It is quite clear that two very different political systems were imposed, and developed, in the two parts of the defeated Third Reich. That Germany was divided in 1949, and that the conditions for division collapsed in 1989, both have to do with the Cold War between the superpowers. The sustaining of the division thus has much to do with the relationships between the USSR and the USA, and with the integration of East and West Germany into the respective Eastern and Western defensive alliances – the Warsaw Pact and NATO. Undoubtedly the ‘balance of terror’ in central Europe played an important role in maintaining the status quo of a divided continent. But this does not explain everything. For one thing, even the escalating balance of terror had implications for domestic stability, with the development of peace movements in both East and West protesting against the stationing of nuclear missiles on German soil, and becoming thorns in the flesh of established governmental politics on both sides of the Iron Curtain. For another, however crucial the Cold War is in explaining the origins and the eventual collapse of the division of Germany, it does not fully explain the dynamics of domestic politics in each of the two German states.
It is worth reiterating that both East and West Germany were remarkably successful, given their unlikely origins, in sustaining and reproducing their respective systems over forty years. It is now necessary to explore some of the reasons for this relative success before considering the origins and course of the East German revolution of 1989 and the collapse of the postwar system.
The argument to be developed below is as follows. Both Germanies, for rather different reasons and in rather different ways, were able to secure the support, the allegiance, or at least the acquiescence, of key elite groups, and avoid the development of powerful anti-system opposition of the sort that helped to bring about the collapse of the Weimar Republic. Both Germanies too – again in very different ways – managed for the most part to contain, isolate or defuse dissent, ensuring that it remained within certain manageable limits. When popular discontent was finally expressed on a massive scale in the GDR in the autumn of 1989, it was in a situation when the regime was already in crisis as a result of changes in external circumstances. Nevertheless, fundamental changes had in the meantime taken place with respect to the domestic political cultures of West and East Germany, which helped to determine the special outcome of that moment of transformation.
Many pre-1989 Western analyses of the East German political system assumed that a formal description of the different bodies which made up its state and governmental apparatus, along with a description of the Communist Party and its Marxist–Leninist ideology, provided the final answer to explaining the relative stability of the GDR over the previous forty years. The implicit assumption was that ultimately coercion, real or threatened, was the sole key to political stability in East German communism. At the same time, however, a number of Western scholars sought to understand the GDR more or less in its own terms, presenting a more nuanced view of the dictatorship despite immense difficulties in gaining access to material which would reveal much about the inner workings of this state. The conditions of research were of course radically altered by the fall of the Wall, which led to a spate of detailed empirical research since the opening of the East German archives in the early 1990s.
Following German unification in 1990, heated debates took place over interpretations of the GDR. On the one hand, a number of both estern and astern scholars took an increasingly hard-line view of the GDR, resurrecting the previously discredited notion of totalitarianism to describe a system of party domination seeking total control over the lives of citizens.1 On the other hand, historians adopting approaches primarily derived from social history and the history of everyday life sought to present a more complex picture which included space for the expression and protection of personal interests, the possibility of refusals, resistances and areas of both conformity and non-conformity.2 These debates were overlain by older animosities and differences in political opinion, and were further complicated by concurrent processes of juridical and political ‘coming to terms with the past’ in the new united Federal Republic of Germany.3 While these debates are by no means resolved, historians from a variety of perspectives are increasingly recognizing that purely to summarize the political structures of the GDR, with the implication that the rest of life was merely a matter of fear, repression and coercion, does not do full justice to the ways in which many East Germans actually experienced life in the GDR. It is increasingly clear that a large number of East Germans participated actively, in one capacity or another, in the practical workings of the state at the grass roots; and many more grumbled about some aspects, while agreeing with others, and learned over time to ‘play by the rules’. It may therefore be more sensible to think in terms of a ‘participatory dictatorship’ in which, despite the undoubted outer constraints, citizens had some leeway for seeking to influence domestic conditions and actively ‘make their own lives’.4 Whichever position one adopts in these controversies, however, it remains important to understand the basic contours of the political system, which provided the inescapable parameters of everyday life both literally and metaphorically.
