The goose-stepping guards in olive green, the rumbling heavy Panzerwagen and the martial strains of Beethoven's York March on Berlin's Marx- Engels-Platz celebrating the 20th anniversary of the war's end might lead a modern Rip Van Winkle to believe that Germanyhad turned the tide and won the war after all, or the cynical to suppose that the Soviets had simply bought up their share of the Prussian wilitary caste and set them marching again. Appearances, however, are sometimes deceptive.
Even at the superficial level, closer inspection reveals that the helmets are not those of the old Wehrnacht and the slogans are different. According to the slogans 1945 marked not just the ending of the war but the liberation from Fascism and a new beginning. The East Berlin officials claim the building up of the 90,000 strong National People's Army (NVA) was forced on them, but that it too marks a new beginning. If their military literature for home consumption is any guide, one can see their point. The aim has been to marry the'National Democratic! military tradition exemplified by the struggle against Napoleanic domination and the bomb plot against Hitler, with the proletarian military tradition of the Paris Commune of 1871, the Spartakus revolt of 1919 and the International Brigade in Spain. It is worth noting here that the East Germans claim Colonel Count Schenk von Stauffenburg, the man who put the bomb in Hitler's bunker in 1944, as really one of them. Neues Deutschland, the daily paper of the Socialist Unity Party (SED), declared on July 2lst of last year, "He belongs to us". To find sartorial expression for the struggles of the patriotic count and the armed Berlin workers of a generation ago which would also evoke a response among the people was « difficult and painful task. The uniforms of the para-military formations before 1953 were determinedly German. Later they became almost Russian. When the NVA was set up in 1956 the present traditional German uniforms were introduced.
More important than the uniforms are the men inside them. As far as the officers are concerned, the official Handbuch states that 82.4% of them are from working class homes, 54% have been recognised, after investigation of their pasts, as anti-Fascist fighters, 42% were in the working class movement before 1933. There are some ex-Wehrmacht officers in the NVA, but most of thesejoined in the (for them propaganda) war against the Nazis whilst prisoners of war in the Soviet Union. Some of the most notable of these like Colonel Adam of Stalingrad and General Vincenz Mueller, are either retired or dead. The officer who led the parade on Marx-Engels Platz was not one of these, but Kurt Wagner, a 60-year-old ex-electrician from Chemnitz (now Karl-Marx-Stadt).
If the social composition of the organs of power of a state tell you what kind of a state it is, then the German Democratic Republic (DDR) is a Workers! State. Official sources claim that 70% of the leading officials of the German People's Police (DVP) are recognised victims of Nazism and that 85% come from working class or peasant families. Among the future members of the intelligentsia, the students, 59% are from workers' or peasants' families and 19% from the homes of white-collar workers. In Parliament the workers are less well represented. There "only" 192 are listed as skilled workers (out of 500) while 51 are listed as white collar and 95 as skilled agricultural workers. Scientists and doctors number 45, educationalists 23 and technicians 23. As in the DDR members of Parliament are not professionals, these occupations are current ones.
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East Germany (continued) The DDR's Parliament mirrors the direction the East German leaders wish the country to go. There are no unskilled workers listed, for instance. Economically speaking, East Germany cannot afford them. The plan is to concentrate the national effort on “intelligence intensive" products requiring little raw material. Thus the products of the metal industry head East Germany's export list, followed by chemicals, in pro capita production of which, so the Statistisches Taschenbuch assures us, the DDR is second only to the USA. In 1963 chemicals accounted for nearly 16% of East German production. Like the other Communist states, the DDR has undergone a major industrial upheaval. Unlike them, the territory of the DDR was industrialised before the war. However, the founders of the Democratic Republic found themselves without the necessary hard coal and steel, brought before 1945 from West Germany, to make their economy viable. At that time, 1949, the other Communist States were in no position to deliver these goods and so a costly program of investment was embarked upon. Some say this policy was exaggerated by Stalinist autarkic theories (Kurze Gesichte der DDR, Stefan Doernberg, East Berlin, 1964) but at least it has led to a situation where the DDR produces more electricity per head of population than the UK or Western Germany - and still there is not enough! Apart from the lack of raw materials, other factors have retarded the DDR economy. Many of the technical and managerial personnel of the old regime automatically chose to go West rather than live under the Soviets. Others were later induced by high monetary rewards to do the same. Then there was, and is, the problem of the economically unfavourable structure of the population with two million more women than men, many of them elderly. The emigration of thousands of E. Germans