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Ulbricht and the Intellectuals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

John Connelly
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Khrushchev's secret speech of February 1956 threw the moral and political world of East Central Europe's intellectuals into turmoil. One of the most secure belief systems ever devised was suddenly revealed to be the ideological justification for crimes of a massive scale. Several generations of Communists groped for orientation, and radical change seemed inevitable. East Germany's intellectuals were no exception in their expectations and desires for change. Students of the GDR have always understood 1956 as one of formidable intellectual challenge to the Ulbricht regime, and the opening of SED and Stasi archives has strengthened this view, revealing an unrest that pervaded the ranks of students, writers, teachers, and much of the Party cadre.

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Articles
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Contemporary European History , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , November 1997 , pp. 329 - 359
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

References

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6 Large majorities of writers of several generations thoughout East Central Europe warmly embraced Soviet-style socialism. See Miłeosz, Czeslaw, The Captive Mind (New York: Vintage, 1981)Google Scholar, Trznadel, Jacek, Hańba domowa. rozmowy z pisarzami (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Test, 1991)Google Scholar; Hruby, Peter, Fools and Heroes. The Changing Role of Communist Intellectuals in Czechoslovakia (Oxford: Pergamon, 1980)Google Scholar; Aczel, Tamas and Meray, Tibor, The Revolt of the Mind (New York: Praeger, 1959).Google Scholar This view contrasts with that offered by Olschowsky, Heinrich, ‘Das Jahr 1956 in der literarischen Szene der DDR’, in Henning Hahn, Hans and Olschowsky, Heinrich, (eds.), Das Jahr 1956 in Ostmitteleuropa (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1996), 133.Google Scholar

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12 This approximates Ernst Richert's conception of a three-fold division of the East German intellectual community: students, writers and social scientists. ‘Sozialistische Universität’. Die Hochschulpolitik der SED (Berlin: Colloquium, 1967), 142.Google Scholar

13 For a discussion of controls over the production of art and literature in the early post-war period, see Pike, David, The Politics of Culture in Soviet-occupied Germany 1945–1949 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

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16 Bundesarchiv, Abteilungen Potsdam, (BAAP), R2/1060/21.

17 See, for example, the faculty listings in Jordan, František, (ed.), Dějiny University v Brně, (Brno: Universita J. E. Purkyně, 1969), 370–84.Google Scholar

18 Soviet officers strongly encouraged the German administration to increase rapidly the numbers of workers at the universities. Examples in Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen im Bundesarchiv (SAPMO-BA); Zentrales Parteiarchiv (ZPA), Berlin, IV2/9.04/697 (unnumbered); Hans-Hendrik Kasper, ‘Der Kampf der SED um die Heranbildung einer Intelligenz aus der Arbeiterklasse und der werktätigen Bauemschaft über die Vorstudienanstalten an den Universitäten und Hochschulen der sowjetischen Besatzungszone Deutschlands 1945/46–1949’, PhD Thesis (Freiberg i. S., 1979), 172; BAAP, R2/4008/56.

19 BAAP, R2/900/13–14.

20 The Soviet model for such courses, the rabfak, was used intensively only in the early post-revolutionary period and during the Great Break (1928–32). It was scaled down and then abandoned altogether in the 1930s. See Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union 1921–1934 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 The East German total represents an average figure from 1952/6. The Czech and Polish numbers are from peak periods in the early 1950s. Státní ústřední archiv, Prague (SÚA) ÚPV 2481 12/3.81.43/54; Archiwum Akt Nowych, Warsaw (AAN) MSW 17/91–2; KC PZPR 237/XVI/120/43; 121/103–5; Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1960/61 (Berlin: VEB Deutscher Zentralverlag, 1961), 132–3.Google Scholar

22 Müller, ‘… stürmt die Festung Wissenschaft’, 364–79. By 1956 that number had grown to 579. Report of Horst Böttcher, 28 Aug. 1956, SAPMO-BA IV2/9.04/667 (unnumbered).

