scholarly journals Organizational Structure, Channels and Methods of Propaganda Work of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany, 1945–1949

2019 ◽  
pp. 205-221
Author(s):  
Roman Boldyrev ◽  
Jörg Morré
Keyword(s):  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Negative Image ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
Military Administration ◽  
West Berlin ◽  
Low Efficiency ◽  
Soviet Occupation Zone ◽  
Total Welfare ◽  
The Ideal

Introduction. The paper deals with the issues of the propaganda system in the Soviet Occupation Zone in Germany (SOZ) between 1945 and 1949. Based on de-classified documents from Russian Archives propaganda organization, channels and methods of propaganda units of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAG) became a subject to study. The authors emphasize on control means towards German mass media and implementing the Soviet propaganda monopoly in East Germany. Methods and materials. The authors consequently analyze the main channels and methods of positive USSR image broadcasting: radio, press, SMAG propaganda unit lectures, people’s education system, activities of society for Soviet cultural studies, acquaintance trips of German delegations to the USSR, presentations of Soviet exhibitions and films. Analysis and Results. The authors come to a conclusion that the Soviet propaganda in East Germany had a low efficiency. It failed to establish a complete monopoly of Soviet propaganda units in East Germany. The SOZ population could access the propaganda from West Germany and West Berlin, which broadcast a radically negative image of the USSR. Besides, the units and institutions of the Group of Soviet Occupation Troops in Germany (GSOTG) created their own image of Soviet people, which was different from the ideal and broadcast one. Thus, it turned out to be impossible to provide the unification of the broadcast and perception of propagandist materials devoted to the USSR and its population. Soviet propaganda in Germany had gone through the transition by the late 1940s: division of Germany in two states appeared to be a reality, and the establishment of socialist society on Stalin’s model took place in East Germany. Ideological revisiting of the Soviet social constitution, and so its supremacy over the bourgeois one was to replace the conventional image of the country of total welfare and happiness.

scholarly journals Obračun sa titoistima u sovjetskoj okupacionoj zoni Nemačke: Slučaj Leonard

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-164
Author(s):  
Natalija Dimić
Keyword(s):  
Relevant Literature ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
Soviet Occupation Zone ◽  
Socialist Unity

The aim of this article is to analyze the position of the Yugoslav representatives in Berlin and Yugoslav propaganda in Germany prior to and following the Yugoslav-Soviet split, as well as the mechanisms which the leadership of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany used in dealing with the opposition within the party ranks. It follows the activities of a German communist, Wolfgang Leonhard, in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany, his escape to Yugoslavia in 1949, and his arrival to West Germany in 1950. The article is based on the unpublished documents from German and Serbian archives, Wolfgang Leonhard’s memoirs, and relevant literature.

scholarly journals The Berlin Wall after Fifty Years: Introduction

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hope M. Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The West ◽  
West Berlin ◽  
East And West ◽  
East West

Fifty years ago on 13 August 1961, the East Germans sealed the east-westborder in Berlin, beginning to build what would become known as theBerlin Wall. Located 110 miles/177 kilometers from the border with WestGermany and deep inside of East Germany, West Berlin had remained the“last loophole” for East Germans to escape from the communist GermanDemocratic Republic (GDR) to the western Federal Republic of Germany(FRG, West Germany). West Berlin was an island of capitalism and democracywithin the GDR, and it enticed increasing numbers of dissatisfied EastGermans to flee to the West. This was particularly the case after the borderbetween the GDR and FRG was closed in 1952, leaving Berlin as the onlyplace in Germany where people could move freely between east and west.By the summer of 1961, over 1,000 East Germans were fleeing westwardsevery day, threatening to bring down the GDR. To put a stop to this, EastGermany’s leaders, with backing from their Soviet ally, slammed shut this“escape hatch.”