The SED was a ‘mass’ as well as ‘cadre’ party: in addition to the party activists (‘cadres’) there was a much larger body of passive members. In 1981 the membership of the SED was 2,069,629 (along with 102,481 candidates). This meant that 17.38 per cent of those over eighteen belonged to the party; of the working population, the percentage was 21.9 per cent.5 There were periodic purges of party membership, with the recall of membership cards, and interviews with members, as a result of which many were forced or persuaded to leave the party. For the party activists, membership entailed considerable personal commitment; for the vast body of party members it was more likely to be a matter of convenience and a sign of general commitment to the GDR than a case of enthusiastic espousal of every aspect of party ideology and policy. From the late 1970s onwards there appeared to be a greater willingness among grassroots members to express differences from the official party line. The evidence of émigrés such as Professor Franz Loeser suggested the existence of relatively large numbers whose thinking was somewhat at odds with that of the old guard leadership.6 Clearly a change of generations was an important factor in this process. Those who had grown up – and suffered – under Hitler’s dictatorship were profoundly affected by certain formative experiences not shared by a younger generation, who might be impatient with aspects of the iron party discipline of the older members. From the mid-1980s onwards a further crucial factor in the internal variegation of political views was the impact of Gorbachev’s reform programme. Those who hoped for the introduction of a little glasnost and perestroika in East Germany were impatient with the resistance to reform of Honecker’s old guard. This developing differentiation was eventually to play an important role in determining the regime’s responses to the revolutionary crisis of autumn 1989.
The GDR was not in theory a one-party state. In addition to the communist SED, there were the four smaller parties: the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the National Democratic Party of Germany (NDPD), the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD) and the Democratic Farmers’ Party of Germany (DBD). The membership figures for these parties were much lower than for the SED: between the late 1970s and 1989 they hovered between somewhat below and somewhat above 100,000 members each, with some signs of increase during the 1980s, while the CDU remained the largest.7
These parties all had allotted numbers of seats in the People’s Chamber (Volkskammer, or Parliament), as did the so called ‘mass organizations’, which in fact had larger numbers of members than did the parties. The Confederation of Free German Trade Unions (FDGB) claimed no fewer than 8,806,754 members in 1980 – slightly more in fact than the numbers of the working population, which were 8,225,000 plus 492,000 apprentices.8 On these figures, more people belonged to the trade union organization than were actually members of the working population. The Free German Youth (FDJ) had 2,300,000 members in 1978 (and the ‘Ernst Thälmann’ Pioneer Organization for younger children had 1,507,211 members); the Democratic Women’s League of Germany (DFD) had 1,400,000 members in 1980; and the League of Culture (KB) had 226,593 members.9 Together, the SED, the four smaller parties (CDU, LDPD, DBD and NDPD) and the major ‘mass organizations’ (FDGB, FDJ, DFD and KB) formed the ‘Block’ in the ‘National Front’, which represented different sections of the population in the People’s Chamber. Elections did not determine the proportion of seats each party or organization would hold; these were pre-allotted. Instead, elections served as a means of mass mobilization, presenting candidates and issues to the public, and advertising policies which had already been decided upon elsewhere.
This did not mean that the parties, mass organizations and Parliament had no function in the GDR. Their functions were, however, rather different from those of their Western equivalent. From the point of view of the people, membership of a party and one or more organizations indicated a willingness to participate in the sociopolitical system (and the ‘building of socialism’), and might be essential for career advancement and promotion prospects. (It was notable that young people who wished to gain university places to study a subject such as medicine, for example, were under some pressure to conform in all sorts of ways, and to participate actively in the FDJ.) But membership might not be purely for careerist reasons. It was possible also to give vent to personal opinions – suitably phrased – and the converse of this represented a function as viewed from above: that of the tapping of public opinion. In a state which did not have general elections in the Western sense as a verdict on governmental performance, it was important to have avenues through which popular responses to policies could be gauged. Interactions between deputies and their constituents and party members could form one such channel, to be placed alongside the evidence from other channels (such as the use of increasingly sophisticated sociological techniques of investigation).
There were other functions too: policies could be widely advertised through the publicity surrounding meetings of Parliament, and through the different communications systems of the parties and mass organizations; and they could be translated into the appropriate subcultural ‘languages’ to appeal to the different sectional interests covered by each group. This is not to suggest that what was effectively official propaganda was simply swallowed uncritically when rephrased; many Christians in the GDR, for example, treated the CDU with a certain distance and suspicion as a party more closely linked with the SED than with either the church leaderships or the opinions of grassroots Christians. Nevertheless, a ‘conveyor belt’ or ‘transmission function’, however imperfect, did exist, and the parties and mass organizations could not simply be written off as merely a sham front providing a fig leaf for the workings of a totalitarian state. Nor should it be forgotten that mass organizations often also provided valuable and even enjoyable services and facilities for their members: the FDGB, for example, organized holidays and outings; leisure opportunities for young people were provided through the various youth organizations; and a wide range of sports, hobbies and social activities were offered by other mass organizations, ranging from the paramilitary Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik through to the more innocuous circles for allotment gardening, bee-keeping or cultivation of cacti.
