Suchergebnisse

This article discusses ambiguous tactics of German Communist resisters in the Third Reich. The official historiography of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) portrayed Communist resisters as unfaltering heroes. By contrast, revisionist studies published after 1990 presented Communists as traitors and renegades. This study transcends these approaches that revolve around legitimation or de-legitimation of the dictatorship, and examines the dubious manoeuvring of three German Communists who strategically collaborated with the Nazis, namely Theodor Bottländer, Friedrich Schlotterbeck and Wilhelm Knöchel. While Knöchel's attempts to outwit the Gestapo failed and could not prevent his execution, Schlotterbeck and Bottländer found ways to survive - largely without betraying their comrades. Even so, the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD), as well as its successor in the GDR, the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED), reprimanded venturesome, inventive and obstinate Communists, excluded them from the party and brought them to court. The harsh reactions are indicative of the inability of Communist historiography to acknowledge 'Eigen-Sinn', and highlight a central shortcoming of the antifascist doctrine. Likewise, more recent revisionist approaches have failed to recognise various attempts of Communists to minimise harm and survive in the grey zone between betrayal and loyalty.

AbstractThe assumption that the communist dictatorship in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) drove many people to suicide has persisted for decades, and it is still evident in academic and public discourse. Yet, high suicide rates in eastern Germany, which can be traced back to the nineteenth century, cannot be a result of a particular political system. Be it monarchy, democracy, fascism, or socialism, the frequency of suicide there did not change significantly. In fact, the share of politically motivated suicides in the GDR amounts to only 1–2 percent of the total. Political, economic, or sociocultural factors did not have a significant impact on suicide rates. An analysis of two subsets of GDR society that were more likely to be affected by repression—prisoners and army recruits—further corroborates this: there is no evidence of a higher suicide rate in either case. Complimentary to a quantitative approach "from above," a qualitative analysis "from below" not only underlines the limited importance of repression, but also points to a regional pattern of behavior linked to cultural influences and to the role of religion—specifically, to Protestantism. Several factors nevertheless fostered the persistence of an overly politicized interpretation of suicide in the GDR: the bereaved in the East, the media in the West, and a few victims of suicide themselves blamed the regime and downplayed important individual and pathological aspects. Moreover, state and party officials in the GDR unintentionally reinforced the politicization of suicide by imposing a taboo on the subject, which only fueled the flames of speculation about its root causes.

"The communist party in the German Democratic Republic claimed governmental legitimacy for being the builder of an antifascist state on the way to communism. The simulation of parliamentarism also played a role and, for a short period of time in the 1960s, the cooptation of technocrats as well. In the 1970s and 1980s the most important part of legitimacy was derived from the welfare policy under Erich Honecker. At no time was the political system stable without a considerable amount of repression. In the Soviet Occupation Zone and the early GDR repression was characterized by Stalinist terror: internment camps, military courts, and harsh punishment. Rigorous repression in 1952/53 and 1960/61 was connected to the attempts to accelerate the socialist revolution (normative legitimacy ). From 1949 to 1989 a gradual mitigation of repression took place, but not steadily. Relaxation in the watersheds such as in 1956, 1963, and 1971 came to a halt in 1960, 1965, and 1976 ff. Nevertheless, more lenient times of repression brought irreversible mitigations. Especially in the 1970s and 1980s open terror was replaced by less visible forms of repression. Cooptation of non - communists played a marginal role in the history of the GDR. In the early phase it was nothing but a phase - out model. Later on cooptation was by and large a recruitment process under the control of the SED, which generated a rather homogenous elite selected by its fidelity to the socialist state." (author's abstract)

Zusammenfassung
In der bundesdeutschen Geschichtskultur häufig anzutreffende Interpretationen von suizidaler Verzweiflung unter den Bedingungen der SED-Diktatur werden hinterfragt anhand der Selbsttötungsstatistiken der DDR, welche seit 1963 geheim gehalten, nichtsdestotrotz aber mit preußischer Gründlichkeit Jahr für Jahr erstellt wurden. Es wird versucht, Einflüsse des politischen Systems auf die Selbsttötungshäufigkeit nachzuweisen bzw. auszuschließen. Als eine Art "Geländer" für die Gedankenführung dient die Selbsttötungs-Typologie von Émile Durkheim.