The first post-war years in Germany were nicknamed “zero”. As the “father” of the German miracle, Ludwig Erhard, later wrote: “That was the time when we in Germany were engaged in calculations, according to which there was one plate per capita every five years, a pair of shoes every twelve years, fifty years - one suit each.”
The first step towards Germany's exit from this crisis was the well-known “Marshall Plan”.
In addition to preparing the ground for subsequent cold war, he was faced with clear economic tasks. Western Europe has always been the most important market for American capitalism. Even during the Great Depression, the United States was able to get out of the crisis by conquering the European sales market.
The “mechanism” is simple - the greater the demand in Europe, the greater the supply from the United States, the more jobs there, the higher the purchasing power of American citizens.
In the post-war period, Europe needed American goods more than ever. There was only one problem - there was nothing to buy them with, national currencies were depreciating. Therefore, in 1947, the United States found itself at a crossroads - either to abandon promising markets and slow down the growth of its own economy, or to provide material support to post-war Europe and gain not only a “regular buyer and client,” but also an ally. The USA bet on the latter and were right.
In accordance with the Marshall Plan, Germany was provided with a total of $3.12 billion in loans, equipment and technology over 4 years. And although the “plan” was not the main active force in the post-war reconstruction of Germany, it later made it possible to realize what would be called the “German miracle”. Within a few years, production of both agricultural and industrial products will exceed pre-war levels.
"Prosperity for all"
The main creator of the “new Germany” was not the American Secretary of State, but the first Minister of Economics of the Federal Republic of Germany, later Federal Chancellor - Ludwig Erhard. Erhard's main concept was contained in the postulate that the economy is not a soulless mechanism, it rests on living people with their desires, aspirations and needs.
Thus, free enterprise was to be the foundation for Germany's economic revival. Erhard wrote: “I see an ideal situation where an ordinary person can say: I have enough strength to stand up for myself, I want to be responsible for my own destiny. You, state, do not worry about my affairs, but give me so much freedom and leave me so much from the result of my work that I can myself and at my own discretion provide for the existence of myself and my family.”
In Erhard’s policy, the state was assigned the role of a “night guard” who “protected” entrepreneurial activity from monopoly, external competition, high taxes and other factors that stood in the way of the liberal market.
The introduction of a free market economy in post-war Germany was not simple solution. It was exclusively Erhard’s initiative, an “anti-law” that contradicted the policies of the occupation authorities and nullified all previous attempts to pull Germany out of the crisis through a planned economy and state regulation.
And it worked. Some time later, two Frenchmen Jacques Rueff and Andre Pietre, who were in Germany at that time, wrote: “Only eyewitnesses can tell about the immediate effect that the currency reform had on the filling of warehouses and the wealth of storefronts. From day to day, stores began to be filled with goods and factories began to resume work. The day before, hopelessness was written on the faces of the Germans, the next day the whole nation looked to the future with hope.”
New brand
But free enterprise needed one more thing. important condition- currency stability. In the post-war period, the Reichsmark was valued no more than the “Kerenki” once was in the RSFSR.
On June 21, 1948, it was held currency reform, aimed at confiscating worthless money and creating hard currency. This is how the Deutschmark appeared, which later became famous as one of the most stable currencies of the 20th century.
The monetary reform was prepared in the strictest secrecy. Firstly, in order not to provoke intervention by the USSR, and secondly, in order to avoid a panicky disposal of the old Reichsmarks.
But on the eve of the reform, rumors still leaked to the masses, causing real “shopping hysteria” - the Germans tried to buy everything that money could still buy. As a result, prices on the black market have skyrocketed.
The exchange rate of the old currency for the new was purely confiscatory in nature. Firstly, for 10 old marks they gave one new one, with the same paying ability. Secondly, every adult could exchange only 400 Reichsmarks for 40 Deutschmarks at a time on June 21, and then another 200 Reichsmarks for a new 20 within a few days. Upon expiration, all remaining Reichsmarks were either partially retained in banks or devalued.
Through such tough measures, Erhard managed to ensure a stable exchange rate for the new currency, as well as achieve an even distribution of funds between different segments of the population, while before that most of the country's currency was concentrated in the hands of a small but very rich group of people. Now a broad and stable middle class was emerging.