The discussion so far has assumed the predominant role of the Socialist Unity Party (SED). This now needs further examination. In principle, there were two separate organizational hierarchies in the GDR: that of the state, with its various levels of power and decision-making; and that of the party, with its own hierarchy based on the principle of democratic centralism. Many Western observers have suggested that the state was merely the means for implementation of party decisions. In practice, relations between the state and the party during the development of the GDR were somewhat more complex, and it is not always entirely clear what the parameters, constraints and tensions in the relationship were. Formally, the role of the SED was embodied in the 1968 constitution of the GDR, which enshrined the ‘leading role’ of the working class under its Marxist–Leninist party. In Marxist–Leninist theory the proletariat under capitalism may be suffering from alienation and ‘false consciousness’. As a result, it may not recognize what are its own long-term interests, and hence it requires a ‘vanguard party’ to act in its true interests. Under real communism – the ‘last’ stage of history, when the ‘condition for the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all’ and universal human emancipation will have been achieved – the state (and the party) will no longer be necessary and will ‘wither away’, along with such relics of false consciousness of former ages such as religion. The GDR, however, considered itself to be in the transitional phase of ‘actually existing socialism’. This stage still needed the Marxist–Leninist party to steer and control the development of society, through the state, according to scientifically ascertained laws of history. So much for the theory. In practice, relations between party and state varied at different times during the history of the GDR. In the 1950s the party had to intervene frequently in order to ensure that party objectives were being pursued by the state; by the 1980s, despite the theoretical dominance of the party, the state was often setting the parameters of problems, defining the political agenda and suggesting limits to the range of possible solutions and policies which could realistically be pursued.10 However, the collapse of 1989 illustrates the ways in which top party leaders – notably Erich Honecker – were not always willing even to acknowledge the problems, let alone act on the proposals, brought to their attention by state advisers.11
There was of course considerable overlap in personnel between the party and state organizations, particularly at the highest levels. Since 1960 the First Secretary (General Secretary) of the SED was also usually the formal head of state by virtue of chairmanship of the Council of State (Staatsrat). (There was a brief period, from 1971 to 1976, when Honecker was leader of the SED but did not also chair the Council of State; until his death in 1973 Walter Ulbricht retained his position as chairman, and then Willi Stoph chaired the Council of State until 1976, when Honecker took on the chairmanship along with that of the National Defence Council, thus again uniting the most important party, state and military functions in one person.) A conscious policy was adopted of ensuring that leading party officials (such as the Central Committee Secretaries) were also members of the Council of State, so that they could officially represent the GDR, and not just the party, when travelling abroad. The 1984 Politburo included ten members (one of whom was a candidate member) who were also members of the Council of State.12 But overlaps in personnel cannot tell the whole story; there are additional questions concerning the interrelationships and tensions among technical specialists, dogmatists, pragmatists, humanists and other groups. These tensions were found both within the party, and in relations between party and state.
In the 1950s there was a general tendency in the West to dismiss the ‘zone’, as it was still dismissively called, as a simple instance of Soviet domination and hence of communist totalitarianism. This arose partly from the Cold War ideology, in which communism was portrayed as an evil equivalent to, or worse than, the recently defeated Nazism. Western political scientists also saw many similarities between one-party states with a single official ideology enforced with a back-up of terror. Whatever the bases of this analysis, its relevance to the realities of the situation in the GDR was questioned in the 1960s by P. C. Ludz. He argued that the efficient running of an advanced industrial society necessitated the rise of technical experts, forming what he called an ‘institutionalized counter-elite’ which provided a counterweight to the powers of the central party political clique. At the same time, Ludz discerned the development of a more pragmatic, career-oriented society, in which inner commitment was less important than outward conformity. According to Ludz, the GDR in the 1960s constituted an instance not of ‘totalitarianism’ but rather of what he termed ‘consultative authoritarianism’.13
Many scholars questioned Ludz’s rather strong thesis concerning the rise of a ‘counter-elite’ in the GDR. Baylis, for example, pointed out that those members of the technical intelligentsia who arrived in positions of political importance were also political conformists; and that the positions which they attained were in the main advisory rather than decisive or genuinely powerful. Political considerations retained their priority over technical or professional considerations. Furthermore, whatever the partial relevance of Ludz’s observations for the period of ‘scientific–technical revolution’ in the 1960s, the 1970s saw a clear reassertion of the predominance of party politicians over technical specialists.14 Scholars such as Dahrendorf and Krejci have, in contrast to Ludz, suggested that the GDR was characterized by having a ‘unitary elite’. Others, such as Thielbeer, even went so far as to suggest that the GDR continued to be a ‘totalitarian’ state, despite the relative disrepute into which that term had fallen.15 As we have seen, this approach regained ground in some circles in the 1990s.16
