Germany 1989

In the Aftermath of the Cold War

Lothar Kettenacker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138167605
• eBook ISBN: 9781317875659
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

In autumn 1989 the world watched transfixed as East German citizens, demonstrating under the banner 'We are the people!', staged the only successful, totally peaceful revolution in German history. By October 1990, the process of reunification was formally concluded, bringing together a nation that had been divided for almost four decades.

Now, nearly twenty years later, it is possible to judge the causes and consequences of the revolution more clearly. Was the fall of the Berlin Wall an unexpected fluke, or was it, in fact, the result of a long process of engagement between East and West? And did the momentous events of 1989 really signal the start of a bright new future for a united Germany?

In this probing and wide-ranging account, Lothar Kettenacker considers the background behind the division of Germany and explains how the Berlin Wall and its death trap border proved to be the most horrendous manifestation of East-West antagonism. He also looks beyond 1990 to show how the confusion caused by the sudden collapse of the GDR and the fusion of two radically different economies is proving to be a challenge that will preoccupy Germany for generations to come.

Chapter 1 Division through zoning

DOI: 10.4324/9781315838038-2

The story of German unification mark II in 1989/90 cannot be fully understood without a detailed examination of how the division of the country came about in the first place. Division and unification, neither of which had been anticipated by the former Allies when they occurred, are closely linked. No doubt, the Allies were in agreement about the demise of Prussia, founder state of the Second German Empire and alleged source of all evil: the Control Council issued its death certificate in March 1947.¹ The division of Germany into two separate and opposing states was a different matter. It was entirely due to the partitioning of Germany into zones of occupation and the ensuing Cold War, which froze provisional demarcation lines into solid borders, eventually creating frontiers between two antagonistic camps. No wonder, therefore, that unification should coincide with the end of the Cold War. The latter did not grow out of some avoidable misunderstanding between friends after fighting a common enemy. Rather it was the logical outcome of ideas about the future that were fundamentally different and in the end irreconcilable.

For some time, the heads of states had discussed the idea of emasculating Germany for good by dismembering the Reich. But this plan remained controversial to the end and had never been accepted as official policy. As a result of this inherent ambivalence there was, right from the beginning, no clear resolve to avert the eventual division of Germany, first into zones of occupation and then into separate states. The attitude of the Allies towards the so-called German Question showed an uncanny resemblance both during and after the war. The pragmatic position was: As long as we cannot control the whole of the country we should accept the situation as it develops. In the course of this development Germany changed from the trophy of a common victory and joint responsibility to a bone of contention.

The British Government, from July 1942, was the first to make detailed preparations for the post-war period.² The chief lesson of the past was not to repeat the mistakes made at Versailles after the First World War. All those leaders who had experienced the First World War and its aftermath, like Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden, now felt they were called upon to bring about a more lasting peace. These terms of reference constituted such a powerful influence on the decision-makers that John Maynard Keynes was concerned that they might deflect from future challenges.³

It was Great Britain that forged the grand alliance against Nazi Germany by conducting a joint strategy with the United States since January 1942 and concluding a formal alliance with Soviet Russia at the end of May 1942. For that reason, when preparing for the future, British planners had to take account of the security interests of their new allies. The most constructive and far-reaching American contribution to achieving lasting peace in Europe was Sumner Welles’ suggestion that there should be a “cooling-off period” before any treaty was signed.⁴ Again Versailles, where the passions of war had been allowed to overflow and to compromise the future, served as a warning of how not to proceed. All this pointed to the Reich being subjected to a joint post-war occupation régime of the Allies until the time for a definite peace treaty had come.

Unknown to his Western allies, Stalin pursued a different agenda: Soviet security required the installation of “friendly” governments in Eastern Europe, not least in Germany, that is to say either Communist or Popular Front governments preferably headed by exiled leaders who had been briefed in Moscow during the war. Stalin trusted his own agents more than any agreement reached with his Western Allies: for ideological reasons and given half a chance, they would leave him in the lurch. However, until the Wehrmacht had been defeated he was dependant on their goodwill and their promise to establish a Second Front in the West to relieve German pressure in the East. But he was not to share their view of the post-war world and commit himself to an open door policy.

All available evidence seems to indicate that both the British government and the Soviet leadership felt it wise to make plans for a worst-case scenario. For Stalin this meant that Anglo-Saxon forces once established on the continent might conquer the whole of Germany because the Wehrmacht would be tempted to invite them to do so. From Stalin’s point of view it would have made perfect sense for Field Marshal Rommel to open the Western front to Eisenhower’s armies.⁵ Always open to conspiracy theories, the suspicion of some kind of collusion between the West and anti-Hitler elements in Germany was to torment him up to the end of the war.⁶ As for the British, their greatest fear, especially after Stalingrad, was that the Red Army would reach the Rhine first and take possession of Germany’s industrial heartland. Thus their chief concern was to commit Moscow to a binding post-war settlement based on joint occupation before it was too late.

