The Two Germanies 1963-89

• Honecker removed most of New Economic System - aimed to increase industrial production and raise living standards
• Unity of Social and Economic Policy - wanted to improve effieciency and use technological progress to lead to developed socialist society
• 1970 - GDR 10th >est economy - economic miracle - no help from Marshall Aid and disadvantaged by ********* of resources
• 1970 - became USSR's main trading partner & trade with COMECON >ing
• Shortage of labour 1970s - took on guest workers - 600,000 Vietnamese
• 1/3 of GDR's trade was with FRG - had to get loans
• 1970s - self-sufficient
• Shortage of materials led to economic downturn 1973
• Balance of trade got worse 1970s
• UESP led to refusal to balance books & underinvestment in industry

• 1971 - minimum wage >ed 
• Full employment
• 1976- pensions >ed
• Living standards highest in Eastern Bloc 
• 1980s - most houses had a car
• Living standard low compared to FRG
• Mid 80s - Telephones ownership highest rate in Eastern bloc at 10% - nearly 100% in FRG
• Wider range of products in FRG
• Many goods lower quailty in GDR 

• 1962 - Intershops introduced - sold western goods but only accepted western currency - illegal for GDR to possess til 1974- often staffed by Stasi
• 800 by 1980 
• Aimed to reduced resentment - >ed resentment - showed the range of products in FRG
• Exquist & Delikat - accepted Eastern currency but prices were too high
• Wandlitz - home of SED members- isolated from society - justified on security grounds
• Better facilities than rest of GDR - shopping, health and sports facilities
• 1983 - nuclear bunker - best in Eastern bloc - 200 rooms - could 400 people
• 1959 - Vilm island sealed off from public as holiday resort for government members

• Honecker had borrowed money - heavy debts
• Mid 80s - industrial growth & incomes falling
• Took many consumer goods off market to increase exports 
• Borrowed from FRG - 1983 - DM1 billion
• Cut domestic spending - living standards decreased
• tried to trade military expertise with raw materials with Algeria, Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Syria & Zimbabwe
• Sold 1500 political prisoners a year 1980-85 

• Niche society - people showed outward support of socialism but kept thier thoughts to themselves and developed self-interests in family and friendship groups
• Fullbrook - Honecker did not win over the hearts and minds of the people
• 1949-1989 - population fell - 18 million - 17 million
• 1970s - 505 population working age
• 1972 - extensions of welfare provisions - encoauraged women to have more children - >er maternity benefit & >er birth allowances 
• 1976 & 1984 - gave women a year maternity leave - 1 1/2 for 3rd child > 
• Provision of pre-school care & afterschool clubs
• Universities made provision for student mothers 
• late 80s - 90% women employed
• tended to end up in low-skilled jobs
• late 70s - 50% doctors, teachers & dentists women - rarely senior postition
• only Margot Honecker got high position in politcs
• 1971 - aimed to build 4 million by 1989 
• <2 million homes built 1971-88 
• Most were tower blocks or rows of houses

• 1974 - constitution declared GDR 'Republic of Workers'
• Portrayed FRG as Americanised
• Wrote made in GDR on goods
• 1972 - Basic Treaty - acknowleged FRG's existence
• Honecker announced those who had emigrated were not guilty of flight from republic
• 1973 - not illegal to watch FRG TV or listen to western radio station
• 1970 - telephone lines between them
• motor way connected Berlin to Hamburg 
• 1975 - Helsinki Accords - allowed more free travel - only pensioners allowed to travel freely to FRG- few visas issued 
• Nov 1973 - Honecker doubled  exchange rate between eastern and western currency  
• 1983 - US deployed nuclear weapons in FRG 1983 - futher increase to exchange rate - fall in western vistors
• 1980s - travel restrictions <ed - 1 million vistied the GDR 
• Mid 80s - 100,000 applied to emigrate - watched by Stasi
• 1984 - 40,000 emigrated

• Accepted into UNs
• 1969-74 - 90 countries accepted existence
• 1974 - GDR beat FRG in World Cup
• Honecker visted Austria 1980
• Visited Italy 1985
• State visit to FRG 1987

• Erected war memorial at Tretpower Park - 5000 soviet soldiers buried there
• Saw USSR as oppresive occupying force
• signed Friendship Treaty with USSR 1975
• Society for German-Soviet Friendship- 6 million members1988
• Reluctance to allow Polish workers into GDR - friction between Germans and Poles
• Poles brought consumer goods in GDR during shortages
• Brought in controls - RM200 exchange for Poles entering GDR   

• Honecker showed more acceptance of Protestant Church
• relationship between state and Church written into 1978 constitution 
• March 1978 - church agreed to work within socialist society & SED allowed religious broadcasts.
• Church ran 50 hospitals and old people's homes - received support
• Church support those deemed enemy to the state - alchoholics, drug addicts & gay people
• 1978 - allowed open discussion of politics in church meetings - trusted the church to listen and surpress
• Stolpe was in charge of the Church - Stasi officer

• Ministry of State Security set up in 1950
• Became Stasi in 1953
• mid 70s - 180,000 offiicers
• 20% population worked for Stasi as IMs
• 3/4 population under survailence
• phone line tapped and letters opened
• Would break into houses to steal clothes and collect people's smell
• 1951 - 1989 - used Hohenschonhausen to keep political prisoners
• Critics of the GDR & prominent writers expelled 
• December 1975 - Western journalists expelled
• April 1979 - severe restrictions on foreign journalists

