Socialist Unity Party Research Articles

X. „Eycke von Repkow war kein Revolutionär“ – Festrede von Hilde Benjamin am 28. Juni 1959 im Eike-von-Repgow-Dorf Reppichau

Summary The village Reppichau in Sachsen-Anhalt, situated near the towns Dessau, Köthen and Aken (former principality of Anhalt), is closely connected with Eike von Repgow – the author of the most famous mediaeval German law book “Saxon Mirror” (Sachsenspiegel). The law book was written by him between 1220 and 1235. Based on this fact, representatives of science, politics and justice periodically organized in collaboration with the villagers anniversary celebrations, for example 1934 (700st year of the death of Eike von Repgow) and 1959 (800st year of the first documented mention of the village Reppichau). So it happened that the minister of justice of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Hilde Benjamin (1902–1989), held a keynote speech in Reppichau on 28 June 1959. She was one of the leading representatives of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany during the early years of the GDR. She became famous as a presiding judge in political show trials with court rulings including exceptionally harsh punishments up to the death penalty. This women, who was also known as “Red Hilde” or “Bloody Hilde”, used the opportunity of her speech in Reppichau in order to integrate Eike von Repgow, the Saxon Mirror and the villagers into the ruling ideology of the early GDR. Furthermore, she attacked the NATO in general and the Federal Republic of Germany in particular with propaganda phrases. The text of this speech, representing an interesting example of contemporary legal history, is edited here for the first time based on an original copy.

Chilean experiences of exile in the “socialist brotherhood” negotiating solidarity, belonging and change in the German Democratic Republic

Based on the empirical material collected in lifetime-narrative interviews, the article illuminates the multiple experiences of Chilean exiles between solidarity, belonging, Othering and foreignness in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The focus of the biographical case reconstruction based on Rosenthal is the individual negotiation of Othering practices and narratives, which the interview partners rejected, reinterpreted or strategically used for themselves. The results are biographical snapshots which show that not only encounter with (everyday) racism, but also experienced help and solidarity actions could cause discomfort among the Chilean political exiles, since they reflected the hegemonic conditions underlying their stay in the GDR. The interviewees experienced how state-institutionalised solidarity was linked to the political conditions of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and had its limits where individuals deviated from the behaviour expected of them. Throughout their lives, the interviewees are torn between Chile and the GDR (and later Germany): Confronted with feelings and constructions of foreignness and belonging(s) in relation to both countries they find different and changing ways of dealing with them over the course of their lives. What they have in common is the impossibility of deciding on a single national identity.

‘To Live a Peaceful Life’: African American Defectors in the German Democratic Republic

Abstract In this article I follow the paths of six African Americans who defected from the US Army stationed in West Germany in the early 1950s and applied for political asylum in the German Democratic Republic. Their reasons for moving to and staying in East Germany are my point of departure, in order to gain an understanding of how they made sense of the Cold War divide based on their experiences of racism. The perceptions of the six African Americans are contrasted with the reactions of the Stasi, illustrating how those working to defend the policies and politics of the governing Socialist Unity Party of Germany located race and racism in their conceptualization of political asylum. The article then focuses on the lives of the six defectors in East Germany over a period of roughly four decades. I argue that questions of race/racism were closely linked to questions of (violated) intimacy and settledness, both for the African American defectors and for the Stasi. Zooming in on the intimate allows me to reconfigure the broader context, providing a glimpse into how race and racism shaped the Cold War geography as well as how this geography changed in light of decolonization.

„Rote“ Städtepartnerschaften als die besseren kommunistischen Beziehungen im geteilten Europa?