Literally a few days after the monetary reform, prices were “set free.” From now on, pricing policy was based on the principle of liberalization, with the only caveat that the state retained the right to partial control over them. So he compiled a list of “appropriate prices” for some consumer products, and also adopted a ban on arbitrary price increases in order to avoid the greed of entrepreneurs.
It was followed by antitrust decrees, according to which the market share of one company could not exceed 33%, two or three - 50%, and four or five - no more than 65%.
Were introduced tax benefits, which discouraged companies from “shadow business”. In general, numbers speak louder than words. By 1950, Germany had reached the pre-war level of production, and by 1962 it exceeded it three times.
Once, after the restoration of the German economy and its entry into the first positions in the world market, Erhard was asked what the key to successful economic development was. To this he replied: “the resourcefulness of entrepreneurs, the discipline and hard work of workers and the skillful policies of the government.”
After the war, Germany lay in ruins. Industry was destroyed, food was issued on ration cards. But in 1948 a “miracle” happened. Factories began to open, goods appeared on the shelves, and the German mark became the most desirable currency in the world.
Let's find out how, in just a few years, Germany has once again become one of the leading powers in the world.
Marshall Plan
The first post-war years in Germany were nicknamed “zero”. As the “father” of the German miracle, Ludwig Erhard, later wrote: “That was the time when we in Germany were making calculations, according to which there was one plate per capita every five years, a pair of shoes every twelve years, every fifty years - one suit at a time.”
The first step towards Germany's exit from this crisis was the well-known “Marshall Plan”.
In addition to preparing the ground for the subsequent Cold War, he had clear economic objectives. Western Europe has always been the most important market for American capitalism. Even during the Great Depression, the United States was able to get out of the crisis by conquering the European sales market.
The “mechanism” is simple - the greater the demand in Europe, the greater the supply from the United States, the more jobs there, the higher the purchasing power of American citizens.
In the post-war period, Europe needed American goods more than ever. There was only one problem: there was nothing to buy them with, national currencies were depreciating. Therefore, in 1947, the United States found itself at a crossroads - either to abandon promising markets and slow down the growth of its own economy, or to provide material support to post-war Europe and gain not only a “regular buyer and client,” but also an ally. The USA bet on the latter and were right.
In accordance with the Marshall Plan, Germany was provided with a total of $3.12 billion in loans, equipment and technology over 4 years. And although the “plan” was not the main active force in the post-war reconstruction of Germany, it later made it possible to realize what would be called the “German miracle”. Within a few years, production of both agricultural and industrial products will exceed pre-war levels.
"Prosperity for all"
The main creator of the “new Germany” was not the American Secretary of State, but the first Minister of Economics of the Federal Republic of Germany, later Federal Chancellor, Ludwig Erhard. Erhard’s main concept was contained in the postulate that the economy is not a soulless mechanism, it rests on living people with their desires, aspirations and needs.
Thus, free enterprise was to be the foundation for Germany's economic revival. Erhard wrote: “I see an ideal situation where an ordinary person can say: I have enough strength to stand up for myself, I want to be responsible for my own destiny. You, state, do not worry about my affairs, but give me so much freedom and leave me so much from the result of my work that I can myself and at my own discretion provide for the existence of myself and my family.”
In Erhard’s policy, the state was assigned the role of a “night guard” who “protected” business activity from monopoly, external competition, high taxes and other factors that stood in the way of the liberal market.
The introduction of a free market economy in post-war Germany was not an easy decision. It was exclusively Erhard’s initiative, an “anti-law” that contradicted the policies of the occupation authorities and nullified all previous attempts to pull Germany out of the crisis through a planned economy and state regulation.
And it worked. Some time later, two Frenchmen Jacques Rueff and Andre Pietre, who were in Germany at that time, wrote: “Only eyewitnesses can tell about the immediate effect that the currency reform had on the filling of warehouses and the wealth of storefronts. From day to day, stores began to be filled with goods and factories began to resume work. The day before, hopelessness was written on the faces of the Germans, the next day the whole nation looked to the future with hope.”
New brand
But for free enterprise another important condition was necessary - currency stability. In the post-war period, the Reichsmark was valued no more than the “Kerenki” once was in the RSFSR.