Nevertheless, most scholars would agree that it seems intrinsically unhelpful to characterize the political system of the GDR from 1949 to 1989 solely in terms of domination by a Communist Party with its associated ideology and power apparatus, thus by simple definition lumping all East European regimes together. A more differentiated exploration of the GDR reveals a number of ways in which it differed from its immediate neighbours in the East. These differences include not only differences in the structure of agriculture, the level of industrial development and overall economic productivity, but also in the constitution of and relations between different elite groups. While the Czech and Polish cases cannot be considered in detail here, a couple of comments may serve to indicate important differences between them and that of the GDR. From the late 1950s until the mid-1980s the SED appears to have maintained greater cohesion than the Czech and Polish communist parties, which had considerable reforming movements within their midst at different times. Neither the East German technical intelligentsia nor the cultural intelligentsia posed a serious threat to SED dominance; nor did they form alliances with each other, in contrast to the Czech reformers of the late 1960s (and in partial contrast to the Ludz thesis). And the East German Protestant church occupied a unique and somewhat ambiguous position: while it provided a forum for the discussion of dissenting and unorthodox views, at the same time church leaders – particularly in the early 1980s – frequently intervened to moderate more radical opposition to the regime. This space for the articulation and yet simultaneous incorporation of dissent at certain periods of the GDR’s history must in some way be included in any adequate conceptualization of East German political dynamics; and it stands in stark contrast to the very different church–state relations in Poland (and, in different ways, in Czechoslovakia). Such considerations must lead one away from both notions of ‘totalitarianism’ and ‘consultative authoritarianism’ towards a more complex model of the development of the East German political system. Emphasis must be given to a system which can be defined as relative party domination over a variety of co-opted subordinate elites. The party was also to some extent constrained in its actions by state structures, which acted both as instruments for and limits on party pursuit of political goals. Furthermore, while there was a single official ideology, Marxism–Leninism, alternative belief systems, such as Christianity, were not always in themselves actively opposed. Outward conformity was at times more important than inner commitment. When this tolerance was combined periodically with concessions to consumerism, the East German system achieved, for a time at least, a degree of stability which was based on more than solely the use or threat of force.
Perhaps the best approach is to abandon the search for a single, all-encompassing concept to summarize the East German political system throughout the period. Coercion – most often in the shape of the dreaded State Security Police, or Stasi – was more evident in the 1950s and again in the later 1980s than during the intervening quarter century or so. The party’s degree of dominance varied, as did the insistence (or otherwise) on commitment to a single ideology. A number of distinct factors, including the international situation and the performance of the economy, together help to explain the degree of stability or instability of the East German regime at any particular time, as we shall see when considering its final collapse.
Unlike the GDR, West Germany did not introduce any fundamentally new constitutions. The constitution did however undergo a number of subtle shifts and alterations, through a series of amendments relating to particular issues. Appeals on contentious issues could be made to the constitutional court at Karlsruhe, the final arbiter on constitutional matters. Between 1949 and 1983 there were thirty-four laws to change the constitution: forty-seven articles were changed and seventy-three new articles were added. For example, in 1956 the Wehrverfassung introduced military service in West Germany. In 1968 the Emergency Laws (Notstandsgesetzgebung) introduced provisions for a state of emergency. In the event of an emergency, powers were to be devolved to an emergency Parliament, or to a ‘joint committee’ consisting of twenty-three representatives from the Bundestag and eleven from the Bundesrat. In 1967 and 1969 measures for joint financing, co-operation and equalization of conditions among Länder introduced a new, ‘third’ level of co-operation between the federal centre and the local states, effectively altering the nature of West German federalism. In the 1970s, alongside the original constitution, it has been argued that a ‘shadow constitution’ (Nebenverfassung) was developed, including increased surveillance of the population, increased police powers and a separation of ‘state’ and ‘constitution’. It has been suggested by radical critics that this ‘shadow constitution’ stands in some contradiction to certain tenets of the Basic Law, as for example in the conflict between the freedom of belief and political opinion enshrined in the latter and the actual restrictions on political expression implied by such measures as the 1972 Decree Concerning Radicals.17
West Germany’s party system developed over time from a potentially multi-party configuration with shifting coalition possibilities into one where the two main parties – the CDU/CSU and the SPD – competed for a majority of the popular vote but usually had to enter into coalition with a smaller party. The pivotal role in determining which of these larger parties formed the government was usually played by the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), although there were others in the early years, and in the 1980s – particularly at Land level – the rise of the Greens lent variety to possible coalitions. In contrast to the party tradition of Imperial and Weimar Germany, in which parties were frequently single-issue interest groups, parties in the Federal Republic developed at least the claim to be catch-all ‘people’s parties’ (Volksparteien). Nevertheless, to some extent they retained and developed distinctive programmes and social profiles of members and voters, with changes over time. More Catholics voted for, or were members of, the CDU/CSU than the SPD; and although the membership of the SPD was predominantly middle class, it still received a larger working-class vote than did the CDU/CSU. Business generally made financial contributions to the CDU/CSU rather than the SPD; and CDU/CSU governments tended to be more favourable to business interests than SPD ones. The FDP was something of a chameleon party, at first rather right wing, then going through a liberal phase (from the late 1960s), with the right wing gaining ascendance once again in the 1980s. It also provided key elements of stability, symbolized, for example, by the long service of Hans-Dietrich Genscher as Foreign Minister.
