Pioneers of a New Germany: Returning POWs from the soviet union and the making of east German citizens, 1945-1950

Central European History

Volumn 32, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 143-180

  Biess, Frank ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 10944270773     PISSN: 00089389     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0008938900020884     Document Type: Review

References (104)

1. On the concept of an "antifascist-democratic" order and its various meanings, see Sigrid Meuschel, Legitimation und Parteiherrschaft in der DDR (Frankfurt am Main, 1992), 29-40. Although the SED announced the "building of socialism" only in 1952, the project of an antifascist-democratic order already included key elements of a socialist transformation of East German society.
2. On German soldiers on the eastern front as perpetrators, see Omer Bartov, Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich (New York, 1993)
3. and Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann, eds., Vernichtungskrieg: Verbrechen der Wechrmacht 1941 bis 1944 (Hamburg, 1995)
4. There is still a considerable uncertainty as to the actual numbers of German POWs in Soviet captivity. I adopt here the figure provided by Stefan Karner, Im Archipel GUPV1: Kriegsgefangenschaft und Internierung in der Sowjetunion 1941-1956 (Munich, 1995), 79, 178
5. This last figure is cited by Karner, Archipel GUPVI, 204
6. 50 percent of returnees were younger then 35, i.e., born after 1914, Erich Lage, "Alter und Beruf der Heimkehrer," Arbeit und Sozialfürsorge 9 (1949): 194-95
7. On fascist conceptions of masculinity, see George Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (New York, 1996), 155-80
8. on West Germany see the contributions by Heide Fehrenbach, Robert Moeller, and Uta Poiger to the forum "The 'Remasculinization' of Germany in the 1950s," in Signs: Journal of Women and Culture in Society 24 (1998)
9. I adopt this phrase from Christoph Kleßmann, "Verflechtung und Abgrenzung: Aspekte der geteilten und zusammengehörenden Nachkriegsgeschichte," Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 29/30 (1995): 30-41
10. On the West German reception of POWs, see Robert Moeller, "War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany," American Historical Review 101 (October 1996): 1008-48
11. and Frank Biess, "Survivors of Totalitarianism: Returning POWs and the Reconstruction of Masculine Citizenship in West Germany, 1945-1955," in The Miracle Years Revisited: Toward a Cultural History of West Germany, ed. Hanna Schissler (Princeton, forthcoming)
12. See also the contributions in Annette Kaminsky, ed., Heimkehr 1948: Geschichte und Schicksat deutscher Kriegsgefangener (Munich, 1998). This volume appeared too late in order to be integrated fully in this article
13. The article does not explicitly address the influence of Soviet Military Government on the East German reception and treatment of returning POWs. Unless otherwise indicated, it assumes, however, that East German authorities acted generally within a larger ideological, political, and administrative framework that was determined by Soviet authorities, yet within which they exerted an at least limited agency in formulating specific policies. On relations between the SED and Soviet Military Government see Jan Foitzik, "Einleitung," in Inventar der Befehle des Obersten Chefs der sowjetischen Militä radministration in Deutschland, ed. Jan Foitzik, (Munich, 1995), 48-54
14. and Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949 (Cambridge, MA 1995), 284-317
15. For a stronger emphasis on Soviet control, see Stefan Creuzberger, Die sowjetische Besatzungsmacht und das politische System der SBZ (Weimar, 1996)
16. Historians are only beginning to define the impact of the war on the eastern front on both postwar societies as a central theme of inquiry, see Klaus Naumann, "Nachkrieg: Vernichtungskrieg, Wehrmacht und Militär in der deutschen Wahrnehmung nach 1945," Mittelweg 36, no. 7 (1997): 11-26
17. and Michael Geyer, "Das Stigma der Gewalt und das Problem der nationalen Identität in Deutschland," in Von derAufgabe der Freiheit: Festschrift für Hans Mommsen, ed. Christian Jansen et al. (Berlin, 1995), 673-98. Both articles, however, focus primarily on West Germany
18. Rückblick auf das Heimkehrerlager Gronenfelde bei Frankfurt an der Oder, 1 May 1950, BA-Berlin, DOI/10/47, 1
