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6/16/2025, 10:59:14 PM
>>17769041
>Besides stabilizing the East German regime by improving the living situation of its citizens, Ulbricht was still dreaming about uniting both Germanies under SED leadership. He wanted NES and EES to succeed, to overtake West Germany economically and then to achieve unification. To achieve this dream the GDR had to first demonstrate the superiority of its economic system.
>Other leaders, especially Erich Honecker, thought that the GDR could not win economically and that comparisons with the capitalist West had to stop. They advocated closer cooperation with the USSR, strengthening of socialism and class struggle against capitalism. They argued that the goal of socialism was not to be richer than capitalists, but to create a different system. In their opinion the GDR had to concentrate on its own unique socialist identity. Starting from 1971 this was achieved and implemented under Honecker, especially with the 1974 amendments of the constitution of the Democratic Republic of Germany. At the same time as the Basic Treaty opened the GDR to much greater cultural influence from the FRG, the GDR regime needed all the more Abgrenzung (delimitation) between the cultures to both justify and protect its existence, a factor that only drove up the already extreme degree of Stasi domestic surveillance.
>Besides stabilizing the East German regime by improving the living situation of its citizens, Ulbricht was still dreaming about uniting both Germanies under SED leadership. He wanted NES and EES to succeed, to overtake West Germany economically and then to achieve unification. To achieve this dream the GDR had to first demonstrate the superiority of its economic system.
>Other leaders, especially Erich Honecker, thought that the GDR could not win economically and that comparisons with the capitalist West had to stop. They advocated closer cooperation with the USSR, strengthening of socialism and class struggle against capitalism. They argued that the goal of socialism was not to be richer than capitalists, but to create a different system. In their opinion the GDR had to concentrate on its own unique socialist identity. Starting from 1971 this was achieved and implemented under Honecker, especially with the 1974 amendments of the constitution of the Democratic Republic of Germany. At the same time as the Basic Treaty opened the GDR to much greater cultural influence from the FRG, the GDR regime needed all the more Abgrenzung (delimitation) between the cultures to both justify and protect its existence, a factor that only drove up the already extreme degree of Stasi domestic surveillance.
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