before 1961, mainly, let us be clear, for economic rather than political reasons, has aggravated the situation. In the years before the Wall, and still to a much smaller extent today, there was the enormous economic loss to the DDR caused by illegal export of currency and quality articles across the open Berlin frontier. Briefly, DDR citizens wanting oranges, bananas, cheap textiles, Western cigarettes or coffee, all in short supply in East Germany, changed their money for West Marks in West Berlin at the highly artificial rate of 4:1. The less well-off West Berliners (for years there were many unemployed) and racketeers got hold of these East Marks and bought, or got relatives to buy, Zeiss cameras and other optical equipment, watches, radios, typewriters, even bread. These they often resold in the West at a good profit. They also "lived it up" in E, German restaurants, theatres and night clubs. Finally, E. Germany paid more than its fair share of reparations, compared with the Federal Republic, for Nazi crimes committed in the Soviet Union and Poland. Little wonder that the Times correspondent wrote on May 29th, 1964, that the East German economic development was "more miraculous than the better known West German miracle..." Despite the tremendous economic progress, the above mentioned difficulties have meant that in certain respects the standard of living of the East Germans has not kept pace with that of the advanced Western nations. E. Germary now claims to have more TVs per thousand households than France or Italy, but fewer than W. Germany, Britain or the US. Official statistics freely admit that E. Germans have fewer fridges, cars or washing machines than their rel-~ atives in W. Germany, Friedrich Ebert, Lord Mayor of E. Berlin, readily admitted to me that he could at present see no solution to the housing problem. Figures published in the Statisches Taschenbuch show the seriousness of this.
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East Germany (continued) In 1961 45% of all the 5,447,122 dwellings dated from before 1900 and only 10.5% had been built since 1945. Between 1961 and 1963 about 255,000 flats and houses were built. To overcome the problem efforts are being made to apply prefabrication methods and in 1964 the majority of new dwellings were constructed in this way. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, living standards are high in Fast Germany.
The measures connected with the building of the Wall in 1961 have not stopped the process of "liberalisation" in the DDR. This has found official expression particularly in the speech Walter Ulbricht made to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the setting up of the Republic. In it he insisted that E. Germany was now in the process of transition from dictatorship of the Proletariat to a People's State (Volksstaat) in which the administration of justice would be a matter of the whole people. He claimed that E. Germany had overcome the remaining "dogmatic phenomena" and was pledged to the deep~ ening of the rights of the citizen and equality of all before the Law. He also promised that in the DDR the “inviolability of the person and the home” and the secrecy of the post would be respected, This speech, which was given in Neues Deutschland on October 7th 1964, was taken seriously by the highly respected Hamburg weekly, Die Zeit (November 27th). The W. German weekly interpreted these new formulations as a clear break with "the Stalinist class justice" of the past. The same paper reported a whole series of cases which it said showed that something similar to the Western idea of the "rule of Law" had reached the DDR.
In the above mentioned speech Ulbricht promised a measuer of electoral reform. The main point of this was that starting with the next local elections, there would be provision for more candidates than seats, thus allowing for the removal of unpopular candidates and prociding the electors a chance to show their dissatisfaction without endangering the regime or the system of single list elections.
Perhaps another sign of the positive development of the DDR is the provision, written into the conscription law of 1962, for alternative service for those who for reasons of conscience refuse to carry arms. According to Neues Deutschland such service is likely to be done in "building" units of the NVA. The members of such units are not trained in the use of arms and are not required to utter the normal military oath of allegiance. At another level, in creative writing, the term "Socialist Realism" is being interpreted in a much broader, more positive way than in the past. Again, the new program of "Die Distel", the political cabaret in E. Berlin, is bolder and franker than I remember it from my last visit to the DDR in 1959. Criticism of W. Germany was kept to a minimum; the bulk of the program was concerned with putting the DDR in order. F '
Harold Wilson is reported to have likened the DDR to an elephant one cannot ignore, Walter Lippman has written of the "metaphysical unreality" of a policy based on the fiction that the DDR does not exist. It is time for deeds to replace words and for the Western powers to normalise their relations with the world's eighth industrial state, the other Germany. *DR. DAVID CHILDS, who was Labour candidate for Rugby in 1964, studied at Hamburg University and was awarded a Ph.D. by London University for research on postwar Germany. His book From Schumacher ‘to Brandt: The Story of Socialism 1945-65 is to bepublished this year.