East Germany's North European Policy prior to International Recognition of the German Democratic Republic

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-571 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL F. SCHOLZ
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
European Policy ◽  
Baltic Region ◽  
German State ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
East German ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Baltic

The main aim of the GDR's foreign policy was to promote the survival and stabilisation of the SED dictatorship, and the so-called ‘worldwide revolution’, by seeking external recognition. After it was granted full sovereignty in 1954–5 the East German state carefully cultivated relations with Western countries. The Scandinavian countries received special attention on the basis of common history, natural economic and transport links, a close relationship with their respective communist parties and East German conformity to Soviet policy in the Baltic region. Up to the 1970s the GDR's main aim was to end its own international isolation. Despite a few spectacular successes, not even Sweden was won over and the final breakthrough did not come until the government of the FRG embarked on its new and successful Ostpolitik. In 1972–3 the Scandinavian countries were among the first officially to recognise the GDR.

City Plans

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Stangl
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
State Policy ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
City Center ◽  
German State ◽  
Design Competition ◽  
East German ◽  
Political Turmoil ◽  
The City

Between 1945 and 1949 a series of modernist plans were developed for Berlin. In this time of political turmoil, planners and politicians projected a broad range of meanings onto the plans. After the founding of the East German state, Lothar Bolz orchestrated the adoption of socialist realism as state policy, requiring a return to traditional urban design. This theory included a range of tenets guiding planning, but Walter Ulbricht intervened to assure that planning would be dominated by a concern for parade routes leading to an immense square in the city center. In response to West Berlin’s international building exhibition, the German Democratic Republic held their own design competition for a “socialist” city center in 1958. The recent introduction of industrialized building, along with uncertainty and debate over the nature of “socialist” architecture, was evident in designs with a range of influences, including international modernism, midcentury modernism, and socialist realism.

Wilsonianism Redux: Inadvertent Publication of Secret Protocol, Hungarian-East German Agreement on Visa Requirements

1990 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 281-283
Author(s):  
T. M. F.
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
The Status ◽  
East German ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Government

This treaty between the (East) German Democratic Republic and Hungary concerning visa requirements was deposited with the United Nations in accordance with Article 102 of the UN Charter. When the Government of Hungary decided to permit East Germans visiting Hungary to emigrate to the Federal Republic of Germany (West), the authorities in Budapest informed the East German authorities that the treaty had become inoperative. Among the reasons cited was its inconsistency with the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, to which Hungary had acceded on March 14, 1989.

East German Conversions to Islam after the Collapse of the Berlin Wall

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esra Özyürek
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
German State ◽  
East German

This chapter analyzes the conversion and life-story narratives of two East Germans who both grew up during the closed, authoritarian regime of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). When the wall fell, Zehra was a twenty-year-old woman from a family of regime opponents just about to begin her life after graduating from high school. Usman was a thirty-year-old man with an established position as a chemist at an East German state-run factory. The fall of the wall transformed both their lives radically, recasting them as second-class citizens with no foreseeable way out in the united Germany. Both Zehra and Usman converted to Islam shortly after the collapse of the East German Communist regime in 1989.

Women Agents in the East German State Security

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-84
Author(s):  
Thomas Wegener Friis ◽  
Helmut Müller-Enbergs
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
German State ◽  
State Security ◽  
Controlling Images ◽  
Intelligence Studies ◽  
East German ◽  
Women's Role ◽  
The Cold War

In the communist camp during the Cold War, exercising power was a male domain. The Ministry of State Security (MfS) of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) was no exception. Within the organization, women were employed but they rarely made a career. In the bottom of the State Security hierarchy were the agents. This article examines who were the women agents in the rank of the MfS. Based on statistical materials, it gives an overview of women’s role and the character of their covert work. Inspired by Andrea Petö’s introduction of the concept of controlling images to intelligence studies, particular focus is devoted to the question whether the MfS agents complied to the stereotypes of women in intelligence work.

The East German Ministry for State Security and Iraq, 1968–1989

2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-23
Author(s):  
Joseph Sassoon
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Arab World ◽  
State Security ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
East German ◽  
Close Cooperation ◽  
New Evidence

Despite the close relationship between the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and Iraq from the late 1960s until the mid-1970s, new evidence from documents of the former East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) and the Iraqi Ba'th Party archives, combined with interviews of senior East German diplomats who served in the Arab world, indicates that the Stasi changed its policy in the second half of the 1970s and persisted with that policy in the 1980s after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War. This article gives an overview of relations between the Stasi and Iraq following the rise of the Ba'th to power in 1968 under Saddam Hussein (who later became president of Iraq in 1979) and examines Iraq's efforts to obtain assistance from the Stasi. The Iraqi regime's persecution of Communists within Iraq and its targeting of Iraqi Communists in Eastern Europe were important in discouraging the Stasi from establishing close cooperation with Iraq.