23 Connelly, John, ‘East German Higher Education Policies and Student Resistance, 1945–1948’, Central European History, Vol. 28, no. 3 (1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 In Prague, see the Klement Gottwald papers, esp. SÚA-AÚV KSČ, f. 100/24 a.j. 956,975,978; f. 19/7 a.j. 1–346; in Warsaw, see the Party collections AAN KC PPR 295/XVII, KC PZPR 237/XVI, and the state collections of Ministerstwo Oświaty and Ministerstwo Szkolnictwa Wyzszego.

25 In June 1950 Ulbricht demanded that the intake for worker-peasant faculties that year be increased from 1,500 to 4,500. BAAP, C20/1019/82–5. For other records of Ulbricht's extraordinary activism see ibid., C20/16, C20/1011; R2/1892/76, 1154/1, 1125/115, 1478/252; R3/223/5; E1/17085/60–92, 17514/6; SAPMO-BA ZPA NL 182/933; IV2/9.04/465.

26 See, for example, the comments of Professor W. Hauser at ‘Vierte Tagung des zentralen Hochschulausschusses der SED am 7. und 8. Februar 1948’, SAPMO-BA, ZPA IV2/9.04/6 (unnumbered), 241.

27 Richert, Hochschulpolitik, 133.

28 These figures may be inflated because they include everyone employed in the agricultural sector. The percentages of workers only among the student body in 1946/7 and 1947/8 were 7.2 and 6.7, respectively. SÚA ÚPV 1110, C. 211894/48.

29 Stallmann, Herbert, Hochschulzugang in der SBZ/DDR (Sankt Augustin: Richarz, 1980), 305–7.Google Scholar

30 AAN MO/2869/47–50.

31 Statystyka szkolnictwa, Aug. 1966, 40.

32 SÚA – AÚV KSČ, f. 100/1 a.j. 1155/117.

33 AAN MSW 17/91–2.

34 SÚA – AÚV KSČ, f. 19/7, a.j. 280/96.

35 Statystyka szkolnictwa, Aug. 1966, 40.

36 SÚA ÚPV 2481.

37 Statistická ročenka Republiky Československé 1957 (Prague: Orbis, 1957), 238. The differences in Czech and Czechoslovak totals are explained by the influx of students of peasant background into the Slovak student body.

38 Statistická ročenka Československé Socialistické Republiky 1962 (Prague: Státní nakladatelství technické literatury, 1962), 419.

39 SÚA AÚV KSČ f. 19/7 a.j. 280/95.

40 Historická statistická ročenka ČSSR, (Prague: SNTL – Nakladatelství technické literatury, 1985), 595, 597.

41 Rocznik statystyczny 1960 (Warsaw, 1960), 357; Rocznik statystyczny 1970 (Warsaw, 1970), 423, 439.

42 Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1960/61 (Berlin, 1961), 133; Statistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1970 (Berlin, 1970), 386.

43 Kienitz, Werner, (ed.), Das Schulwesen sozialistischer Länder in Europa (Berlin: Volk und Wissen, 1962), 266–7, 352.Google Scholar

44 BAAP, R2/1060/46; Kasper, ‘Der Kampf’, 272.

45 Hübner, Piotr, Nauka polska po II wojnie światowej – idee i instytucje (Warsaw: Centralny Ośrodek Metodyczny Studiów Nauk Politycznych, 1987) 134, 173Google Scholar; Fijałekowska, Barbara, Polityka i twórcy (1948–1959), (Warsaw: PWN, 1985), 464.Google Scholar

46 Hübner, Nauka, 174. In 1958 the number of Polish professors and docents belonging to the Party was 11.4 per cent. Fijalkowska, Polityka, 464.

