The Dynamics of Soviet–East German Relations in the Early Cold War

The two states that emerged from the defeated Germany were central to the development of the cold war. Rapidly evolving from defeated objects of Four Power policy, the two Germanys became important actors in their own right on the front line of the cold war. Both superpowers initially treated their part of Germany as war booty to be plundered and kept weak, but as the cold war developed, they would each come to see their part of Germany as an essential ally whose needs were intertwined with their own. For political, military, economic, and ideological reasons, the superpowers engaged in a competition for allies to show that their side of the cold war was the stronger, more popular, more vibrant one. They also wanted to ensure that their German ally would not unite with the other against them. Beginning in the 1950s, the superpowers invested themselves, and their reputations, increasingly in their German allies, who were adept at taking advantage of this situation. While there have been a variety of in-depth studies of the U.S.–West German alliance, there has been much less investigation of the Soviet– East German alliance. This book will take advantage of the opening of former communist archives to examine the Soviet–East German side of the cold war from Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 through the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. After the profound Soviet losses of World War II, the Kremlin leaders’ prime motive initially was to make sure Germany could not rise up and threaten them again. It took longer for the Soviets than for the Western Powers to shift their policy from destruction and retribution in Germany to construction and support of an ally. It was a big leap from Stalin’s sanction of the raping and pillaging of the Soviet Zone of Germany in the midto late 1940s to Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev’s declaration to the East Germans that “your needs are our needs” in the 1950s. This book tells the story of Khrushchev’s increasing commitment to a strong, socialist state in East Germany and the ways the persistent East German leader Walter Ulbricht was able to use this commitment to his advantage. It is the story of East Germany transforming its weakness into strength in its relations with the Soviet Union and the story of the East Germans’ capacity to resist Soviet directives. This book will demonstrate that Soviet–East German relations from 1953–1961, particularly concerning the divided city of © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher.