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00:00I
00:30Summer, 1993, an open-air market in the east of Berlin under the stony face of Ernst Terlman.
00:44What springs to people's minds when they think back to the GDR's planned economy?
01:00It was very hard for a little bit of money, so...
01:03It's a mess.
01:06Why?
01:07Because it didn't work.
01:09But it didn't work today.
01:12Sometimes it wasn't so bad.
01:15It was well-meant, but it was a utopia.
01:25Images of a fresh start.
01:30Warm!
01:32Das heißt, nicht das Leben sich leicht machen.
01:37Sich unter das Gesetz eines Plans stellen, so wie es eure Jungs vorhin sagten.
01:43730 Tage unter dem Millimetermaß.
01:47In zwei Jahren, Freunde und Kollegen, werdet ihr mit mir einig sein.
01:55Die Erfüllung dieses Planes hat nicht nur eine materielle Bedeutung.
02:02Sondern in der Erfüllung dieses Planes sind wir selbst andere Menschen geworden.
02:08Sind wir aus Lohnsklaven, die wir früher einmal waren,
02:13Herren der Produktionsmittel, Herren unseres eigenen Schicksals geworden.
02:1845 Jahre später.
02:25A chemical factory in eastern Germany.
02:28This is in 1993,
02:30shortly before the factory was dismantled for scrap.
02:33People worked here in three shifts, around the clock, day after day.
02:37Now the whole site has been closed down.
02:4040 years of East German planned economy.
02:45What's the bottom line?
02:46At the Potsdam Conference in 1945,
03:01the victorious powers had agreed to treat Germany as a single economic area.
03:06This unity was supposed to last until the end of Germany's occupation.
03:10But the Cold War quickly severed Germany's close-knit economic links.
03:15Private banks and insurance companies in East Germany were closed,
03:19and big industry was nationalized,
03:21radically reducing private ownership of industrial resources.
03:24This was the most important step towards the adoption of the Soviet economic system.
03:29Following the agrarian reforms,
03:31two-thirds of all large land holdings were allocated to new farmers.
03:35The mass collectivization of East German agriculture was to follow.
03:40In the West, the Allies introduced a currency reform.
03:43The Berlin blockade and the founding of the two German states sealed the division.
03:48The GDR was completely cut off from the rest of the German economy with serious consequences.
04:09It was forced to rebuild its heavy industry without traditional links to raw materials and energy sources.
04:15It had to rely on the economically weaker partners of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, Comic-Con, which was founded in 1949.
04:23Up to 1953, drastic confiscation of factory equipment and heavy reparation payments slowed economic recovery.
04:30The situation was aggravated by the constant diversion of current production to compensate for Soviet shortages.
04:38We are members of a work session of the German Wirtschaftskommission for the East Zone.
04:44The first president, Rau.
04:47The German Wirtschaftskommission has not intended to give big explanations,
04:51but to work in the interest of the population.
04:54House of ministries on Berlin's Leipziger Straße, formerly Goering's Ministry of Aviation.
05:00After the war, it housed the German Commission for the Economy, later renamed the Planning Commission.
05:06Goering's clock panel can still be seen on the ground floor.
05:09Upstairs, German communists were later to try out a new type of economy,
05:13the centrally planned system based on the Soviet model.
05:16Gunther Sieber, Party Secretary of the Commission for Economic Planning, for many years recalls.
05:23The first plan, which was made by a German father,
05:28was, after he was finished, in a long time of work.
05:33He was flew to Moscow.
05:36The whole IL-14 was filled with huge knives.
05:41He was tested there and came back.
05:45The first leader of the government administration was Dr. Witkowski.
05:51And we were very curious to hear,
05:54how is the opinion of the Soviet citizens about our plan?
05:57And she was saying, some sarcastic.
06:00The Minister of Stalin said,
06:02if the Germans had so many national income as they had done,
06:07then they would be the greatest.
06:10Miner Adolf Hinecke had to match the performance and output of Stachanov, his Russian forerunner.
06:19State planning needed people whose example could enthuse the masses.
06:23Hinecke's achievement became a paragon.
06:26His name was invoked as praise or as an insult.
06:29State planning needed people or any other.
06:40But it's not so good when the city had to back up.
06:44Yesterday's successes mean little today.
06:49...reparated locomotives built from the flames of the catastrophe, which the work leaves.