19. Wilhelm Pieck, "An die Heimkehrer," 10 August 1946, BA-SAPMO, NY4036/428, 20-24; Informationsdienst, 28 August 1946, BA-Berlin, DO2/77,35-37
20. Quotation from "Sie kehren zurück," Neue Berliner Illustrierte 2, no. 27 (1946): 5
21. see also "Wir sind daheim," Neue Berliner Illustrierte 2, no. 14 (1946): 6-7
22. Bericht des Gen. Radzinski von Provinzialverwaltung Potsdam zur Heimkehreraktion Gronenfelde, 20 September 1946, BA-Bêrlin, DO2/76, 55-59
23. In the Berlin elections, the SED received 19.8 percent of the vote (SPD 48.7 percent), in the regional elections, the SED remained below 50 percent in all five provinces; Günter Braun,"Wahlen und Abstimmungen," in SBZ Handbuch, ed. Martin Brosrat et al. (Munich, 1990), 383-90
24. During the early postwar period, the SED did not, for example, exert complete control over the emerging provincial administrations in the eastern zone, see Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 44-52
25. Edith Hönig, "Stimmungsbild aus dem Rückkehrerlager der aus russischer Kriegsgefangenschaft heimkehrenden Deutschen in Frankfurt/Oder Gronenfelde," 2 August 1946, BA-SAPMO DY30/IV2/17/56, 12
26. On gender notions within the Communist Party, see the intriguing analysis in Eric Weitz, Creating German Communism: From Popular Protest to Socialist State (Princeton, 1997), 188-223
27. "Unsere Heimkehrer," Die neue Heimat 2, no. 8 (1948): 10-11
28. Paul Merker, "Die Kriegsgefangenen, Abschrift eines Artikels aus der Märkischen Volksstimme," 7 January 1948, BLHA, Rep. 203/1075, 74-75
29. Pack an, Genosse (für die Heimkehrer in Gronenfelde), BA-Berlin, DO2/77, 179
30. On reeducation in Soviet captivity in general, see Arthur L. Smith, War for the German Mind: Reeducating Hitler's Soldiers (Providence, 1996), 105-23
31. On the "National Committee" as a resistance organization, see Gerd Überschär, "Das NKFD und der BDO im Kampf gegen Hitler," in Das Nationalkomitee "Freies Deutschland" und der Bund Deutscher Offiziere, ed. Gerd Überschär, (Frankfurt am Main, 1996), 31-51
32. on the transition from the "National Committee" to the antifascist schools, see Smith, War for the German Mind, 174-81
33. On the SED's transformation into a "party of the new type" and the related purges, see Andreas Malycha, Partei von Stalins Gnaden? Die Entwicklung der SED zur Partei Neuen Typs in den Jahren 1946 bis 1950 (Berlin, 1996)
34. Bericht Semjonows vom 24 January 1950, in Wilhem Pieck-Aufzeichmungen zur Deutschlandpolitik 1945-1953, ed. Rolf Badstübner and Wilhelm Loth, (Berlin, 1994), 331
35. See Helga A.Welsh, "'Antifaschistisch-demokratische Umwälzung' und politische Säuberung in der sowjetischen Besatzungszone Deutschlands," in Politische Säuberung in Europa, ed. Klaus-Dietmar Henke et al. (Munich, 1991), 84-107. Alleged Nazi criminals, however, were tried in East German courts until 1950
36. Kurt Nettball, Berichte von Kreiskonferenzen im Bereich des LV Sachsen-Anhalt mit dem Thema "Partei und Heimkehrer," 24 August 1948, BA-SAPMO, DY30/IV2/11/204, 22-24
37. On the "de-differentiation" of East German society, see Meuschel, Legitimation und Parteiherrschaft, 10-15
38. on the NDPD in general, see Dietrich Staritz, "National- Demokratische Partei Deutschlands (NDPD)," in SBZ-Handbuch, 574-83
39. Kurt Nettball, Berichte von Kreiskonferenzen im Bereich des LV Sachsen Anhalt mit dem Thema "Partei und Heimkehrer," 24 August 1948, BA-SAPMO, DY30/IV2/11/204, 22-24
40. Memo of the NDPD Bundesvorstand, "Schluss mit der Ungewissheit," BA-SAPMO, DY16/196L; on the changing social composition of the officer corps, see Bernhard R. Kroener, "Auf dem Weg zu einer nationalsozialistischen Volksarmee: Die soziale Öffnung des Heeroffizierskorps im Zweiten Weltkrieg," in Von Stalingrad zur Wähnungsreform: Zur Sozialgeschichte des Umbruchs in Deutschland, ed. Martin Broszat et al (Munich, 1989), 651-82
41. Mary Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR, 1949-189 (New York, 1995), 22
42. Rudolf Müller, "Ihnen muss geholfen werden," BA-SAPMO DY30/IV2/11/211, 315-17
43. See Richard Bessel and Ralph Jessen, "Einleitung: Die Grenzen der Diktatur," in Die Grenzen der Diktatur: Staat und Gesellschaft in der DDR, ed., Richard Bessel and Ralph Jessen, (Göttingen, 1996), 7-23
44. Müller, "Ihnen muss geholfen werden," BA-SAPMO DY30/IV2/11/211, 315-17
