David Childs - West Germany (Rle: German Politics): Politics and Society

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: GERMAN POLITICS

Volume 6

WEST GERMANY

Politics and Society

David Childs and Jeffrey Johnson

First published in 1981

This edition first published in 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

1981 David Childs and Jeffrey Johnson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-138-83837-6 (Set)
eISBN: 978-1-315-72630-4 (Set)
ISBN: 978-1-138-84756-9 (Volume 6)
eISBN: 978-1-315-72666-3 (Volume 6)

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

West Germany:
Politics and Society

DAVID CHILDS AND JEFFREY JOHNSON

1981 David Childs and Jeffrey Johnson
Croom Helm Ltd, 2-10 St John's Road, London SW11

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Childs, David
West Germany, politics and society.
1. Germany, West - History
I. Title II. Johnson, Jeffrey
943.087 DD259

ISBN 0-7099-0701-X
ISBN 0-7099-0702-8 Pbk

Typeset in Great Britain by
Pat Murphy, Highcliffe, Dorset

Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Redwood Burn Limited
Trowbridge and Esher

There are at least several books which provide good coverage of various aspects of West Germany's institutions. Hardly any, however, attempt to be comprehensive. Our aim has been to provide such comprehensive coverage, emphasising those aspects normally neglected or omitted the economy, social welfare, women, law and order, the mass media and the armed forces. Although the book is aimed, in the first place, at undergraduates, we hope it will also appeal to a wider audience, intrigued as we are by the re-emergence of this dynamic neighbour.

We would like to express our thanks to Professor Roger Morgan for giving us his advice on . All errors and opinions are the responsibility of the authors alone.

David Childs
Jeffrey Johnson

Given the horrifying conditions which existed in Germany, and given the bitter legacy of the Third Reich, it is remarkable that so many Germans were prepared to become politically active so soon after the surrender in May 1945. The future looked black for Germany both materially and politically. The Allies Americans, Russians, British and French alone determined policy in their respective zones, leaving little scope for German initiative. Moreover, all political activity had to be sanctioned by the occupying power and any German bold enough to gain that sanction ran the risk of appearing a stooge of one or other of the victorious foreign powers. Yet even before the capitulation of the armed forces of the Third Reich, German political activity had started up again in Hannover at a meeting held on 19 April, shortly after the town's capture by the Americans, by a group of Social Democrats led by Dr Kurt Schumacher (1895-1952).

It is significant that the Social Democrats were among the first on the post-war political scene, for they bore less responsibility for the disaster which had overtaken Germany than any other German political group. Set up in 1875 at Gotha, the SPD had campaigned for democracy and socialism in the Kaiserreich (18701918). The Social Democrats had played a decisive part in the establishing of the democratic Weimar Republic (191933) and had tried hard to make it a success. In 1933, they alone had voted in the German parliament or Reichstag against the Enabling Act, which was the legal facade of the Nazi dictatorship. Many Social Democratic activists, including Schumacher, had suffered in Hitler's concentration camps, been driven abroad or even murdered. Schumacher and many of his colleagues felt, therefore, that the SPD had the moral right to take the lead in building a new Germany.

Equally certain about their own leading role were the members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Founded in January 1919 by Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Wilhelm Pieck from a number of disparate radical socialist groups, the KPD became the most important Communist party outside the Soviet Union. It proclaimed its aim as a Soviet Germany and took its policy direction from Moscow. At the elections of November 1932 it gained 16.8 per cent of the vote as compared with the SPD's 20.4 and the Nazis' 33.1 (these were the three largest parties). It was the first party to be banned after Hitler became Chancellor. The Communist leader Ernst Thalmann was killed by the Nazis in a concentration camp and many KPD cadres suffered the same fate. Others died in Stalin's purges in the Soviet Union where they had sought refuge. Not so Walter Ulbricht. He headed a group of emigre' Communists which arrived at the end of April 1945 from Moscow. Its tasks were to supervise any local Communist activity and, more importantly, set up local government administrations. It was in the Soviet Zone of Germany that German political activity was first permitted by the occupying power. This was on 10 June 1945. Within days the KPD and the SPD had been established. Two weeks later the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was proclaimed. At the beginning of July the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) followed. Thus the political tendencies which have dominated post-war Germany were born in Berlin in the summer of 1945.