9 - Accelerating collapse: The East German road from liberalization to power-sharing and its legacy

Summary

Because the state-socialist regime collapsed so quickly, the East German democratic transition was short. It lasted only five months, from the fall of hard-liner Erich Honecker on October 18, 1989, to the founding elections on March 18, 1990. In this short period three separate transition governments ruled the German Democratic Republic (GDR): (1) a liberalizing Communist regime, (2) a democratizing caretaker government, and (3) a power-sharing interim government that oversaw free elections. The succession of progressively weaker regimes added up to a process best characterized as “accelerating collapse.” The legacy of this dynamic regime collapse shows up in the rapid pace of German reunification under a short-lived democratic government, with monetary union on July 1 and formal unification on October 3. The legacy also shows up in the extensive “evening of scores” with old regime collaborators in Germany today.

FALL OF THE OLD REGIME: EXIT, VOICE, AND COLLAPSE

As in the rest of East Central Europe, a neo-Stalinist regime had been imposed in the GDR from abroad. Collectivization got off to a slow start but was more ruthlessly completed than elsewhere. Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) leader Honecker, General Secretary since 1971, along with twenty-four of twenty-seven Politburo members belonged to the generation that had founded the regime in 1949. Honecker and eight others belonged to the prewar German Communist Party (KPD). Only three members had joined the SED after 1949.