On June 21, 1948, a monetary reform was carried out aimed at confiscating worthless money and creating a hard currency. This is how the Deutschmark appeared, which later became famous as one of the most stable currencies of the 20th century.
The monetary reform was prepared in the strictest secrecy. Firstly, in order not to provoke intervention by the USSR, and secondly, in order to avoid a panicky disposal of the old Reichsmarks.
But on the eve of the reform, rumors still leaked to the masses, causing real “shopping hysteria” - the Germans tried to buy everything that money could still buy. As a result, prices on the black market have skyrocketed.
The exchange rate of the old currency for the new was purely confiscatory in nature. Firstly, for 10 old marks they gave one new one, with the same paying ability. Secondly, every adult could exchange only 400 Reichsmarks for 40 Deutschmarks at a time on June 21, and then another 200 Reichsmarks for a new 20 within a few days. Upon expiration, all remaining Reichsmarks were either partially retained in banks or devalued.
Through such tough measures, Erhard managed to ensure a stable exchange rate for the new currency, as well as achieve an even distribution of funds between different segments of the population, while before that most of the country's currency was concentrated in the hands of a small but very rich group of people. Now a broad and stable middle class was emerging.
In the 50s, the German mark became one of the most reliable currencies in the world, in which residents of many countries kept their savings. Even when DM devalued in 1977 to almost half its value in the 1950s, its purchasing power remained one of the best in the world.
Freedom to prices!
Literally a few days after the monetary reform, prices were “set free.” From now on, pricing policy was based on the principle of liberalization, with the only caveat that the state retained the right to partial control over them. So he compiled a list of “appropriate prices” for some consumer products, and also adopted a ban on arbitrary price increases in order to avoid the greed of entrepreneurs.
It was followed by antitrust decrees, according to which the market share of one company could not exceed 33%, two or three - 50%, and four or five - no more than 65%.
Tax breaks were introduced, which discouraged companies from “shadow business.” In general, numbers speak louder than words. By 1950, Germany had reached the pre-war level of production, and by 1962 it exceeded it three times.
Once, after the restoration of the German economy and its entry into the first positions in the world market, Erhard was asked what the key to successful economic development was. To this he replied: “the resourcefulness of entrepreneurs, the discipline and hard work of workers and the skillful policies of the government.”
Germany surrendered on May 8th, 1945. The Great Patriotic War ended. The history of post-war Germany is a tale of unrest, civil strife and rebirth. History of the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany.
The post-war situation led to the division of Germany. The Cold War that followed World War II split the world into two camps: the communist east, led by the Soviet Union, and the capitalist western world, led by the United States. Germany was divided into 4 parts: the north-west was under British rule, southwestern part was captured by the French, the south was under US control, and the Soviets established their control over eastern Germany.
The Potsdam Conference in 1945 decided the future of Germany. It was decided that Germany would compensate the Allied States for the losses they suffered during the war. Compensation was in the form of goods and equipment. The USSR received the lion's share of reparations. However, disagreements arose between the countries regarding the share of compensation and the future of the country. The USA and Great Britain sought democracy and economic independence for Germany. The Soviets wanted more territory and were against the idea of German development. The French also wanted a significant portion of the land and vetoed the country's government unification plan. The consensus that satisfied everyone was the formation of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) under the leadership of the USSR in the east, and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the west under the auspices of the USA and Great Britain. From the very beginning of the division, the territory under Soviet control began to lag behind economically.
The GDR workers' uprising occurred on June 17, 1953, when a series of strikes and demonstrations took place throughout East Germany.
The beginning of the Berlin Uprising is associated with Berlin workers who built elite housing for the nomenklatura. On June 16, 1953, workers took to the streets to protest against the Government decree raising labor standards by 10 percent. Very soon, political protest was added to the social one: the first demands for the resignation of the government were heard. The Germans demanded free elections and withdrawal Soviet troops. Residents of other cities also heard about the Berlin events on the radio. On June 17, the whole country was in flames in popular unrest. About a million people took to the streets. More than a thousand enterprises went on strike. In Hala, Bitterfeld and Görlitz, demonstrators seized city power. The government responded harshly, with the help of Soviet troops and the Stasi, suppressing the wave of protest, killing leaders and imprisoning activists. According to the declared state of emergency, all demonstrations, meetings, rallies and gatherings of people of more than three people on streets and squares, as well as in public buildings, were prohibited. The movement of pedestrians and vehicles at night was prohibited. Violators of this order were punished according to martial law. In just a couple of days, life returned to normal. However, the protest continued to live.