47 Jessen, Ralph, ‘Professoren im Sozialismus. Aspekte des Strukturwandels der Hochschullehrerschaft in der Ulbricht-Ära’, in Kaelble, Harmut, Kocka, Jürgen and Zwahr, Harmut (eds.), Sozialgeschichte der DDR (Stuttgart: Klett, 1994), 241.Google Scholar

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49 This figure pertains to students of Charles University in Prague and Masaryk University in Brno. SÚA-AÚV KSČ, f. 02/4, a.j. 120, bod 19.

50 The Polish regime mostly scrapped the affirmative action policy in 1955, though there was a brief resurgence after 1965. Osiński, Jan, ‘Zasada preferencji społeecznej jako metoda przyspieszenia demokratizacji wyzszego wykształecenia’, in Roszkowska, Magdalena, ed., Rekrutacja mlodziezy na studia wyzsze (Warsaw: PWN, 1973), 199.Google Scholar In Hungary, the class-based quota system was relaxed in the mid-1950s. Szelényi, Sonija and Aschaffenburg, Karen, ‘Inequalities in Educational Opportunity in Hungary’, in Shavit, Yossi and Blossfeld, Hans-Peter (eds.), Persistent Inequality: Changing Educational Attainment in Thirteen Countries (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993), 274, 295.Google Scholar

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53 The SED higher education functionary Franz X. Wohlgemuth reported at the first rectors conference after 17 June that ‘there have been no disorders [Unruhen] at any universities’. BAAP, R3/1538/30. In Halle there were some extraordinary cases of students taking part in demonstrations, but ‘in general one can say that the university and its members showed their good side during the events of 17 June 1953’. In Berlin, many students ‘show[ed] a positive attitude either by turning away from the demonstrations, or by discussing with the demonstrators instead of joining them’. BAAP R3/147/28–34.

54 Huschner, ‘Der 17. Juni’, 690–1.

55 Speech of 5 July 1954, in Lammel, Hans-Joachim (ed.), Dokumente zur Geschichte der Arbeiter-und-Bauem-Fakultäten der DDR, II: 1949–1966 (Berlin: Institut für Hochschulbildung, 1988), 130–43.Google Scholar

56 By January 1952, over 14,000 ‘individual contracts’ of up to 20,000 marks monthly had been concluded with ‘members of the intelligentsia’. The average monthly wage in the GDR at that time was 308 marks. Kowalczuk, Ilko-Sascha, ‘Die Durchsetzung des Marxismus-Leninismus in der Geschichtswissenschaft der DDR (1945–1961)’, in Sabrow, Martin and Walther, Peter Th. (eds.), Historische Forschung und sozialistische Diktatur: Beiträge zur Geschichtswissenschaft der DDR (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 1995), 53.Google Scholar In 1953, over 20 per cent of professors had individual contracts, and workers believed that they also benefitted from special shops [Intelligenzläden.] Huschner, ‘Der 17. Juni’, 682.

57 Hans Mayer, for example, was taken daily to and from university by taxi – an unimaginable luxury for Leipzig the early 1950s. Krzok, Andreas, ‘Erinnerung an Leipzig’, in Jens, Inge, (ed.), Über Hans Mayer (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977), 126.Google Scholar

58 RFE Report, Item no. 353/57; Luczak, Czesłeaw (ed.), University of Poznań 1919–1969 (Poznań: Drukarnia Uniwersytetu im. A. Mickiewicza, 1971), 255.Google Scholar

59 See the letter of Soviet Professor P.M. Bidulya to Z. Fierlinger in SÚA AÚV KSČ fo. 19/7 a.j. 272/99–103, and the report of a trip in the spring of 1953 of Czechoslovak higher education experts to the Soviet Union, in ibid., f. 19/7, a.j. 272/2 136–43.

