In 1953 as Eisenhower came to power and Stalin died the situation in Germany had still not been resolved – still tension in the air.

The major debates in this period in Germany surrounded the following issues. Firstly the major powers were unsure how best to harness a united Germany’s economic and military strength, how strong was a new Germany to be? What weapons would it have? Would it be capitalist or socialist – big discussion.

Should Germany be reunited or should they stay divided? This was debated constantly over this period. Both the US and the Soviets sought to contain the threat of Germany (worries they would emerge as strong as they had before the war) but the US wanted to integrate it into the West and the Soviets wanted to control it, could unification occur?

Soviet fears surrounded the possibility of a revanchist Germany rearming and attacking the Soviet Union

There fears mostly surrounded Germany qcquiring Nuclear weapons – would have been disastrous for the USSR

-It was also clearly worried that West Germany would rearm and be integrated into the West, therefore they put forward proposals that would neutralise the threat of West Germany

Their aims were as follows:

Demilitarisation – they wanted to prevent Germany from rearming.

Unification – Malenkov in April 1953 for example called for provisional elections across the whole of Germany (rejected) but as time moves on the Soviets put more emphasis on the strengthening of East Germany and less on the idea of unification (especially as they see the West further integrating West Germany – regarding rearmament).

Soviets focus on East Germany, Soviet troops gauranteed on East German soil from 1955 onwards and in 1956 East Germany began to rearm and was included in the Warsaw pact

US position – US were worried that negotiations over the issues of a united Germany would bring divisions within the West as important non US diplomats were afraid of a United Germany

Secondly they feared that a United Germany may turn towards Communism – something the US definitely wanted to prevent

So how could they deal with the threat of Germany?

-The West firstly focused on strengthening Western Germany – rather than a united Germany – Eisenhower and Dulles believed strengtheing the Western bloc with Germany in it was the most important thing, not unification, believed that by integrating West Germany into Europe it would neutralise their threat

Both E and Adenauer the president of Germany believed that unification could only happen if the Soviets agreed to their demands, Adenauer, would only accept unification with Germany being in the West

So with the lack of Soviet movement in their direction the West began to look to rearm West Germany – this became a fact when W. Germany became a member of Nato in May 1955, West Germany becomes a fully independent state in 1955

The issue of an independent Germany had been avoided until 1990, East and West Germany would stay separate from each other, coexistence of the two pseudo states

With debates breaking down between East and West over the unification of Germany the Soviets had to take action regarding their part of Germany – these were crucial questions. How were the Soviets supposed to behave towards their satellite countries in Eastern Europe in the wake of the Post-Stalin thaw? Would a policy of liberalisation be followed or would they continue with the Stalinism of 1948-53? The issue initally came to a head in East Germany. East Germany was the most difficult conundrum due to the division of the country – and even more important due to the position of a divided Berlin. The clear problem for the Soviets was the thousands of East Germans from escaping to the West through the city of Berlin. This desire to escape only got stronger as West Berlin began to see the benefits of Marshall plan money. These escapes were a propaganda catastrophe for the Soviets as it showed that the wealth was recovering economically better and was freer. One way of strengthening their control in East Germany was through converting the economy to Stalinist models. In 1952 they began a policy of forced collectivisation East Germany This policy however backfired and by Early 1953 – 100,000 East Germans had fled to West Berlin as a result. This provoked great alarm in the upper Soviet echelons, Soviets worry about GDR economic collapse and the re-emergence of an armed West Germany. Something needed to be done to deal with the situation, didn’t want the West to win a propaganda war.

In light of the death of Stalin there existed the possibility of liberalising policy -This led to a questioning of the collectivisation program – Presidium in Moscow May 1953 – condemned forced collectivisation. New Soviet leadership was worried about the attractiveness of West Berlin – needed to show that they could also provide good economic conditions

Various proposals put forward: Molotov for example argues for relaxation of military rule in East Germany, Beria even planned to give up control of East Germany This led to a Relaxation of controls in GDR – change in policy in Eastern Europe

Soviets reduce subsidies to the country, GDR slows rate of change, collectivisation abandoned – popular acceptance sought – cultural and religious freedoms, attacks stop on artisans

The problem is this moved to fast – from repression to freedom. But this provokes revolt in GDR

Strike by East Berlin construction workers on June 16 1953– on June 17 1953 over 20,000 people on the streets of East Berlin,Soviet tanks put down the revolt on June 17 1953, harsh crackdown

Several consequences of this: 1) As their authority had been undermined by the revolt, the Soviets realised they needed to consolidate and formalise their control in East Germany – a situation we talked about before

2)Despite this Soviets realised they could not push ahead with repressive reforms, had to provide East Germans with something to stop them from going to the West – we will come back to this issue later on in the lecture.

- In addition the event increased distrust of the Soviets from the West

In what other ways did the end of Stalinist rule in the Soviet Union cause instability within the Eastern bloc? Remember, The region had been dominated by Stalinist terror until 1953, relative relaxation after the death of Stalin, new approaches attempted, removal of the Stalinist cult of personality.

In terms of Eastern Europe the watershed movement was Nikita Kruschev’s denouncing of Stalin and his crimes at the 20th party congress in February 1956, but even before this there had been attempts by some Eastern bloc countries to liberalise. Kruschev’s speech increased the pace of change. This led to waves of change across the Eastern bloc sattelite countries: Communists there were permitted to adapt to local circumstances

They were allowed Greater independence. April 1956 – cominform goes, there were reductions Soviet troop numbers. This change of approach offered opportunities for Eastern bloc countries. In Poland 1956 saw the death of the Stalinist Bierut and the release of the more nationally inclined Communist Gomulka, stand off between Gomulka and Kruschev in October 1956, eventually Kruschev doesn’t send in troops.