06:54The Five-Year-Plan is a increase in the peaceful industrial production of the two times
07:02against the stand of 1936.
07:05It will be sure that it is possible because of our new democratic order
07:12is to reach a temple of industrial development every year
07:18which cannot be achieved for any capitalist country.
07:29The historic pictures taken in 1950 kept secret until now.
07:33Notice Groteval's expression and Honecker, then leader of the Free German Youth Organization.
07:39In 1952, a young man from Saxony was recruited into the State Planning Commission.
07:44Fritz Schenk was 22 at the time and later became Secretary of the State Council for the Economy.
07:50In 1957, he fled to the West.
07:53I came from the practice and knew the concerns we had in the companies.
07:58Sometimes the material was missing, mostly the tools for important investments or general reparations.
08:05And now I was thinking of being here at the point of being,
08:08in which this must be proven.
08:10And in the fact,
08:12I had more times brought the House Post briefs from the Minister and Behörden-Chefes,
08:17the exactly these problems and problems that were pointed out
08:21and proposals for the delivery of material or the delivery of money
08:26or the delivery of money,
08:28um the plan to fulfill.
08:30But I saw my boss kaum.
08:33That was Bruno Leuschner, then head of the Planning Commission.
08:40He was permanently in the meeting.
08:41He was permanently in the meeting.
08:42He was permanently in the meeting.
08:43And after a few days I could finally reach him,
08:44and he gave it to me,
08:45he told me.
08:46He told me, the letters must be written,
08:47so that they are covered.
08:48I know the rules.
08:49I have neither material nor money.
08:51I can't give them anything.
08:53I can't give them anything.
08:54The plan is a law.
08:55You have to fulfill it.
08:56And I have to pay attention to the plan.
08:58I have to pay attention to the minister's letters,
09:00so that they are covered.
09:01I know the rules.
09:02I have neither material nor money.
09:04I can't give them anything.
09:06The plan is a law.
09:07You have to fulfill it.
09:09And I have to pay attention to the plan.
09:12The first few years of the GDR were marked by great euphoria.
09:38This fresco painted in 1952 for the planning headquarters shows the dreams of a brave new world.
09:43It was the Soviet military administration, however,
09:46that called the shots from its headquarters in the Karlshorst district of Berlin.
09:50Schenk often visited the Soviets to collect their so-called recommendations.
09:54Man wurde am Eingang von einem Läufer abgeholt und dann hier in das Gebäude in eines der Arbeitszimmer gebracht,
10:01in denen die wichtigsten Ressortleiter der sowjetischen Militäradministration in Deutschland saßen.
10:08Später hieß sie sowjetische Kontrollkommission.
10:11Und wo die entsprechenden Unterweisungen gegeben wurden, was sich wie in der DDR in Zukunft verändern sollte.
10:18Das Ritual war eigentlich gestanzt und kam mir, als ich die ersten Male hier war, eigenartig vor.
10:26Es war immer das Gleiche.
10:28Der Schreibtisch unserer Partner war aufgeräumt.
10:31Er begann, hat einen weißen Bogen vor sich liegen.
10:34Zunächst mal mit dem Abfragen des Lebenslaufs, obwohl man das ja schon mehrfach vorgetragen hatte.
10:39Dann kam er darauf, wie man sich weiterbildet, in welchem Fernstudiumkurs man gerade wäre
10:45oder an welchem Lehrgang des Parteilehrjahres man teilnahm und was die wichtigsten Themen in der Parteigruppe seien und dergleichen.
10:54Und erst daraus entwickelte sich dann so nach und nach das Fachgespräch.
10:58Und dieses war dann aber eher eine Befehlsausgabe.
11:02In August 1953, the USSR put 33 large businesses under German administration.
11:16These companies had previously been Soviet holdings.
11:19The Soviets continued to impose their delivery requirements.
11:22Almost 85% of all machinery exports went east.
11:26The Wismut company, which produced uranium, remained in Soviet hands.
11:32In just under 50 years, Wismut miners extracted over 220,000 tons of uranium from the depths of the mountains for the Soviet atomic industry.
11:52Its legacy was a polluted wasteland.
11:56Wenn wir Deutschen für das, was zwischen 33 und 45 passiert ist, die volle Verantwortung und Haftung übernehmen müssen,
12:02kann ich dies für die DDR oder frühere Sowjetzone seit 1945 nicht feststellen.