Abstract This article uses the example of a trilateral network of relationships to offer a critical and much-needed contribution to the history of town twinning across the Iron Curtain through the late 1970s and 1980s. The chosen case studies are Italy and France on the one hand, the two countries with the most influential communist parties in Western Europe – the PCI (Partito Comunista Italiano) and the PCF (Parti Communiste Français) –, and the SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, Socialist Unity Party of Germany) on the other, the state party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Exploration of such transnational relationships is essential for a better understanding of the Cold War on a regional and local level, as ideological disputes arose regularly despite the supposedly neutral character of municipal ties. What characterized the networking between the French and Italian cities, mostly governed by the PCF and the PCI respectively, and the „real socialist“ Eastern German municipalities, and why or to what extent did they constitute an exception within relations among the three communist parties? The essay critically examines this issue and shows that the translocal scope of the connections potentially enabled the relevant actors to maintain and secure the transsocietal and sociocultural focus of exchange even amidst the most serious tensions of the late Cold War. Nevertheless, countering the assumption that such connections thrived almost automatically thanks to the allegedly shared ideological roots of the participants, it shows that communal ties were virtually always torn between utopian visions of the future and the interests of „Realpolitik“.

The Alternative for Germany and the Left Parties in the Eastern States: Transformation of Electoral Preferences

Introduction. The separate existence of East Germany over the years has led to the formation of unique electoral preferences of citizens. In eastern federal states the Left as the heir to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany remained one of the leaders for a long time. However, in recent years its traditional electorate has increasingly begun to choose the Alternative for Germany. The aim of this article is to identify the main reasons for this shift in preferences in East Germany. Materials and Methods. The main materials were the results of the elections to the Bundestag and Landtags. The statistics illustrating the performance of the Left on the national average and separately in East Germany in the national elections since 2009 was processed with the help of comparative analysis, the same was done with regard to the subnational elections since 2009 and 2011. The results of the Alternative for Germany were evaluated from its inception in 2013. Additionally, the data was used on preferences among voters of various age groups, the rating of the National Democratic Party of Germany before and after the advent of the Alternative for Germany, as well as GDP per capita indicators. Results. It is confirmed that it was the Alternative for Germany that mainly occupied the former niche of the Left. The main reasons that comprehensively influenced electoral preferences include the generational change, the unsuccessful adaptation of the left forces to Western values, the unpopularity of anti-capitalist rhetoric, the presence of more influential opponents on key left-wing topics, the demand for conservative and opposition ideology (e.g. in migration policy), as well as the ability of right-wing populists to work with protest voters. Discussion and Conclusion. The decline in the ratings of the left has become a rather stable phenomenon in recent years, while the performance of the right-wing populists strongly depended on the reaction of the party to a particular political crisis. However, this was more about the general popularity of the Alternative for Germany, which did not imply real prerequisites for the return of the electorate to the Left. The results of this paper can be applied in expert-analytical and research activities aimed at explaining electoral processes.

Ambiguities of urban détente: East German town twinning and the struggle with globalization in the 1960s

Abstract This article provides a fresh perspective on the history of East German town twinning in the early era of détente. While previous studies have analysed East German town twinning solely as an instrument of the Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) to establish paradiplomatic relations in Western Europe, I explore the dynamic inter-relation between global, national and local actors and the ambiguities of urban détente. I reveal the importance of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities (Deutsche Städte- und Gemeindetag, DStuG), the East German association of municipalities, which crucially shaped the East German concept of urban détente through practising trans-local exchange. The role played by the DStuG was backed by the United Towns Organization (UTO), a non-governmental organization founded in 1957 whose aim was to form a global network of cities beyond the East–West divide. In 1960, the DStuG joined the UTO as a member and consciously used its new position to expand its scope and improve its national status through actively working on the conceptualization of urban détente. However, the conflicts between the East German foreign ministry and the UTO grew bigger, resulting in the marginalization of the DStuG and town twinning in the SED’s concept of détente. These conflicts encouraged the UTO to redefine its global approach.

Circular Utopia(s): Alfred Wellm’s Morisco and the Socialist City

Abstract In the context of the German Democratic Republic’s longstanding aesthetic and political discourse on social utopianism, this article will discuss Alfred Wellm’s novel Morisco (1987) and Halle-Neustadt as a key to understanding the relationship between the socialist new town and the East German cultural imaginary. Through Wellm’s novel, the article will argue that the construction of modernist new towns provoked a cultural response engaging with the rift between built reality and the utopian imagination/ambition of the classless, socialist city in different literary and visual media. Evoking Tommaso Campanella’s utopian City of the Sun (1602), the novel critically positions Neustadt within a cyclical Marxist eschatology, simultaneously expressing frustration with and hope for the progress of the socialist project. It therefore also represents the post-Stalin aesthetic shift from grand socialist realist narratives to subjective everyday perspectives, and the revived interest of authors in utopian themes in the 1980s against the backdrop of the Socialist Unity Party’s (SED) claim that socialism had already been achieved.

