By John Wojcik :
Being a practical politician and knowing full-well all the disadvantages faced by the GDR, Kennedy had said of the wall: “It’s not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.”
THIS weekend, there are events in Germany commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the pages of the press, prominent persons—from former US Secretary of State James ABaker to current German Chancellor Angela Merkel to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev—are all weighing in with their commentaries on the significance of November 9, 1989, all celebrating to a greater or lesser degree the demise of the former socialist state in the East.
The German Democratic Republic (GDR), as the old East Germany was officially known, was a lot more than the totalitarian prop that gets paraded out during anniversaries to prove the supposed superiority of capitalism over socialism. It was up against tough odds, right from the start—long before construction of the wall began in August 1961. One big problem for the GDR from its beginning in 1949, was that it occupied the much weaker and war-torn eastern third of Germany. Compared with the money that was pumped into the Western side. Its quick elimination of former Nazis from positions of power and influence added another downside, of sorts. In many walks of life, Nazis at the end of the war were the folks who had experience running industries, schools, big businesses, and almost everything else. Those Nazis not arrested in the GDR fled, as fast as they could, to the West.
A third disadvantage was the forced economic and political blockade imposed upon the GDR by both the West German Government based in Bonn and the US. It wasn’t a wall in those early days, but rather policies in the West that kept GDR citizens out of international conferences, scientific seminars, training sessions, and sports events. There was a de-facto wall denying GDR citizens the right to participate in international events and bring home knowledge and experience. A fourth disadvantage was that high-quality products manufactured in the GDR were forbidden to use their famous brand names (like Zeiss optical and Meissen porcelain, for example) for international sales.
A fifth disadvantage was that the Bonn government actually strong-armed US trade officials into denying the GDR “most favoured nation” trade status under which customs payments are no higher than those paid by the “most favoured nation.” A sixth disadvantage was a steady CIA effort to lure effective political leaders out of the GDR. A seventh disadvantage was what the CIA continually did throughout the 1950s to lure skilled technicians, scientists, medical experts, and others out of the GDR. An additional, eighth, problem for the GDR was the day-to-day sabotage of the economy that was happening on top of the brain drain already mentioned.
One could change 10 West marks for 70 East marks in the West, openly and without fear of any consequences, and go back home to the East and clean out the shelves of the grocery stores, leaving little for GDR workers to purchase with their hard-earned East marks. On top of all of these disadvantages and adverse factors faced by the GDR, Berlin had become the flashpoint by 1960 where one could easily imagine the breakout of a third world war. Again, with no closed border between East and West Berlin, Soviet and US tanks were facing each other only inches apart on street corners. Being a practical politician and knowing full-well all the disadvantages faced by the GDR, Kennedy, who knew in advance that the wall was about to be built in the summer of 1961, at first remained quiet, avoiding any incendiary remarks. He is reported widely to have said of the wall: “It’s not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.”
That common sense, however, did not stop Kennedy from launching an enormous propaganda campaign to exploit the GDR’s closing of the border around West Berlin. It would be portrayed to the world not as the construction of a border and checkpoints around West Berlin but rather as the bottling up and containment of a whole people in the GDR yearning to be free. The immediate effect of the wall after its construction, of course, was improved security for the GDR.
The standard of living in the GDR rose rapidly after the wall was built around West Berlin and, ironically, cultural opportunities flourished. With artists, musicians, and movie makers less pre-occupied with the West and with some giving up their plans of going there, they turned their attention to developing cultural outlets in the GDR. Also cultural figures who had trouble finding jobs in the West were welcomed to the GDR. Dramatic films from all over the world were shown in theatres. The closing of the border around West Berlin at first opened up some cultural opportunities by reducing the fear that had previously existed of political problems coming in along with performers over open borders. In the end, however, the GDR could not overcome the many disadvantages with which it was faced from the beginning, nor could it overcome the Western propaganda campaign around the Berlin Wall.
To defend its noble anti-fascist and socialist goals—many of its top leaders’ bodies still bore the numbers tattooed onto them in Nazi concentration camps—the GDR did indeed resort to very unpleasant things. A cement wall, censorship in the media, and often overly-intense surveillance of its own population—none of these served as glowing recommendations of socialism. And to be fair, the challenges the country faced were not just ones imposed upon it from outside. Fearful, closed, and sometimes narrow minds worked together to create many internal problems. It didn’t matter. The hatred of the wall which came down 30 years ago was resurrected by the real estate industry to destroy a man whose only crime was protecting homeless people in the united “free” Berlin. In the capital of the German Democratic Republic—in the Berlin that ended when the wall came down 30 years ago—there were no homeless people. (IPA)