Comments on "Coinage of the German Democratic Republic"

[<k>]

Parent topic:  Coinage of the German Democratic Republic


The parent topic (above) gives an overview of the coinage of the German Democratic Republic since decimalisation. Please post any comments, questions or corrections here.

[<k>]

In this topic we can discuss the political aspects of the German Democratic Republic. The country was commonly known as East Germany in the West. Stalin was still alive when it was founded, and the population suffered as he ordered the implementation of a harsh political and economic regime that was modelled on the communist Soviet Union. The Soviets called their brand of communism "Marxism-Leninism", because Lenin founded the Soviet Union on the principles (as Lenin understood and interpreted them) that had been propounded by Karl Marx. In reality Marx would probably have been horrified by the repressive communist regimes.

[<k>]

Originally Berlin was not meant to be the capital of Germany after World War II. Therefore when the Western allies (France, the UK and the USA) united their three occupation zones, the capital of the Federal Republic ('West Germany') became Bonn. When the Western Allies introduced a common currency for their zone, as I understand it, Stalin considered that they had broken an agreement not to do so. In retaliation, Stalin made the Soviet Zone of Berlin, commonly known as East Berlin, the capital of the German Democratic Republic. He also tried to isolate West Berlin from West Germany by blockading it. Ultimately he did not succeed in this.

East Germany had to cope with the fact that large sections of the population were able to escape the harsh regime, in which communism was being implemented, by fleeing to West Germany.

[Figleaf]

Your fine enlargement of the brass 50 pfennig brought home something I hadn't focussed on before: the plough is anachronistic! It is meant to be drawn by a horse, with the farmer walking behind and steering it.

If the factories weren't behind, it might have been romanticism, a Disneyesque glorification of heroic farming. With the factories behind it, I don't know how to interpret it. "Modern" industry is replacing feudal farming? Who needs food if you can eat chemicals? The GDR can have tractors only after every farmer in the Soviet Union is fully equipped? Boggle-inducing.

Peter

[chrisild]

The idea was, quite simply, to visualize the concept of the "Arbeiter- und Bauern-Staat", a country of workers and farmers. The factory (not factory workers) represents the former, the plough (not farmers) represents the latter ...

It is always difficult to find the best position of the line that should be drawn between the discussion of coins and the political background. So here are a few comments, without trying to write a long article ... or a dozen books.

What used to be the Deutsches Reich was split up by the four allies in 1945, see the map in the parent topic. The territories east of the line formed by the river Oder and Neiße (hence the term "Oder-Neiße-Linie") became Polish, as a compensation for the USSR annexations in the East. A small portion around Königsberg became Soviet/Russian (Kaliningrad Oblast).

In the West, the Saar territory became autonomous (Saarland had its own coins based on the French franc). It joined the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957, and introduced the Deutsche Mark in 1959.

The remaining area was divided into four occupation zones; in 1949 the three Western zones formed the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) while the Eastern/Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik). Side note: Until 1955, Austria and its capital Vienna were similarly divided.

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[chrisild]

What is important also with regard to how the unification worked in 1990 is that, according to the official view of the Federal Republic, the "Eastern zone" was not a separate country. So anybody from the GDR who moved (or, later, managed to escape) to the West was automatically a citizen of the Federal Republic. The GDR however followed the Two Countries Theory.

<k> already mentioned the Berlin Blockade (June 1948 until May 1949) which was countered by the Western Allies by setting up the Airlift. This made the conflict obvious which then became known as Cold War.

Let me briefly point at three dates in three different decades. They do not really have anything to do with the GDR coins but should not be forgotten in this context:

In 1953 many in the GDR protested against new work standards and wages; that turned into major demos in June which also became more political, directed against the regime. In the Federal Republic (West G.), 17 June thus became a holiday - German Unity Day.

In August 1961 the GDR regime started building a wall that separated East and West Berlin. Later this became a pretty wide and deadly strip. (Both the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag building were right on that border; the former in East Berlin, the latter in West Berlin.) The border between the two Germanies was similarly fortified.

In September 1973 both the Federal Republic and the GDR became members of the United Nations. (In earlier years, third countries basically had to choose whether they wanted diplomatic relations with East or West G.) This was one step in a process that could be called "normalization": The official position in Bonn was still that the ultimate goal would be one unified Germany, but that this would not be possible in the foreseeable future.

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[chrisild]

In the mid-1980s, however, a few things started to change. Most importantly, Mikhail Gorbachev started a slow and careful democratization process in the USSR, and then decided that the Soviet Union would no longer intervene if other countries chose their own ways so to say. Much could be written about that too - the important point is that the GDR regime now knew that in case of internal conflicts it would not be backed by Moscow.

In 1989 various "doors and fences" in Europe opened. For example, in June the border between Austria and Hungary was cut open by the foreign ministers of the two countries. A little later the GDR citizens who had fled to the Federal Republic's embassy in Prague (in Aug/Sep) were allowed to leave. On 9 November '89 the GDR government announced, in a somewhat confused statement, that its citizens could now travel across the border.