Formally, the Federal Republic appeared to be an instance of ‘pluralist’ Western democracy, in which citizens were free to attempt to influence the democratic process. In practice, while all citizens of course had the vote and were free to form pressure groups, some interest groups were, to paraphrase George Orwell, more equal than others. Under the West German political system, processes of negotiation among different interest groups were formalized, with considerable behind-the-scenes manoeuvring before policies were formulated and placed publicly on the political agenda. Such inter-elite negotiations were also important in amendments to legislation. The three predominant sets of economic interest group exerting pressures on government were: the employers and business interests; labour, employees, and unions; and farming interests. These have indeed been termed ‘latent political elites’ by virtue of their close links with policy formation.
The local associations of industrialists and employers were federated into three main national associations: the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Deutscher Industrie- und Handels-Tag, DIHT); the Federal League of German Employers (Bundesvereinigung der deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände, BDA); and the League of German Industry (Bundesverband der deutschen Industrie, BDI). The last of these was politically the most active and influential. In Edinger’s summary: ‘Formally and informally, directly and indirectly, individually and collectively, the leaders of big-business enterprises and organizations undoubtedly exert a great deal of influence over public policy, perhaps more than any other elite in West Germany. Moreover, they form a politically more cohesive group than their counterparts in other Western democracies.… But that does not mean that they constitute a dominant power elite or homogeneous ruling class’.18
Labour in the Federal Republic benefited, in Edinger’s view, from the unprecedented ‘strategic role of the labour elite’.19 The main organization representing trade unions at national level was the DGB, which, with 7.8 million members in 1983, represented 85 per cent of all trade unionists, members of the seventeen large unions in the Federal Republic. The German Employees Union (Deutsche Angestelltengewerkschaft, DAG) represented certain white-collar employees, and the German Federation of Civil Servants (Deutscher Beamtenbund, DBB) was the civil servants’ organization. The latter occupied a rather unique position in the West German labour force, as its members were employees of the state without the right to strike, and with certain implied restraints on free expression of political opinion. Representatives of employers and labour conducted inter-elite negotiations with the government in an effort to resolve differences and disputes. On the whole, representatives of business interests proved more powerful in these talks than those of labour, with some notable exceptions such as in the extension of codetermination laws and other measures favourable to labour which occurred in the early years of the Schmidt government. Farmers still represented an important economic interest group, but, with the decline in the agricultural sector of the economy over the decades, a diminishing one in numerical terms.
There were also many independent pressure groups, including, for example, the citizens’ initiative groups which campaigned on such matters as housing, environmental pollution, the building of nuclear power stations or the disposal of nuclear waste. Some of these had a direct impact on West German politics by feeding into the formation of the Green Party. But on the whole their impact was more indirect, in that the major parties were forced to incorporate or respond to environmentalist and other such concerns in their efforts to gain or retain the support of key marginal voters.