12:08Sie hatte weder außen, innen noch wirtschaftspolitisch je die Chance für einen eigenen Kurs, für einen eigenen Weg,
12:18sondern sie war von Anfang an voll integrierter Bestandteil des Sowjetimperiums, ihr gleichgeschaltet und nur von ihr abhängig.
12:28A freudige Sonntagsüberraschung am 6. Juli.
12:32Die Preise für viele Lebensmittel wurden weiter herabgesetzt.
12:35Molkerei-Erzeugnisse, Schweinefleisch, Wurst, Käsesorten und Schokoladenpuddingpulver sind billiger geworden.
12:42Wer hätte das gedacht?
12:45Erst vor wenigen Wochen wurde die Rationierung aufgehoben und nun folgte schon eine neue Preissenkung.
12:50Price-setting was an important aspect of the GDR's economic planning.
12:55Right from the start, state-determined prices were crucial for central planning.
12:59Consequently, prices of goods and services were grossly distorted and did not reflect the value of the products.
13:05The East German mark was worthless outside the nation's borders.
13:08There was a chronic shortage of hard currency.
13:11Werbung.
13:13Ihre Konsumgenossenschaft wünscht frohe Fahrt in die Sommersonne.
13:20Frohe Fahrt ins Grüne, mit allem ausgestattet für ein geruhsames Wochenende.
13:28Gute Reise an die See, mit allem versorgt für Wasser und Strand.
13:33Alles fertig?
13:34Alles da?
13:35Fräulein Kathrin?
13:36Reisekoffer?
13:37Mantel?
13:38Handtasche?
13:39Pralin...
13:40Ja.
13:41Menschenskind!
13:42Die Pralinentafel haben Sie vergessen.
13:43Eine Reise ohne Pralinentafel, wo gibt's denn das?
13:48Pralinentafeln sind Christ.
13:53Eine Reise ohne Pralinentafel, wo gibt's denn das?
13:57Pralinentafeln sind Christ.
14:02Ende der 50er Jahre.
14:08Großbauplatz DDR.
14:10Die materiell-technische Basis für den Sozialismus wird geschaffen.
14:15Der Rostocker Überseehafen ist im Bau.
14:19The town of Schwedt got an oil refinery.
14:21Leune II was built.
14:23In 1960, collectivization of agriculture was completed.
14:27Ein stolzer Augenblick in der Geschichte dieser jungen LPG.
14:33Das erste genossenschaftlich geerntete Getreide wird abgefüllt.
14:37Jeder von ihnen weiß, es ist das Produkt ihrer gemeinsamen Arbeit.
14:42Die Newsreel ignored the thousands of farmers who fled to the west in the wake of forced collectivization.
14:48Nothing was said about the crop failure in the following year.
14:54The first pictures of East Berlin, after the wall was built.
15:02The GDR had lost much of its skilled labor.
15:05The economy was stagnating.
15:07The government had to make good on its insistence that the socialist system was superior.
15:11In response to the global technological revolution,
15:14the government introduced the new economic system of planning and management or NES.
15:19Professor Herbert Wolf was one of the architects of these reforms,
15:23the only ones ever attempted in the GDR.
15:26In 1971, under Erich Honecker's regime, he was relieved of his duties and silenced.
15:32Die ersten Zielpunkte waren die Durchsetzung des Leistungsprinzips in Verfolg dieser damals gängigen Losung.
15:42Was der Gesellschaft nützt, muss auch dem einzelnen Kollektiv entscheidend Vorteil bringen.
15:48Zweitens die Reduktion der Planung und volkswirtschaftlichen Bilanzierung auf die Vorausschau
15:55und vor allem ihre Entbürokratisierung, das heißt ihren Befehlscharakter, ihr zu nehmen.
16:01Und drittens, in diesem Gesamtzusammenhang,
16:04die Funktionsfähigkeit und die Regulatoren, die der Marktmechanismus mit sich bringt,
16:10voll auf die Betriebe wirken zu lassen.
16:13Walter Urbrich, the dominant political leader of the GDR until 1971,
16:18at a photo session.
16:20These pictures have not been published.
