When the Americans left Thuringia to be replaced by Russian troops in the spring of 1945, most of the region's residents feared the situation would deteriorate further. As the national socialist regime had always portrayed the Soviet Union as the empire of evil, most East Germans had strong anti-Russian feelings. The population's general attitude towards the various occupational forces was aptly summed up by a female resident of Berlin, who stated: “When we saw Russians coming, we would run down the basement steps. If we saw Americans, we would run up the steps to meet them.” East Germans’ worst fears about the Russian occupiers were painfully confirmed with the massive violation of East German women by members of the Red Army, and with the brutal ways the Soviet occupying power claimed its war reparations. This all resulted in widespread anti-Soviet attitudes and strong opposition to Soviet “early socialization policies.” The new East German leaders who wanted to win the population round to the socialist project were thus setting themselves an almost impossible task.

In spite of the general hostility, people seemed to gradually come to terms with their country's socialist project. This was mainly thanks to the appeal of what can be termed the GDR's ideological fundament: its presumed antifascist nature. Claiming this label as an apt description of the new state's raison-d’être was accomplished by thoroughly rewriting recent history. As will be suggested in this chapter, the new, socialist-proof version of the recent past perfectly accommodated widespread popular yearnings – to quietly build a new life (materially and socially) in order to cover up the lack of mutual trust and restore faith in the future. Despite East Germans’ widespread reluctance to conform to the Russian occupation, the state's promises for the future and popular strivings eventually established a form of alliance between the new socialist state and the East German population after 1945.

The Past Rewritten

When the Soviet Union occupied the eastern part of Germany, it had no well-designed plans for its future. This began to change amidst mounting antagonism between the western allied powers and the Soviet Union, and when it gradually became clear that the western part of Germany was going to be integrated in the capitalist bloc. In 1949 the GDR was founded as a separate German state under direct Soviet control.