45. Aktennotiz für Vizepräsident Vogt, 20 June 1949, BA-Berlin, DO2/76, 172. On this conflict, see also Marcel Boldorf, Sozialfürsorge in der SBZ/DDR 1945-1953: Ursachen, Ausmass and Bewältigung der Nachkriegsarmut (Stuttgart, 1998), 179-80
46. For a good survey on church/state relations in East Germany see Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship, 87-106
47. See Weitz, Creating German Communism, 227
48. 585 out of 736 participants were SED members, see Auswertung der am 29 October 1949 stattgefundenen zonalen Heimkehrerkonferenz, BA-SAPMO, DY30/IV2/11/204, 84-85. Antifascist returnees featured prominently in the local and regional leadership of the GDSF, see Lothar Dralle, Von der Sowjetunion lernen . . .: Zur Geschichte der Gesellschaft für Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft (Berlin, 1993), 330-38
49. This process followed the model for the subjective internalization of a radically changed social reality described in Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, Die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit (Frankfurt am Main 1997 [1969]), 168-69. Interestingly, they identify the "religious conversion" as the prototype of such a transformation and refer to the adoption of this model by "political ideologies." The notion of "rebirth" in Soviet captivity is also reflected in the title of autobiographies such as Gerhard Dengler, Zwei Leben in einem (Berlin, 1989)
50. On the "externalization" of the Nazi past in East Germany, see Norbert Frei, "NS-Vergangenheit unter Ulbricht und Adenauer," in Die geteilte Vergangenheit, ed. Jürgen Danyel (Berlin, 1995), 125-32
51. Jürgen Kuczinsky, Protokoll der Zentralen Heimkehrerkonferenz, 29 Ocotber 1949, BASAPMO, DY32/10057
52. Jürgen Danyel, "Die geteilte Vergangenheit: Gesellschaftliche Ausgangslagen und politische Dispositionen für den Umgang mit Nationalsozialismus und Widerstand in beiden deutschen Staaten nach 1949," in Historische DDR Forschung: Aufsätze und Studien, ed. Jürgen Kocka (Berlin, 1993), 129-47
53. Heimkehrer Willerding, Protokoll der zentralen Heimkehrerkonferenz, 29 October 1949, BA-SAPMO, DY32/10057
54. Outright anti-Semitism was another reason for the East German repression of the memory of Jewish victims, see especially Herf, Divided Memory, 69-161
55. See Elizabeth Heineman, "'The Hour of the Woman': Memories of Germany's Crisis Years and West German National Identity," American Historical Review 101 (1996):354-95 as well as chapter 4 of her forthcoming book What Difference Does a Husband Make? Women and Marital Status in Germany, 1933-1961 (Berkeley, forthcoming). My thanks to Elizabeth Heineman for making her manuscript available to me
56. Estimates of the numbers of rapes reach from tens of thousands to two million, Heineman, "The Hour of the Woman," 364
57. Atina Grossmann, "'A Question of Silence': The Rape of German Women by Occupation Soldiers," October 72 (1995): 43-63
58. On SED attitudes toward POWs during this period in general, see Beate Ihme-Tuchel, "Die SED und die deutschen Kriegsgefangenen, 1949-1955" in Deutschland Archiv 27 (1994): 490-503
59. See Wolfgang Zank, Wirtschaft und Arbeit in Ostdeutschland: Probleme des Wiederaufbaus in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone (Munich, 1987), 43-44. This was of course true for returning POWs from the West as well, all of whom had returned by 1947/48. Unless otherwise indicated, the observations in this section therefore apply to POWs returning from Allied as well as from Soviet camps
60. See Albert Voss, "Erfassung und Arbeitslenkung der arbeitsfähigen Bevölkerung," in Arbeit und Sozialfürsorge, Jahrbuch 1945-1947, 29-45
61. on the importance of male workers, see also Ausführungen der Landesarbeitsämter zur Frage der Arbeitsbeschaffung für Kriegsgefangene, BA-Berlin, DQ2/3392
62. Heineman, What Difference Does a Husband Make?, chap. 4, 26-31, quotation on 26
63. Friedel Malter, "Frauenfunk," 25 March 1947, BA-SAPMO DY34/2028
64. SED Landesvorstand, Abt. Arbeit und Sozialfürsorge an Redaktion Freie Gewerkschaft, 16 January 1947, BLHA, Rep. 332/576, 8
65. Heineman, What Difference Does a Hitsband Mike?, chap. 4, 38-39
66. Heike Solga, Auf dem Weg in eine klassenlose Gesellschaft: Klassenlagen und Mobilität zwischen den Generationen (Berlin, 1995), 95 notes that by 1948, 50 percent of all managerial positions were occupied by former industrial or agrarian workers, indicating the onset of "professional careers which would have been inconceivable under different circumstances."