The socialist government of the GDR announced the creation of a wall that would prevent Western influence. Many people fled west before construction, some were killed during its construction and many more while trying to overcome it. Berlin Wall, which showed the complete difference between communism and the capitalist world, was completed in August 1961.
The 70s and 80s were marked by rapid economic growth in both East and West Germany. Two systems, socialism and capitalism, competed with each other, building an economic miracle on the territory of one single country. While East Germany was the political scapegoat of the stubborn communist regime and the "little brother", there was unchecked corruption and political instability in the West. The need to unite East and West came primarily from the “Vestis” (East Germans). Thanks to declining Soviet influence and great pressure from the population, East and West were
One of the main tasks that the allies set for themselves after the defeat of Germany was denazification of the country. The entire adult population of the country completed a survey prepared by the Control Council for Germany. The questionnaire "Erhebungsformular MG/PS/G/9a" had 131 questions. The survey was voluntary-compulsory.
Refuseniks were deprived of food cards.
Based on the survey, all Germans are divided into “not involved”, “acquitted”, “fellow travelers”, “guilty” and “guilty of highest degree" Citizens from the last three groups were brought before the court, which determined the extent of guilt and punishment. The “guilty” and “highly guilty” were sent to internment camps; “fellow travelers” could atone for their guilt with a fine or property.
It is clear that this technique was imperfect. Mutual responsibility, corruption and insincerity of the respondents made denazification ineffective. Hundreds of thousands of Nazis managed to avoid trial using forged documents along the so-called “rat trails”, and just a few years later - to occupy prominent positions in the state apparatus of the Federal Republic of Germany. Thus, the third Federal Chancellor of Germany, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, was a member of the NSDAP since 1933.
The Allies organized a large-scale campaign in Germany to re-educate the Germans. Movies about Nazi atrocities were continuously shown in cinemas. Residents of Germany were also required to attend sessions. Otherwise, they could lose the same food cards. The Germans were also taken on excursions to former concentration camps and involved in the work carried out there. For most civilian population the information received was shocking. Goebbels' propaganda during the war years told them about a completely different image of Nazism.
Demilitarization
According to the decision of the Potsdam Conference, Germany was to undergo demilitarization, which included the dismantling of military factories. The Western allies adopted the principles of demilitarization in their own way: in their occupation zones they were not only in no hurry to dismantle factories, but also actively restored them, while trying to increase the metal smelting quota and wanting to preserve the military potential of Western Germany for a future war with the USSR.
By 1947, in the British and American zones alone, more than 450 military factories were hidden from accounting.
Soviet Union was more honest in this regard. According to historian Mikhail Semiryagi, in one year after March 1945, the highest authorities of the Soviet Union made about a thousand decisions related to the dismantling of 4,389 enterprises from Germany, Austria, Hungary and other European countries. However, this number cannot be compared with the number of facilities destroyed by the war in the USSR. The number of dismantled German enterprises was less than 14% of the pre-war number of Soviet factories. According to Nikolai Voznesensky, then chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee, supplies of captured equipment from Germany covered only 0.6% of direct damage to the USSR
Marauding
The topic of looting and violence against civilians in post-war Germany is still controversial. A lot of documents have been preserved indicating that the Western allies exported valuable property of citizens defeated Germany literally ships.
“Differentiated” in collecting trophies and some Soviet officers. Thus, when Marshal Zhukov fell out of favor in 1948, 194 pieces of furniture, 44 carpets and tapestries, 7 boxes of crystal, 55 museum paintings and other luxury items were discovered and confiscated. All this was exported from Germany.