Denkmalpflege zwischen System und Gesellschaft. Vielfalt denkmalpflegerischer Prozesse in der DDR (1952–1975)

East German architectural preservation does not have a good reputation. Too often, the history of heritage management in the GDR is recalled as a story of lost treasures and razed monuments, all sacrificed to the Socialist Unity Party (SED)’s alienating and ugly schemes for urban renewal. Less well understood are the individuals and institutions who worked to preserve the GDR’s wide architectural inheritance, often in the face of regime indifference, and sometimes with impressive results to show for it. But to understand how these individuals and institutions acted, what drove them, and what restricted them in their work, we require a big-picture approach that draws together all of the political, the technical and the cultural dimensions of East German preservation. This is the purpose underlying Franziska Klemstein’s detailed new work, Denkmalpflege zwischen System und Gesellschaft. Originating in a doctoral dissertation at the Technische Universität Berlin, Denkmalpflege zwischen System und Gesellschaft interrogates the political ideals, institutional tensions and key personalities that shaped preservation practices in East Germany between 1952, when the GDR adopted a new preservation ‘decree’, and 1975, the ‘European Year of Architectural Heritage’, in which the GDR finally adopted a formal law to govern all preservation activities. Klemstein frames her study around five working hypotheses: first, that East German preservation practices were complex and multifaceted; second, that personal networks were an essential factor in preservation successes in the GDR; third, that the many problems encountered when harmonizing preservation activities with the demands of dialectical materialism impelled a ‘search for international exchange and comparative values’ (Vergleichswerten); fourth, that monument preservation was seen as a ‘task for all of society’ (gesamtgesellschaftliche Aufgabe) in the GDR; and finally, that its affinity with Heimatschutz led to preservation being instrumentalized for ideological purposes.

Umerziehung durch rote Bibliotheken: SED-Bibliothekspolitik 1945/46 bis zum Ende der 1960er Jahre

Umerziehung durch rote Bibliotheken: SED-Bibliothekspolitik 1945/46 bis zum Ende der 1960er Jahre

The Concert Hall as Agonistic Public Space: The Gewandhaus in Leipzig

This article deals with questions of the sociopolitical involvement of classical music performance spaces. During the last twenty years of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the Gewandhaus in Leipzig provided opportunities for its users to emancipate themselves from Socialist Unity Party oppression. Through its architecture, music, and visual art, the Gewandhaus symbolized an agonistic space that aided in disrupting its sociopolitical surroundings, because it made visible what real-existing socialism was lacking: unity, openness, transparency, and internationality. Examining how the Gewandhaus interacted with its sociopolitical surroundings sheds light on its ability to engage with public discourse within the restricted society of the GDR.

Fashion film Mode. The Political Narrative of The Socialist Unity Party of Germany through Moving Images

Fashion film Mode. The Political Narrative of The Socialist Unity Party of Germany through Moving Images

Cultural Spaces as Political Spaces: The Musical Field of the German Democratic Republic