60 In 1951 7.7 per cent of East German professors were of working-class background, and 23.1 per cent belonged to the SED. In 1971 the figures were 39.1 per cent and 61.5 per cent respectively. Jessen, Ralph, hochschule ost, no. 3 (1995), 70.Google Scholar

61 Huschner mentions Halle and Jena, ‘Der 17. Juni’, 690.

62 Zimmermann, Hans-Dieter, Der Wahnsinn des Jahrhunderts. Die Verantwortung der Schriftsteller in der Politik (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1992).Google Scholar Yet they also found that workers possessed some legitimate complaints. See esp. the comments of Ernst and Karola Bloch, in SAPMO-BA, ZPA IV 2/9.04/426/93–95.

63 SAPMO-BA, ZPA IV 2/9.04/426/97–9.

64 On professors’ understanding for workers’ demands, see the comments on rector Hämel of Jena. Huschner, ‘Der 17. Juni’, 690.

65 Krönig, Waldemar and Müller, Klaus-Dieter, Anpassung Widerstand Verfolgung. Hochschule und Studenten in der SBZ und DDR 1945–1961 (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1994), 364–93.Google Scholar

66 BAAP R3/6323/13, 19. Later, there would be reports of ‘openly hostile attitudes’ expressed at the general meeting of members of the University of Leipzig on 25 July 1953. ‘Entwurf einer Entschliessung der PO der Institute f. Philosophic und Psychologie der KMU Leipzig’, BAAP R3/4230.

67 ibid. This report from early 1954 is typical of the return to the Stalinist practices of intimidation and crushing of dissent. Now it was noted that ‘the Party organisation stands unanimously behind the Central Committee decisions and thanks the Central Committee for the annihilation of the traitorous Hermstadt–Zaisser Group’.

68 Heider, Magdalena, Politik–Kultur–Kulturbund: Zur Gründungs- und Frühgeschichte des Kulturbundes zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands 1945–1954 in der SBZ/DDR (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik), 184.Google Scholar In 1956 Ulbricht would demonstrate a similar adeptness at staying one step ahead of a popular mass movement by himself inaugurating the formation of ‘workers’ councils’, fearing that East German workers might follow the Hungarian example. Heym, Stefan, Nachruf (Berlin: Der Morgen, 1990), 605–6.Google Scholar

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71 See Pike, Politics, x.

72 On the behaviour of these ‘writers in uniform’ in comparison with that of Hungarian writers, see Kantorowicz, Deutsches Tagebuch, zweiter Teil, 682.

73 Krüger, Horst (ed.), Das Ende einer Utopie: Hingabe und Selbstbefreiung früherer Kommunisten (Freiburg: Walter-Verlag), 183.Google Scholar

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76 Kantorowicz, , Tagebuch, 544.Google Scholar

77 Neues Deutschland, 3 Nov. 1956, cited in Richert, , Hochschulpolitik, 139.Google Scholar

78 These were to be accepted at university SED organisations without deliberation. Kantorowicz, , Tagebuch, 603.Google Scholar

79 Mitter, and Wolle, , Untergang, 231.Google Scholar

80 Krönig and Müller, Hochschule, 294–5. On the re-instatement see Aktennotiz für Gen. Hager, 4. Juni 1956. SAPMO-BA, ZPA IV2/9.04/46/19–21; Politbureau meeting of 23 April 1957, in SAPMO-BA, ZPAIV2/2/538.

81 Mitter, and Wolle, , Untergang, 233.Google Scholar

82 ibid., 263.

83 Richert, , Hochschulpolitik, 133.Google Scholar For the greater personal continuity among professors of medical faculties, see Jessen, Ralph, ‘Vom Ordinarius zum sozialistischen Professor. Die Neukonstruktion des Hochschullehrerberufs in der SBZ/DDR, 1945–1969’, in Bessel, Richard and Jessen, Ralph (eds.), Die Grenzen der Diktatur: Staat und Gesellschaft in der DDR (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1996), 92–3.Google Scholar

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85 Mitter, and Wolle, , Untergang, 265;Google ScholarRichert, , Hochschulpolitik, 137.Google Scholar

