Abstract
Christian Ostermann's book offers a thorough and fascinating analysis of the dynamics, ambitions and limits of US containment and rollback policy against Soviet power in Germany from the end of the Second World War to the East German uprising of 1953. Based on the scrutiny of an impressive collection of original American, Soviet and East German archival records, this accurate description of life and politics in the Soviet occupation zone and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) sheds new light on one of the most significant periods of European and Cold War history.
The volume begins at the Potsdam Conference of 1945 and ends in the aftermath of the insurrection of 17 June 1953, a periodization consistent with the book's main intent to improve the historical understanding of the way and circumstances in which East Germany's and Cold War history intersected. It reappraises a number of crucial problems of post-war European history, mainly from an American perspective, and offers some fresh insights into them: the complexity of reconstruction agendas in occupied Germany; the debate on the creation of central agencies; the controversial interpretation of reparations clauses; the politicization of national-unity sentiment; the goals of Soviet zonal control; the birth of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED); the strengthening of Walter Ulbricht's regime in the GDR; the strategies of US psychological warfare carried out, among others, by HICOG, and parallel Soviet propaganda campaigns; East Germany's crisis in the aftermath of the death of Stalin and the first revolt of its citizens against the SED regime three months later.
This beautiful book enriches the existing scholarly literature in many ways. Historical research on the occupation of Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War has focused, in general, on the founding of the German Federal Republic (FRG) and its Cold War implications. Ostermann's volume, instead, explores in depth the events, political processes, and social transformation occurring in the Soviet zone and explains how those developments, the making of the GDR, and the rise of the Cold War in Europe were related to each other. At the same time, the book's narrative sharpens the definitions of containment and rollback. In this respect, General Lucius D. Clay's unrelenting effort to reach compromise with the Soviets through the instrument of less restrictive reparations policies between 1945 and 1947, for example, is defined as ‘peaceful rollback’, or ‘rollback through cooperation’, opposed to zonal retrenchment. With the founding of the GDR, moreover, ‘ideological rollback’ and German unity became core issues for the US. West Germany's own rollback dynamics and the more realistic and cautious vision of rollback that the United States conceived in late 1953 further expand this concept and its meanings. Finally, the author's approach to the discussion on the future of Germany is also methodologically innovative. Indeed, he investigates a wide spectrum of visions, fostered by different actors: US and Soviet military authorities in their respective occupation zones; political personalities in Washington and Moscow; German politicians, eager to legitimize their role in the reconstruction of their own country; CPSU party members, more or less inclined to endorse the views of their military staff; the media – among others, the Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) – and business world, who were directly or indirectly involved in supporting either US psychological warfare or Soviet and East German propaganda movements. In this composite scenario, the reader discovers a variety of perspectives, expectations, hopes, and fears, rising on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and described by the author with rare accuracy.
This outstanding volume is essential reading for scholars and students willing to enhance their knowledge of East German history, US foreign policy, the conundrums of Germany's division, and the origins of the Cold War. In reassessing the historical significance of the 17 June 1953 insurrection, Ostermann underlines its enduring consequences for the United States, as well as the SED regime. Washington would remain concerned about the potential impact of another uprising in East Germany all through the Cold War. The Socialist Unity Party, in the author's words, ‘never fully recovered from the crisis of legitimacy that it confronted in June 1953’ (p. 284). The book emphasizes the unpreparedness of both the American and Soviet governments for that event, thereby unveiling also the United States’ false perception of the overall situation in East Germany. Political observers in Washington considered the SED regime much steadier than it actually was, an idea that deeply affected their ability to anticipate that revolt and fully grasp its meaning once it arose. The East Germans’ demands, instead, were sincere. The SED leadership's ignorance of their disillusionment was also real and left room for both American and Soviet attempts to orchestrate opposite but parallel propaganda campaigns in the wake of the insurrection. The East German crisis revived the ideal (and the ghost) of German unity, a potential threat to the stability of Ulbricht's party and its sponsors in Moscow. Nevertheless, the GDR's domestic balance survived: it was a fragile one, but strong enough to resist Cold War pressures and prove that the goal of German unity, at that time, remained all but unrealistic.