By MAX REICH

Re TEEN years ago, on Oct. 1,
1949 a new Germany was
born. A different Germany.
doubters may ask: Is it
new? What is new about

Some

Teal]
ip :

oo that it is a new Ger-
bast z have lived in it for the
tay Tee years, I see it every
ew G I can say that it is a
hany peneny, a different Ger-
ate; out I also know that there
thing 2 People to whom every-

8 German igs suspect.

aig Jong as the old Germany is
‘ ill with us, and again as
in the dable military power —
Only . Western world second
tha i the USA — and again is
its © territorial demands* on
all 5 enbors, it isn’t wrong at
lation ® Suspicious of the in-
Brg S of a Germany that trig-
two world wars.

mine M2 as Germans demand
ep9 Weapons it would be
Mang hoble to forget that Ger-
‘hibit gined and executed the
a },,. (On of millions of hum-
Cision, 8S with scientific pre-

B

tly Were not Marx and En-
ang ,°° Germans? And. Bach
Nepay hms and Kant and
Man, SN’t it a fact that Ger-
Poles NOt only killed Jews and
Ge pend Russians, but that
MS also killed Germans?

Mage the German fascist
ty flog g cpped over its. borders
an Europe, Dachau exist-
Nan SO did Buchenwald and
tne Other concentration
Men a. In them both the hang-
han, “the victims were Ger-
hag ne € Buchenwald child
Mag peome famous, because he

€ the central figure of

i ;
han? Qrticles about the Ger-
an pocratic Republic on
Mge,"4 the following two
re condensed from
Jn 40'S and — information
\the ° US by MAX REICH,

Tri ‘
[lene "bune’s staff correspon-
' Berlin,

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c—

y

j er, ‘ os
iy Ste j
8.009 1950 there was only a forest and the rubble

the widely read novel, Naked
Among Wolves, which was
later made into a popular film.
Remember that Stefan Jerszy
Zweig, the hidden Polish-Jewish
child, was protected and saved
by Germans from Germans.

The other Germany always
existed. But the German state
was the state of the Kaisers
and of the Hitlers. On Oct. 7,
1949, the other Germany con-
stituted itself as a state, when
the German Democratic Repub-
lic was born. Such a German
state had never existed before.
That is what makes it a new,

A fable

ODAY the German Demo-
cratic Republic is a so-
cialist state.

At its birth 15 years ago it
did not have a socialist consti-
tution. There was no expropria-
tion of private property: of the
three parties that stood at the
cradle of. the newborn state,
two representated private own-
ership, and were supported by
about 50 percent of the elec-
torate. The one party represent-
ing the other half was socialist;
it was a new party that had
just come into being by the
voluntary merger of the Social

Democratic Party and the Com-
munist Party in the Soviet oc-
cupation zone.

The West presents its version
of developments in Germany
something like this:

“In the Soviet occupation
zone Russia wilfully created an
artificial state. On the bayonets
of the Red Army it set up a
satellite with a puppet govern-
ment, to impose on an unwil-
ling population a Communist
dictatorship. Thus Germany was
split. This problem of a divided

different Germany, whose 15th
birthday we all have cause to
celebrate.

When the other Germany
came out into the open from
underground anti-nazi resistance
groups, concentration camps
and exile, and created a new
Germany, it could not start out
on a clean sheet. It took over
a terrible heritage: a country
that was physically destroyed
and a people that was morally
destroyed. Superhuman efforts
were needed to create the 1.2w
state, to overcome the physical
and moral wilderness within,

founders

Germany can only be solved by
free elections in all of Germany
and a democratic government
resulting from them. The model
will be West Germany, where
a democratic state came into
being from free elections in the
occupation zones of the West-
ern Allies.”

Let’s examine the facts:
whose bayonets fostered what,
and where democracy was exer-
cised.

In May, 1945 the German
armies capitulated. Fighting had
been fierce on all fronts, but
particularly severe in the East.
Terrible destruction had taken
place in that part of Germany
that later became the Soviet
occupation zone.

After capitulation masses of
people were despondent and in
despair. They saw no way out
of the “calamity,” had no per-
spective, just tried to survive
from day to day.

The Communist Party, just
emerged from illegality, recog-
nized that this was not a situ-
ation where socialism could be
built. But it had a clear pro-
gram that fitted the given situ-
ation, not a socialist program,
but an anti-fascist, democratic

A new and different Germany

the results of a terrible past,
and to do it under conditions
of daily -being confronted by
this past, by the old Germany
in the form of the other German
state, the West German Federal
Republic.

So, do we deny the new Ger-
many the right to protect itself
by erecting a wall against the
old Germany and all its machin-
ations, a Germany that has be-
come the breeding ground of
militarism, and which uses the
Cold War to confront the new
Germany with daily increasing
pressures? It is true that the

15 YEARS OF THE GDR

wall brings suffering to people.
But a new war would bring in-
comparably more suffering.

The Canadian government
tells us that East Germany is
& puppet which we do not re-
Cognize and that West Germany
is our ally.

In West Germany advocates
of peace are treated as crimin-
als. In East Germany advocates
of war are treated as criminals.
West Germany is the most
vociferous country in Europe
for the spread of nuclear Wweap-
ons, for the creation of the so-
called multilateral nuclear force.
East Germany calls for the re-
nunciation of nuclear arms on
German :soil and by German
military units.

Which Germany, then, should
be our ally?

on the facts

one — a program that could be
applied to all of Germany. Main
points included complete liqui-
dation of nazism, measures to
feed, house and clothe the peo-
ple, restoration of democratic
rights, free trade unions and
democratic political parties, etc.

In the East, political life be-
gan to unfold without interfer-
ence. Nazism was weeded out
and the. state apparatus com-
pletely rebuilt; land reform was
carried out and the Junkers,
backbone of Prussian militar-
ism, lost their base; factories
belonging to war criminals were
nationalized, thus breaking the
monopolies. The Socialist Unity
Party won the elections by pol-
ling about half the total vote.

In the West there was politi-
cal and economic stagnation.
The people’s desires for land
reform and nationalization of
monopolies (expressed by re-
ferendum in’ some provinces)
were vetoed by the occupying
military forces.

Alarmed by the people’s move-
ments for reforms; the Western
powers decided to split Germa-
ny, to break away from the
“source of infection” in order
to protect the monopoly inter-

ests in their zones. On the bay-
onets of British and U.S. occu-
pation forces, German monopoly
was resurrected; in September
of 1949 the occupation zones of
the West became a West Ger-
man state, Adenauer was made
chancellor, and a policy of re-
viving the power of German im-
perialism and militarism re-
placed the stipulations of the
four-power agreements.

Only after the old Germany
had been resurrected in the
West and had constituted itself
into a state, did all political
parties in the Soviet occupation
zone decided to constitute their
zone into an anti-fascist, demo-
cratic state.

Even today, when East Ger-
many has become a socialist
state, some 11 percent of indus-
trial production is privately
run. Good cooperation between
private owners and the social-
ist state has developed to the
mutual advantage of both.

So the fable that the creation
of a West Germany state was
necessary to protect democracy
in Germany against the dicta-
torial system of the Soviet oc-
cupation forces in East Germa-
ny founders on the facts.

of ruined buildings today there stands the modern, socialist, steel-producing city of Eisenhuettenstadt with a population

‘From left: women clearing rubble from the site of the steel plant early in 1950; a night view of the city; carrying molten steel from one of the giant furnaces.

October 9, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5