophandel,” no date, 1; SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/307, Abteilung Sicherheitsfragen, “Information und Schlußfolgerung zur Durchführung des Beschlusses des Politbüros vom 9.11.1988,” February 28, 1989, Anlage, 129.

53 BStU, HA XVIII, 6166, “Hinweise zu einigen bedeutsamen Problemen des Schmuggels und der Spekulation mit Waren, Gegenständen und Zahlungsmitteln,” 1987, 12.

54 BStU, HA XVIII, 6166, “Hinweise,” 1987, 17–18; BArchB, DN1, VS 13/90, Nr. 6, Nickel and Kaminsky, “Einschätzung zur Stabilität,” October 26, 1989, 14–15; BStU, Arbeitsbereich Mittig, Nr. 58, “Zu den ausgewählten Problemen,” 24. Before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, around 500,000 East German marks changed hands daily for an annual volume approaching 182.5 million marks.

55 BArchB, DE1, 56285, Klopfer, “Persönliche Notizen über die Beratung beim Generalsekretär,” May 16, 1989, 13.

56 “The modern state has seized for itself the monopoly over the monetary system.” Weber, Max, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1972), 97Google Scholar. See also Simmel, Philosophie des Geldes, especially 218–231, 472–3.

57 According to Andrew Port, the social fragmentation resulting from the SED's failure to deliver on its promise of equality had the unintended consequence of defusing opposition. “It was those very divisions, in fact,” Port writes, “that effectively prevented serious challenges to the regime and that, in so doing, accounted for so many years of domestic stability.” Port, Conflict and Stability, 277.

58 In his study of Kent, Barry Reay argues for a transition from “loose” to “dense” kinship networks among rural laborers as a response to economic modernization. Reay, Barry, Microhistories: Demography, Society, and Culture in Rural England, 1800–1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 158–174Google Scholar. I would argue that these dense kinship networks were a response to the economic duress of a sector in decline and that Simmel's monetary “future” necessarily entails the increasing dissolution of familial networks for most social groups.

59 SAPMO-BA, DY6, Vorläufige 2910, Waszian, Bezirksausschuß Leipzig, “Aktuelle Information,” October 31, 1988, 6.

60 In 1978, for example, officials were forced to close a store near Dresden to reduce tensions. For this and other examples, see SAPMO-BA, DY30, Vorläufige SED 42023, “Information,” March 26, 1985, 77; BStU, MfS BKK (KoKo) 601, Panse to Schalck, “Jahresanalyse,” December 27, 1985, 17–19; BStU, MfS BKK (KoKo) 819, HAZ, January 28, 1989, 4; Die Welt, June 28, 1978; Der Spiegel 33 (1978), 30–1; Der Tagesspiegel, September 5, 1978; Herbst, Andreas, Ranke, Winfried, and Winkler, Jürgen, So funktionierte die DDR. Lexikon der Organisationen und Institutionen (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1994), 434–5Google Scholar.

61 SAPMO-BA, DY30, Vorläufige SED 42023, “Information,” March 26, 1985, 77–8; Schalck to Mittag, May 9, 1985, 32; Schalck to Mittag, “Standpunkt zu den aufgeworfenen Problemen des Interhotels am Standort Rostock,” December 5, 1985, 28–30; Schalck to Mittag, April 11, 1985, 34; Briksa to Schalck, February 28, 1985, 79–80; Briksa to Schalck, April 10, 1985, 37; and Briksa, Jurich, and Merkel, “Gesondert zu entscheidenden Fragen,” no date, 81–2.

62 Zatlin, The Currency of Socialism, chapter 7.

63 BArchB, DQ3 1804, Petition from November 20, 1989.

64 See, for example, BArchB, DN10 931, Wünsch, Bezirksdirektion Erfurt, “Analyse über die Entwicklung der Eingaben im Verantwortungsbereich der Bezirksdirektion Erfurt, 2. Halbjahr 1988,” December 23, 1988.

65 BStU, ZAIG 16807, “Reaktionen der Bevölkerung zur Versorgungslage,” November 1988, 52. Although this report stood in the shadow of the regime's censorship of the magazine Sputnik, which had carried an article critical of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in October, it was a regularly scheduled monthly update on popular opinion.

66 Wagner, Reinhard, DDR Witze Teil 2. Lieber von Sitte gemalt, als vom Sozialismus gezeichnet (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1997), 93Google Scholar.

67 See, most importantly, Timothy Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of 1989 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague (New York: Random House, 1990).

68 I realize that my emphasis on the link between economics and politics, and more specifically the role played by the travel law in bringing down the Wall, does not conform to most stories told of the East German revolution. Based on my own research, however, I would argue that the prevailing narrative about the East German revolution, which was first articulated by observers such as Timothy Garton Ash and has been repeated by neo-liberal commentators such as Lothar Kettenacker, relies more on romantic attachments to transhistorical notions of freedom than on empirical evidence about the actual circumstances of the revolution. See Ash, The Magic Lantern, and Kettenacker, Lothar, Germany 1989: In the Aftermath of the Cold War (Harlow, U.K.: Pearson Education Limited, 2009)Google Scholar. For a critique of neo-liberal assumptions about economics and politics and a very different interpretation of the East German revolution, see Zatlin, The Currency of Socialism, epilogue.

69 See Zatlin, Jonathan R., “Hard Marks and Soft Revolutionaries: The Economics of Entitlement and the Debate over German Unification, November 9, 1989-March 18, 1990,” German Politics and Society 33 (Fall 1994): 57–84Google Scholar; Zatlin, The Currency of Socialism, epilogue.

70 SAPMO-BA, DY16, Vorläufige 2764, Jahn, Stadtbezirksverband Leipzig-Nordost, December 20, 1989, 1. See also the official representations of popular complaints in SAPMO-BA, DY30, IV 2/2.039/321, “Hinweise über die Reaktion der Bevölkerung,” November 24, 1989.

71 From mid-1990 to the end of 1992, an estimated 1 million people left the GDR permanently, amounting to a rate of about 1,000 a day. Between 1992 and 2002, another 521,000 people left for West Germany. Der Spiegel 3 (1993): 52; Jan Priewe, “Zwischen Abkoppelung und Aufholen. Das schwache ostdeutsche Wachstumspotential,” WSI Mitteilungen 12 (2002): 706.

72 Kohl first used the phrase on February 20, 1990. See Manfred Görtemaker, Unifying Germany 1989–1990 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994).

73 Burda, Michael C. and Hunt, Jennifer, “From Reunification to Economic Integration: Productivity and the Labor Market in Eastern Germany,” in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 2 (2001), 1–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hans-Werner Sinn, “Germany's Economic Unification: An Assessment after Ten Years,” Working Paper 7586, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2000, 7; Berliner Zeitung, April 7, 2004; Der Spiegel 15 (2004).

74 As Sinn puts it, “capital changed from being a factor of production to being an economic good.” Sinn, “Germany's Economic Unification,” 14–16.

75 Bundesbank, Deutsche, ed., Monatsbericht Juli 1995 (Frankfurt am Main: Deutsche Bundesbank, 1995)Google Scholar.

76 “Preußen geht fortan in Deutschland auf.” See Namier, Lewis, 1848: The Revolution of the Intellectuals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957), 28Google Scholar.