As for the soldiers and officers of the Red Army, according to the available documents, not many cases of looting were registered. The victorious Soviet soldiers were more likely to engage in applied “junk,” that is, they were engaged in collecting ownerless property. When the Soviet command allowed parcels to be sent home, boxes with sewing needles, fabric scraps, and working tools went to the Union. At the same time, our soldiers had a rather disgusting attitude towards all these things. In letters to their relatives, they made excuses for all this “junk.”
Strange calculations
The most problematic topic is the topic of violence against civilians, especially German women. Until the time of perestroika, the topic of mass rape of German women was not raised either in the USSR or by the Germans themselves.
In 1992, a book by two feminists, Helke Sander and Barbara Yohr, “Liberators and the Liberated,” was published in Germany, where a shocking figure appeared: 2 million.
The justification for this figure left a lot of room for criticism: the data were based on records in only one German clinic, and then were multiplied by the total number of women. In 2002, Anthony Beevor's book The Fall of Berlin was published, in which the author cited this figure without paying attention to its criticism, and the data sources were described with the phrases “one doctor concluded”, “apparently”, “if” and “appears”.
According to estimates from the two main Berlin hospitals, the number of victims raped by Soviet soldiers ranges from ninety-five to one hundred and thirty thousand people. One doctor concluded that approximately one hundred thousand women were raped in Berlin alone. Moreover, about ten thousand of them died mainly as a result of suicide. The number of deaths throughout East Germany is probably much higher if we take into account the one million four hundred thousand people raped in East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia. It appears that in total about two million German women were raped, many of whom (if not most) suffered this humiliation several times.
In 2004, this book was published in Russia and was picked up as an “argument” by anti-Soviet activists, who spread the myth of the unprecedented cruelty of Soviet soldiers in occupied Germany.
In fact, according to the documents, such facts were considered “extraordinary incidents and an immoral phenomenon,” for which punishment followed. Violence against the civilian population of Germany was fought at all levels, and looters and rapists were put on trial. Thus, in the report of the military prosecutor of the 1st Belorussian Front on illegal actions against the civilian population for the period from April 22 to May 5, 1945, there are the following figures: for the seven armies of the front, 124 crimes were recorded for 908.5 thousand people, of which 72 were rapes . 72 cases per 908.5 thousand. What two million are we talking about?
There was also looting and violence against civilians in the western occupation zones. Naum Orlov wrote in his memoirs: “The English who were guarding us rolled chewing gum between their teeth - which was new to us - and boasted to each other about their trophies, raising their hands high, covered in wristwatches...”.
Osmar Wyatt, an Australian war correspondent who could hardly be suspected of partiality towards Soviet soldiers, wrote in 1945: “Severe discipline reigns in the Red Army. There are no more robberies, rapes and abuses here than in any other zone of occupation. Wild stories of atrocities emerge from the exaggerations and distortions of individual cases, influenced by nervousness caused by the excess of manners of Russian soldiers and their love of vodka. One woman who told me most of the hair-raising tales of Russian atrocities was finally forced to admit that the only evidence she had seen with her own eyes was drunken Russian officers firing pistols into the air and at bottles..."
60 years ago the German Constitution was adopted
During “perestroika,” among other “historical revelations,” it was put forward that only the USSR, specifically Stalin, was to blame for the post-war split in Germany. This statement can still be found on the pages of not only foreign but also Russian press. However, now that passions have calmed down, it has become clear that many of those “exposures of Stalinism” were nothing more than a heap of malicious lies.
The assertion that the USSR uncompromisingly pursued the breakaway of East Germany and the creation there of a “socialist German state” in its own image and likeness is no exception. However, the way Soviet historiography and propaganda presented the history of Germany to the first post-war years, placing the main responsibility for the split in Germany on the policies of the United States and Great Britain, turns out to be closer to the truth than the fashionable “democratic interpretation.”
Let's start with purely legal facts. The current constitution of the new public education- Federal Republic of Germany - was promulgated on May 23, 1949. Its project was developed and adopted by 65 representatives of the Landtags of the states that were part of the so-called Trizonia, a union of American, British and French occupation zones created in 1948, who gathered in Bonn. With some amendments, the draft constitution was approved by the military governors of the Western powers on May 12, 1949.
