History of the German Democratic Republic: Encyclopedia II - History of the German Democratic Republic - Creation 1945-1949

History of the German Democratic Republic - Creation 1945-1949

History of the German Democratic Republic - Division of Germany

At the Yalta Conference, held in February 1945 before the capitulation of the Third Reich, the United States, United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union agreed on the division of Germany into occupation zones. Estimating the territory that the converging armies of the western Allies and the Soviet Union would overrun, the Yalta Conference determined the demarcation line for the respective areas of occupation. Following Germany's surrender, the Allied Control Council, representing the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, assumed governmental authority in postwar Germany. Economic demilitarization however (especially the stripping of industrial equipment) was the responsibility of each zone individually.

The Potsdam Conference of July/August 1945 officially recognized the zones and confirmed jurisdiction of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (German: Sowjetische Militäradministration in Deutschland, SMAD) from the Oder and Neisse rivers to the demarcation line. The Soviet occupation zone included the former states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The city of Berlin was placed under the control of the four powers.

Each occupation power assumed rule in its zone by June 1945. The powers originally pursued a common German policy, focused on denazification and demilitarization in preparation for the restoration of a democratic German nation-state. Over time however the western zones and the Soviet zone drifted apart economically, not least because of the Soviets' much greater use of disassembly of German industry under its control as a form of reparations. Military industries and those owned by the state, by Nazi activists, and by war criminals were confiscated. These industries amounted to approximately 60 % of total industrial production in the Soviet zone. Most heavy industry (constituting 20 % of total production) was claimed by the Soviet Union as reparations, and Soviet joint stock companies (German: Sowjetische Aktiengesellschaften -SAG-) were formed. The remaining confiscated industrial property was nationalized, leaving 40 % of total industrial production to private enterprise.

The agrarian reform ("Bodenreform") expropriated all land belonging to former Nazis and war criminals and generally limited ownership to 1 km². Some 500 Junker estates were converted into collective people's farms (German: Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft -LPG-), and more than 30,000 km² were distributed among 500,000 peasant farmers, agricultural laborers, and refugees.

Growing economic differences combined with developing political tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union (which would eventually develop into the Cold War) and manifested in the refusal in 1947 of the SMAD to take part in the USA's Marshall Plan. In March 1948, the United States, Britain, and France met in London and agreed to unite the Western zones and to establish a West German republic. The Soviet Union responded by leaving the Allied Control Council and prepared to create an East German state. The division of Germany was made clear with the currency reform of 20th June 1948, which was limited to the western zones. Three days later a separate currency reform was introduced in the Soviet zone. The introduction of the western Deutsche Mark to the western sectors of Berlin against the will of the Soviet supreme commander, led the Soviet Union to introduce the Berlin Blockade in an attempt to gain control of the whole of Berlin. The Western Allies decided to supply Berlin via an "air bridge", which lasted 11 months, until the Soviet Union lifted the blockade on 12 May 1949.

An SMAD decree of June 10 granted permission for the formation of antifascist democratic political parties in the Soviet zone; elections to new state legislatures were scheduled for October 1946. A democratic-antifascist coalition, which included the KPD, the SPD, the new Christian Democratic Union (Christlich-Demokratische Union--CDU), and the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (Liberal Demokratische Partei Deutschlands --LDPD), was formed in July 1945. The KPD (with 600,000 members) and the SPD in East Germany (with 680,000 members), which was under strong pressure from the Communists, merged in April 1946 to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands--SED). In the October 1946 elections, the SED polled approximately 50 % of the vote in each state in the Soviet zone. In Berlin, which was still undivided, the SPD had resisted the party merger and, running on its own, had polled 48.7 % of the vote, thus scoring a major electoral victory and decisively defeating the SED, which, with 19.8 %, was third in the voting behind the SPD and the CDU.

The SED modelled itself as a Soviet-style "party of the new type." To that end, German communist Walter Ulbricht became first secretary of the SED, and the Politburo, Secretariat, and Central Committee were formed. According to the Leninist principle of democratic centralism, each party body was controlled by its members. Ulbricht, as party chief, carried out the will of the members of his party. The SED committed itself ideologically to Marxism-Leninism and the international class struggle.

Many former members of the SPD and some communist advocates of a social-democratic road to socialism were purged from the SED. The middle-class CDU and LDPD were weakened by the creation of two new parties, the National Democratic Party of Germany (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands--NDPD) and the Democratic Peasants' Party of Germany (Demokratische Bauernpartei Deutschlands--DBD). The SED accorded political representation to mass organizations and, most significant, to the party-controlled Free German Trade Union Federation (Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund--FDGB).

Incidentally, the party system was designed to allow reentry of only those former NSDAP adherents who had earlier decided to join the National Front, which was originally formed by emigrants and prisoners of war in the Soviet Union during World War II. Political denazification in the Soviet zone was thus handled rather more transparently than in the Western zones, where the issue soon came second to considerations of practicality or even just privacy.

In November 1948, the German Economic Commission (Deutsche Wirtschaftskomission--DWK), including antifascist bloc representation, assumed administrative authority. Five weeks after declaration of the western Federal Republic of Germany, on October 7, 1949, the DWK formed a provisional government and proclaimed establishment of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Wilhelm Pieck, a party leader, was elected first president.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Creation 1945-1949", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki