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Stalin's German Policy After Stalin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Victor Baras
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Extract

Stalin's “last word” on German reunification was contained in the Soviet diplomatic note of March 10, 1952, which proposed a peace treaty with Germany. Until the middle of 1953, Stalin's heirs continued to press for reunification on the basis of the 1952 note. The East German uprising of June 17, 1953 (which is commemorated in West Germany, with unintended irony, as the “Day of German Unity“) marked the de facto termination of the Soviet reunification initiative. As a result of the uprising, the rulers of the Soviet Union and East Germany were forced to place greater emphasis on the consolidation of the Communist regime in the GDR—that is, the stability of East Germany required policies explicitly directed toward the development of a separate, socialist East German state. Thus, the uprising and the subsequent Soviet intervention further undermined the credibility of an already questionable Soviet reunification initiative.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , June 1978 , pp. 259 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1978

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References

1. The change in Soviet policy on reunification after June 17 was subtle but unmistakable (see, for example, Gerhard, Wettig, Die Entmilitarisierung und Wiederbewaffnung Deutschlands 1943-1955 [Munich : R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1967], p. 100).Google Scholar

2. Walter, LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War 1945-1971 (New York : John Wiley and Sons, 1971), pp. 80 and 102.Google Scholar

3. New York Times, September 19, 1950.

4. DDR Werden und Wachsen : Zur Geschichte der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, Zentralinstitut fiir Geschichte (Berlin : Dietz Verlag, 1974), p. 177.

5. Pravda, October 22, 1950; and New York Times, October 22, 1950.

6. DDR Werden und Wachsen, pp. 191-92.

7. Hanrieder, Wolfram F., West German Foreign Policy 1949-1963 (Stanford : Stanford University Press, 1967, pp. 67–74.Google Scholar

8. Pravda, March 11, 1952; and Isvestiia, March 11, 1952 (translated in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 4, no. 7 [1952] : 7).

9. East Germany's Walter Ulbricht put the case more strongly. In May 1952 he asserted that a united Germany must maintain a “firm friendship with the Soviet Union” (see Wettig, Die Entmilitarisierung, p. 512).

10. New York Times, April 8, 1952; and Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation (New York : W. W. Norton, 1969), pp. 629-32.

11. DDR Werden und Wachsen, p. 195.

12. Ibid., p. 256.

13. The United Nations actually appointed observers to examine the conditions for free elections in Germany. Poland refused to participate in the observer mission, and in 1952 the GDR refused permission for the observers to enter the country. The Soviet rejection of a United Nations role (which was based on a technicality) reinforced suspicions that the Russians intended to meddle in the elections.

14. Gerd, Meyer, Die sowjetische Deutschlandpolitik im Jahre 1952 (Cologne : Bohlau Verlag, 1970, pp. 78–79.Google Scholar

15. New York Times, March IS, 1953, and April 7, 1953.

16. Ibid., April 16, 1953.

17. For a more detailed account of Soviet-GDR tensions during this period, see Victor, Baras, “Beria's Fall and Ulbricht's Survival,” Soviet Studies, 27, no. 3 (July 1975) : 381–95 Google Scholar. (The article contains an important error at the bottom of page 387. The date should read “27 July 1953.“)

18. Heinz, Brandt, Ein Traum der nicht entfilhrbar ist (Munich : Paul List Verlag, 1967, p. 223.Google Scholar

19. Otto, Grotewohl, “Die Gegenwärtige Lage und der Neue Kurs der Partei,” in Der Neue Kurs und die Aufgaben der Partei (Berlin : Dietz Verlag, 1953, p. 26.Google Scholar

20. Heinz, Lippmann, Honecker (Cologne : Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1971), p.159 Google Scholar

21. New York Times, June 11, 1953; see also Wettig, Die Entmilitarisierung, pp. 634 ff.

22. New York Times, June 14, 1953.

23. The slogan was resurrected at the July 1953 plenum (see Dokumente der SED, vol. 4 [Berlin : Dietz Verlag, 1954], pp. 436 ff.).