UCSB Hist 133C, L 11:
Uniting/Dividing Germany, 1952-61
by Prof. Marcuse, Jan. 30, 2004

• Finish discussion of Böll
• Unity or division?
  • Possibilities of Uniting Germany
  • Sealing the division of Germany
• Return Q4

Böll discussion, cont'd

• lambs vs. beasts (Büffel)
• Hugo and Marianne
• meaning of the title?
• Fulbrook p. 184f: "By the later 1950s, writers such as Heinrich B. were beginning to pour scorn on what they saw as a bourgeois, self-satisfied materialism which lived only for current comforts and suppressed the past; but rapid economic success …"

Unite or divide I: Economics

• West: "social market economy" (Fulbr. 182f)
  • neo- or Ordo-liberal
  • Ludwig Erhard & "economic miracle"
  • codetermination, reintegration of Nazi elite
  • SPD's 1959 Godesberg program
• East: "planned economy"
  • "5 year plans"
  • consumption vs. reinvestment

Economics of Division

LPG=Landwirtschaftliche Productionsgenossenschaft, Agricultural Cooperative.
VE=volkseigen, "the people's own"
The East German economy was doing well towards the end of the 1950s, but when the collectivization of agriculture was accelerated, things took a turn for the worst. The popularity of the expropriations and redistribution in the late 1940s was mirrored by the unpopularity of collectivization.

Unite/divide II: Int'l

• Eisenhower & Nato
• European Defense Community (failed 1954: France)
• Stalin's overtures: March 10, 1952 "note"
• Plus two more unification offers: "making clear that the West Germans knew what they were choosing…"
• Khrushchev's Nov. 27, 1958 ultimatum:
• Berlin a demilitarized "independent political unit"
• no more "right" of the Western Allies to be in Berlin
• "equal confederation" of both German states

Elites: Adenauer / Ulbricht

When Adenauer introduced his first cabinet to the Allied High Commissioners in September 1949, a red carpet was placed for the Allies to stand on, to symbolize the distance between the Allies and the Germans. Adenauer, however, disregarded protocol and stepped onto a corner of the carpet. I take this picture as a symbol of Adenauer's will to accommodate the West, even at the expense of a united, neutral Germany.

Khrushchev, Ulbricht & Grotewohl in Berlin, 1958

Divide/Unite IV: Info

• Sources in reader:
  • Khrushchev in Moscow, June 21, 1961: West (& JFK's) fault
  • E. German decree, August 13, 1961: FRG continues revanchist Nazi policies
  • US Secretary of State Rusk, Aug. 13, 1961: GDR denying rights to its citizens
  • Western allied Commandants, Aug, 15, 1961: USSR is violating agreements

Unite/Divide V: peOple

• Easterners were "voting with their feet"
• Statistics E-> W migration
  1949: 130,000
  1953: 330,000
  1959: 144,000
  1960: 199,000
  1961: 155,000 Jan-July; 52,000 Aug-Dec.
  (688 doctors, 296 dentists, 2648 engineers)
• Westerners stood by
  • Eisenhower (Dulles): we won't start war
  • Adenauer: in election, didn't go to Berlin right away