16:25Mir ist oft die Frage gestellt worden,
16:28wie war denn das möglich, dass ein ernsthafter Ansatz zur Reform des sozialistischen Systems
16:35ausgerechnet unter Walter Ulbrich zustande kommt.
16:38Denn Walter Ulbrich ist ja bekannt, und ich glaube auch zu Recht bekannt,
16:42als Altbolschewik und in hohem Maße auch als Altstalinist.
16:47Und seine Rolle in den 40er, vor allem in den 50er Jahren ist in mehr als einer Hinsicht kritikwürdig.
16:57Aber vielleicht muss man sagen, er hat es damals auch nicht besser gewusst.
17:02Für Ulbrich gilt aber, er war auch in dem Sinne ein Altkommunist,
17:07dass er wirklich an die Machbarkeit und an das in seinem Leben und unter seiner Federführung
17:17mit zu Erreichende im Fortschreiten der sozialistischen, sprich kommunistischen Umwälzung mitmachen wollte.
17:24Und so viel weiß ich und habe erlebt, dass er Ende der 50er, Anfang der 60er Jahre selbst
17:32darüber begonnen hatte nachzudenken, geht denn das mit dem bisherigen System?
17:38Natürlich begann er mit der Ökonomie, dort wo es am meisten brannte.
17:43Und Ulbricht war meiner Meinung nach doch wandlungsfähig genug.
17:49Um seiner generalen Zielstellung, seiner Idee sozusagen treu zu bleiben,
17:54war er bereit auch erhebliche Veränderungen unter seiner Regie durchzuführen.
18:03In December 1965, Eric Appel, Chairman of the Planning Commission
18:07and the Prime Mover of Reform, shot himself in the head at his desk.
18:12The real reason for his suicide remains unclear.
18:16Just two hours after his death, Appel had been due to speak at the signing
18:19of a far-reaching trade agreement with the Soviet Union, gagging the GDR.
18:24Ulbricht had not invited him to a meeting on the economy that summer.
18:28His closest friend, Gunther Mittag, distanced himself from him and also from the reforms.
18:33In the West, Appel's past under the Nazi regime had been exposed.
18:37Gerhard Schurer was head of the Planning Commission from Appel's death up to 1989.
18:46Schurer, in the late 1960s, the foremost SED planner describes himself then as a true soldier of the party.
18:58In this role, his limits were clearly defined and he never overstepped the mark.
19:02In certain periods, in the parties, in different positions, also Walter Ulbricht, then Erich Honecker,
19:14there was always a development, where the body of reality was given by the high Forderung of the Spitze.
19:24And we were always in this dilemma, how do you react to it?
19:31Because if a plan is not real, the plan is not real.
19:34The plan is not real.
19:35The plan is not real.
19:36The plan is not real.
19:37And in the end, the growth of the economy is even less.
19:40The growth of the economy is even less.
19:41Than you could achieve it with real plans.
19:44Bertolt Brecht had once said, satyric said here,
19:48then you make a plan and you're a great light.
19:52Then you make a second plan and you're not going.
19:55Attempts at reform led to candid discussions, the last of their kind.
20:01Honesty was required of everybody and even company managers were subject to massive criticism.
20:06But the system proved itself to be inflexible and the party had to apply the brakes.
20:11The Prague Spring had revealed the political consequences of reform.
20:16The Reckleiter or the VVB-Generaldirector, the for daily time,
20:26who used to the Report to the Partai or the Kreisleitung.
20:30He told us, as if we didn't have long gone to a real plan and now,
20:34to set up the course on,
20:38As he declared about science,
20:42with the markets and the Außenhandel and so on,
20:44that was in the Regel,
20:45we know if you don't have a production plan,
20:47but the one has no.
20:49And so can say,
20:50that actually,
20:51already there is a way to say,
20:54that the non-conform going
20:55to the economic reform
20:57with the political reform,
20:59that the bleiben of the political reform,
21:04the change of the party,
21:05the real, consequent,
21:07the overgehen to the democratic reform
21:08and many other things,
21:09has ultimately played a strong,
21:13a strong and maybe even a negligible role.
21:20The 1967 New Year's reception.
21:23The future GDR leader,
21:25Erich Honecker,
21:26had already stepped out of the wings
21:27and was taking center stage more frequently.
21:31In Moscow,
21:32Khrushchev had been deposed.
21:33His successor, Brezhnev,
21:35signaled a clear change of course
21:36in Soviet policies.
