East and West Germany: political and economic divisions

East vs. West Germany

The timeframe of 1945 to 1990 in relation to East and West Germany is known by many historians as the period of Division and reunification. After the Fall of Nazi Germany, the country was partitioned into four military occupation zones by the Allied powers. The Western Sectors, controlled by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, merged in May, 1949 to become West German (The Federal Republic of Germany), and the Soviet Zone became East Germany (German Democratic Republic) in October of that same Year. Berlin, West and East, remained divided. Interestingly enough from a political and cultural view, West Germany chose Bonn as its "temporary capital" to emphasize the view that a split Germany was completely artificial and that unification would remain the goal (Wise, 1998, 23).

Politically, West Germany became a federal republic with a social market economy, and remained politically allied with the Western Allies. Because of this status, and the aid that the West provided, West Germany began to see a long period of economic growth beginning in the early 1950s. In 1955 West Germany joined NATO, a clear political statement of alignment with the west, and was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957.

East Germany was part of the Soviet sphere called the Eastern Bloc; remaining a client state under the poltical, military and economic control of Moscow. The state claimed to be a democracy, but was in fact a totalitarian state politically goverend by a Politburo and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. State power was controlled by an immense secret service known as the Stasi. A Soviet-style "command economy" was set up, with all private ownership banned and the state becoming a member of the Warsaw Pact politically and the Comecon economically. Despite propaganda, East Germany had a low standard of living, very few creature comforts for its population, and the problem of numerous defections into West Berline. In fact, the Berlin Wall, built in 1961 to stop so many East Germans from moving to the west, became a quintessential symbol of the Cold War (Colchester, 2001).

The differences between East and West Germany in this period were quite stark. West Germany sustained what many call an "economic miracle" rebuilding after the war. Their social market economy allowed for individuals to be entrepeneurial and yet be socially responsible to the state. With so much rebuilding necessary, but an entire Western Europe and the United States ripe for importing and exporting, the economic future of the West was in high gear (Erhard, 2000). In contrast, East Germany as a client state to the Soviet Union, was part of the large buffer zone Moscow set up between themselves and the West. Because so much of the GDP either went back to Moscow or to run the Stasi, economic growth was typically stagnant, and there was little motivation for increased production or free spirit workers (Leonhard, 2000).