Download
1 / 46
460 likes | 468 Views
How did the East German Uprising impact the course of the Cold War ?. L/O – To identify the causes and effects of the German Uprising on relations between the superpowers. COLD WAR / De-Stalinization 1953-56. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDhB-ez25HQ Duration ( beginning till 6.42 ).
E N D
How did the East German Uprising impact the course of the Cold War ? L/O – To identify the causes and effects of the German Uprising on relations between the superpowers
COLD WAR / De-Stalinization 1953-56 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDhB-ez25HQ • Duration ( beginning till 6.42 )
Berlin: the Divided City • During blockade two city governments • U-Bahn (West) & S-Bahn (East) • Currency speculation • ‘Shopwindow Berlin’: Ku-Damm as showcase of western standard of living • Espionage centre (CIA Berlin tunnel, human intelligence) • Broadcasting: RIAS American radio ‘Beware RIAS poison’: communist anti-American poster warning of US broadcasts Poster showing smuggling of currency between sectors
The Thaw 1953-1955 • The years 1953–55 witnessed an easing of the tension between the Soviet and Western blocs. • The Korean War ended in 1953 and the first Indochina War in 1954. • The first summit meeting since Potsdam in 1945 was held in Geneva in 1955. • The talks between Britain, France, the US and the USSR were cordial, giving rise to what became known as the ‘Geneva spirit’. • However, despite better relations, no solution was found to the German problem or the arms race. • The end of 1955 further consolidated the division of Europe into two blocs.
New Leaders • In 1953, there was a change of leadership in both the USSR and the US. General Dwight D. Eisenhower won the presidential election in the US. • A collective leadership took the place of Stalin in the Soviet Union after his death on 5 March. • In UK , Winston Churchill returned to power
US vs USSR • President Eisenhower • Promised to take a much tougher line towards the USSR and even spoke of freeing the people in Eastern Europe from Soviet control. • Like his predecessor Truman, he was not in reality ready to risk a nuclear war, aware of the damage even a few Soviet nuclear bombs would do to the US. • Nikita Khrushchev, Georgi Malenkov,Vyachlav Molotov, Lavrenty Beria, and Nikolay Bulganin shared power for 3 years after Stalin’s death. • At the same time, they were political rivals, each hoping to secure sole supreme power. • This group was determined to improve living standards in the USSR and to dismantle the police state created by Stalin
USSR Thaw : Détente • On 16 April 1953, Eisenhower announced that any improvement in Soviet– US relations would depend on free elections in Eastern Europe. • In August 1953, Malenkov declared in the Supreme Soviet that there was ‘no disputed or unresolved question that cannot be settled by mutual agreement of the interested countries’.
Churchill, UK proposes a Four-Power Conference • Winston Churchill suggested a Four-Power conference in which plans for German reunification and demilitarization would be discussed. • This proposal was unpopular with both the West German Chancellor Adenauer, Eisenhower and indeed with Churchill’s own government. ( FRG, UK own government and USA) • They all feared a neutral Germanywould be established that would then be vulnerable to pressure from the USSRand ultimately removed from the western European economic and military systems; this had consistently been the fear of Western governments.
The USSR and the GDR, April–June 1953 • In early 1953, the Soviet Foreign Office made proposals for German unity, submitting them to the US, Britain and France. • It suggested • A. A provisional government be created of politicians from both German states. • B. The removal of all foreign troops of occupation.
To sum it up West : Only for the Militarized West Germany as a result of the wars in Asia East: as always to reunify the nation ( FDR + GDR ) USSR proposes to create a provisional government from GDR and FRG leaders Further , USSR requests to remove all the foreign troops out of Germany • UK Asks for neutral , demilitarized Germany but not popular amongst FDR, USA and UK government as the neutral Germany can be pressured by USSR .
Germany Historical Background 1953-56 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thw16r7YbOc
The crisis in the GDR • As a member of COMECON, the GDR had reorganized its economy following the model of the USSR. • In 1951, its first Five-year Plan was launched with the intention of doubling Germany’s 1936 industrial output. • By 1952, this aim was achieved in the production of iron, steel and chemicals.
GDR , 1952 : Iron, Steel,Chemicals • Forced Heavy industrialization , worsening of consumer goods supply. • Housing and city development policy of industrial expnasion and the consolidation of power of the SED. • Socialist realism in art, determining both subject-matter and style. • Founding of Stalinstadt ( later Eisenhuttenstadt )
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1952–1954, GERMANY AND AUSTRIA, VOLUME VII, PART 2 • https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v07p2/d707
HERCULEAN INDUSTRILAIZATION and Collectivisation • Ulbricht, the GDR’s leader, was, however, determined to increase heavy industryand the output of steel. • In July 1952, workers’ individual production targets were suddenly raised by 10 per cent, while at the same time there were steep increases in the price of food and public transport. • Farmers were also threatened with collectivization of agriculture along Soviet lines.