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87 Kantorowicz, , Tagebuch, 684, 686–8Google Scholar; Krönig, and Müller, , Hochschule, 291–2.Google Scholar

88 Beginning in early 1957, a group of seven to eight students formed in Halle for free discussion of ‘political and world view problems’. They were moved by the ‘growth of intolerance in political life after the suppression of the Hungarian Uprising’. Two of the founders were sentenced to seven years in prison for ‘state treason’. Kronig, and Müller, , Hochschule, 296–300.Google Scholar In 1958 four students in Magdeburg were given prison sentences of several years for protesting at the founding of a medical academy there. ibid., 300. A group of students formed in Jena in 1954 at the Eisenberg high school, and considered themselves a true resistance group in the tradition of Stauffenberg. They continued meeting as students in Jena, until discovered in 1958. ibid., 301–4. In 1959, a trial took place in Dresden of five students of the Technical University who had formed a school group in 1956 to protest the limitations on political freedom. They received a sentence of five to ten years. ibid., 305–8. On Eisenberg, see also Patrik von zur Mühlen, , Der ‘Eisenberger Kreis’: Jugendwiderstand und Verfolgung in der DDR 1953–1958 (Bonn: Dietz, 1995).Google Scholar

89 Loest, , Durch die Erde, 298Google Scholar; Croan, , ‘Revisionism’, 246–7Google Scholar; Richert, , Hochschulpolitik, 150.Google Scholar

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91 Ulbricht's major rival, Karl Schirdewan, claims to have represented a socialist alternative to Ulbricht. See his Aufstand gegen Ulbricht: Im Kampf urn politische Kurskorrektur, gegen stalinistische, dogmatische Politik (Berlin, 1994), 100, 114. Yet, in the decisive days of 1956, he played the resolute hardliner, telling students that to advocate change to ‘social science’ revealed a ‘reactionary petty bourgeois lifestyle’. Richert, , Hochschulpolitik, 138.Google Scholar

92 ibid., 108–9. For Janka's recollections, see Schwierigkeiten mit der Wahrheit (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1989). Harich's response is Keine Schwierigkeiten mit der Wahrheit (Berlin: Dietz, 1993).

93 Gerhard Zwerenz has called Harich an ‘adventurer’. Der Widerspruch, 212–3.

94 SAPMO-BA IV/2/1/183/18ff. Cited in Mitter and Wolle, Untergang, 288. For the judgement that Ulbricht ‘overreacted’, see Wilhelm Fricke, Karl, ‘Widerstand und Opposition von 1945 bis Ende der fünfziger Jahre’, in Materialien der Enquete-Kommission, Vol. 7, 24.Google Scholar

95 For SED reports on Harich and Bloch, with copious and annotated Western press cuttings, see SAPMO-BA, ZPA IV 2/9.04/162–3.

96 In the words of Kantorowicz, to mention the Petöfi-Club ‘called forth the same reaction among party functionaries as did the mention of the devil among believers in the Middle Ages’. Tagebuch, 692.

97 Herzberg, Guntolf, ‘Ernst Bloch in Leipzig: Der operative Vorgang “Wild”’, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, Vol. 42, no. 8 (1994), 686.Google Scholar

98 Loest, , Durch die Erde, 293.Google Scholar

99 Ende, 184–5.

100 ibid., 186, 189–90; Loest, , Durch die Erde, 292.Google Scholar

101 ibid., 306; Zudeick, Peter, Der Hintern des Teufels. Ernst Bloch – Leben und Werk (Moos/Baden-Baden: Elster, 1985), 237–8.Google Scholar

102 Loest, , Durch die Erde, 320–1.Google Scholar Schroeder is ‘Lehmann’.

103 ibid., p. 309.