• introduced by Brandt in 1969
• wanted to develop relationship between FRG & GDR with rapprochement - diplomacy and agreement
• Possible due to < in tension between US & USSR after Cuban missile crisis and detente
• 1970 - Brandt met Minister of Council of Ministers Will Stoph - GDR cheered for Brandt
• Treaty of Moscow 1970 - FRG & USSR settle territorial disputes
• Treaty of Warsaw 1970 - FRG respected Poland's western border
• Four-Power Treaty 1971 - GDR allowed access to West Berlin from FRG and West Berliners could visit East Berlin
• The Basic Treaty 1972 - FRG & GDR acknowledge each other's exisistence
• Reduced conflict over Berlin 
• increased international recognition of GDR
• FRG & GDR could join UN 1973 
• Working towards reunification during height of Cold War
• Germany's division had been accepted
• Gave GDR economic advantage - DM15 billion loans 1972-89
• Still ideological divide

• 1964 - 8% growth 
• CDU gained 47.6% of vote
• 850,000 unfilled jobs
• 2.5% > in living standards
• 19 September - SPD 202 votes - FDP 49
• launched economic programme
• 1965 - reccesion in Ruhr - excess in public 
• green plan - wanted to subsidise argiculture - costly
• wages rose faster than production - inflation 4% 1966
• forced to cut spending 10%
• suggested increasing working day by 1 hour - resistance 

• tried to buy USSR's support for reunification by giving them $25 million loan
• 1964 - USSR didn't need loans anymore
• wanted to unite Europe with economic unity
• Supported Vietnam war in hope of gaining more support from US - led to protests

• APO - left wing students 
• 1966 - 90% Bundestag controlled by Grand Coalition - strikes and demonstrations
• membership declined in 1960s 
• SDS set up as student section of SPD 1946
• 1961 - SPD excluded them from joining party1965 - led by Rudi Dutschke
• mid 1960s - protested against Vietnam war and former Nazi holding key positions in coalition
• 1967 - protest against Shan of Iran state visit - Benno Ohnesorg shot dead - protests
• Membership peaked 1968
• 1968 - 80,000 protested against Emergency Laws

• Kiesinger was an ex-Nazi - protests from students
• Grand coalition - too much power - no opposition
• Ex-Nazis were in important positions
• 1968 Emergency Laws - government with two thirds majority could have extra powers in time of state emergency - people worried about Keisinger gaining too much power
• West German Communist Party set up 1968
• neo-Nazi NDP party had gained seats in Bavaria, Schleswig-Holstein & Rhineland - never got 5% of vote

• Munich Olympics 1972 - Palestinian Liberation Organisation broke into Olympic complex and held members of Israeli team hostage
• Attempt at rescue failed - all hostages killed and 3 terrorists survived
• Security increased and conter-terrorist force GSG9 created but Brandt looked weak
• Implimented Ostpolitik in early 1970s 
• Guilliame Affair 1974 - discovered in that Brandt 's personal adviser Gunter Guilliame was a spy for the GDR and had been passing state secrets to GDR - Brandt resigns 

• Red Army Faction or Baader-Meinhof gang created 1968 - left-wing millitant group
• trained by the PLO in Palestien - lead to bombings and armed robberies 
• 1970s - 15% population supported them
• Brandt unable to stop them - appeared weak
• Baader, Meinhof and Enslinn are arrested 1972 - didn't stop terrorism - made Brandt look weak

• 1969-1972 - education budget doubled & welfare expenditure DM17 billion - DM22 billion
• 1973 Oil Crisis - Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries put embargo on oil to US - had supplied Israel with weapons during Yom Kippur - tripled prices of oil
• 1974 - 5% inflation & 3 miilion unemployed
• High employment = <ing revenue from taxes, >ing public spending & >ing taxes
• Post war baby boom - demand for 100,000 jobs a year
• Car free sundays & speed limits on motor ways
• 1973 - banned guest workers 

• Effects of oil crisis decreased
• high level of  exports maintained - demand due to high quality
• advertising meant goods had international market

• Worked with French President Giscard d'Estaing to develop European Monetary system - developed closer links with EEC
• 1977 - Morgadishu incident - PLO hijacked plane travelling from Majorca to Frankfurt 
• Landed in Rome and demanded the release of RAF leaders -  took of and landed in Morgadishu in Somalia
• Schmidt managed to send elite counter-terrorist force in unnoticed to storm the plane- killed 3 terrorists and saved all passengers unharmed

• 1975 - 2 staff from West German embassy murdered - Schmidt had refused to give in to thier demands
• 1975 - trial of RAF leaders
• 1976 - Meifhof commited suicide

Social

• Two thirds society - only 2/3 cared for by government
• 1/3 society in long term unemployment 
• guest workers neglected

Political

• Bitburg affair 1985 - Reagan to attend 40th memorial of the end of WWII - took place at Bitburg cemetary - Kohl knew 49 ** officers were buried there but did not do anything - seen as distasteful 
• 1983 - nuclear weapon deployed in FRG - candlelit processions and petitions 
• Green Party reentered Bundestag - centre of oppostion gained minority
• 1984 -  missiles deployed in GDR
• 1985 - FRG endorsed USAs Star Wars project & agreed to use technolgy and research to develop NATO weapons

• Late 70s - falling unemployment & rising wages 
• Recession after second Oil Crisis in 1979 
• Unemployment rose - 2/3 society 
• Kohl cut welfare expenditure
• Inflation fell to 2% by 1983
• End of second oil crisis - drop in oil prices 
• allowed recovery - not down to Kohl's actions