This article examines the relationship between music and politics in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), departing from the crucial role the State played there in organizing, and controlling all fields of cultural production. Much of the literature on the subject either depicts the interaction between the State and artists as unidirectional or represents their relationship as highly conflictual due to contrasting understandings of culture and its functions. In both cases, this tendency to dichotomize makes it hard to explain, for instance, how music genres that had arisen in Western countries could flourish in the GDR despite the official understanding of ‘socialist music’ propagated by the Socialist Unity Party (SED). Conversely, by adopting a field perspective, this article aims to highlight how musicians, the State, and Party representatives competed to shape the symbolic space of the GDR musical field. Hence, instead of understanding Party and State decisions as merely applications of ideological principles, a field perspective enables us to consider them as resulting from strategies, depending on both the objective position occupied in the musical field and its spatial-material dimension, and as aimed at maintaining their own power within it. The political elite succeeded, then, in actualizing its strategy of legitimating emerging music genres which were potentially disrupting until it was able to provide musicians with physical cultural spaces for developing their careers and, at the same time, expressing criticisms. On the other hand, from the 1950s, localized music scenes were created which proposed an alternative understanding of music to the official one without, however, refusing the core principles which structured the GDR musical field. After the end of the 1970s, though, new music scenes were formed which positioned themselves outside the institutionalized music spaces and places, refusing in this way the rules of the GDR musical field and questioning its very existence.

The Practice of Ideals: Erich Honecker, Rudolf Bahro, and East Germany's Socialist Imaginary

In July 1992, nearly two years after the demise of the German Democratic Republic (GDR/East Germany), Erich Honecker, former general secretary of the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) was arrested in Berlin for his complicity in the murder of citizens fleeing his country. Yet his subsequent imprisonment brought forth unexpected help: former SED member Rudolf Bahro, who had been imprisoned by Honecker's regime a decade earlier for publishing a party-critical text, Die Alternative. Bahro wrote to his former jailer on August 17, ironically to offer support for his legal defense. Now, Bahro also expressed hope for a “human understanding … about the substance of our undoubtedly still existing difference of opinion about the path of the GDR” and enclosed his recently published article connecting his support for Honecker with the GDR's founding ideals. In the article, Bahro rejected reducing East German history to the SED's abuses, arguing that “our impulse was conceived with the heart, and no such impulse is ever entirely lost.” That impulse, for Bahro, ultimately emanated from antifascism, its entwined relationship with socialism on German soil, and those who fought for both. Though he acknowledged that “a German revolutionary continuity did not exist en masse” after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, it did survive among the few socialists, like Honecker, who struggled against fascism and “rightly wanted a new German state” after 1945. For his role in building this alternative to capitalism, Bahro argued that Honecker should be allowed to retire in peace.

ВОСПОМИНАНИЯ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИХ ЛИДЕРОВ СССР И ГДР 1960–1980-Х ГГ.: ДОЛГИЙ И ТРУДНЫЙ ПУТЬ К ЧИТАТЕЛЮ

The article deals with the memoirs of the political elite of the USSR and the GDR in the 1960s – 1980s. The memoir literature of that period was under a strict ideological control, having a dualistic nature at its core. On the one hand, the control was expressed in a series of prohibitive measures that really led to the restriction of the publication of any memoirs in general and the political ones in particular. On the other hand, it was during those years that two large-scale image campaigns were held, in which the party and the state promoted their ideology through the artificial creation of the memoirs of the highest representatives of the political elite. It concerned the memoirs of the general secretaries: of the Central Committee of the CPSU – Leonid Brezhnev (USSR), and of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany – Erich Honecker (GDR). Of particular interest is the fact that the memoirs of Brezhnev and Honecker were written by a team of professional “ghostwriters” – and not by the nominal authors whose names were on the book covers. The article describes the chronology of the clash of state ideology and memoir prose, and also analyzes the causes and consequences of that clash. For the first time, the article uses the documents from the former Archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, which makes the article especially interesting.

Political pragmatist or man of conviction? Heinrich Bredt (1906–1989) and his involvement in the Third Reich

Heinrich Bredt (1906–1989) has to be considered one of the most prominent German pathologists of the past century. While his scientific oeuvre – especially his research on pathology of the cardiovascular system – received widespread attention, his actual connection to National Socialism remains largely concealed.This paper takes this need for clarification as an occasion for a detailed investigation of Bredt’s political role in the Third Reich, based on source material from Federal, State and University Archives.The analysis shows that Heinrich Bredt had already joined the anti-Semitic and anti-democratic Association of German Students in the 1920s, and from 1933 onward he entered various Nazi organizations – including the Nazi Party. Unlike in later statements, Bredt was not just a nominal member of the Party, he held various offices in National Socialist organizations and was accordingly classified as loyal to the regime by the Nazi authorities.In contrast, during his time in the socialist dictatorship of East Germany, Bredt remained aloof from the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany and its political organizations – unlike many former Nazi Party members who behaved in a political opportune manner in East Germany as well. Bredt demonstrated a distance from the socialist system which suggests that his political actions were guided not by pragmatic but by ideological considerations.

