The East German Regime and Soviet Policy in Germany

Abstract

THE COMMUNIST REGIME in East Germany, which calls itself the German Democratic Republic (DDR), weathered the frenzied weeks of political change in Poland and abortive revolution in Hungary with an inflexibility that has made it a paragon of satellite stalwartness. Neus Deutsckland, organ of the dominant Socialist Unity Party (SED), entered into vituperative and aggressive interchanges with Polish advocates of humanitarian socialism who had rallied around Gomulka.L The Hungarian uprising was from the start condemned as the work of counter-revolutionary bandits.2 The Central Committee of the SED issued a special declaration welcoming the intervention of Soviet troops in Hungary as a service to peace and greeting the formation of the Kadar government with profusions of fraternal solidarity.-3 National communism was denounced as a policy conceived by the National Security Council in Washington to split the socialist camp and to isolate the Soviet Union.4 The SED served notice that the power of the secret police would be employed, if need be, to secure the continued allegiance of the regime to the USSR and of the SED rank and file to the Ulbricht leadership. In the words of the Minister of State Security, Ernst Wollweber,