HI 224 Raffael Scheck Colby College

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HI 224Raffael ScheckColby College

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Family Recollections
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My Grandparents and Parents

• Gustav Scheck (1901-1984)
• Ernestine Nitschke-Scheck (1901-1984)
• Florian Scheck (born 1936)

• August Wache (1906-1994)
• Klara Plessow-Wache (1902-1971)
• Dora Zander-Wache (born 1912)
• Monika Scheck-Wache (born 1935)

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The Hour Zero
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Living in the Ruins

• Famines
• 12 million refugees from the East
• Denazification Nürnberg Trials
• Allied considerations

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The Partition of Germany
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Against Partition The Potsdam Conference
(July-August 1945)

• The 5 Ds
• Democratization
• Demilitarization
• Denazification
• Decartelization
• Decentralization
• Problems and Results
• Stalin decides on German east before the
  conference
• Deportation of 12 million Germans sanctioned
• No peace treaty no German government
• Tenuous agreement for common administration

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The Beginning of the Cold War

• Western suspicions of Soviet designs (Greek Civil
  War, 1947)
• Growing cooperation between the western zones
  (Bizonia, 1947 Trizonia, 1948)
• Introduction of the D-mark in the western zones,
  1948
• The Berlin Blockade, 1948-49

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The Federal Republic of Germany

• Democratic constitution (Grundgesetz), October
  1949
• Weak president but strong chancellor
• Capital Bonn
• Rapid economic recovery with the help of the
  Marshall Plan

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The German Democratic Republic

• Forced unification of SPD and KPD (SED)
• Sham elections 1949
• SED as Soviet style Unity Party
• Capital East Berlin
• Slow economic recovery
• Uprising in June 1953
• Mass flight to the West until 1961

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Reflections on Divided Germany, 1949-1990
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West Germany

• Success and stability of democracy rule of law
• Prosperity, social welfare state partnership of
  trade unions and employers federations
• Openness to the world
• Downsides large unemployment since the 1970s
  environmental problems terrorism drugs crime
  malaise of wealth?

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East Germany

• Another repressive system, based not on the
  popularity of a dictator but on Soviet power
  massive spying by secret police (Stasi)
  propaganda careers monitored by the state
• Scarcity communist welfare state
• Increasingly enclosed and parochial society
• Environmental crisis - but unacknowledged
• Bright sides? Almost no crime no unemployment
  progressive policies toward women (employment
  daycare abortion)

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Dealing with the Nazi Past East Germany

• Initial openness to discussing the Holocaust
  later anti-Israel stance
• Focus on communist resistance guilt hidden
  behind antifascist ideology, which works as an
  integration factor (as communists, we were all
  victims of Nazism)
• Official Communist brotherhood with the Soviet
  Union and its allies
• Accusation against West Germany and the U.S. as
  capitalist (equals fascist) states and successors
  of Nazism

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Dealing With the Nazi Past West Germany

• Distancing during the economic miracle (legends
  of clean army generalization of the military
  resistance anti-communism) - except for
  historians
• Payments to surviving German Jews support for
  Israel (since 1950s)
• Totalitarian theory communism as Nazisms
  relative
• Since 1970s open and accusatory public
  discussion of the Nazi past. Widespread
  acceptance of guilt. Mandatory Holocaust
  education civil service in countries that
  suffered from German aggression

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The End

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