British and American post-war planning for Germany was informed by two underlying assumptions: unconditional surrender and total occupation. While the removal of the Nazi Party from power was virtually a foregone conclusion, the demilitarisation of Germany was regarded as the more demanding task. Both in Britain and the United States there were powerful voices, including those of Churchill and Roosevelt, who felt strongly that the best way of emasculating Germany was to undo Bismarck’s work and carve up the Reich into its constituent parts. At the conference of Teheran the Big Three seemed to favour this solution, though without reaching any final and binding decision. As a matter of fact the Western leaders had no brief from their advisers to discuss this matter, since both the Foreign Office and the State Department opposed the idea of “dismemberment” (UK term) or “partition” (US term). A vengeful policy such as dismemberment was regarded as historically and economically retrograde and bound to rekindle German nationalism. In the long run it could not be forced upon an unwilling German people and against public opinion at home. These views, which were shared by the British quality press,⁷ would explain why reunification, pushed by popular pressure in 1989/90, could not be stopped. The Foreign Office kept this controversial issue in abeyance while proceeding with post-war planning on the basis of a unitary state. The reasons for this approach are self-evident: for planning to make sense, certain assumptions had to be made, one of which was that Germany would be dealt with in its entirety. Moreover, joint control of the whole of Germany would keep the wartime alliance in existence.

Military occupation was regarded as a technical problem best left to the experts at the War Office. The first draft, worked out by a Military Sub-Committee of the British Chiefs of Staff, reached the Foreign Office as early as mid-March 1943, only weeks after the decisive German defeat at Stalingrad. Naturally, by that time the British wished to satisfy Russian security interests vis-à-vis Germany and also to commit the Soviet Government to a joint approach to the German problem, in case they won the war before the Western Allies had had a chance to show their mettle. The first proposals were based on two assumptions that were to predetermine the future: occupation by zones or “areas,” as they were then called, and the principle of “joint United Nations occupation”. British planning staffs were keen to ensure that each of the three powers received an equal share of Germany. Right from the beginning a special status was assigned to Berlin as the capital from which the whole of the country was to be supervised by some sort of Allied control machinery. Establishing an international zone of occupation was intended to demonstrate the principle of joint supervision.

In March 1943 Eden and his advisers visited Washington. They found out that American planning for Germany had not yet crystallised into an agreed policy. “The President appeared to favour the dismemberment of Germany as the only wholly satisfactory solution”, Eden wrote to Churchill.⁸ Sumner Welles, Roosevelt’s chief adviser on foreign policy, went one step further and suggested that the areas into which the country was divided for the purposes of military occupation should broadly correspond to the separate states into which Germany would eventually be broken up. However, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were not at all convinced that the partition of Germany would solve all problems. US General George W. Strong pleaded for a mixed occupation. One British official, Gladwyn Jebb, noted: “It was thought, on the American side, that the allotment of large areas to any one Power would only result in the creation of zones of influence and that this, in the long run, would not promote harmony among the Big Three”. Since the Russians were likely to treat the Germans much more brutally than either the British or the Americans the application of the “mixing-up theory” would ensure even-handed treatment. If this line of thinking had prevailed the division of Germany might well have been averted provided Stalin had been compensated by large-scale reparations. The State Department had first class experts on Germany but not the authority of the Foreign Office within Whitehall. The decision-making élite in London was ultra cautious if not outright defeatist. It is characteristic of this attitude that Lord Gladwyn should argue in his memoirs: “We might have had local Russian authorities established in the Rhineland or the Ruhr”.⁹ As far as the future was concerned he did not reflect for a moment what it would have meant for Germany and Poland if US troops had been garrisoned along the Oder. The fear of a Communist Germany was uppermost in the official mind.

British planners were perfectly aware that separate zones would lead to different spheres of influence that were bound to hamper a common policy. Thus they turned to Berlin as the focal point of joint responsibility for Germany as a whole. The German capital took on the character of an alibi to deflect from the fact that occupation by zones was basically incompatible with the idea of joint occupation. The Military Sub-Committee recommended a solution “which retains the principle of United Nations occupation but which in fact is primarily an occupation in British, Russian and USA zones”. The Chiefs of Staff had their way. On 5 October 1943 the Cabinet, aware of the need to save manpower, accepted the principle of zonal occupation (“key areas”) though not without issuing a last warning: “It would be important that the zones should be so arranged as to avoid creating for any of the occupying Powers special ‘spheres of influence’ within the occupied territories”. This was just a way of appeasing those members of the cabinet with forebodings about occupation by zones.

