GDR - Unit 1 - Establishing Communist Rule in the GDR Flashcards

Question

Soviet Economist Planning - Reality - 10 Points

Answer 1

- Government could harness the economy to the needs of the state - Social over personal needs emphasised - Nationalisation of industry and collectivisation of agriculture - Too centralised meant reduction in innovation and creativity - No profit motives like supply and demand - Quantity over quality - Opposition to socialist economies - Early 1950s - Food was heavily rationed and consumer goods were in short supply - Taxation was rising - Considerable amounts of farmer resented collectivisation

Answer 2

- Develop heavy industry, iron, steel, energy and chemical - Increase living standards to pre-war levels

Answer 3

- Nationalisation of industry covered 75% of the sector to become People's Enterprises - Propaganda was used to improve productivity - Significant increase in coal, iron, electricity and cement production - Most targets were met and exceeded - Shortages of technology and equipment - Increase in labour productivity to meet targets - Workers were under great pressure and had to work long hours - Workers lacked consumer goods which led to wide spread dissatisfaction with the government - Quantity over quality - General discontent led to emigration to FRG - Inefficient investment in modern technology

Answer 4

Focused placed on consumer goods and improving living standards

Answer 5

Modernisation, Mechanisation, and Automation

Answer 6

- SED offered 50% initiatives for transforming their firms into People's Enterprises - By 1960, private enterprises controlled only 9% of industrial production - Increase in consumer goods available - Centralised control tightened by SED - Ulbricht's call for the GDR to overtake the FRG meant that the plan was abandoned and replaced by the Seven Year Plan

Answer 7

- Aim was to increase the manufacturing of consumer goods by 200% - Production increased - Steel and iron production fell way off target - Impacted living standards as workers had to increase productivity by 85%

Answer 8

- Junker landowners with more than 100 hectares were forced to forfeit their land which was then redistributed to peasants, small farmers and refugees - 1/3 of farmland was reallocated to 500,000 people - Lack of machinery and livestock, resentment at some forced requisitioning of food, and lack of farming experience by those given the land - Many farmers abandoned their land - 1952 - Introduction of voluntary collectivisation - 1/3 farmland collectivised by early 1950s - 15,000 farmers emigrated to FRG in 1950s - 1960s - 'socialist spring' launched by Ulbricht as a second attempt at collectivisation - Enforced by denying farmers access to collectives equipment, arresting those who opposed the SED, and their land was forcibly taken by the State - Crop yields fell by 30% in 1960 - 1961 - Led to introduction of food rationing of some food items in 1961

Answer 9

- Shows that economy development was unsuccessful - Ulbricht announced the need for workers to increase productivity by 10% whilst their pay would remain the same - 17 June - 300 builders working on Stalinallee went on strike and were joined by thousands as they marched to the government's House of Ministries - By the next days, protests and demonstrations were wide spread across the GDR - Ulbricht appealed to the USSR for help, and were sent 20,000 soldiers and 600 tanks - 20 people were killed and many injured - Ulbricht used this as an excuse to purge opposition and SED, to consolidate his position - 20 people were executed and 500,000 were arrested - Hundreds of 'anti-communists' were sent to Siberia - 20,000 functionaries in the SED were replaced

Answer 10

- Emigration - 1958 Crisis

Answer 11

- 2.5 million East Germans emigrated to the FRG - Population went from 18+ million to 17 million - Those emigrating were young, skilled and educated, and the GDR could not afford to loose them if it was to rebuild its economy - 1/4 of doctors emigrated - Threatened to decrease workforce by 10% - Allowed the FRG to undermine the GDR's credibility as an example of the failings of socialism

Answer 12

- Poor living standards - Housing shortages - Food rationing and lack of consumer goods - SED's repressive nature - FRG was more prosperous than GDR - East German migrants were recognised as refugees, and were given free FRG citizenship and financial aid - Western agents were known to enter East Berlin to recruit skilled workers for their labour shortages - Better job opportunities

Answer 13

- Berlin Ultimatum - withdrawal within 6 months of Western troops from their sectors in Berlin so it becomes a demilitarised free city state - West did not agree, but USA offered to negotiate however, the two powers were unable to solve their differences - A follow up meeting was planned in Paris May 1960, but this was cancelled after the U2 crisis - During 1960, 200,000 more people left the GDR - Khrushchev renewed the ultimatum again - JFK replied by making a public announcement that the USA was prepared to defend West Berlin and that he had no intentions of challenging the USSR's influence in the GDR or East Berlin - Operation Rose August 15th 1961 - Ulbricht made a public announcement that no-one intends to build a wall - Operation was shrouded in secrecy and carried by Honecker - 16th - Berliners found that travel was no longer possible - Ran for 97 miles around the 3 western sectors, and 27 miles through the centre of Berlin

Answer 14

- Offered a stable border - Easier for GDR to control the lives of its people - Build socialism without being undermined by a depleting workforce - Ulbricht and the SED could make plans for the future of the economy, and it began to grow - More goods being produced, and consumer goods - Living standards improved - Families were split - People who had previously worked in the West but lived in the East could not get to work - Many had to change schools - Cost of the border for the GDR was estimated to be 2.5 - 3 million Ostmarks - 136 fatalities from attempted escapees