The nature of the West German political system has been subject to many and varied interpretations. These range from viewing the Federal Republic as a ‘model’ democratic state, whose ‘efficient secret’ must be ferreted out, to assorted neo-Marxist critiques both of West Germany in particular and capitalist states in general.20 The former sort of approach generally concentrates on West Germany’s orderly succession of governments, lack of serious political crises and smoothly functioning governmental system; this success is contrasted with the failures of the Weimar Republic in the past, or the post-fascist history of Italy in the present. The focus is generally rather narrowly on features of the political system as explanatory of political stability. The latter sorts of critical approach either focus on sociological analyses of power structures and the personnel of government, or develop more all-embracing structural analyses of the modes of functioning of advanced capitalist societies. Critics of the supposed pluralism of Western democratic capitalist states, for example, emphasize the disproportionate power of certain elites, the relative weight and influence of certain organizations and interest groups, and the importance of personal ties among different parts of the establishment, all tending to diminish the real powers of political participation of the average citizen, not to mention the poor and disadvantaged members of an unequal society. ‘Structural’ critiques of Western capitalist democracies focus less on personnel, and more on the pressures and constraints of the system as such. According to one somewhat extreme interpretation, for example, it is impossible for socialist parties in capitalist states to do anything other than strengthen capitalism: for such parties are committed to high public expenditure for welfare, and must therefore ensure the profitability of capitalism in order to raise sufficient taxes for state expenditure. Thus, there is in effect little real choice between conservative and professedly socialist parties, since both must operate in a manner which allows capitalism to flourish.21
While evaluative elements clearly enter into these analyses, the moral–political evaluation does not always depend directly on the empirical details of the academic analysis. Some political scientists will applaud what others deplore. Edinger, for example, considers the influence of elite interest groups on West German policy formation to be beneficial, ironing out problems in legislation as it concerns interested parties prior to the formal parliamentary debates. Others consider the inequalities of influence to be more reprehensible in a system which claims to be democratic. Similarly, not everyone shared left-wingers’ despair at the bleak prospects for socialist parties in many capitalist states in the 1980s; and the collapse of communism in 1989–90 has made many of these critiques appear not only dated but well-nigh irrelevant. While analysis and evaluation are in principle separable – and one may have to accept the validity of an interpretation without approving of it – in practice they have been very hard to keep distinct. The problem of moral judgements has bedevilled academic attempts at comparing the two Germanies, as is evidenced in the extensive debates about ‘yardsticks for comparison’ carried out among Germans interested in Systemvergleich (comparison of systems).22 Whatever one’s views on the relative scientific and political merits of the different analyses of the West German system, some points are clear. To remain at the level of formal analysis of the West German political system is to fail to understand adequately either how it really works, or why it became established as a system capable of gradual transformation and attracting at least passive assent on the part of a majority of its citizens. Moreover, that there are critiques of the shortcomings of West German democracy paradoxically substantiates the extent of that democracy’s success: it is possible for articulate citizens to analyse, debate and argue in the interests of improving the state and society in which they live. That there are diverse, often contradictory, interpretations of what constitutes ‘improvement’, is of course one of the problems of democracy: the winners of free elections may be those with whom one disagrees.
The state, according to the German sociologist Max Weber, can best be defined in terms of its monopoly over the legitimate use of force in a given territory. Force can of course be directed both outwards – to defend the territory against foreign aggressors – and inwards – to defend the established order against threats to its stability from within. In the period before 1945 Germany had a considerable, and ambiguous, tradition of militarism; and the demilitarization of Germany was one of the few fundamental aims on which all four of the postwar occupying powers were agreed. Yet a mere decade after the collapse of Hitler’s Reich, both East and West Germany regained an army – although in new and different forms. Germans have traditionally been held to be law-abiding, obedient subjects of a powerful state. Following (and even before) the foundation of the two Germanies, the police and internal security forces were built up in different ways, to attempt to ensure the compliance of the population. Definitions and treatment of socially unacceptable behaviour varied, with implications for assessments of the character and stability of each regime.
In East Germany, the ‘people’s police in barracks’ (Kasernierte Volkspolizei, or KVP) was set up in 1946. By 1950 this had a strength of 50,000 men as well as tanks and artillery. In 1952 it was renamed the ‘national armed forces’. In January 1956 the National People’s Army (Nationale Volksarmee, NVA) was formally established, and became an integral part of the Warsaw Treaty Organization forces. It consisted of 100,000 men and additional numbers of security and border guards. Conscription was introduced in 1962. Estimates suggest that in the mid-1980s there were perhaps 116,000 men in the NVA, and 70–75,000 in border, security, transport and other special formations. Additionally, about 350,000 men were involved in groups linked to their factory workplace, so-called Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse. Of these men serving in the army, 60 per cent were conscripts, and there was a military service of 18 months. From 1982 there was a provision that women might be called up in emergencies. About 8 per cent of military-age males were under arms, and between 4 per cent and 6 per cent of GNP was spent on defence.23
In theory, the NVA was a nationalist army defending the socialist state of the German nation against the potential aggression of its class enemies. Great efforts were directed towards attempting to inculcate a ‘friend/foe’ mentality in young East Germans, so that they would perceive their West German friends and relatives as devilish representatives of capitalist imperialism, and thus be prepared to bear arms against them. This attempted militarization of values among East German youth began in Kindergarten, where toddlers played with guns and tanks. It extended through the period of formal schooling – compulsory military education was introduced as a secondary school subject in 1978 – and permeated youth and sporting organizations. The ‘Society for Sport and Technology’ (Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik, GST) was an organization offering paramilitary training alongside superior sporting facilities and the use of exclusive campsites of better quality than those available to the general public. The military forces also constituted a highly visible presence in the GDR, with tanks lurking in the fir trees behind fences along the edge of motorways, or formations of Warsaw Pact forces lumbering along on exercises in border areas.