104 See, for example, the report of Jürgen Kuczynski's trip to Poland in April 1956. SAPMO-BA, ZPA IV2/9.04/147/14.

105 Klein, Fritz, ‘Dokumente aus den Anfangsjahren der ZfG’, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, Vol. 42, no. 1 (1994), 43, 54.Google Scholar

106 Kuczynski, Jürgen, Frost nach dem Tauwetter. Mein Historikerstreit (Berlin: Elephanten Press, 1993), 64.Google Scholar

107 SAPMO-BA, ZPA IV2/9.04/148.

108 Interview with Fritz Klein, 10 Sept. 1996.

109 Aktennotiz of 18 March 1957, SAPMO-BA IV2/90.4/148.

110 Kuczynski, Jürgen, ‘Ein linientreuer Dissident’, Memoiren 1945–1989 (Berlin: Aufbau, 1992), 104–29.Google Scholar For a discussion of revisionist ideas in the social sciences, see Jänicke, , Der dritte Weg, 104–54.Google Scholar

111 Kuczynski, , Historikerstreit, 76.Google Scholar

112 The conversation took place at Behrens's weekend house. SAPMO-BA ZPA IV2/9.04/402/123–8, 160.

113 Richert, , Hochschulpolitik, 136.Google Scholar Even the ‘doctrinaire Stalinist’ Hanna Wolf was implicated. She subsequently aided Ulbricht in defeating Schirdewan. Jänicke, , Der dritte Weg, 124.Google Scholar

114 Cited in Mitter, and Wolle, , Untergang, 282.Google Scholar

115 Loest, , Durch die Erde, 312.Google Scholar

116 Zwerenz, , Der Widerspruch, 101.Google Scholar

117 Loest, , Durch die Erde, 304.Google Scholar

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121 In a discussion with Central Committee functionaries on 25 Jan. 1957, Bloch quickly distanced himself from students Zehm and Kleine, professing he could not be held ‘responsible for their thinking’. SAPMO IV2/9.04/163/28. Three days earlier he wrote to the Rector of Karl-Marx-University, G. Mayer, that when: ‘the Horthy regime was on the rise in Hungary, I told the head of the institute: “It's high time now. When will the Red Army finally march in?”’ He further wrote of his ‘deep differences’ with the arrested Wolfgang Harich, and emphasised the care he had taken to hire only graduate students who belonged to the SED, ‘this in distinct contrast to other institutes at the Karl-Marx-University’. ibid., IV2/9.04/163/15–26. In Dec. 1957, Bloch wrote to the SED leadership: ‘If Zwerenz calls himself my student, then this is incorrect’.ibid., IV2/2/569. For the view that Bloch remained loyal to his students, see Grebing, Helga, Der Revisionismus: Von Bernstein bis zum ‘Prager Frühling’ (Beck: Munich, 1977), 165.Google Scholar

122 SAPMO-BA, ZPA IV2/9.04/163/110–1.

123 Neues Deutschland, 20 April 1958; cited in Zwerenz, , Der Widerspruch, 285–6.Google Scholar

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128 Raina, , Opposition, 74–82Google Scholar; Friszke, , Opozycja, 178–9.Google Scholar

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131 ‘Notiz über das Auftreten des Gen. Havemann am 18. Juni 1957 in der Wahlversammlung bei Prof. Neunhöffer’, SAPMO-BA, ZPA IV2/9.04/164/105.

132 Loest, , Durch die Erde, 307.Google Scholar

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136 In 1961 3.4 per cent of the male population of West Germany was university-educated. Of the male refugees from East Germany, the percentage was 7.2. Heidemeyer, Helge, Flucht und Zuwanderung aus der SBZ/DDR 1945/1949–1961 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1994), 50.Google Scholar

137 J. Fuchs, R. Jahn, K. Weiss, U. Poppe and G. Jeschonnek all had their path to higher education blocked; the careers of W. Templin and G. Poppe in the Academy of Sciences were terminated. See the biographies in Torpey, , Intellectuals, 217–32.Google Scholar