Two Rival German States and Two Competing Master Narratives: Geschichtspolitik in the 1950s and 1960s

THE QUESTION AS TO WHY, following the “peaceful revolution” in the GDR and its accession (Beitritt) to the Federal Republic, the issue of “inner unity” continues to be so passionately debated in Germany requires some understanding of the history as well as the deep-rooted ideological and mental positions of the two rival German postwar states. After 1945 escalating conflict over political and economic development was played out in the rivalry between the two German states, and the founding principles of East Germany and West Germany created two opposing political blocs. The master narratives that informed the societies of the two new states had the same goal, namely to try and make sense of the catastrophic National Socialist period and the Second World War and the trauma of German division, but also to exonerate a large percentage of their populations and integrate them into the new system. Both postwar states claimed to have drawn the correct conclusions from the historical catastrophe, and each accused the other of continuities with National Socialism.

The master narratives of both German states sought to establish legitimacy through a distorted image of their Western/Eastern counterpart as is exemplified in the interpretations of the uprising of 17 June 1953. The GDR always regarded this as an attempted putsch orchestrated by Fascist provocateurs sent by the West in which workers, misinformed by Western propaganda, became involved. In West Germany the East German uprising was to become one of the foundation stones of national identity, and until unification this date was the only public holiday in the FRG. Almost every Western commentator characterized the uprising as antitotalitarian and as a late attempt to make up for the absence of any mass revolt during the Third Reich. On 16 June 1954 the federal government’s press and information service duly announced that the uprising that had taken place the year before was conclusive proof that the Germans did have the inner strength to withstand dictatorships and tyranny. In 1956 the SPD politician Carlo Schmid stated, “[der 17. Juni] hat viele Flecken hinweggewaschen, mit denen das ruchlose Regime des Nationalsozialismus unseren Namen beschmutzt hat.