The Principles of State Governance of the German Democratic Republic

2020 ◽  
Vol 1(21) ◽  
pp. 37-51
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Kuźnik
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
German States ◽  
East German ◽  
State Governance ◽  
Council Of Ministers ◽  
National Defence

The aim of this article is to present the principles underlying the political system in force in the German Democratic Republic between 1949 and 1990, with a particular emphasis on the issue of the state of emergency law. The article describes the two Constitutions from 1949 and 1968 and the state institutions established under them, including the GDR People's Chamber, the Council of Ministers, the GDR State Council and the National Defence Council. It also discusses the constitutional solutions within the scope of the emergency law. The legal basis for the protection of the border between the two then existing German states was also considered. This article is based on the two East German Constitutions, other legal acts and on the principles of East German and Polish doctrine. The article consists of an introduction, three parts and a summary.

The Prelude to Nationwide Surveillance in East Germany: Stasi Operations and Threat Perceptions, 1945–1953

2003 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary S. Bruce
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
German State ◽  
Threat Perceptions ◽  
State Security ◽  
West Berlin ◽  
East German ◽  
Nationwide Surveillance ◽  
Vast Network ◽  
Socialist Unity

Many observers have been puzzled by the extent of the uprising that swept through East Germany in June 1953, given the legendary efficiency of the East German state security (Stasi) forces and their vast network of informants. Some scholars have even attempted to explain the Stasi's inability to foresee and prevent the uprising by arguing that the Stasi conspired with the demonstrators. The opening of the archives of the former German Democratic Republic has shed valuable light on this issue. Based on extensive research in the archives of the Stasi and of the former Socialist Unity Party of East Germany, as well as materials from the West German archives, this article shows that the Stasi did not fail its party superiors in being unable to foresee the uprising of June 1953. There was, in fact, no way that the organization could have foreseen the rebellion. Prior to 1953 the Stasi was not outfitted with a massive surveillance apparatus, nor was it mandated for broad internal surveillance. Rather, it primarily targeted well-known opposition groups at home and anti-Communist organizations based in West Berlin. The criticism directed against the Stasi after the uprising was attributable mainly to Walter Ulbricht's embattled leadership position and his need for a scapegoat.

Everyday Communism: New Social History of the German Democratic Republic

2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
SANDRINE KOTT
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
North Carolina ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Social History ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
History Of ◽  
East German

Konrad Jarausch, ed., Dictatorship as Experience. Toward a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1999), 388 pp., £14.00 (pb), ISBN 1-57181-182-6.Thomas Lindenberger, ed., Herrschaft und Eigensinn in der Diktatur (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1999) 367 pp., €39.90 (hb), ISBN 3-412-13598-4.Annegret Schüle, ‘Die Spinne’. Die Erfahrungsgeschichte weiblicher Industriearbeit im VEB Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2001), 398 pp., €18.00 (pb), ISBN 3-934565-87-5.Patrick Major and Jonathan Osmond, eds., The Workers' and Peasants' State. Communism and Society in East Germany under Ulbricht 1945–71 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 272 pp., £15.99 (pb), ISBN 0-7190-6289-6.Joshua Feinstein, The Triumph of the Ordinary. Depictions of Daily Life in the East German Cinema 1949–1989 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 331 pp., £19.50 (pb), ISBN 0-8078-5385-2.

Occupation, Reparations, and Rebellion: The Soviets and the East German Uprising of 1953

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-250
Author(s):  
Wayne Geerling ◽  
Gary B. Magee ◽  
Russell Smyth
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Internal Resistance ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Local Production ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
East German ◽  
Regional Factors ◽  
Local Companies

Abstract Analysis of the link between the Soviet occupation of East Germany and internal resistance within the German Democratic Republic reveals that ongoing payment of reparations by East Germans out of local production—via the Soviet’s ownership of prominent local companies—affected both the incidence and the intensity of unrest at the precinct level during the uprising of June 17, 1953. This result is robust when controlling for variation in the presence of Soviet military bases and deaths in Soviet nkvd Special Camps, as well as a host of regional factors potentially correlated with differences in unrest.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document