67. Heineman, What Difference Does a Husband Make, chap. 7, 24-31 emphasizes the significance of the Company Women's Commissions (Betriebsfrauenausschü sse) which were founded in 1952 in reducing gender inequality in the workplace during the 1950s and 1960s
68. I adopt this term from Susan Jeffords, The Remasculinization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War (Bloomington, 1989)
69. See also its application on the West German reception of the last POWs in 1955 in Robert Moeller, "The 'Last Soldiers of the Great War' and Tales of Family Reunions in the Federal Republic," in Signs. Journal of Women and Culture in Society 24 (1998): 129-45
70. On West Germany see Moeller, "The 'Last Soldiers of the Great War'"
71. and Biess, "Survivors of Totalitarianism."
72. My analysis here is informed by Kathleen Canning, "Feminist Histoy after the Linguistic Turn: Historicizing Discourse and Experience," in Signs. Journal of Women and Culture in Society 19 (1994): 368-404
73. None of the nine oral history interviews I conducted with returning POWs to East Germany nor any of the interviews with former POWs included in Lutz Niethammer et al., Die volkseigene Erfahrung: Eine Archäologie des Lebens in der Industrieprovinz der DDR. 30 biographische Eröffnungen (Berlin, 1991) suggest an identification with the SED's interpretation of captivity as antifascist conversion. I am aware of the fact, however, that my interviews may have been colored by a post-1990 perspective which militated against an open identification with a state that had ceased to exist. To protect the identity of my interviewees, I have rendered their names anonymous
74. This is the dominating feature in the interview with "Thomas G." who returned to East Germany in December 1949. Interview with "Thomas G.," Oral History Interview #2, 4 November 1996, my files. For similar attitudes among returnees in the West, see Lutz Niethammer, "Heimat und Front:Versuch, zehn Kriegserinnerungen aus der Arbeiterklasse des Ruhrgebiets zu verstehen," in "Die Jahre weiss man nicht wo man die heute hinsetzen soll": Faschismuserfahrungen im Ruhrgebiet, ed. Lutz Niethammer (Berlin, 1986), 227
75. For an analysis of various forms of nonconformist behavior during the Nazi and the SED-dictatorships, see Christoph Kleßmann, "Opposition und Resistenz in zwei Diktaturen in Deutschland," Historische Zeitschrift 262 (1996): 453-80
76. on the significance of the visibility of loyalty, see Solga, Auf dem Weg in cine klassenlose Gesellschaft, 191-92
77. Kurt V, Bericht über die Veranstaltung des Heimkehrerausschusses Prenzlauer Berg, 25 April 1950, LAB, SED LV L-2/11/502
78. For an analysis of locally specific factors that contributed to open resistance to the regime, see Andrew Port, "When workers rumbled: the Wismut upheaval of August 1951 in East Germany," Social History 22 (1997): 145-73
79. On the passage of this law see James Diehl, TheThanks of the Fatherland: German Veterans after the Second World War (Chapel Hill, 1993), 101-7. East German returnees were apparently very much aware of the social policy benefits that returnees in the West received, Oral History Interview #3, "Hans M.," 8 November 1996, my files
80. Interview with "Ehepaar Apel" in Niethammer et al., Die volkseigene Erfahrung, 319
81. Lutz Niethammer, "Privat-Wirtschaft: Erinnerungsfragmente einer anderen Umerziehung," in his "Hinterher merkt man, dass es richtig war, dass es schiefgegangen ist": Nachkriegserfahrungen im Ruhrgebiet (Berlin, 1983), 93
82. On SED policies toward the family see Gesine Obertreis, Familienpolitik in der DDR, 1945-1980 (Opladen, 1986)
83. The notion of a "niche society" derives from Günter Gaus, Wo Dcutschland liegt: Eine Ortsbestimmung (Munich, 1983)
84. second quotation Alwin Wild, "Bericht über die Eisenbahnbrigaden von Brest nach Frankfurt/Oder," 26 June 1947, BA-Berlin, DO2/76