This military pervasion of life in the GDR led to the question of whether East German society was becoming’ militarized’.24 Leaving aside a somewhat academic debate on terminology, certain observations can be made. In the first place, attempted indoctrination did not appear to be entirely successful. Considerable numbers of GDR youth objected to military service and opted to undertake an alternative form of service as ‘construction soldiers’ (Bausoldaten), working on projects which did not require the bearing of arms. Given the pressures for conformity in the GDR, the sizeable minority who were prepared openly to make their opinions known in this way probably represented the tip of a larger iceberg of youth who were not deeply convinced by a militaristic view of the world. Secondly, at the highest levels of the state the military could not be said to have been dominant over the party either. The SED retained control of military policy, and although there was of course strong military representation in the Politburo, it was a case of symbiosis rather than rivalry between the party and the military in the GDR. The successor to Army General Heinz Hoffmann, who died in December 1985, was Heinz Kessler, who was an equally committed communist loyal to the SED line. There were debates and areas of friction – for example, over the question of whether there could be a ‘just’ nuclear war – but essentially the party retained control over the East German military establishment.
Curiously, the East German Army retained the old Prussian military goose step until December 1989. This looked extraordinary when performed in the seat of Prussian militarism, the centre of old Berlin, under the banner of the new Marxist–Leninist state. The West German Army had a more difficult relationship with its ambiguous heritage. It was initially established, against considerable internal opposition, in legislation amending the Basic Law (which did not at first permit an army) in the period from 1954 to 1956. While border protection forces had existed earlier, and the first soldiers were given their formal commissions in 1955, the officially celebrated birthday of the West German Army was 20 January 1956. In July 1956 conscription was introduced. The Basic Law provisions for the Army included the following: that it was to have a purely defensive role; that it was to be subordinated to the Minister of Defence in peacetime, and to the Chancellor in times of crisis; that Parliament was to determine defence expenditure in the budget; and that the Army was ultimately under parliamentary control. There were also certain provisions concerning the status of soldiers, which illustrate the lessons West Germany was attempting to learn from its past. West German soldiers were held to be ‘citizens in uniform’, with certain citizens’ rights: the right to vote, the right to be members of political parties, and hence the right to contribute to the formation of the political will of the people.25 They were to have, moreover, the right not to obey orders if obeying would mean committing a criminal act – a right obviously directly related to the defence of many that they were only obeying orders from above in the Third Reich. The notion of the soldier as simply a democratic citizen who happened to be wearing a uniform in defence of his country was also associated with an intended internal democratization of the traditionally highly authoritarian power structures of the Army. A concept of Innere Führung, with a Defence Commissioner to investigate and arbitrate complaints, was developed. There were sharp disagreements and controversies over these democratizing tendencies in the 1960s, with traditionalists suggesting that they were simply an unimportant ‘mask’ to placate the SPD. Helmut Schmidt as Minister of Defence put such traditionalist authoritarians firmly in their place by insisting that democratization was a reality, not a mask, and that any individual holding views to the contrary could not hold a position of military leadership in the Federal Republic.26 In the 1970s Schmidt introduced certain Army reforms to ensure the reality of civilian political control of the military in West Germany.
As in the East, there was sizeable opposition among young West Germans to military norms and values. There were relatively large numbers of conscientious objectors who might undertake alternative forms of service (which lasted longer than military service); there were also considerable numbers who left to live in West Berlin in order to avoid military service altogether. Because of the more tolerant political system, peace movements were large and relatively well-organized in the FRG, and there was considerable opposition to, for example, the stationing of nuclear missiles. As in the East, there was a visible military presence in West Germany. American and British forces had their barracks, troop manoeuvres could be seen at intervals (with twig-bedecked ‘camouflaged’ soldiers and tanks flattening farmers’ crops, for which the latter received generous compensation), and jets flew noisily overhead on summer afternoons. There were large areas of territory closed off to the public (Sperrgebiete). It was difficult to forget, even in this affluent, frequently picturesque tourist country of rolling hills, deep pine forests, medieval walled towns and ruined castles, that one was also in the front line of divided Europe in a period of technologically advanced warfare and superpower tension.
