Building a Rival Fourth Estate: RIAS’s Campaign against East Germany

Democratic Republic ◽

East Germany ◽

Professional Staff ◽

Communist Regime ◽

Fourth Estate ◽

Personal Investment ◽

East German ◽

This chapter considers the development of models for news broadcasting at both RIAS and the stations of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). By this time the station had aimed to establish itself as a rival fourth estate in East Germany in order to compete with the official news organs of the Socialist Unity Party. Yet in performing this task, the station's staff confronted a range of apparent contradictions; in attempting to resolve these, RIAS crafted a style of journalism that drew on principles it had forged during the Berlin Airlift: it eschewed neutrality in favor of engagement, but worked to insure the news it broadcast was accurate. It also built a professional staff of reporters who, for a variety of reasons, felt a strong personal investment in seeing the collapse of the East German Communist regime and the reunification of Germany.

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

Journal of Cold War Studies ◽

10.1162/152039703763336453 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 3-31 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

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 ◽

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.

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

Journal of Interdisciplinary History ◽

10.1162/jinh_a_01698 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 52 (2) ◽

pp. 225-250

Author(s):

Wayne Geerling ◽

Gary B. Magee ◽

Russell Smyth

Keyword(s):

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.

The East German Campaign against RIAS

10.5406/illinois/9780252039690.003.0005 ◽

2017 ◽

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Soviet Union ◽

Democratic Republic ◽

The United States ◽

German Government ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

East German ◽

The Media ◽

This chapter turns to the East German propaganda campaign against RIAS, examining the various efforts taken by the German Democratic Republic to stop its population from listening to the American-sponsored broadcaster. The Socialist Unity Party's media organs deployed a consistent arsenal of themes through anti-RIAS pamphlets and newspaper stories. These almost always depicted RIAS as a militaristic, imperialist organ that strove to keep Germany divided and hoped to provoke a war with the Soviet Union. However, the East German government went beyond simply attacking the station in the media. It also targeted individuals who listened to RIAS as a minority of unpatriotic, treasonous vagrants who were easily duped by the lies of the United States.

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

10.1093/oso/9780199225996.003.0012 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Stefan Berger

Keyword(s):

Cold War ◽

Economic History ◽

Democratic Republic ◽

Federal Republic Of Germany ◽

Historical Writing ◽

History Writing ◽

East German ◽

The Cold War ◽

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.

The Consumer Supply Lobby — Did it Exist? State and Consumption in East Germany in the 1950s

Central European History ◽

10.1163/156916102770891160 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 35 (4) ◽

pp. 477-512 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Mark Landsman

Keyword(s):

Democratic Republic ◽

East Germany ◽

Poor Quality ◽

East German ◽

The 1950S ◽

To Receive

The East German consumer supply lobby? Admittedly, the very idea strains our credulity. That it has yet to receive its scholarly due is hardly surprising in view of our assumptions about everyday consumer reality in socialist societies: empty shelves, long lines, poor quality merchandise, frustrated customers, surly salespeople, monochromatic drabness. What evidence, if any, is there to suggest the existence of a consumer supply lobby in the German Democratic Republic in the 1950s?

Socialist Laments

10.1093/oso/9780197546321.001.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Martha Sprigge

Keyword(s):

Public Space ◽

Democratic Republic ◽

East Germany ◽

East German

Antifascist and socialist monuments pervaded the landscape of the former German Democratic Republic (1949–1989), presenting a distorted vision of the national past. Official commemorative culture in East Germany celebrated a selective set of political heroes, seeming to leave no public space for mourning those who were excluded from the country’s founding myths. Socialist Laments: Musical Mourning in the German Democratic Republic examines the role of music in this nation’s memorial culture, demonstrating how music facilitated the expressions of loss within spaces of commemoration for East German citizens. Music performed during state-sponsored memorial rituals no doubt bolstered official narratives of the German past. But it simultaneously provided an outlet for mourning in highly politicized environment.

The GDR, Luther, and the German Question

The Review of Politics ◽

10.1017/s0034670500038535 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 48 (2) ◽

pp. 246-263 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Stephen P. Hoffmann

Keyword(s):

Political Culture ◽

Democratic Republic ◽

West Germany ◽

East And West Germany ◽

German Question ◽

East German ◽

Democratic Revolution ◽

Domestic Support ◽

The East German government's commemoration in 1983 of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's birth exemplifies its continuing effort to broaden domestic support by arguing over a thirty-year period that the regime's values are deeply rooted in German civilization. The representation of Luther in the German Democratic Republic has evolved from caricature to sophisticated portraiture. Fundamental to this reinterpretation has been the association of Luther with the bourgeois-democratic revolution, a process which the ruling Socialist Unity party claims to have completed in the course of establishing the GDR. Continuing interaction between East and West Germany has complicated the GDR's effort to utilize historical symbols in developing a unified political culture.

Introduction

Bowling for Communism ◽

10.7591/cornell/9781501751660.003.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Andrew Demshuk

Keyword(s):

Democratic Republic ◽

Public Support ◽

Case Analysis ◽

Civic Life ◽

Power Structures ◽

German Regions ◽

East German ◽

The City ◽

This chapter draws on two pioneering approaches to East German power structures in order to unfold the dynamics of urban dystopia. It marginalizes East German regions and disappointing planning outcomes through diversion of resources from the Bezirke or districts to Berlin as a cause that contributes to the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (DDR). It also mentions Brian Ladd, who implied that a failure to provide adequate housing by 1989 could fuel public support for preservationists and activists who are committed to preserving old neighborhoods. The chapter uses Leipzig as a case analysis to sketch out a multi-layered schematic of how the East German planning mechanism interlocked at the central, Bezirk, municipal, and private levels. It offers a glimpse into how civic life functioned in the city that started the Peaceful Revolution and ended Socialist Unity Party (SED) rule.

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

Being German, Becoming Muslim ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691162782.003.0004 ◽

2014 ◽

Author(s):

Esra Özyürek

Keyword(s):

High School ◽

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.

The Last of the Mohicans: How Walter Ulbricht Endured the Hungarian Crisis of 1956

German Politics & Society ◽

10.3167/gps.2004.220403 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 22 (4) ◽

pp. 88-121 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Johanna Granville

Keyword(s):

Democratic Republic ◽

Early Years ◽

German History ◽

Berlin Wall ◽

East European ◽

Hungarian Revolution ◽

East German ◽

Socialist Unity ◽

German Historian

According to German historian Hermann Weber, 25 percent of allpublished studies on the German Democratic Republic (GDR) havefocused on the early years of the regime of the Socialist Unity Party(SED), 20 percent on the 1980s and collapse of the dictatorship, andonly 3 percent on the years in between.1 While the GDR itself maynot have become a mere footnote in history as novelist Stefan Heympredicted, studies of East German history in the 1950s—before theconstruction of the Berlin Wall, when the regime of Walter Ulbrichtwas most vulnerable—are exceedingly rare.2 Archive-based studies ofUlbricht’s response to the Hungarian revolution of 1956 are rarerstill.3 A recently edited volume of essays published in Germanyabout responses to the Hungarian revolution, for example, includedthe reactions of nearly every East European country, except those ofthe GDR.