The first wave of Exodus • By spring 1953, tension was further increased by the arrest of leading non-communist politicians. • Church leaders warned of the possibility of a major catastrophe, while even within the GDR’s Communist Party, the SED, there were indications that many were ready to challenge the government’s economic plans, which had severely stressed the country. • A. NON-COMMUNISTS • B. CHURCH LEADERS • C.EFFORT OF SED CONSOLIDATION OF POWER
FIRST WAVE OF BRAINDRAIN • Many people fled into West Berlin through Berlin’s open frontier and this number increased daily. • As many of these were professionals, skilled workers and farmers, their departure deprived the GDR economy of vital human resources.
Soviet Response to the Exodus • The growing crisis in the GDR deeply embarrassed the new Soviet leadership. If an anti-government revolt erupted, Soviet troops would have to intervene, which would threaten the USSR’s new policy of détente. • Beria, the head of the Soviet secret police, now called the KGB, began to reassess the value of the GDR to the Soviet bloc. • It was proving an expensive and unstable state to support, as well as an area of friction with the Western bloc.
Chasm in the Presidium of the USSR • Beria and Malenkov wanted to propose to the US, Britain and France that a united, neutral Germany be formed. They argued that to achieve reunification on such terms, Germany would be willing to pay substantial reparations to the USSR. • They urged Ulbricht to pursue a more conciliatory approach in the GDR so that various groups were not antagonized, and to abandon his programme for rapid socialization
Ulbright summoned to Moscow • The pursuit of a wrong political line in the German Democratic Republic has produced a most unsatisfactory political and economic situation. There are signs of bitter dissatisfaction – among broad masses of the population, including the workers, the farmers, and the intellectuals – with the political and economic policies of the GDR. The most conspicuous feature of this dissatisfaction is the mass flight of East German residents to West Germany. • From January 1951 through April 1953, 447,000 people have fled alone. Working people make up a substantial number of the defectors. An analysis of the social composition of defectors reveals the following: 18,000 workers; 9,000 medium and small farmers, skilled workers, and retirees; 17,000 professionals and intellectuals; and 24,000 housewives. It is striking that 2,718 members and candidates of the SED and 2,619 members of the FDJ ( Free German Youth Movement ) were among the defectors to West Germany in the first few months of 1953. It should be recognized that the main cause of this situation is the false course adopted during the Second Party Conference of the SED – and approved by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – accelerating the pace of the construction of socialism in East Germany, without the necessary domestic and foreign policy preconditions. • An excerpt from a document given to Ulbricht and two of his colleagues by the Soviet leadership when they visited Moscow on 2 June 1953. Quoted in ‘Cold war misperceptions: The Communist and Western responses to the East German Refugee crisis in 1953’ by V. Ingimundarson, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 28, 1994, p. 473. • CONCERN OF THE SOVIET PRESIDIUM OVER THE EXODUS OF SKILLED WORKERS
The East German Uprising • A series of strikes and riots broke out throughout East Germany on 16 June 1953. Workers demanded increased pay, more political freedom and the re-establishment of the German Social Democratic Party, which had been amalgamated with the KPD in 1946 to create the SED). • By the following day, waves of spontaneous and uncoordinated strikes, demonstrations and riots had erupted across the whole of the GDR. Crowds collected outside prisons, state and party offices and called for the resignation of the government; but only in two cities, Görlitz and Bitterfeld, were there determined efforts to take over the city governments. • In East Berlin, 100,000 people demonstrated on the streets.
The government, distrusting the loyalty of its own police forces, appealed to the Soviets to intervene. • On 17 June, Soviet troops backed by tanks moved to suppress the uprising. • Sporadic demonstrations and riots continued throughout the summer with 125 people killed, 19 of them in East Berlin.