For the military experts in charge of post-war planning safeguarding the unity of Germany was not a priority while saving British manpower certainly was. It was not until summer 1944, months after the Soviet and American governments had agreed in principle to the zoning of Germany, that the Chiefs of Staff were officially asked for their views on the question of dismemberment. Only then did the clash over the treatment of Germany rise to the surface. The military establishment, probably including Churchill, made no bones about their preference for dismembering Germany along the zones of occupation. A north-western state, the size of the Low Countries and completely under British control, was not only a more manageable unit, it was also a more appealing option than running the show in Germany as a whole along with the Russians once the Americans had withdrawn their forces. “We conclude that dismemberment would at least reduce the likelihood of the whole of Germany combining with the U.S.S.R. against us, and that, as an insurance against a hostile U.S.S.R. it would be to our long-term strategic advantage.”¹⁰ After all, Britain could supervise the demilitarisation of the Ruhr or else utilise Germany’s industrial capacities in case of any future confrontation with the Soviet Union. The Foreign Office would have none of this. The Chiefs of Staff’s approach to the German problem was inviting trouble rather than furthering peace. Eden emphatically rejected any idea “that the Germans may serve as part of an anti-Soviet bloc”. He felt that “any such conception should be avoided like the plague in our consideration of German problems”. He stated categorically: “This is not only a matter of strategy. It is a matter of high policy … to preserve the unity and collaboration of the United Nations”. Since Soviet spies had infiltrated the Foreign Office¹¹ we can assume that this exchange of views must have been brought to Stalin’s attention and that, with his instinctive preference for Realpolitik, he favoured the scenario sketched out by the Chiefs of Staff. After all, at Teheran he had agreed to the carving up of Germany. Later on he rejected the idea with a view to giving a helping hand to his German Communist agents.

By September 1943 British plans for the occupation of Germany had reached their final stage. One of the chief aims was “to bring home to every German the realisation that Germany had suffered complete military defeat”.¹² It was important “that at this time no room should be left for the legend of German military invincibility, and that the military ‘caste’ should be discredited in the eyes of every German”. The military experts stressed the disadvantages of mixed occupation. Apart from administrative problems – logistics, different pay and provisions, etc. – it might “lead to Russia securing an undue preponderance owing to her superior man-power resources and to the fact that she alone of the great powers is not at war with Japan”. The shortage of man-power was one of the political establishment’s greatest worries and therefore one of the most powerful arguments in any debate. Only “key areas” were to be occupied and historical boundaries to be left intact to allow for German administration. The exception was Prussia which would be divided among two of the three Allies. “The undue preponderance of Prussia in the past has been one of the chief causes of the growth of the aggressive spirit in Germany, and we feel that the division of this State in two halves during the period of occupation is likely to discourage the rebirth of the Prussian military spirit.” The partition of Prussia served as a perfect alibi for the dismemberment of the Reich, apparently still favoured by the Big Three.

The Western Allies had no clue about Soviet political intentions following the defeat of the common enemy. In order to avoid a scramble for Germany by the conquering armies it was essential to come to an understanding about the most immediate and most important requirements at the moment of German surrender:

1. the armistice terms which the Americans preferred to call “instrument of surrender”, to be unilaterally imposed on Germany;
2. the form of Allied occupation: total or partial, mixed or by zone;
3. some kind of inter-Allied control machinery, if not outright military government, for the duration of occupation.

What Britain lacked in terms of manpower and military capacity in relation to her two chief Allies she now tried to make up for by diplomacy, in this case by being the first to submit sophisticated draft agreements. At the Moscow conference at the end of 1943, Allied foreign ministers decided to set up an inter-governmental body in London – the European Advisory Commission (EAC) – consisting of the ambassadors of the USA and the Soviet Union and a British delegate. By mid-January 1944, half a year before D-Day and one year before Yalta, the Foreign Office submitted draft agreements on all three requirements mentioned above. Some elements of these plans were to have far-reaching repercussions, i.e. shaping the future of Germany up to 1990. The chosen procedure was highly technocratic and, so it seemed, devoid of politics so as not to elicit controversy among the three Allies.

The draft proposal for the occupation of Germany submitted to the EAC on 15 January was an impressive document consisting of ten printed pages and divided into four parts:

1. Assumptions and Definitions;
2. The Case for and against Total Occupation;
3. Mixed Allied Forces or Occupation by Zones;
4. Zone Boundaries.

On the one hand Stalin must have been furious, indeed contemptuous, that the British should start dividing up the spoils of war before crossing the Channel. On the other hand, his response seems to indicate that he was positively surprised at the Western Allies’ willingness to hand over half of Germany up to the River Elbe to the Red Army. Yet the boundaries of the occupation zones were not described in detail. Instead reference was made to an ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• Chronology
• Publisher’s acknowledgements
• Author’s acknowledgements
• Glossary
• Introduction
• 1 Division through zoning
• 2 Cold War confrontation
• 3 Ostpolitik: putting the East at ease
• 4 A precarious relationship
• 5 The people’s revolution
• 6 The diplomatic process
• 7 The expensive takeover business
• 8 The long hangover
• 9 A crisis of identity
• 10 Attempts at explanation
• Epilogue
• Selected bibliography
• Charts
• Illustrations
• Index