21:37This MALARCA
21:40may from being
21:41and perhaps even practice,
21:47because in the 50-something of the leg,
21:48that the powerless people
21:48can't winしい system-w matter
21:50, capitalism and society
21:52in that time,
21:59that in the 50-size
22:02general...
22:02If not, simply give up and run away.
22:07But at least, the safety of each price was achieved.
22:13Ulbricht's days in power were numbered.
22:17The new catchphrase was, no experiments.
22:20The cards had been reshuffled.
22:22Honecker was Moscow's new Trump.
22:24At his side, Gunter Mittag made the transition from reformer
22:28to dictator of a now strictly centralized economy.
22:31Vier Trümpfe mit dem Krabant 601.
22:41Bequem für vier Erwachsene.
22:45Viel Raum für ihr Gepäck.
22:49Wendig.
22:52Schnell.
22:55Ausdauernd und robust.
23:00Ihr zuverlässiger Begleiter, der neue Trabant 601.
23:05Leonid Brezhnev überreichte Erich Honecker den Lenin-Orden.
23:10Honecker's pay-off.
23:11Smiling, they raised their glasses to Ulbricht, whom they have just booted out of power.
23:18This document was submitted to the Politburo.
23:20In 1972, with strong support from the bloc parties, the last 11,000 private and semi-private industrial companies, as well as 1,500 craft trade cooperatives, were nationalized.
23:34One of these firms was Werner Muck's upholstered furniture factory, which was based in Fredersdorf, New Berlin.
23:40When his firm was nationalized, he employed around 200 people.
23:44He had a turnover of 12 million marks and sold scarce commodities in high demand.
23:48Many small businesses agreed to nationalization if Muck's went along with it.
23:52That motivated the SED to increase the pressure on him.
23:56In this room came the former president and had to say, I have to say, it's time to do this, otherwise I would probably go off.
24:10And there was still nothing left for me, as if I had to give the attitude and people to become the people.
24:17I have to say that it was so, I have said it very clearly, that it took me off, as if I had a child.
24:24In one fell swoop, the regime had removed all free enterprise that remained in the GDR,
24:53and at the same time integrated all these small businesses in its central planning.
24:58This economic exercise was an unnecessary and disastrous show of strength.
25:02According to Werner Muck's, none of the small entrepreneurs relinquished their businesses voluntarily.
25:07The blow killed some. Others committed suicide.
25:11The general secretary, Erich Wanneker, had from ideological reasons,
25:18according to the thesis of Lenin, that the small production of the small production of the small capitalism,
25:25wanted to have a pure socialism in this high-developed DDR.
25:30And from this reason, because in these companies it was also a high win,
25:36the chance to lead to a faster development of these companies.
25:43But it was not the chance.
25:45The two generations, which I think they could be...
25:50I have a good feeling...
25:51July 13, 1972.
25:53A letter from Honakya to Brezhnev.
25:55We are pleased to see that you continue to follow the development of socialism in the GDPR,
25:58General Secretary. I am particularly pleased to inform you that we have now
26:02successfully completed the introduction of national ownership of previously
26:06private businesses and cooperatives as decided at the Eighth Party Congress.
26:20In 1973 the oil crisis shook the world. The price of crude oil rocketed and
26:27governments all over the world were forced to revise their energy policies.
26:33The leaders of the GDR believed that it would be protected by the price stability
26:36of the Comic-Con countries. East Germany got its crude oil through a pipeline to
26:40the Soviet Union, but increased oil prices soon filtered through to the GDR.
26:45Each year more goods had to be exported to the Soviet Union in exchange for oil.
26:49This meant a drop in exports to the West.
26:52The contribution of women and women from the youth collective Yuri Gagarin
26:58to the goal of their company is that the completion of the 1973 plan is about 2,1%.
27:03That are 2,000 mantel, 12,100 hats, 23,600 hats.
27:09Economic planning and fashion make strange bedfellows. Even after hemlines had plunged,
27:14miniskirts were still being produced. This was because you could make more miniskirts from a given length of material
27:19than long skirts. It was more important to meet set targets than to produce what people wanted.
27:25This is the story of the government's economic planning for toothbrushes. One brush cost 73 East German
27:30Finnick. When the main toothbrush factory burned down, the government imported a million toothbrushes
27:35from its economic partners. East Germans, well accustomed to shortages, reacted by hoarding.
