Economic exchanges specific to the two German states

Abstract

In the GDR’s most recent “Law on the Five Year Plan” for the years 1986 to 1990, an expansion of trade relations with non-socialist countries has been called for “on a foundation of parity and to reciprocal advantage (as) a contribution to the material basis for a policy of peace and international security.“] This directive presents a more balanced perspective than the second SED Party Program of 1976,* which foresaw “improvements in the profitability of foreign trade” for strengthening socialism “in economic competition with capitalism.” The relations of “cooperation” and “mutual advantage” were specified in the Program for members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and for developing nations, while “peaceful coexistence” was assured for countries with different social orders, without any stipulation of commercial reciprocity. Relations with the GDR’s most important Western trading partner, the Federal Republic of Germany, were significantly improved during the same period that the second Party Program was issued. At the recent 11th Party Congress of the SED, moreover, Erich Honecker reaffirmed that the “preservation of peace was and remains . the decisive question in relations”3 between the two Germanies. The Directive for the live-year plan, presented at the Congress by Politburo member Giinter Mittag, could thus emphasize the need to “further solidify the economic unassailability of the GDR” in foreign trade with capitalistic countries, citing an “inseparable relationship”