“Dedicated to Freedom”

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-124
Author(s):  
Victoria Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Free World ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
Transparent Glass ◽  
German Press ◽  
West Berlin ◽  
Returning Home ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
The Ideal

In West Berlin, 1957, Graham performed her solo Judith during the opening ceremonies of Congress Hall, an American-designed modernist building that, with its transparent glass walls, luminous curved roof, and reflecting pool, was a “symbol of the Free World,” according to the German press, situated just one hundred yards from the line dividing West Berlin from East, liberal democracy from communism. Modernism in dance met the architecture of diplomacy. “We should have the freedom of modern dancing as well as that of speech,” Graham declared when she arrived in Berlin; she embodied the modern impulse and the ideal of freedom and democracy that came with it. Led by Eleanor Lansing Dulles, the sister of both John Foster, Eisenhower’s secretary of state, and Allen, director of the CIA, the Americans planning the inauguration of Congress Hall understood that with Martha Graham, they had a cultural ambassador who was “dedicated to freedom.” However, bringing heavy-handed references to the nation’s Nazi past, Graham received poor reviews in Germany. A few days later, Graham watched as Mary Wigman received raves. Yet the Congress Hall committee reported back that Graham’s performance could be considered a success because up to half of the elite audience was from East Germany. Graham received a polite but curt note from Dulles and began drinking heavily after returning home to choreograph Clytemnestra, the first three-act modern ballet.

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.

scholarly journals Abstieg West durch Aufbau Ost?

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (135) ◽  
pp. 321-329
Author(s):  
Ulrich Busch
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
West Germany ◽  
German Unification ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Stagnation ◽  
The Eu

14 years after the German unification East Germany is one of the largest European problem areas. Loss of population, economic stagnation and the dependence on transfers from the West determine the situation. With the expansion of the EU, East Germany can become the German mezzogiorno. In this situation a group of experts demands radical measures form the federal government. But these measures will worsen the living conditions in East Germany, which are already very different to those in West Germany.

scholarly journals Theodor Körner, az NDK politikai mítosza

2018 ◽  
Vol 57 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kálmán Kovács
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Policy ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Central Element ◽  
The Political ◽  
Original Form ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Memory Politics ◽  
Soviet Occupation

The biographic novels about Theodor Körner accurately demonstrate the significant paradigm shifts in East Germany’s memory politics. Before 1949, the nationalistic tradition was rejected even in the area under Soviet occupation, nevertheless it became a central element of East Germany’s ideology after the turn of 1952. One must add, that it was not picked up in its original form, but adapted to the requirements of the present. The Körner novels reveal the main characteristics of this transformed nationalism. The political changes of the seventies generated a turn of cultural policy as well. The particularities of this new paradigm are reflected in Ulrich Völkel’s novel about Theodor Körner. The recycled myth of Körner paints a picture of East Germany which we came to know during the last decade of its existence.

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.

Transit to East Germany: The Distribution and Reception of Once Upon a Time in the West in the German Democratic Republic

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary Stott
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Business Professionals ◽  
The West ◽  
Nation States

This chapter examines the relocation, transition, and appropriation of the Spaghetti Western in a hitherto under-researched context: the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), prior to its unification with the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) in 1990. It explores the selection, distribution and reception of Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West, Sergio Leone, 1968) in the German Democratic Republic as a case study of how international cultural transfer causes objects of cultural production to be repositioned as they enter a new reception context. It also examines the ideological, economic, and sociological concerns underpinning the decisions of those who facilitated the movement of film across the political, cultural, and linguistic boundaries of nation states. In East Germany, the facilitators involved in the selection, censorship, dubbing, and promotion of films were mainly government administrators rather than film business professionals, because film was a state-controlled industry. The chapter focuses on the ‘official’ reception of the film on the basis of available censorship protocols and government policy papers, as well as print media sources.

Salts, Sewage, and Sulfurous Air

2019 ◽  
pp. 125-158
Author(s):  
Astrid M. Eckert
Keyword(s):  
Water Pollution ◽  
Sulfur Dioxide ◽  
Ecological Restoration ◽  
Industrial Waste ◽  
Environmental Problem ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
West Germany ◽  
German States ◽  
East German

This chapter addresses a typical borderland environmental problem—transboundary air and water pollution. During the 1970s and 1980s, rivers carried eastern industrial waste and sewage into West Germany; the wind blew sulfur dioxide both ways. Their environmental interdependency forced both German states to the negotiating table, eventually producing the ineffectual Environmental Accords of 1987. The western encounter with eastern pollution through the interface of the inter-German border confronted West German authorities with early signs of East Germany’s dissolution. While they failed to grasp the message, their experience with East German pollution and the futile diplomatic efforts to curb it nonetheless generated the knowledge about the nature and extent of the GDR’s environmental problems that became the prerequisite for the post-1990 ecological restoration of East Germany.

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