27:41The government gave in four weeks later and sacrificed hard currency reserves to import more Western toothbrushes.
27:46At last, all was quiet on the toothbrush front. In 1976, industrial companies were concentrated into giant units,
27:53called combines. This facilitated central planning but did not help to increase competitiveness
27:59or combat the huge hard currency deficit. It was increasingly difficult for companies to react to people's demands.
28:05In addition, they were forced to accept senseless planning targets for everyday products.
28:10The worst worst thing was that we had to say, I would say that we had the plan ideologized.
28:19I had once said that we had the plan ideologized. I had once said that in such a plan,
28:25on your mind is not the strength of the working class. Because the demands of us were much higher than we could ever fulfill.
28:37And I mean, with this ideologization, I had the plan, the plan, the actually must be,
28:44if I'm not so detailed, that's a whole other question, that's a whole other question,
28:46that's a whole other question, that's a whole other question, that's a whole other question.
28:48And je kritischer die Lage wurde in the damaligen DDR,
28:52desto unmöglicher wurden die Planmethoden.
28:55Sie richteten sich nur noch darauf, dass der, der für die Planung verantwortlich war,
28:59im Staate aufgeschrieben hat, was sein müsste.
29:04Keiner aber gesagt hat, wie es denn zu schaffen sei.
29:07Dr. Rosenkrantz worked his way up in this factory.
29:11At first he was a fitter, then an engineer, and finally managing director.
29:15He headed the combine for 17 years.
29:18We all knew that the plan was fundamental questions of the state.
29:30Und dass es also keinerlei Zugeständnisse geben konnte, sonst wäre das Ganze ins Wanken geraten
29:39und man hätte die Frage beantworten müssen, was wird denn auf die Dauer, wenn das Defizit größer wird.
29:46The GDR economy in the 1970s was the product of Honecker's unification of financial and social policies.
29:53Money was borrowed to pay for investments.
29:55When the money was repaid, economic decline followed.
29:58The conclusion of Western economists at the end of 1980
30:02was that the economic burdens on the GDR exceeded its capabilities.
30:06Yeah, yeah, auch ein Kopf braucht seine Schmierung, nämlich die Qualifizierung.
30:21Bauche, als noch ein Kopf.
30:24Man hat ja ich ihn in die Leib und hoch gemacht.
30:26Na, ja.
30:28Verwank ich dich?
30:30Wenn ich nicht schon mal bin, schlafen.
30:31Ja, auch ein Kopf!
30:32Ich weiß, was ich nicht so schnell, da sage ich.
30:34Ach, was ich nicht so schnell, keine Kronen.
30:35Ach, was ich nicht so schnell.
30:37Jetzt gehst du sagst.
30:38Da war es mir.
30:39Die Böse war es mir.
30:41Alles ist mir nicht so schnell,
30:44denn ich so schnell,
30:46dass wir so schnell sie nicht.
30:48mich nicht so schnell.
30:49In 1981, an unexpected shock hit East Germany.
30:59The Soviet Union suddenly reduced its yearly oil supply from 19 million to 17 million
31:04tons.
31:06Moscow sent Rusakov, a cog in the party machine, to break the news.
31:12Honecker himself took a meeting of inner circle politicians.
31:15Rusakov führte als Gründe für diese Reduzierung nur allgemeine wirtschaftliche Schwierigkeiten
31:22an.
31:23Honecker ließ aber nicht locker und das endete in dem Ausspruch, teilen Sie Generalsekretär
31:30Brechner mit, dass ich und unser Politbüro nicht verstehen kann, warum er, welchen zwei
31:36Millionen Tonnen Erdöl, die Existenz der DDR aufs Spiel setzt.
31:40Rusakov hatte wenig weitere Argumente, aber in die Enge getrieben hat er schließlich
31:49tief bewegt und fast unter Tränen zum Ausdruck gebracht, in der Sowjetunion ist ein großes
31:55Unglück geschehen und wir stehen wieder bei Prest-Litovst.
32:00Prest-Litovst, das war bekanntlich der Friedensschluss in Folge drohenden Zusammenbruchs des damaligen
32:07Russlandes kurz nach der Revolution.
