History of East Germany Part III

Before the early 1970s, one of the biggest problems plaguing the history of East Germany had been tensions with its capitalist sister state, the Federal Republic of Germany Previously, the Democratic Republic of Germany had advanced the goal of an integrated, unified Germany under a communist banner, but in 1972, new party secretary Erich Honecker revised that policy, asserting East German loyalty to the Soviet Union, but taking a defensive, rather than an offensive, stance on the West. This paved the way for the Four Power Agreement of Berlin, which ushered in an improved period of East West relations in Germany. This agreement, signed by the US, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, came into effect in June of 1973, and represented an important turning point in the history of East Germany.

During this period, the East German government finally acknowledged that many of its citizens had difficulties in identifying with the Soviet Union, and so reworded the constitution to emphasize national pride. Although the SED played up the socialist elements of the revised constitution, the new party secretary gave credence to the deep connection that many citizens of the GDR felt to German culture and traditions, and put forth the following relationship between citizenship and heritage: “citizenship: GDR, nationality, German.” This was significant to the history of East Germany because it acknowledged the common heritage of East and West Germany.

However, despite the improved relations with the West, the GDR remained committed to strict Soviet policies, which eventually led to a national decline. One early indication that East Germany was in a financial turmoil came in 1977, when a rise in coffee prices around the world, which strained the extremely limited resources of the GDR, forced the East German government to withdraw many brands of coffee from the market, replacing them with a disgusting mixture of coffee and filler. The East German government was unable to afford coffee for its citizens for an entire year before prices again returned to normal. The GDR also had an ever-increasing international debt, which many economists predict would have eventually led to the collapse of the East German government. This era in the history of East Germany highlights the many failures of East German economic policies.

The final chapter in the history of East Germany was written in 1989, when it became clear that the local government elections had been rigged. Many East German citizens fled the country through Hungary, which had opened its borders with Austria for the first time in forty years. Protests and demonstrations signaled the dissatisfaction of the East German people. In November of 1989, the East German government opened the borders between East and West Germany, allowing its citizens to freely leave the country. The Berlin Wall, which had stood around the enclave of West Berlin, fell soon after, when the border checkpoints were opened and souvenir hunters began to chip off pieces of the structure. The worsening political and economic state of the nation led East Germans to petition the West for a merger, which occurred on October 3, 1990.