Recent Reading
Nov. 21st, 2007 05:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chickenfeetNorman Naimark - "The Russians in Germany A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949", Cambridge, Mass 1995
This a hefty read; almost five hundred pages plus apparatus. It's a good reminder too that history is not inevitable. Few events seem more inevitable in hindsight than the division of Germany or the collapse of Soviet communism but as Naimark demonstrates neither seemed likely and the latter unthinkable to the Russians and Germans who shaped the Soviet Zone and ultimately created the GDR.
Soviet policy in 1945 favoured the creation of a demilitarised, neutral and anti-fascist Germany that would eventually mature into a People's Democracy on the Russian model. The manifest superiority of the Soviet system had been demonstrated by the Soviet achievements in the 1930s and, above all, by the victory over Germany. An overwhelming sense of cultural and political superiority drove the policy makers in the Soviet zone.
However, the need to pillage German industry and agriculture to rebuild the ravaged Soviet economy and the unwillingness or inability of the occupation authorities to restrain the behaviour of Russian troops in the zone alienated large sections of the population. Even among dedicated communists and socialists support for the 'Russian way' was eroded by robbery, rape (on a scale probably unprecedented in history, confiscations and the activity of the Soviet security agencies. By late 1946 support for the KPD had all but evaporated and the elections of that year were a huge blow to the Soviets. Increasingly policy veered to accepting the division of Germany with the eastern portion under clear Soviet control.
Naimark, using documents made available from Soviet and GDR archives in the 1990's reconstructs the story in convincing detail with thematic chapters on extraction of reparations, robbery and rape, cultural and educational policy, political developments, the creation of the apparatus of the police state and so on. It's very comprehensive and impressive.
This a hefty read; almost five hundred pages plus apparatus. It's a good reminder too that history is not inevitable. Few events seem more inevitable in hindsight than the division of Germany or the collapse of Soviet communism but as Naimark demonstrates neither seemed likely and the latter unthinkable to the Russians and Germans who shaped the Soviet Zone and ultimately created the GDR.
Soviet policy in 1945 favoured the creation of a demilitarised, neutral and anti-fascist Germany that would eventually mature into a People's Democracy on the Russian model. The manifest superiority of the Soviet system had been demonstrated by the Soviet achievements in the 1930s and, above all, by the victory over Germany. An overwhelming sense of cultural and political superiority drove the policy makers in the Soviet zone.
However, the need to pillage German industry and agriculture to rebuild the ravaged Soviet economy and the unwillingness or inability of the occupation authorities to restrain the behaviour of Russian troops in the zone alienated large sections of the population. Even among dedicated communists and socialists support for the 'Russian way' was eroded by robbery, rape (on a scale probably unprecedented in history, confiscations and the activity of the Soviet security agencies. By late 1946 support for the KPD had all but evaporated and the elections of that year were a huge blow to the Soviets. Increasingly policy veered to accepting the division of Germany with the eastern portion under clear Soviet control.
Naimark, using documents made available from Soviet and GDR archives in the 1990's reconstructs the story in convincing detail with thematic chapters on extraction of reparations, robbery and rape, cultural and educational policy, political developments, the creation of the apparatus of the police state and so on. It's very comprehensive and impressive.
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Date: 2007-11-22 02:12 pm (UTC)I have just got to the end of the "World At War" series, which touched briefly on the circumstances surrounding the partition of Germany. Unfortunately, television series can never go into much detail about such things.
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Date: 2007-11-22 02:28 pm (UTC)1. The Soviet and GDR archives were still closed.
2. Historians were still mired in the "any criticism of the Russians in the zone" = "failure of the Germans to be apologetic enough about their behaviour in Russia" problem.