In accordance with the constitution, elections to the Bundestag were held in the West German states in August 1949, and on September 20, the first federal government was formed, headed by Konrad Adenauer. The Soviet occupation zone was initially excluded from this process. Only after the split of Germany became a fait accompli was the creation of the German Democratic Republic proclaimed in the eastern part of the country on October 7, 1949.
Germany owes a lot to Stalin for maintaining its name on the world map after World War II.
When a radical turning point occurred in World War II and the prospect of final victory loomed ahead, F. Roosevelt and W. Churchill (January 1943, Casablanca), without the knowledge or participation of the USSR, put forward a demand for unconditional surrender to Nazi Germany. Stalin joined this declaration after the fact. This formulation of war goals meant that the Allies took responsibility for the post-war structure of Germany. Projects began to emerge, at first vague, about what to do with this country after the victory.
At the Tehran Conference of the Chief Executives of the Three Great Allied Powers (November 28 - December 1, 1943), the German question became one of the subjects of discussion. Detailed plans were prepared by Roosevelt and Churchill. The US President proposed dividing Germany into five states: 1) Prussia; 2) Hanover and North-West Germany; 3) Saxony; 4) Westphalia, Hesse and the western bank of the Rhine; 5) Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden. In addition, it was proposed to place the Ruhr, the Saar region and the Kiel Canal under the international control of the future United Nations Organization or the three great powers, and to make Hamburg a “free city”. A similar plan was proposed by Churchill. At the same time, the British prime minister proposed including the southern lands of Germany in the Danube Confederation, which would also include Austria and Hungary.
Stalin at that moment did not have a clear plan for the post-war territorial structure of Germany, except that the new eastern borders Poland was planned to be pushed back to the west at the expense of Germany. But Stalin immediately expressed doubt about the feasibility and feasibility of the projects of his Western allies. According to the Soviet leader, any confederation is unviable, and among the Germans, divided into several states, there will always be a strong desire for unification.
So, already during the Tehran Conference, the dominant approach of Stalin to the German question was revealed: imposing someone else’s will on an entire nation is difficult and impractical.
In anticipation of the Yalta meeting of the “Big Three” (February 4-17, 1945), memoranda on the post-war dismemberment of Germany were developed by some Soviet diplomats, especially those who, even before the war, advocated rapprochement with the Western powers. So, former ambassador USSR in England I. Maisky in January 1944 presented Molotov with a note “On the Desirable Foundations of the Future World,” which contained a proposal to divide Germany into several states. This idea was supported by the former People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs M. Litvinov, who at the end of 1944 presented Stalin with a project to divide Germany into seven or at least three separate states.
During the Yalta Conference, Stalin and Molotov seemed willing to share this view. At the same time, Western leaders were beginning to warm up to the idea of preserving German unity. This change was explained by completely new military-political conditions.
At the end of 1943, the leaders of the USA and England hoped that their troops would triumphantly enter Berlin when the Red Army was still only on the pre-war border of the USSR. And then the Western powers will become absolute masters Central Europe. But the outstanding victories of the Soviet troops in 1944 and January 1945 changed everything dramatically.
By the beginning of the Yalta summit, our tanks were already only 60 km from Berlin. At the conference itself, the zones of occupation of Germany were outlined. And British government analysts expressed concern that the division of Germany into several states could only “accelerate the inevitable tendency of East Germany to move into the Soviet zone of influence, and this, therefore, would bring Soviet military power closer to the Western countries.”
But the hesitation of the Soviet leadership was short-lived. On March 24, 1945, Molotov officially explained the Soviet proposal to study the question of the possible division of Germany into several states not as required condition, but as “a possible prospect for putting pressure on Germany in order to secure [in the sense of neutralize? - Ya.B.] it if other means turn out to be insufficient.”
In an address to to the Soviet people on Victory Day, May 9, 1945, Stalin especially emphasized that the USSR “is not going to either dismember or destroy Germany.”
This generally coincided with the opinion that prevailed in government circles in the USA and England. But at the same time, each side sought to carry out the unification of Germany in its own way. Now, on the eve of the clearly brewing Cold War, each of its sides - the USSR and the English-speaking powers - tried to make Germany its ally.
Churchill was the first to make such an attempt, and separately from the United States.
