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The regime has also attempted to create its own tradition. The new rulers first argued their claim to govern on the basis of historical determinism. According to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, a socialist worker's state was destined to replace the capitalist system on German soil. It was asserted that this progression had already been sanctified by Soviet success, which Walter Ulbricht, a one time "associate" of Lenin, was best able to interpret. (U/OU)

While this may have satisfied true believers in the Communist faith, it failed to generate mass loyalty. Therefore a more pragmatic line was introduced and emphasized: the contention that the East German system works, purportedly in ways even superior to those of rival West Germany. (U/OU)

The government in East Berlin boasts in particular of high standards in such fields as education, welfare, health care, and in the dramatic arts. It impresses on the young that East Germany is a "land of opportunity" where aptitude and drive—not to mention political conformity—are likely to bring rapid advancement. It asks the general public to take pride in an "economic miracle" that has made East Germany the ninth-ranked world industrial power and provided with the highest standard of living in the Soviet camp. It sports the trappings of a full-fledged nation, including an army to patrol its borders and a civil airline and merchant fleet to show its flag abroad. The regime also has working in its favor, of course ,the fact that is has endured—far longer, in fact, than did either the Weimar Republic or the Third Reich. (U/OU)

The overall extent to which the rulers of the new "worker-peasant state" have won popular support is difficult to estimate. The regime has its warm adherents (doubtless a minority) and its outright opponents (probably an even smaller minority). There remains the bulk of the citizenry, among whom an unemotional conformity seems to be the rule. Life evidently goes forward in a familiar pattern for most East Germans, who are concerned with things other than politics. Privately they may find the regime doctrinaire, niggling, and clumsy; publicly they may drop a critical remark. Yet, resistance appears futile. The regime's capacity for coercion and willingness to use it, the Soviets' determination to maintain a firm grip in Eastern Europe (as exemplified in East Germany itself in 1953, Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968), and the West's caution about intervening directly in the East are factors that would stifle the hopes of any would-be resistance leader. (C)

Linking the Old with the New (c)

On the whole, the history of East Germany has been short and inglorious. Deriving from that sector of Germany assigned Soviet occupation forces by World War II agreements, East Germany grew up in the Russian image as a well-regimented state in which human beings conformed to the wishes of the Communist party. Incorporated formally in 1949 as the German Democratic Republic, East Germany under the much-hated Walter Ulbricht remained an international pariah for much of the Cold War era. Unilateral grants of sovereignty by Moscow were effectively countered by Bonn's efforts to isolate the regime. Internally, there was a short-lived popular uprising in 1953, and in succeeding years many East Germans "voted with their feet"—as President John F. Kennedy put it—until the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 closed the last escape route.

In the decade following the erection of the infamous wall, East Germany inched forward in economic and political stature, winning a grudging respect from the populace and a modicum of international acceptance. In May 1971, Ulbricht—who had come to place his wisdom above that of the Soviet masters—"retired" as party leader and long-time party stalwart Erich Honecker was installed in his stead. During the early months of Honecker's efficient but colorless rule, he endorsed the Four-Power negotiations then in progress on the status on Berlin, thus paving the way for the inter-German General Relations Treaty establishing the GDR has a member of the international community. Despite humble beginnings and a deprived upbringing, East Germany had reached maturity.

East Germany's rulers, as if fearful that their hold is more tenuous than it appears to be, have been expert at invoking past spirits and building new illusions in their own behalf. A regime specialty is to push the East

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