1 The lower figure is supplied by Norman M. Naimark, Though he does not provide a specific source, relying instead on what he calls ‘unofficial estimates’. See his, ‘Is It True What They’re Saying About East Germany?’, Orbis, Fall, 1979, p. 577. The higher figure of 5.6 percent is provided by Schulz, Hans‐Dieter in ‘Sonnige Oktobertage: Zum 30. Jahrestag der DDR‐Grundung’, Deutschland Archiv, Number 11, 1979, p. 1126.Google Scholar

2 Meyer, Michael, Freikauf: Menschenhandel in Deutschland, Hamburg, Paul Zsolnay, 1978, pp. 161–2.Google Scholar

3 Melvin Croan briefly describes this East German dependence on the USSR in his East Germany: The Soviet Connection, Beverly Hills/London, Sage Publications, 1976, pp. 50–1.

4 A crisp and brief description of the two‐currency issue is provided in Zimmermann, ‘The GDR in the 1970s’ in Problems of Communism, March‐April, 1978, pp. 38–9. But the Honecker regime has not stood still on the issue. Consult, Schulz, Hans‐Dieter, ‘Vor dem Einkauf schnell zur Bank‐Zur Einfuhrung der Intership‐Gutscheine’, Deutschland Archiv, Number 5, 1979.Google Scholar And for a fascinating, if personal, account of how one West German journalist views this intra‐German communications dynamic, see Loewe, Lothar, Abends kommt der Klassenfeind, Frankfurt/Main, Berlin, Vienna, Ullstein, 1977.Google Scholar

5 For an insightful, if sombre, discussion on this subject, read Bell’s, Daniel ‘The Future World Disorder’, Foreign Policy, Summer, 1977.Google Scholar

6 These specific remarks are contained in a more general description of political training given to the leading cadres of the Nationl Committee for a Free Germany, which served as East Germany’s initid umbrella organization for the furtherance of Soviet‐German Communist policies in their occupation zone at the end of the Second World War. See Leonhard, Wolfgang, Child of the Revolution, Chicago, Henry Regnery, 1958, pp. 281–2.Google Scholar

7 Consult ‘Abgrenzung’, in Ludz, Peter C. and Kuppe, Johannes (eds), DDR Handbuch, Cologne, Science and Politics Publishers, 12 1975, 1st edition, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar For broader analyses of ‘delimitation’, and national development in the GDR more generally, see: (East German source), Axen, Hermann, Zur Entwicklung der Sozialistichen Nation in der DDR, East Berlin, Dietz, 1976;Google Scholar (Western), Starrels, John, ‘Nationalism in the German Democratic Republic’, Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism, Fall, 1974 Google Scholar, and Ludz, Peter C., ‘The SED’s Concept of Nation’, also in Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism, Spring, 1977.Google Scholar

8 Neues Deutschland, 13 August, 1979.

9 For a brief resumé of UIbricht’s fall and Honecker’s promotion to SED First Secretary, and the reasons behind those changes, see Ludz, Peter C., ‘Continuity and Change Since Ulbricht’, in Legters, Lyman (ed.), The German Democratic Republic, Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1978, pp. 255–81.Google Scholar

10 Sources cited in footnote 7 should be referred to for an analysis of the ‘delimitation’ idea.

11 Aside from the sources quoted in footnote 7, a short but well‐written description of East Germany’s ‘official’ search for national identity is found in Wiessner, Hans‐Jürgen, ‘Profilsuch des ewigen Zweiten’, Das Parlament, No. 37, 15 09 1979 .Google Scholar

12 This subject is examined more deliberately in the next section. For a brief description of that relationship, however, consult Melvin Croan, East Germany: The Soviet Connection.

13 This has been a long‐term evolution, dating back to the late 1920s, when the German Communist movement was effectively taken over by Stalin. See an especially poignant description of that tragedy in Weber, Hermann, Von Rosa Luxemburg zu Walter Ulbricht: Wandlungen des Kommunismus in Deutschland, Hanover, Literature and Contemporary History Publishers, 1961.Google Scholar Obviously, however, the immediate post‐war period is more directly important here in this regard. See Nettl, J. P., The Eastern Zone and Soviet Policy in Germany, London, Oxford University Press, 1951 Google Scholar, and for a recent depiction of that complex transformation consult Krisch, Henry, German Politics under Soviet Occupation, New York and London, Columbia University Press, 1974.Google Scholar

14 Keren, Michael, ‘The Return of the Ancien Regime: The GDR in the 1970s’, in East European Economies Post Helsinki, Joint Economic Committee, Congress of The United States, 25 08 1977 , p. 722.Google Scholar

15 Statistical Pocketbook of the German Democratic Republic, East Berlin: State Publishing House, 1979, p. 79.

16 Starrels, John, Washington Post, 7 01 1979 .Google Scholar

17 Journal of Commerce, 9 January 1980.

18 A good source on the domestic political opposition within the context of occupational developments and the gradual transformation of the Zone into the GDR, see Krisch, Henry, German Politics under Soviet Occupation, New York and London, Columbia University Press, 1974.Google Scholar

19 In this area, the opposition of such people as Bruno Warnke, Fritz Behrens and Arne Benary seem especially relevant to the more recent critiques of Rudolf Bahro and the general ideological direction of the ‘Manifesto’ group. Here the awareness that political rigidity has severely hampered the innovative capacities of the East German economy is most striking. See Bahro, , Die Alternative, Cologne‐Frankfurt/Main, European publishers, 1977 Google Scholar; ‘Das “Spiegel Manifesto” und die Reaktion der DDR’, Dokumentation, Deutschland Archiv, February, 1978.

20 In the first instance, consult Ludz, , ‘Major Trends of Change and Inertia in the Ideological System’, in The Changing Party Elite in East Germany, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1972, pp. 325–497;Google Scholar for a recent description of the extra‐Party opposition, consult, Volkmer, Werner, ‘East Germany: Dissenting views during the last decade’, in Tokes, Rudolf L. (ed.), Opposition In Eastern Europe, Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979, pp. 113–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Both quotations are taken from Baylis, ibid., p. 151.

22 Perhaps what Ludz describes as the ‘institutionalized counter‐elite’ of the early‐to‐middle 1960s never really existed except in the eyes of the Western analyst. But in any event, there are precious few indications that the innovative, and occasionally even bold, thinking of the scientific‐technical intelligentsia of a decade and more ago still exists. For a pertinent examination of the innovative capacities of Marxist‐Leninist ideology in the GDR, see Ludz, Peter Christian, ‘Das Innovations‐potential des Marxismus‐Leninismus in der DDR’, Deutschland Archiv, 06, 1979.Google Scholar

23 For a good resumé of those developments from a West German perspective, see Volkmer’s, Werner ‘East Germany: Dissenting views during the last decade’, in Tokes, Rudolf L. (ed.), op. cit., pp. 113–41.Google Scholar

24 For a reasonably comprehensive overview of some of these subjects, consult Erbe, Günter, et al., Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in der DDR, Opladen, West German Publishers, 1978.Google Scholar Another related, but more comprehensive aspect of SED policy which should be mentioned in passing, of course, is the realm of social policy. Zimmermann devotes a good deal of attention to this ‘package’ of measures—‘socialpolitical measures’, as the SED has referred to them since they were originally initiated at the beginning of the Honecker era—which have been directed toward special target groups in the East German population. See his discussion on pp. 25–8, ibid. For a very brief official East German view of social policy, consult, Drei Jahrzehnte schöpferischer Arbeit zum Wohle des Volkes, East Berlin, Tribune Publishers, 1979.

25 For a description of this subject, see ‘Bestimmungen über die Akkreditierung von Journalisten in der DDR’, Dokumentation, and Spittmann, Ilse, ‘Die Neue Journalistenverodnung’, in Deutschland Archiv, 03, 1973, pp. 313–16 and 228–30Google Scholar, respectively. In view of significant changes in the relationship between West German journalists and the East German regime, Fastenrath’s, Ulrich ‘Zum untershciedlichen Verständis von Pressefreiheit in Ost und West’, Deutschland Archiv, 11, 1979 Google Scholar, is recommended.

26 Actually, East German ideologists recognize that differences between various strata within the allegedly classless society of the GDR continue to exist. And while the Honecker regime has attempted, via social policy measures for example, to ameliorate some of the more obvious differences separating different groups from each other, social inequality (and hence, ‘social distance’) continues to exist – in regard to pay scales, traditional German attitudes towards various occupations and, of course, the access which some groups have to West German currency and, hence, to consumer goods produced in the West.

27 Some selected aspects of these problems are examined by Steele, in ‘Leisure, Crime and Private Life’, in Inside East Germany, pp. 150–66.Google Scholar

28 See Werner Volkmer’s remarks on this subject in his ‘East Germany: Dissenting views during the last decade’, in Tokes, op. cit., pp. 122–24; also consult Helwig, Gisela, ‘Neue Chancen für Christen in der DDR?’, Deutschland Archiv, 11, 1979.Google Scholar

29 For a short discussion of this subject see Helwig, Gisela, ‘Als Held wird Man nicht geboren: zum Wehrunterricht in der DDR’, Deutschland Archiv, 03, 1979.Google Scholar

30 Read Volkmer’s discussion of ‘Artistic Freedom and Socialist Solidarity’, in Tokes, pp. 131–38. For an up‐to‐date look at the more–recent developments at work in the cultural–literary arena, see Kleinschmid, Harald, ‘Zur Kulturpolitik der DDR in Herbst 1979’, Deutschland Archiv, 12, 1979.Google Scholar

31 Perhaps the most insightful discussion of the external and internal determinants of East German sociopolitical development is found in Ernst Richert’s ‘Zwischen Eigenständigkeit und Dependenz. Zur Wechselwirking von Gesellschafts–und Aussenpolitik in der DDR’, Deutschland Archiv, September, 1979.

32 This is not to suggest, however, that the opposition’s activities cannot be controlled, and frequently manipulated, by the regime. Yet, despite a certain amount of mass affluence and in general, more relaxed communications between regime and people, the educational process appears to have created a more critical public within the GDR. As Zimmermann maintains vis–à–vis the reaim of cultural policy: ‘Actions and educational programmes intended to have an integrating effect, and in many respects oriented towards the creation of a narrow party–mindness, have in fact established levels of knowledge and developed capabilities which lead to and promote critical thought’, in Zimmermann, , ‘The GDR in the 1970s’, Problems of Communism, 03–04, 1978, p. 30.Google Scholar

33 Aside from the ideological and political differences separating the two Germanys from each other, combined with Soviet dominance of East German Westpolitik in any event, Jonathan Steele rightly underlines the historical and ideological dimension of the intra–German conflict in his ‘Splits and Wounds on the German Left’, in Inside East Germany, p. 170.

34 As Naimark with total accuracy describes it ‘Another significant impediment to political action is the completely sealed border – a technologically sophisticated lattice–work of automatically triggered machine guns, minefields, barbed and electrified wire, concrete walls, and attack–dog paths, not to mention the traditional guard towers and border police. Far more devastating than any iron curtain, this border, the most lethal in the world, is now supplemented by 837 miles of special mesh wire fencing that collapses on and cuts off the fingers of anyone who tries to climb it. The SED’s claim that the border is “defensive” is rendered even more absurd by the instruments employed specifically to maim and kill those who approach it from within the GDR’, Naimark, Norman M., ‘Is It True What They’re Saying About East Germany?’, Orbis, Fall, 1979, p. 569.Google Scholar

35 ‘Breshnevs Abrüstungsvorschläge für Europa’, Dokementation, Deutschland Archiv, November, 1979. Nor are Soviet diplomats disinclined to draw strategic interrelationships – if not explicit linkages – between global policy issues and more immediate German problems. See a recent interview with the Soviet Ambassador to the GDR, ‘USSR Envoy to GDR Views Berlin, Afghanistan, Disarmament’, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (Soviet Union), 8 February, 1980.