Until the end of May 1945, the last government of the Third Reich, headed by Grand Admiral Dönitz, was freely located in the zone of British occupation until the end of May 1945, and until the beginning of June entire divisions of the Wehrmacht remained undisarmed - the British command left them weapons, not excluding their use in a possible war against the USSR.
But the American leadership then, before the test atomic bomb, was not yet ready to go into confrontation with the USSR. At his insistence, on July 1, 1945, the troops of the Western Allies were finally withdrawn to the demarcation line established in Yalta (before that, since the end of hostilities, they occupied a strip more than 100-250 km wide in the Soviet occupation zone).
And then the policies of the still formal allies began to reveal increasingly strong differences. This was especially true for the reconstruction of Germany. Guided by the vague decisions of the Potsdam Conference (July 17 - August 2, 1945) on the denazification and democratization of Germany, the victorious countries interpreted these concepts in their occupation zones in their own way.
In the Soviet zone, democratization and denazification implied large-scale socio-economic reforms. This was justified by the need to destroy the social basis of German imperialism and militarism - large Junker and Grossbauer landownership and private monopolistic associations in industry. Agrarian reform and nationalization of large enterprises, transport, communications and banks began. These transformations were based on a solid democratic foundation: decisions on the expropriation of groups of enterprises were made in referendums in the states of East Germany (there were five of them plus Berlin) and approved by the Landtags elected on a multi-party basis in 1946. In the western zones, transformations were limited to political reforms.
Contrary to popular legend, Stalin did not initially seek to reorganize East Germany, or the entire of Eastern Europe, according to the Soviet model.
All reforms in the countries of “people's democracy” and in the Soviet zone of occupation of Germany in 1945-1949. did not go beyond the framework of bourgeois-democratic transformations. Being a pragmatist, Stalin understood perfectly well that the preservation of the institutions of private property and multi-party democracy in these countries would contribute to the stability of the regimes there and would not require the USSR to waste effort and money on the reorganization of Eastern Europe. Only one thing was required from the authorities of these states and from the East Germans: complete loyalty to the Soviet Union in matters of foreign policy.
But the majority of non-communist parties in the countries of “people’s democracy” turned out to be openly oriented towards the West and hostile to the USSR. Only under these conditions was Stalin forced to set a course for establishing “managed democracy” in Eastern Europe and carrying out social reforms there that were aimed at eliminating the class base of anti-Soviet sentiments. And even with all this, in most countries of Eastern Europe, private sector Several political parties were active in the economy and formally.
In East Germany, the socialist multi-party system flourished especially magnificently. An important transformation was the unification of the Communist and Social Democratic parties of Germany into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in April 1946. At the insistence of Stalin, reference to communism was removed from the name of the united Marxist-Leninist party. It is indicative how the occupation authorities of the Western powers reacted to this merger. They not only prohibited the creation of SED organizations in West Germany, but did not allow the communists to change the name of the party.
In addition to the SED, four other parties operated in East Germany: the Christian Democratic Union (a party of the same name as in West Germany, but different in spirit), the Liberal Democratic, National Democratic and Peasant Democratic parties. True, they had no real rivalry with each other and with the SED.
The split in Germany became evident already in 1946, when it became clear that each side was pursuing its own economic policy. In December 1946, the American and British authorities made a separate decision to unite their occupation zones (the so-called Bisonia arose). This meant the free movement of capital, goods and people from one zone to another. In May 1947, the Economic Council of the Western Zones was created in Frankfurt am Main. In response, the German Economic Commission was created in East Germany in July 1947. In April 1948, Trizonia arose - the French annexed their occupation zone to the Americans and British. In mid-June 1948, Trizonia carried out its own monetary reform (the Soviet zone at the end of that month). At the same time, the Landtags of the West German states were asked to send their delegates to Bonn to develop a German constitution.
At the same time, both the USSR and the West invariably declared their desire to create a united democratic Germany.
However, in the context of the beginning of the Cold War, this was largely just propaganda rhetoric. And yet, as we will see later, such statements contained more sincerity when they came from the Soviet side.
