Jorge Miguel
28th June 2009, 19:05
The GDR I am casting my thoughts back
By Hans Heinz Holz (Communist Party of Germany)
Translation by Hermann Baur (Communist Party of Ireland)
Winter 1946/47. Freezing cold. For some reason I dont remember which I had to travel from Frankfurt/Main into the SBZ (Soviet Occupied Zone).
Hand in the food rationing card in Frankfurt; receive the East German one in Rostock.
It was like a Christmas present: The daily ration was 1 times that of the western one. Amidst the deepest poverty, the Soviet occupational power near starving themselves looked after the people. That happened over 62 years ago, I am 82 now and will never forget it. Why am I using this as an introduction?
It was this very spirit of Communist solidarity which the GDR was created from. Stalin said: The Hitlers will come and go the German people will remain. This type of thinking determined the deeds; the national question was not an object of propaganda. When Adenauer * was pushing the integration of West - Germany into the cold war alliance of the USA, Communists on both sides of the border fought for German unity. The first shots at the border were fired when West- German members of the FDJ** travelled to their national meeting in Berlin. Blue flags to Berlin was the slogan. West German border guards fired at west German youths. And who is talking about the shootings at the wall nowadays?
The partition of Germany into two states from which two part-nations developed (which they are to this very day) was forced by the West, thereby breaching the Potsdam treaty. As late as 1958, when 2 German states and two currencies had been in existence for almost ten years; Walter Ulbricht*** produced a plan for a re-united Germany based on a confederation with a neural status and on a nuclear-weapon-free territory. By the way, the Soviet leadership under Khrushchev did not at all like this idea; they were increasingly treating the GDR as their economical and military province.
The wests answer was the arms-race, driven by defence minister F. J. Strauss and later the undermining strategy of Chancellor Willy Brands new east politics which nave peace-lovers fell for immediately.
My position on that can be read in detail in the documents of the Moscow peace conference of 1967.
The plans for the conquering of the GDR were made as early as during the time of the emergency laws of that period. They were kept in the safes of the Ministry for All-German Problems. We knew that and put all our emphasis on the strengthening of the GDR in world politics and counteracting all slander against it on national level. West-German Communists did that without ifs and buts certainly too uncritical in many details solidarity was first priority. We had to suffer defamation, ban from teaching and civil-service jobs, persecution many hopes and many lives were destroyed.
40 years of GDR, that was 1 generations of building socialism. The effects of that will not be lost in world history, even thought they might have to survive under the surface for a time. It is the task of us whose lifetime this period has been, to pass on the memory so it can become part of the new which must and will come.
Those are memories of a West-German citizen. Since 1945 I have been involved in the very front line of publishing and writing and in the struggles. The GDR was a piece of my life. The newly constructed contradiction of Wessis (Westies) and Ossis (Easties) means nothing to me these are class-contradictions not territorial ones.
Of course there were bourgeois people in the GDR or else the events of 1990 would have been impossible. We underestimated how correct Lenin and Stalin had been when they said that class-struggle will intensify under the conditions of socialism being built. Some of our self-judgements were utopian rather than socialist. When we look back on 60 years since foundation of the GDR we must not exclude the short-comings in the theoretical field. But mainly we must remember the huge achievements! GDR-citizens are able to describe these better, especially now after getting to know life under capitalism.
Together we have to think about the present:
As part of the world-crisis new wars are being prepared. Fascist forms of rule are being considered and indeed implemented in places in order to safeguard the system.
The pauperisation of masses of people and the opportunism which seeks to find a niche for survival by adjusting to the system constructing all sorts of revisionist and reformist ideologies for the purpose.
This snow of yesterday has to melt away before todays gentle breeze can grow into tomorrows storm of the revolution.
By Hans Heinz Holz (Communist Party of Germany)
Translation by Hermann Baur (Communist Party of Ireland)
Winter 1946/47. Freezing cold. For some reason I dont remember which I had to travel from Frankfurt/Main into the SBZ (Soviet Occupied Zone).
Hand in the food rationing card in Frankfurt; receive the East German one in Rostock.
It was like a Christmas present: The daily ration was 1 times that of the western one. Amidst the deepest poverty, the Soviet occupational power near starving themselves looked after the people. That happened over 62 years ago, I am 82 now and will never forget it. Why am I using this as an introduction?
It was this very spirit of Communist solidarity which the GDR was created from. Stalin said: The Hitlers will come and go the German people will remain. This type of thinking determined the deeds; the national question was not an object of propaganda. When Adenauer * was pushing the integration of West - Germany into the cold war alliance of the USA, Communists on both sides of the border fought for German unity. The first shots at the border were fired when West- German members of the FDJ** travelled to their national meeting in Berlin. Blue flags to Berlin was the slogan. West German border guards fired at west German youths. And who is talking about the shootings at the wall nowadays?
The partition of Germany into two states from which two part-nations developed (which they are to this very day) was forced by the West, thereby breaching the Potsdam treaty. As late as 1958, when 2 German states and two currencies had been in existence for almost ten years; Walter Ulbricht*** produced a plan for a re-united Germany based on a confederation with a neural status and on a nuclear-weapon-free territory. By the way, the Soviet leadership under Khrushchev did not at all like this idea; they were increasingly treating the GDR as their economical and military province.
The wests answer was the arms-race, driven by defence minister F. J. Strauss and later the undermining strategy of Chancellor Willy Brands new east politics which nave peace-lovers fell for immediately.
My position on that can be read in detail in the documents of the Moscow peace conference of 1967.
The plans for the conquering of the GDR were made as early as during the time of the emergency laws of that period. They were kept in the safes of the Ministry for All-German Problems. We knew that and put all our emphasis on the strengthening of the GDR in world politics and counteracting all slander against it on national level. West-German Communists did that without ifs and buts certainly too uncritical in many details solidarity was first priority. We had to suffer defamation, ban from teaching and civil-service jobs, persecution many hopes and many lives were destroyed.
40 years of GDR, that was 1 generations of building socialism. The effects of that will not be lost in world history, even thought they might have to survive under the surface for a time. It is the task of us whose lifetime this period has been, to pass on the memory so it can become part of the new which must and will come.
Those are memories of a West-German citizen. Since 1945 I have been involved in the very front line of publishing and writing and in the struggles. The GDR was a piece of my life. The newly constructed contradiction of Wessis (Westies) and Ossis (Easties) means nothing to me these are class-contradictions not territorial ones.
Of course there were bourgeois people in the GDR or else the events of 1990 would have been impossible. We underestimated how correct Lenin and Stalin had been when they said that class-struggle will intensify under the conditions of socialism being built. Some of our self-judgements were utopian rather than socialist. When we look back on 60 years since foundation of the GDR we must not exclude the short-comings in the theoretical field. But mainly we must remember the huge achievements! GDR-citizens are able to describe these better, especially now after getting to know life under capitalism.
Together we have to think about the present:
As part of the world-crisis new wars are being prepared. Fascist forms of rule are being considered and indeed implemented in places in order to safeguard the system.
The pauperisation of masses of people and the opportunism which seeks to find a niche for survival by adjusting to the system constructing all sorts of revisionist and reformist ideologies for the purpose.
This snow of yesterday has to melt away before todays gentle breeze can grow into tomorrows storm of the revolution.