Both Germanies also had well-developed internal police forces although that of West Germany paled in comparison with the system in the East. In addition to the ‘People’s Police’ (Volkspolizei) in East Germany, there was the now notorious State Security Police (Staatssicherheitspolizei, commonly known as the Stasi) which, after certain bureaucratic rearrangements in the early 1950s, was eventually placed under the control of its own Ministry for State Security, run from 1957 to 1989 by the generally hated Erich Mielke. The extent not only of Stasi surveillance, but also active intervention in and disruption of people’s lives, was the focus of much media and scholarly attention after the fall of the Wall. There were almost daily revelations in the early 1990s about who had been an unofficial informer for the Stasi (inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, or ‘IM’), the mere suspicion of which often served to ruin an individual’s friendships, reputation or career. It rapidly became clear that the monstrous Stasi apparatus had continued to mushroom not only in response to internal unrest (such as after the débâcle of 1953) but also, paradoxically, even more so as the GDR appeared to become more stable and secure in the course of the 1970s and 1980s. With an ever larger staff for an increasingly complex system of specialist departments and divisions, and commanding major resources, the Stasi was responsible for fulfilling not only the classic functions abroad of an official secret service agency, but also for attempting to spy on, intervene, channel, and ultimately, if deemed necessary, destroy internal dissident individuals and groups. The full extent of its operations is only gradually becoming clear with the opening of the archives.27 For a while it appeared as if the oppressive, all-pervading spying of the 1950s had given way to a somewhat more open atmosphere in Honecker’s Germany, and that the time of raids in the night and long interrogations had more or less passed. However, in the last couple of years of the Honecker regime the Stasi resumed a more visibly interventionist role in attempting to clamp down on expressions of dissent. The oppressive effects of the constant threat of Stasi surveillance, intervention and potential ruining of people’s lives can scarcely be over-stated. It led to perpetual insecurity in personal relationships, and was to leave a difficult legacy for post-unification Germany.
East Germany also had a full complement of ‘regular’ police for policing against crime, regulating traffic, staffing certain bureaucracies, and of course controlling the frontiers. There was a considerable police presence, with frequent occasions for contact with the police; for example, visitors had to register with the police in each location they visited (although Interhotels might do this for them), they were frequently stopped and asked to show visas and identification papers, and might be fined on the spot for such minor offences as infringement of parking regulations.
West Germany too had a range of police forces, although nothing to compare with the scale and extent of internal surveillance and intervention carried out by the Stasi in the East. Nevertheless, West Germans – given the pre-1945 experience – were constantly torn between fear of anti-democratic activities which necessitated heightened police vigilance, and fear of the possible consequences of precisely that enhanced vigilance. This tension became particularly apparent in the 1970s. The police in West Germany were well-equipped and carried arms. Following the terrorist waves of the 1970s the police made ample use of computers and modern surveillance apparatus to collate material on individuals which they were able to consult with speed and efficiency at any time. In 1972 a Decree Concerning Radicals (Radikalenerlass) essentially provided that individuals whose attitudes, activities or organizational affiliations were deemed to be hostile to the free-democratic aims of the constitution gave grounds for suspicion. Such individuals should not be appointed to, or continue in employment in, civil service jobs, a very broadly defined category in West Germany including such occupations as schoolteacher, train-driver and post-man, as well as state bureaucrat in the narrow British definition. This meant that many people seeking or holding jobs in such areas felt restricted in their freedom of expression and association, in contradiction to the constitutional guarantee of these rights. For if they participated in a demonstration, film of this would undoubtedly be available to the police, their names would be logged in police computers, and future employment prospects would be threatened. In some respects, then, the ‘vigilant defence of democracy’ in the Federal Republic served actually to limit and restrict the extent of that democracy. Although political repression in West Germany can in no sense be viewed as comparable to the extent of surveillance and intervention in East Germany, there were still grounds for concern among human rights activists about the restrictions on individual freedom of expression in the democratic West.
Having briefly surveyed at least the formal outlines of the two German states, we must now turn in more detail to the issue of domestic challenges to those states. The next chapter will consider the question of dissent and opposition in the period up to 1989.