In 1947, the Minister-President of Bavaria invited his colleagues from all German states to hold a meeting at which it was planned to discuss the issue of ways to restore the unity of the country. However, as it turned out, the talk there was only about ways to overcome the economic disunity of the western and eastern occupation zones. When the minister-presidents of the East German states tried to discuss the issue of creating central government bodies for the whole of Germany, this was met with rejection by their West German colleagues. Obviously, they already knew that the political reorganization of their lands would take place only on orders from Washington and London and were not going to consider other possibilities.
On instructions from Moscow, the SED Central Committee launched a campaign for the democratic unification of Germany, covering the western zones as well. This was not only a propaganda campaign, as is commonly believed. The leaders of the SED and their patrons in the Kremlin seriously hoped to cause a wave of popular movement in West Germany and bring about the unification of Germany contrary to the plans of the Atlantic powers. The movement was institutionalized into the German People's Congress (the first took place in December 1947 in Berlin; in January 1948 the activities of the congress were banned in the western zones) and the German People's Council elected by it.
The Second German People's Congress (March 1948) decided to collect signatures in all parts of Germany in May-June for a referendum on the unity of the country. Despite the fact that the signature collection campaign was officially banned in Trizonia, 15 million Germans out of 38 million who had the right to vote signed the demand for a referendum. According to the constitution of Weimar Germany, the signatures of 10% of all voters were sufficient to hold a referendum.
Another powerful means of propaganda was to be the draft constitution of the German Democratic Republic, published in October 1948. Left groups tried to initiate a nationwide discussion of it in the western zones as well. On May 30, 1949, the Third German People's Congress adopted the constitution of the GDR, which came into force on October 7, 1949.
Please note that all dates are later than events similar in content took place in Western Germany.
It is obvious that West Germany, which had four times more economic power than East Germany, was a very tasty morsel for the emerging North Atlantic bloc (created at the same time, in April 1949; Germany joined it in 1955). That is why the leaders of the Western powers accelerated the process of recreating the institutions of German statehood, each time confronting the Soviet Union with a fait accompli. The USSR simply had no choice but to create an ally for itself, in the form of a legitimate state, in its zone of occupation.
The only alternative that the West left us was to agree to the unification of Germany on its terms, that is, to give East Germany to NATO as well. Gorbachev could agree to this, but not Stalin.
Just because the creation of a separate state in West Germany met the interests of the USA and England, the creation of a separate state in East Germany did not meet the interests of the USSR. In the light of this immutable fact, Stalin’s sincere, and not feigned, desire to see Germany as a united but neutral country during his lifetime becomes clear.
Much more important for Stalin than creating a pro-Soviet state in a smaller part of Germany was to deprive the English-speaking powers of undivided control of West Germany.
At the same time, Stalin understood that such a unification could only happen as a result of concessions from the Anglo-American bloc, and therefore he himself could not help but be ready to make some concessions. In particular, it was impossible to extend to a unified Germany the socio-political model that had developed in the Soviet zone of occupation. In a united Germany, a real and not fictitious multi-party system, large private property and other attributes of the bourgeois system would be inevitable. But the price for all this had to be Germany’s non-aligned and demilitarized status.
The fact that such a scenario was real is shown by the example of the post-war structure of countries such as Austria and Finland. In May 1955, the victorious powers signed an agreement to restore the unity and sovereignty of Austria and the withdrawal of occupation forces from there. This agreement was reached when Khrushchev had already become the real ruler of the USSR, but the loyal Stalinist Molotov was still the Minister of Foreign Affairs who prepared all this. Formally neutral Finland had a special relationship with the USSR. The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, concluded in 1948 and regularly extended, effectively consolidated the allied relations of the two countries. At the same time, since 1973, capitalist Finland has also been in special economic relations with the CMEA.
Thus, bourgeois-democratic Austria and Finland were neutral buffer states between the Soviet bloc and NATO. This was the embodiment of Stalin's post-war geopolitical plan, which, unfortunately, was realized only in fragments. The main thing missing for completion was that a single demilitarized Germany would become such a buffer state.
At the same time, one should not go to the other extreme and negatively assess the significance of the German Constitution of 1949 in the post-war development of the center of Europe. The current Basic Law of Germany, which is now 60 years old, is rightly considered one of the most democratic constitutions in the world. modern world. He laid the political and legal foundations of a new Germany, free from Nazism and aggressive aspirations.
Special for the Centenary