85. See also the testimonies of "Rudolf Ohlsen" and "Ehepaar Hölscher" in Niethammer et al., Auf der Suche nach der volkseigenen Erfahrung, 355-408 and Oral History Interview #4, "Bernd W., " 8 November 1996, my files
86. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1983), 6
87. Dr. Heinz S. aus Weimar, "Heimkehr aus der Kriegsgefangenschaft, " 1 September 1946; BA-SAPMO, NY4182/1160; 46-49
88. Celia Applegate, A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat (Berkeley, 1990)
89. Alan Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor: Württemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871-1918 (Chapel Hill, 1997)
90. While both works differ in their interpretations of Heimat during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these differences seem less significant for the post-1945 period, see Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor, 127
91. Niethammer, "Privat-Wirtschaft," 93 stresses this function of both family and Heimat
92. Quotation from Morach, "Heimkehr 1948," 5 September 1948; BA-SAPMO, DY30/IV3/11/211, 287-88
93. Confine, Nation as a Local Metaphor, 185
94. Dr. Heinz S., "Heimkehr aus der Kriegsgefangenschaft."
95. Applegate, A Nation of Provincials, 240
96. Klaus Latzel, "'Freie Bahn den Tüchtigen': Kriegserfahrung und Perspektiven für die Nachkriegszeit in Feldpostbriefen aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg," in Lermen aus dem Krieg? Deutsche Nachkriegszeiten 1918-1945, ed. Gottfried Niedhart and Dieter Riesenberger (Munich, 1992), 331-43
97. Solga, Auf dem Weg in die klassenlose Gesellschaft?, 159-66, 181-82, 213-14 emphasizes the gender differences within the generally high social mobility during the early GDR. This thesis is borne out by my oral history interviews: one of my interviewees became an important architect, another deputy headmaster in a high school, a third director of a factory; interviews #2, #3, #4 with "Thomas G.," "Bernd W.," and "Hans M."
98. Lutz Niethammer, "Erfahrungen und Strukturen: Prolegomena zu einer Geschichte der Gesellschaft der DDR," Sozialgeschichte der DDR, ed. Hartmut Kaelble et al. (Stuttgart, 1993), 105
99. Franz Fühmann, Der Sturz des Engels: Erfahrungen mit Dichtung (Munich, 1985), 55-57, 63-67
100. While Fühmann's account reflects an ironical and self-critical distance to this alleged transformation, such a skeptical tone is missing in other East German autobiographies like, for example, Ernst Kehler, Einblicke und Einsichten: Erinnerungen (Berlin, 1989)
101. Niethammer, "Erfahrungen und Strukturen," 105
102. Werner K., "'Kampf' der SED Kreis Erfurt gewidmet," 26 December 1948, BA-Berlin, DO2/77, 183-85."We see in this struggle between the elements/ a parable of our own struggle/ a glance as the future opens up/ and the certainty reaches all of us:/ victory is ours/ victory is ours/ because time is ripe/ and everybody takes an oath anew at this hour/ fight!/ fight and victory!/ loyally following the red flag/ through the roaring into the last battle/ until it breaks through the night of the peoples/ as a shining signal."
103. On these debates see Mary Fulbrook, "Methodologische Überlegungen zu einer Gesellschaftsgeschichte der DDR," in Grenzen der Diktatur, ed. Bessel and Jessen, 274-97
104. It is with respect to these similar totalitarian claims that comparisons between the Nazi and the SED dictatorships seem most appropriate. In other areas, comparisons between both regimes may yield more differences than similarities, especially regarding the different degrees of destructive energies that both regimes developed. See Jürgen Kocka, "Nationalsozialsmus und SED-Diktatur im Vergleich," in idem, Vereinigungskrise: Zur Geschichte der Gegenwart (Göttingen, 1995), 91-101