Struggles in "the Stronghold of World Imperialism"

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-43
Author(s):  
Jason Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
Limited Success ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Do So

This article centers on the League of People’s Friendship of the German Democratic Republic. The League, composed of a main organization in East Berlin and national partner societies scattered around the globe, served as a tool of nontraditional diplomacy for East Germany’s ruling communist party across much of the Cold War. This article sketches out the activities of the League’s partner organizations in the U.S.—the first analysis to do so—arguing first that given the variety of challenges and problems the League and its partner organizations faced, the limited success of these groups in the U.S. is, in the end, rather remarkable. Second, this essay argues that these organizations offer further evidence that East Germany was not exactly a puppet state.

The Wisdom of a Socialist Defector

2020 ◽  
pp. 58-62
Author(s):  
Harry R. Targ
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
The Cold War

Victor Grossman's A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee is at once an exciting adventure story, an engaging autobiography of a radical opponent of U.S. imperialism, and a clear-headed assessment of the successes and failures of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) at the onset of the Cold War until 1990, when its citizens voted to merge with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany). Most poignantly, Grossman compares the benefits workers gained in the GDR, the FRG, and even the United States during the Cold War.

Marxist Literary Resistance to the Cold War

Prospects ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 479-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Wald
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Literary Resistance ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Private Homes ◽  
Smith Act ◽  
The U.S

On the morning of June 20, 1951, a hundred FBI agents poured out of the Foley Square Federal Building in Manhattan at dawn, buttoned up their gray trenchcoats, and bounded into a fleet of waiting Buicks. Spreading throughout New York City in a well-orchestrated operation, they surrounded twenty private homes, burst into bedrooms, and dragged sixteen Communist Party leaders off to jail under the Smith Act charge of conspiring to teach the overthrow of the U.S. government. This was the second group of top Party functionaries to be arrested under the Act.

From the Search for Normality to the Search for Normality: German Historical Writing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Berger
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
History Writing ◽  
East German ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Socialist Unity

This chapter demonstrates the overwhelming dominance of a Marxist, Soviet-inspired agenda, and the supremacy of social and especially economic history. During the Cold War, only the historians in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) followed the Western path. Their counterparts in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) adhered to the Marxist-Leninist framework of history-writing prescribed by the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED). The divided world of the Cold War ensured that history-writing in the FRG and GDR became highly polarized. Anti-communism remained the underlying rationale of much historical writing in the FRG during the 1950s, and anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism comprised the ideological backbone of the GDR’s historical profession. Ultimately, the Cold War was crucial in incorporating West and East German historians into different transnational networks. After 1945, the two Germanies were attempting to regain some kind of national as well as historiographical ‘normality’ following major political and historiographical caesuras.

Political Development in the German Democratic Republic

1981 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-166
Author(s):  
John Starrels
Keyword(s):  
Financial Institutions ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
East Germany ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Do So ◽  
National Growth

HAS ORGANIZED COMMUNISM GONE SOUR IN THE GERMAN Democratic Republic? Various signs suggest that it indeed has. Since late 1975, the regime of Erich Honecker has employed increasingly severe measures to combat internal dissent; and these measures have also been directed against West German media representatives, no less. On the economic front, estimates of national growth for 1979 vary rather widely — from 3 to 5.6 per cent. Yet no matter which figure is accepted, it is increasingly evident that growing international indebtedness to Western financial institutions (calculated to be between $5–6 billion), plus chronic energy shortages and recent agricultural failures have made East Germany's economic prospects gloomier than they have been since the late 1960s. The wave of emigration requests which eeted East Germany's signature of the Helsinki Agreement or1975 at least suggests that average citizens will take action on their own when the occasion allows them to do so. Added to the above consideration, of course, is the 'trade in humans' (Menschenhandel) which has resulted in the 'sale' of approximately 11,000 individuals from East Germany to West Germany between 1964 and 1975, according to one informed Western writer.

We Acted as Though We Were in a Movie: Memories of an East German Subculture

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-55
Author(s):  
Lutz Kube
Keyword(s):  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Television Series ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
Limited Success ◽  
East German ◽  
Old Friends

Leander Haußmann (Sonnenallee), a theater and film director with East German roots, contributed the documentary Die Durchmacher to the television series Denk ich an Deutschland. In his documentary, Haußmann interviews some of his old friends who in the late 1970s formed a group in East Berlin and presents their stories about the time. This paper explores the image of the German Democratic Republic that is created by the memories of the participants and their presentation through Haußmann. An important element of the memories is the perspective from which they come: out of a subculture that tried to escape East German reality with only limited success. This article also examines how the ambiguity and unreliability of memories are presented in the film. The documentary is put into the context of a debate on the concept of "Ostalgia" (Ostalgie), arguing that this can still be a productive means to communicate East German experiences without idealizing them.

Cordial Cold War:Cultural Actors in India and the German Democratic Republic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anandita Bajpai
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Radio Broadcasting ◽  
Mutual Interest ◽  
The Cold War

Cordial Cold War examines cultural entanglements, in various forms, between two distant yet interconnected sites of the Cold War—India and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Focusing on theatre performances, film festivals, newsreels, travel literature, radio broadcasting, cartography and art as sites of engagement, the chapters spotlight actual spaces of interaction that emerged in spite of, and within, the ambits of Cold War constraints. The inter-disciplinary collection of contributions sheds light on the variegated nature of translocal cultural entanglements. By foregrounding the role of actors, their practices and the sites of their entanglement, the book exposes how creative energies were mobilized to forge zones of friendship, mutual interest and envisioned solidarities.

After (Re)Unification and Apartheid: Germany, South Africa, and Yemen

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltan Barany
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cold War ◽  
East Germany ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Unique Case ◽  
Large Segment ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
North And South ◽  
Do So

This chapter discusses three different but equally intriguing cases where two entities are brought together or brought together again. In that of Germany, the armed forces of the newly reunified state reflected the outcome of the Cold War: very little remained that could remind one of the former army of East Germany. In Yemen, North and South Yemen—two Cold War adversaries—fought against each other in brief wars before they became unified. South Africa is a unique case because its borders did not change though a large segment of the population previously excluded from official politics and the armed forces was not only made a part of them but became the dominantpart. The similarity in all three cases is the combining of two separate and dissimilar components in a new, single political entity. Moreover, in all three, the two parts brought together had been enemies who fought against each other or were trained to do so.

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