An excerpt from ‘The United States and the East German Uprising of 1953 and the Limits of Rollback’ by Christian Ostermann, published in Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC, USA, Dec. 1994, pp. 2–3. • ... the 1953 East German crisis has to be recognized as one of the most significant focal points in the history of the Cold War. International historians have come to corroborate this view. The uprising erupted during the crucial months after Stalin’s death on 5 March 1953 at a time when the new Soviet leadership was engrossed in a fierce power struggle. In an effort to give an impression of continued strength and unity, and to gain breathing space in the international arena for domestic consolidation, the Soviet leaders displayed considerable flexibility in the foreign policy arena, raising popular hopes in the West for a relaxation of Cold War tensions. With regard to Germany, the fluidity of the situation resulted from a deep disagreement within the Soviet leadership over the future of their politically and economically weakening East German satellite. The near-toppling of the SED state in the uprising influenced the developments and decisions in Moscow. Moreover, the USSR’s massive military intervention in support of its client regime, and its visibly raised commitment to SED General Secretary [Party Leader] Walter Ulbricht and the SED dictatorship changed the dynamics of the Soviet-East German alliance. By providing SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht with increased bargaining power, the heightened Soviet stake in the continued existence of the GDR shifted the balance within the relationship to some degree in favor of the latter. Similarly, in the West, the uprising and the resultant surge of nationalism intensified the American commitment to Adenauer and his policy of Western integration and at the same time bolstered the prospects of the Chancellor’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the September 1953 elections ... • PLEASE IDENTIFY THE VALUES AND LIMITATIONS OF THE CURRENT SOURCE
US Response : VERY INTERESTING • Despite his pledge during the presidential election to liberate Eastern Europe from Soviet control, Eisenhower did not interfere with the Soviet suppression of the East German Uprising. • The US government hoped that the sight of Soviet troops on the streets of East Berlin would fuel West German fears of the USSR and persuade the voters to re-elect Adenauer in the September 1953 elections.
Two –Pronged Strategy • Yet there was a danger that if the US was seen to do nothing to help the East Germans, there could, as C.D. Jackson, Eisenhower’s advisor for psychological warfare, said,‘be a terrible let down in East and West Germany, which will seriously affect the American position and even more seriously affect Adenauer’s position.’ Eisenhower’s advisors launched a two-pronged strategy.
US reaction • In response, the United States under the leadership of President Dwight D. Eisenhower showed its support for the uprising by establishing a large scale food relief program for East Germans, which was officially announced on July 10 and commenced on July 27. • Under this program, the United States pledged to distribute $15 million worth of food from 35 distribution centers established in West Berlin, to which East Germans had access through East Berlin.
“Eisenhower packages” • The so called “Eisenhower packages” contained lard, peas, flour, and pasteurized milk. • The United States distributed over 5 million packages through these centers to over a million East Germans who were able to gain access to East Berlin. • In response, the East German Government cut off rail and bus traffic to West Berlin, which further heightened tensions. • The program put Ulbricht on the defensive and extended the atmosphere of crisis across East Germany. • US also called for a conference to discuss the possibility of German reunification
The Berlin Conference, 25 January–18 February 1954 • By the time the foreign ministers of Britain, France, the US and USSR met in Berlin in early 1954, all hope of making any progress on reuniting Germany had ended. • Beria, who of all the Soviet politicians had been the most anxious to find a solution to the problems caused by a divided Germany, had been arrested and executed by his political rivals on the grounds that his‘treachery’ had led to the East German uprising. • In Berlin, both the USSR and the Western allies produced mutually unacceptable plans for German unity, which each side rejected. • The USSR feared that the Western proposal of holding free elections in Germany would lead to a massive anti-communist vote, while the Western powers feared that a neutral disarmed Germany, not integrated into NATO or the European Defence Community (EDC), would be vulnerable to Soviet influence. The question of German reunification thus remained deadlocked.
The ‘Geneva Spirit’ and its limitations • In May 1956, Khrushchev and Bulganin, who had now emerged as the leaders of the USSR, accepted an invitation from the Western allies to meet in Geneva, Switzerland. • This would be the first major summit conference since Potsdam in 1945. • British Prime Minister Anthony Eden envisaged this to be the first of several summits, which would aim to reduce tension between the Soviet and Western blocs.
Picture of Foreign Ministers at 1955 Geneva Summit Conference in front of the Palais des Nations. • Britain: Prime Minister Anthony Eden • France: Premier Edgar Faure • America: President Dwight Eisenhower • Russia: Premier Nikita Khrushchev
Protocols • The reunification of Germany • European security disarmament • The development of contacts between East and West.
AGREED • The USSR agreed to evacuate Austria, which had been divided into four zones in 1945, provided it remained neutral and did not join NATO. • There was, however, still deadlock between the two sides over the future of Germany. • Neither was progress made on disarmament or arms control, although it was agreed that the foreign ministers of the major powers should meet again to discuss the questions of Germany, security and disarmament.
