1. Ulbricht's Tottering State:
ALLEMANN, F. R.
East Germany - Two Articles 1. Ulbrichts Tottering State By F. R. Allemann West Berlin TO grasp the seriousness of what is now going on in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), it is not...
...About 50 per cent of the refugees from East Germany are made up of young men and women under 25...
...and in the spring of 1961 the targets laid down in 1958 had to be drastically reduced...
...Flight to the West has become not only a revealing symptom but also a major factor in the East German crisis...
...and it might have looked to Russian eyes as if the GDR could catch up economically and socially with West Germany in the very near future...
...On the other hand, he cannot attain this result without resorting to measures which have proved dangerous in the past and may yet prove fatal...
...And since 1958, Moscow has been trying to shore up the Ulbricht regime by closing the "Berlin gap" once and for all, and pressing the West to recognize the GDR...
...When the GDR was forced to acknowledge defeat by silently dropping all talk about the "chief economic task" and by lowering its production goals, it shattered the hopes for a better life engendered by the Plan...
...It must have seemed tempting to the Russians to finish off the process of East German consolidation by raising the "Berlin question" in such a way that the Western powers might either be induced to give up their forward position or, better still, to extend diplomatic recognition to the GDR...
...The trend has sharply reversed in the course of the last year, however...
...The forced, hasty and unprepared-for agricultural collectivization is only now making its full effect felt...
...The Seven-Year Plan had begun well...
...What is worse, it suffers from a severely unbalanced age structure, due to an exceedingly small birth rate during World War II and the first postwar years...
...In June, at his international press conference, Ulbricht indicated that he would not be content with less than total control of all communications (including airways) between West Berlin and West Germany...
...meat, potatoes and many green vegetables are scarce...
...Food supplies have become utterly disorganized...
...The long queues forming every day in front of West Berlin's Refugee Center at Marienfelde is proof enough that something dramatic is afoot beyond the border...
...The number of refugees steadily diminished in the late '50s, but it took a marked upward turn again after the Ulbricht government, early in 1960, forced all its remaining free peasants into some 20,000 kolkhozes (or "agrarian production cooperatives," as they are styled in the GDR...
...But his local strength, on the German battlefield, has vanished to a point where an operation originally undertaken as a show of superiority, has turned into a frantic attempt to ward off a major catastrophe...
...The GDR is the only country in the world whose population has gone down steadily for the past 15 years...
...the number of refugees was dwindling...
...Under its ambitious 1958 Seven-Year Plan, the GDR proclaimed as its "chief economic task" the equalling of West German standards in per capita consumption by the end of 1961, and in per capita production by 1965...
...Thus, paradoxically, it seems to be the heat Moscow is putting on the West to force it out of Berlin that is causing the East German kettle to boil over...
...Food shortages are only the outward symptom of a deeper crisis rocking East Germany's "Socialist Economy...
...Now, however, the picture has completely changed: If Khrushchev carries out his original proposals, he does so not to legalize a prospering East German satellite, but to ward off the disaster threatening the GDR...
...East Germans are convinced that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev means business this time, i.e., that he is prepared to conclude a separate peace treaty with the GDR even if this increases the danger of all-out war...
...The Eastern Zone of Germany is going through economic difficulties worse than any since Stalin's death...
...In 1960, the rate of production fell far behind the Plan (at the same time, West Germany surged ahead by increasing its own production at a rate which nearly doubled that of the "Socialist" East...
...During this period, it looked as if the Communist regime might succeed somewhat in bettering living standards, neutralising resistance and even winning some degree of loyalty from its unwilling subjects...
...The number of people now entering production is utterly insufficient to keep the labor force up to its present level...
...The present mood of most citizens is one of sullen apathy or frankly defiant criticism...
...For the present, however, forcing a showdown on Berlin has only aggravated the crisis and further endangered the stability of the very satellite the Kremlin wants to bolster...
...The regime rashly promised that collectivization would bring an eight-hour working day, and the farmers, even in the middle of harvest time, are refusing to heed the Government's appeal for more work...
...Overall production was scheduled to go up, in the course of seven years, by no less than 88 per cent...
...What was intended to intimidate the West resulted in a sudden refugee stampede unprecedented since the days of the popular uprising in June 1953...
...For several years, from 1957 till the spring of 1960, pressure was relatively low...
...Khrushchev is thus confronted with a very real dilemma: He must, on the one hand, force through his Berlin proposals, designed to stop the constant bleeding of the GDR's already anemic organism...
...East Germany - Two Articles 1. Ulbrichts Tottering State By F. R. Allemann West Berlin TO grasp the seriousness of what is now going on in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), it is not necessary to cross the Brandenburg Gate separating East Berlin from free Berlin...
...In the course of July, over 30,000 people left their homes in the GDR to swell the ranks of the more than two-and-a-half million who have fled to the West since the formation of the East German state...
...Thus, a rapidly diminishing working population has to maintain an ever-increasing number of pensioners, and a considerable part of the productivity rise has to be used to cover the growing labor gapWhen, in 1958, Khrushchev began to press for a change in the present status of Berlin, he did so at a time when the SED regime in East Germany seemed better off than ever before...
...Those unwilling to resign themselves or unable to defy the Government have again taken to "voting with their feet" by abandoning the GDR in larger and larger numbers...
...the closing of private bakeries has caused local bread shortages...
...Even had no anxiety been aroused over the closing of the escape route, illegal emigration from East Germany would probably have increased this summer...
...These targets have already proved to be unattainable...
...The psychological effects of this setback were even more disastrous than the economic ones...
...Mass exodus is a most reliable manometer for gauging the ups and downs of internal pressure in Walter Ulbricht's Soviet satrapy...
...Ever since its inception, the GDR has been the weakest satellite in the Soviet orbit...
...By renewing its drive against free Berlin, the Kremlin, backed—or rather spearheaded—by the East German Socialist Party (SED), is spreading panic throughout the GDR...
...Obviously, this state of affairs cannot go on much longer without undermining the economic health and political stability of Russia's German province...
...The Communist press has lately been complaining that many peasants who worked hard on their private plots now are completely indifferent to their obligations on the collective farms...
...At the same time, Ulbricht has had to acknowledge growing passive resistance among the peasants...
...This was a signal to all his dissatisfied citizens that they had better hurry and leave before it was too late...
...This summer the migration has taken on major proportions, heralding a new maximum pressure and a new low in morale in East Germany...
...The most recent mass flight began immediately after the latest Communist campaign for a "solution of the West Berlin problem" was launched...
...older people, who are no longer able to work, stay behind...
...and butter rationing has created some popular unrest...
...Khrushchev's global strength may, in the meantime, have increased...
...Temporarily won over to some kind of grudging acceptance of the regime by its earlier economic successes and by the promise of an age of abundance, East Germans once more feel deprived of the fruits their own labor and have reacted sharply...
Vol. 44 • August 1961 • No. 30