32:12Ich war beauftragt noch in der gleichen Nacht das Protokoll über diese Sitzung zu machen
32:16und gegen zwei Uhr nachts rief es in meinem Büro an.
32:21Honecker war am Apparat und frug mich, ob ich mit dem Protokoll klarkomme, dass am anderen
32:27Tag bereits im Politbüro vorgelegt werden sollte.
32:30Ich sagte ihm, ja, aber ich kann mit dem Unglück nicht anfangen.
32:33Was ist mit einem großen Unglück?
32:34Was ist mit Prest-Litovst?
32:36Er sagte mir, er macht sich darüber auch Gedanken und kommt zu keinem Schluss.
32:40A clear sign of economic misery.
32:43The Soviet Union urgently needed hard currency.
32:46It had to sell crude oil to the west and therefore radically curtailed its supply to East Germany.
32:53Economists had an even worse starting point on which to base the new five-year plan.
32:58Plants had to be hastily converted to run on brown coal.
33:01Ultra-modern facilities had to be retooled using scarce investment funds.
33:06The badly needed increase in output did not materialize.
33:18The plants fueled by brown coal worked at full speed and many villages disappeared.
33:23Redevelopment was neglected woefully.
33:26The environment became increasingly polluted.
33:29The GDR became Europe's largest sulfur dioxide producer.
33:36The second shock in 1981.
33:49International banks froze all GDR assets because of Polish and Romanian insolvency.
33:55Hectic crisis management began.
34:00Products had to be exported at all costs.
34:02The lack of competitive alternatives forced the GDR to switch to petroleum products.
34:07Western imports were reduced below the pain threshold.
34:11As so often in the past, trade between the two Germanys brought relief to the crisis.
34:23No foreign exchange was needed.
34:25Accounting was settled by balancing the value of goods received against the goods delivered.
34:29The Big Four agreement of 1951, the basis of trade, proved to be the most stable and for a long time the only contractual ties between the two countries.
34:39In the early 70s after the Basic Treaty, annual financial injections of millions were added.
34:45The GDR enjoyed advantages no other Comic-Con member shared.
34:49But even this was no longer enough.
34:51A helping hand came from a surprising quarter.
34:54With the support of Franz Josef Strauss, West Germany granted credits totaling 2 billion marks in 1983 and 1984.
35:02This made the GDR internationally creditworthy again.
35:06The country wouldn't have collapsed without the loans, but the standard of living would have been drastically lowered because of the cost-cutting measures required.
35:16The Schaffenstein refrigerator factory in the Orr Mountains.
35:24Factories like this were worst hit by the cost-cutting policy.
35:28Old equipment still had to be used, although spares were lacking everywhere.
35:32All these factors led to a rapid decline in labour productivity in the GDR.
35:37In 1983 it was already 50% of that in the Federal Republic.
35:41Most of the savings were only made on paper, for example when comparing new and old products.
35:48The GDR economy became increasingly more isolated.
36:12Any data on the economy was classified information.
36:15In 1987 former development engineer Eberhard Gunther was asked a question by an American at a convention in Dresden.
36:22Why do you try to keep things in the GDR that the whole world knows?
36:27That was very difficult for this man to think about.
36:30Because the general diplomacy is more than that you talk about the things that are known and try to find out where the other has a benefit, where the other is a bit further.
36:42But that was not done with us.
36:47We had always the feeling that if we knew so much like the others, that we had already a secret.
36:52And we couldn't push us from this level.
36:56It was actually necessary to speak internationally.
37:00The best proof of the efficiency of this former GDR plant is the production of the first German environmentally friendly refrigerator, awarded the Federal Prize for Environmental Protection in 1993.
37:15In 1986 the price of oil on the world market plummeted.
37:19This cost the GDR a third of its essential sources of hard currency, earned by producing and exporting petroleum products.
37:26Now even fewer export products existed to offset this deficit than in 1981.
37:32The GDR leaders still adhere to their extravagant subsidy policy for prestige reasons.
37:38Expenditure for the so-called second paycheck consumed over 40% of the national government budget.
37:44On top of that were the expenses for the military and the billions for the absurd surveillance of people and the wall that surrounded them.
37:51Consumers had money, but there was hardly anything worth buying.
37:56Dispiring...
37:57When we cut the 2018 prix, that's a 13th month-month price, it was just a dollar market,
38:03then it was just 800 or 1000 Mark, or depending on industry, two hundred percent more.
