THE DIVERGENCE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST GERMANY IN THE 1950s

1. THE DIVERGENCE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST GERMANY IN THE 1950s 1951: Walter Ulbricht announced a Five-Year Plan to boost industrial production and collectivize agriculture in the GDR. June 17, 1953: Mass uprising in East Berlin; Soviets decide they must retain Ulbricht to avoid appearing weak. August 1961: After 160,000 East Germans flee in 6 months, Ulbricht builds the Berlin Wall. 1971: Ulbricht balks at the new policy of détente, is replaced by Erich Honecker. 1973: German-German “Basic Treaty” takes effect.

2. From 1948 to 1961 Berlin was the only gap in the Iron Curtain

3. Festivities at a rally of the “Democratic Sports Movement”(May 1952): The GDR sought international prestige through athletic excellence

4. Weimar’s greatest playwright, Bertolt Brecht, settled in the GDR; here is the poster of the Berliner Ensemble production in 1951 of his pro-Bolshevik play, The Mother (1931/32)

5. “Our rebuilding goes so fast,The lies against us cannot last.” “The resorts belong to the workers” (1954)

6. But Walter Ulbricht staked his prestige above all on economic growth."Heavy Industry: The Foundation of Independence and Prosperity" (German Democratic Republic, 1952)

7. The “superworker” Wolf Hennecke fills out his (exaggerated) production record as a hewer of coal, which then set the “norm” for other coal miners who hoped to achieve a Black Sea vacation or other privileges

8. “Palaces and Cottages”(DEFA, 1957):2-part film on the building of a socialist society in a farm village in Mecklenburg.By 1960 collective farms accounted for 80% of East German agricultural production.

9. By August 1961, about 2.5 million East Germans had fled to the West, 160,000 of them in the last six months

10. West Berliners gather at the Wall, 13 August 1962

11. The Brandenburg Gate with guard tower (1974):At least 136 people were killed attempting to cross the Wall

12. Potsdamer Platz, the Times Square of old Berlin, photographed by WLP in 1982

13. University students march to demand the right to revive their duelling fraternities, 1950

14. The Influence of Hollywood on West German youth….

15. Concern over juvenile delinquency spread quickly(fictional gang members on the set of “The Punks,” 1956)

16. The German government eagerly promoted travel to the USA, but American influence was sometimes subversive (Bill Haley in concert in West Berlin, 1958)

17. The “Anti-Baby Pill” (1961)

18. The emergence of rock culture (1965)

19. Fans kiss the guitar of Jimi Hendrix at the “Star Club” of Hamburg during a performance on March 17, 1967

20. The new Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, 1971

21. Italian Guest Workers arrive in Wolfsburg, 1962:The FRG signed labor recruitment agreements with Italy in 1955, Greece 1960, Turkey 1961, Portugal 1964, & Yugoslavia in 1968

22. “Foreign Worker – Guest Worker – Colleague?”Conference organized by the government & employers, 1966

23. Hostel for Turkish Guest Workers and special school for Turkish children, Frankfurt, 1969

24. FOREIGNERS LIVING IN WEST GERMANY (thousands)

25. Fundamentalist Moslem School in Gelsenkirchen, 1982:Some Turks came to Germany to flee secularism

26. Turkish shops in Berlin-Kreuzberg, 1983

27. Willy Brandt welcomes Leonid Brezhnev & Andrei Gromyko to Bonn in 1973

28. Erich Honecker,son of a Saarland coal miner,victim of Nazi persecution,East German dictator from 1971 to 1989

29. THE CRISIS YEAR OF 1972 • Willy Brandt won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971, but his peace treaty with Poland proved highly controversial. • On April 27, 1972, the CDU failed by just 2 votes to topple him with the first no-confidence motion introduced under the FRG. • In October 1972 Brandt engineered early elections and won a dramatic victory with 45.9% of the vote, the SPD’s best result ever; the FDP rose from 5.8 to 8.4%; the SPD won 75% of the vote among those aged 18-21. • Opinion polls showed that 61% of West German voters in 1972 accepted the Oder-Neisse Line as the legitimate border with Poland, vs. only 8% in 1951.

30. Nobody had ever seen such enthusiasm at SPD rallies….

31. Willy Brandt & Helmut Schmidt in 1973

32. Brandt was forced to resign abruptly in May 1974, when it became known that his close aide Günter Guillaume was an East German spy

33. Erich Honecker confers with Helmut Schmidt at Helsinki, 1975

34. “The Better Man Must Remain Chancellor:Helmut Schmidt.Therefore SPD.”(1976)

35. Schmidt’s biggest problem was the unemployment caused by the “oil shocks” of 1973 and 1979

36. THE GROWTH IN PUBLIC DEBT FOR THE FRG The average annual rate of economic growth declined from 7.8% in the 1950s, to 4.8% in the 1960s, and 1.6% in the years 1979-85.

37. GERMANY’S FORMULA FOR ECONOMIC SUCCESS(according to Kettenacker) • Germans learned “that export industries depended on the maintenance of peace and international cooperation” • Extraordinarily high rates of savings and domestic investment (p. 93) • Vocational training by employers, working with the schools (94-5) • Co-determination makes workers feel that they have a stake in the success of their firms • The Bundesbank insisted on tight credit • Businesses promote technical experts to top management and plan for the long term