The People's State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker

Abstract

PROFESSOR FULBROOK tells us ‘This book arose from the desire to understand better the ways in which many East Germans felt it was possible to lead quite “normal” lives in the GDR’. Although she does not deny that the GDR was a dictatorship with an ugly side, she feels that it was a complex political system with widespread participation, and she points to the mass membership of the SED, the trade unions and other bodies. She believes there was far more debate than is generally supposed. She examines what the SED claimed were the GDR's social achievements in health care, youth, education, leisure and the place of women, to build up a picture of what she considers was the positive side of the GDR. ‘It is a false dichotomy’, she believes, ‘to suggest that states are either based on coercion or on consent.’ Few could disagree with that. Clearly, there are degrees of dictatorship. In most respects, Iran is less of a dictatorship than North Korea and Franco's Spain was different from Ceaucescu's Romania. Even the statement that ‘East Germans had become used to a society in which they were assured of childcare places and cheap holidays, of education, training and guaranteed employment, of a degree of comradeship among workplace colleagues and relaxation in work-based sporting and social activities’ needs qualifying. For instance, by no means everyone could get the education, training or employment they wanted. There was a careful selection based on family background, political reliability, aptitude and likely usefulness to the SED's plans for the GDR. When places were short, knowing the right people was very important. As for sporting activities, the GDR's own research revealed that most people preferred kicking a ball around in a park to organised sport, and swimming-baths and other facilities for the ‘normal’ citizen were woefully inadequate, as Fulbrook seems to admit. Nor must it be forgotten that the GDR was a modern society. Why should it not have schools, technical colleges, universities and hospitals? On women, Fulbrook tells us, ‘the representation of women in these “elected” positions always seems to have been markedly higher than one would expect in comparison to the Western participation of women in local, regional and national politics at the same time’. She forgets that, in the West, these were positions of actual power, unlike the GDR. She herself admits ‘The top of the SED—the ultimate power centre in the GDR—was almost unremittingly male and certainly male-dominated’. Was this not also true of the SED's masters, the Soviet Politburo? The involvement of women in the economy and professions was a necessity to replace the 2.7 million or so (out of 17 million) who, between 1949 and 1961, left the GDR before the Wall went up in 1961. It is true that millions were members of the SED-run ‘mass organisations’ but it was virtually impossible to get a job without being a member. Membership of the Society for German Soviet Friendship Society (DSF), was particularly high, very largely because membership was a sign of acceptance of the regime and required little activity, a ‘classic fig-leaf organisation’. This was also true, to a lesser extent, of membership of the satellite parties.