38:08Then they went to the salesprays of the good goods consumption of goods,
38:15i.e. the TVers and stereo, and those things.
38:19After three times sold them were empty.
38:23And who got the end of the year, he got the first March, he could have been happy to talk about it, if he got the machine for it.
38:30And the one was perhaps even before.
38:35Intershop, a channeling and a supply system for the value in the country, which everyone has to have, but not everyone can have.
38:42The conditions are West-South-South-South-Kurs 1 to 4 to 1 to 5.
38:46DDR-Principal have to pay higher prices as the Transit-Brown and sisters from the West.
38:53In the hard way of being attacked by the West-West-Prestige paroles, the DDR-Principal are full of demand for the most popular status symbol of the consumerism, cars.
39:06The socialist personal ideal is deep, which are still lacking.
39:12Only the Western media reported on the bartering in the black market.
39:16Eisenhüttenstadt, an important steel location and victim of the plan revision in 1988.
39:26The plant lacked a hot strip rolling plant, so the steel had to be transported by train to Western Germany.
39:32There it was processed and returned to the GDR rolling mill.
39:35Construction of a Soviet plant was finally completed in 1988, when Guter Muttag discovered a new technology in Japan.
39:43This method later proved unsuited to anything except the sheet metal for cars, so he shelved the project in the Politburo.
39:51In Eisenhüttenstadt, two factories had already been built.
39:54Chief Planner Schürer, who had fought for the plant in Prime Minister Stoff, had to terminate the contracts with Soviet Prime Minister Rischkov.
40:03Rischkov is a staff member in the area, a staff member of the steel industry, of the steel machine building.
40:11And I, in Gutkante, said, Gerhard, you know that it's wrong, what you're doing. Why do you do it with it?
40:18And I said, I'll do what the Politburo decided.
40:23It was so, the Politburo decided it was.
40:27Absurd victory of bureaucracy over common sense.
40:30600 million marks squandered.
40:32Today, the missing hot strip rolling mill is a severe handicap in deciding how to utilize the East German steel plant in Eisenhüttenstadt.
40:41The Western high-tech embargo drove the GDR into a crash microelectronics program, thanks in part to industrial espionage in the West.
40:50Despite massive investment, East Germany never reached world standards.
40:54Production of a one megabyte chip was lavishly celebrated in 1988.
40:58Eure Leistungen sind ein hervorragender Beitrag im Wettlauf mit der Zeit.
41:07Sie sind ein überzeugender Beweis dafür, dass die Deutsche Demokratische Republik auch künftig ihre Position als entwickeltes Industrieland behauptet.
41:21Sie sind ein überzeugender Beweis dafür, dass der Sozialismus siegen kann.
41:34It reminds me of the Empowering that man 20 years ago with the wisdom that a victory is not possible.
41:41And one of the most important Matadour, for example, Mittag has written in his book,
41:46that he had since the middle of the 60th century, that the socialism can win.
41:50That he can now.
41:52He has now in 1989, a few weeks before the opening of the wall,
41:56explained how important and how fast the Wirtschaft and the socialism in the DDR is.
42:02So, this heuchelei, this really, in my opinion,
42:06on itself, a criminal behavior, the desires, the wishes and activities of simple people, is impaired.
42:17They can't be left out of this film.
42:19Today they belong to history, the citizens of the DDR.
42:23They were born into this land, they lived here, went about their jobs, day by day,
42:29cursed, rejoiced, were for the system or against it.
42:33Their country, the GDR, was the child of the Cold War.
42:38It collapsed when the battle of the systems was decided.
42:43There was once a small country between the Baltic and the Alps with an ambitious claim.
42:53The little land announced that it belonged to the big league of the world's tin-leading industrial nations.
43:00Most of its loudly heralded feats, however, only took place on paper.
43:05For lack of planning, the planned economy went broke,
43:10in spite of the hard work of millions of people.
43:15They believed to have a big league in the world's
43:21esperated base, where the value of the people were living in this form,
43:24they were able to invest these kinds,
43:26and sometimes the ability to understand them.
43:28They also believed they were able to invest,
43:30and they believed they were able to invest,
43:33and they believed them to see them.
43:36The other one did not to catch them.
43:38They believed to be enough people.
43:39They believed them for the deserts...
43:42Amen.
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