Rebuilding the past: East German preservationists as ‘time activists’

ABSTRACT This article examines how political time in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was shaped and contested by architectural preservation during that state’s formative years. In particular, it investigates the role of historic preservationists in the GDR as ‘time activists’ who both contributed to and challenged the construction of an ideologically informed ‘order of time’. It argues that preservationists in the GDR helped mould, solidify and reinforce ideas of history and time in the physical environments of East German cities, sometimes to the great frustration of the ruling Socialist Unity Party, but at other times in accordance with the party’s general objectives.

Screening dissent: the uprising of 17 June 1953 in East German film

On 17 June 1953, hundreds of thousands of East German citizens took part in the first major uprising in the Eastern Bloc. Across the country, demonstrators demanded the removal of the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) regime, as well as better living and working conditions. Their protests ended under the tracks of Soviet tanks. No sooner had the dust settled, than the SED began to attempt to shape citizens perceptions of the unrest and limit the information about it accessible to them. Thus, the 1953 uprising entered the East German history books as a brief account of a ‘failed fascist putsch’, inspired by ‘hooligans, former Nazis and CIA agents’. Given the politically sensitive nature of the subject, one might expect filmmakers to have been forbidden from addressing what was the biggest show of dissent in East German history before 1989. Dramatised scenes of the unrest did appear, however, in two films and one television mini-series in East Germany. This article examines the scenes of the uprising in these productions closely. It shows that, while filmmakers were permitted to depict the uprising, they could only do so in very vague terms. Moreover, evidence suggests that motion picture depictions of the unrest were censored much more harshly than those that appeared in literary productions. Despite its desire to take control of the narrative of 17 June 1953, screening such dissent was apparently almost unpalatable for the SED regime.

Obračun sa titoistima u sovjetskoj okupacionoj zoni Nemačke: Slučaj Leonard

The aim of this article is to analyze the position of the Yugoslav representatives in Berlin and Yugoslav propaganda in Germany prior to and following the Yugoslav-Soviet split, as well as the mechanisms which the leadership of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany used in dealing with the opposition within the party ranks. It follows the activities of a German communist, Wolfgang Leonhard, in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany, his escape to Yugoslavia in 1949, and his arrival to West Germany in 1950. The article is based on the unpublished documents from German and Serbian archives, Wolfgang Leonhard’s memoirs, and relevant literature.

How Radical Was Children's Literature in the German Democratic Republic? Socialist Children's Literature between Radicalism and Dogmatism

Drawing on recent debates of "radical" children's literature, and discussing six novels addressed to children and young adults in the former German Democratic Republic, this article shows that there was a narrative tension between progressive, socialist values on the one hand, and dogmatic values propagated by the Socialist Unity Party on the other.

South goes East. Zuid-Afrikaanse literatuur bij Volk & Welt

The paper analyses the transfer of South African literature to the German Democratic Republic. In its historiographic/methodological dimension it presents findings on the statistics of (South) African literature(s) translations in the Verlag Volk und Welt (the major East German publisher in the area of contemporary world literature), and on the place of literary translations in the East German foreign cultural policy, as well as in the socialist solidarity discourse of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and the antiapartheid movement. Furthermore, findings are presented on the publisher-internal selection criteria applied to South African literature, based on the archival data from the Bundesarchiv in Berlin (i.e. applications for a print permit and internal/external reviews), on issues around the transformation and adaptation of literature translated in the realm of the East German Weltliteratur, and on the transfer of South African literature from the GDR, based on the English language series Seven Seas Books. Lastly, the function of this alternative canon, framed within the so-called ‘minor transnationalism’, is spelled out.