In 1990 things went fairly fast - the Germanies and the Allies worked on and made the "Two Plus Four Agreement" (Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany). Poland was involved as well, particularly with regard to the German-Polish border. On 1 July 1990, the Deutsche Mark (of the Federal Republic) also became the currency of the GDR.

So that date marks the end of the GDR coinage. A few months later, the states that used to be the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany, and the country was united. And now that date, 3 October, is the German national holiday.

Christian

[<k>]

To go back to the early days of the late 1940s and early 1950s, here we see a photo of a rally by the "Free German Youth" - the East German version of the 'Pioneers' of the Soviet Union. The East Germans were gradually sovietised, at least externally. If an East German wanted to get on in society, he/she at least had to pretend to believe in Communist ideals.

[<k>]

Propaganda in the GDR. May Day, 1953.

[chrisild]

Those propaganda posters and photos do not really have anything to do with the coins but you can see, on the 1 May poster, the logo of the Five Year Plan parts of which were also used on some coins (see here, replies #10 and 11). The houses in the background had just been built or maybe were still under construction at that time. This street - I am pretty sure it is Stalinallee, today Karl-Marx-Allee and Frankfurter Allee - was almost a showcase of what the new country was able to achieve. (Same street, different block here.)

As for "getting on", yes, people who were interested in making any kind of career were to be organized in a party, young ones were expected to join the FDJ (that Free German Youth) etc. From what I know, at least about the later GDR years, you could stay out without actually being punished - it's just that it was pretty much impossible to go to a university then, your job options were limited, finding a "better" apartment was difficult without being organized ...

The coins that we have seen in the main topic so far are mostly aluminum pieces. Cheap to make, but at least in my opinion they also had a cheap look and feel. Nothing fancy either when it comes to the look of the three alu coins, except for the way the word "Pfennig" is designed. Interestingly, both East and West had the very same "setup" then: 1, 5, 10 and 50 Pfennig, with the designs of the first three being basically identical while the 50 Pf is different.

Christian

[<k>]

I have included comments here about the country and not just the coins, because that country and its Marxist-Leninist system is now long dead. There are many young people who have grown up since who do not understand it. Some are curious about it and eager to learn more.

Europe was split between East (communist) and West (capitalist, democratic), and Germany, as a divided country, was the great symbol of this split.

Below you see a West German propaganda poster of 1950 about East Germany: "Moscow dictates - and everybody has to write. The secret behind the letters from the Soviet zone."

[Figleaf]

Side note: F kommt wieder (below, right), is Feind kommt wieder (the enemy is coming back), a reference to a wartime poster campaign similar to the "loose lips sink ships", but with the motto Feind hört mit (the enemy is listening in). A bad pun, probably to be understood as "despotism is the enemy".

Similarly, "Moskau diktiert und alle müssen schreiben" sounds like "Der König rief und alle alle kamen (the king called and everybody came), a well-known slogan that can be seen on a 1913 German commemorative. Possibly, this poster is the answer to a forced letter-writing campaign of children to their family in the West.

As for the use of aluminium, one of the Stalinist dogmas is that in the communist state, money would wither away, together with the state. Stalin once said that the streets would be paved with gold, meaning that capital would have lost its value. Consequently, true believing communists disdained money (at least in public), which is why all communist countries at some time used aluminium for their coins.

Peter

[chrisild]

Possibly, this poster is the answer to a forced letter-writing campaign of children to their family in the West.

Could well be; there were sooo many posters, brochures etc. about "the others" in both Germanies during the Cold War, mostly between the late 40s and mid-60s. Another funny one is this - see attachment - about an "invasion" of American potato beetles. The nazis had already blamed the British and Americans to drop potato beetles above Germany in order to destroy the harvest and damage the agriculture. The GDR basically did the same thing when they had major potato beetle issues, in 1950 or so. The US then expected the Federal Republic to counter that propaganda - and a little later, paper or cardboards bugs with an "F" for Freiheit/freedom were mailed to GDR city councils, and dropped from balloons ...

Christian

[chrisild]

If you look at the GDR's 1 Mark coin depicted in reply #21 in the main topic, you may think, hey, a sibling. Not just because the 1 and 2 DM coins are similar, but also - well, look at the attached image (based on pictures that <k> posted on WoC). On the left you have a 1 DM coin from the Federal Republic of Germany (West), on the right you see a 1 DM coin from the German Democratic Republic (East). The Fed.Rep. coin is Cu-Ni, was first issued in 1950, and has a diameter of 23.5 mm. The other piece is aluminum, first issued in 1956, with a diameter of 25.0 mm. I wonder whether they paid any royalties - or whatever the corresponding socialist term would be ...

(Side note: On the GDR coin the date is hardly or not visible; it can be found at the bottom, right where the "Western" coin has the date too.)

Christian

[chrisild]

What I also find interesting: The GDR emblem, which can also be found on the coins (1956-), has the "classical" structure like those of most other Eastern Bloc countries - but without the star at the top. See reply #15 and a few more in the main topic.

Christian