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Name

Konrad Adenauer

Political
affiliation

DDR
or
BRD?
CDU leader BRD

occupation

timeframe

associated events

Importance/controversy

Bundeskanzler

1957- 1969

Der Spiegel affair

„Kanzlerdemokratie“
Free market economics
with a conservative,
authoritarian streak

Candidacy for President
undermined his career

“Politik der Staerke” –
Adenauer was in some
prevented most contact ways autocratically minded
with the DDR
– appointed himself
Aussenminister as well as
“Petersburger
being Chancellor
Abkommen” – BDR
participation in coal and Many criticised the
steel in the Ruhr
apparent Nazi tactics of
searching der Spiegel
1960 attempt to create headquarters and arresting
a CDU television
the senior editors – Strauss
channel
(military minister) forced to
resign due to controversy
Ludwig Erhard

FDP

BRD

West Germany’s
1948-1966
first
Wirtschaftsminister (chancellor
and then
1963-66)
Bundeskanzler

Currency reform from
Reichsmark to
Deutschmark in 1948
Attempts to balance
the budget in the mid1960s

A complex mixture of
American influence and
German interest group
pressures- significant
resistance from both elites
and trade unionists to the
Americanisation of
economics

October 1966 – Higher
tax proposals not
accepted by FDP

Rejected socialist politics
and favoured free
enterprise

Presided over the
“Wirtschaftswunder” of
Germany

Willy Brandt

SDP leader
until 1987

BRD

Became foreign
minister in 1966

1966 –
1974

Bundeskanzler

(chancellor
1969 –
1974)

Coalition between SPD
and FDP (FDP had
moved leftwards)
Kniefall in Warsaw
Ostpolitik after 1969 –
regularised relations
between DDR and FRG
– mutual recognition

First SPD chancellor since
1928
Had an impeccable antiNazi record and fought
against the Germans during
WWII

Ostpolitik was criticised as
a form of ‘’appeasement’’ –
boundaries produced by
Erfurt meeting in March aggression, lack of human
1970 with Willi Stoph
rights and money propping
up an illegitimate state?
August 1970 – Moscow
Treaty with Russia –
Significance to
Polish-German border
Vergangenheitsbewaeltigu
ng
September 1971 –
Four-Power agreement A vote of no-confidence in

in Berlin
Brandt won the
November 1972
elections comfortably –
unprecedented 91%
turnout

Helmut Schmidt

SPD

BRD

Bundeskanzler

1974 1982

December 1972 Basic
Treaty recognised “the
two German States in
one German nation”
and repudiated the
Hallstein doctrine
Problem of RAF
terrorism – „Gewalt
gegen Sachen“ and
abduction and murder
of senior
political/economic
figures
Energy crises and
spiralling of oil prices
Debate over the
stationing of nuclear
missiles in Germany
General economic

Brandt failed in September
1972 by only 2 votes due to
controversy over Ostpolitik
Resigned in 1974 due to a
spy scandal – Guenter
Guillaume was revealed as
an East German spy

Represented distrust of and
independence from
American policy
Schmidt was part of the
‘right wing’ of the SPD, and
some liberals criticised the
state’s reaction to
terrorism and wider efforts
to weed out ‘radicals’ from
the public sector
Controversy over
support/protest against
nuclear power

recession and ageing
population

Helmut Kohl

CDU

BRD

Bundeskanzler

1982 1998

FDP switched allegiance
to CDU in 1982 and
Schmidt voted out
New elections called in The CDU regained the
1983 to legitimise the
chancellorship due to the
CDU holding office
...

This created unease that a
Single European Act –
small party could change
relaxation of
the political makeup of the
restrictions on trade
country so radically without
and movement
reference to the will of the
people
Keynsian economic
policies were
Willingness to accept
disregarded
financial support from
dubious creditors led to his
Unemployment of 8demise
10% - exacerbated by
less-than-welcome
Continued commitment to
Gastarbeiter (50% of
the “Doppelbeschluss”
inhabitants of
(polite relations with both
Kreuzberg district)
Western Allies and the
East)
Ethnic German
refugees from USSR
Kohl never had any
and Eastern Europe
attention of conceding the
Grundgesetz to Article 146

Flood of East German
refugees in 1989
Secured agreement of
Eastwards expansion of
NATO in July 1990 with
USSR at the cost of
21Billion DM
“Alliance for Germany”
in the 1990 DDR
elections – considerable
influence on the
political direction of the
East

Wolf Biermann

Socially
DDR
democratic
minded

Singer/songwriter

1976

Expelled from the DDR
during crackdown – he
had performed songs
that were critical of the
DDR whilst on tour in
the Bundesrepublik

during unification – DDR’s
Beitritt to the Grundgesetz
on the 3rd October 1990
meant that the DDR simply
ceased to exist
The ten-point plan to
confederalise the two
German states was the
brainchild of Kohl
The determination of Kohl
to exchange currency at a
rate of 1:1 between the
worthless DDR marks and
the D-mark caused great
controversy – true value
was nearer 4 or 5 to 1 –
was the Bundesrepublik
paying too high a price for
economic unity?
Highlighted Honecker’s
unfulfilled promises of ‘no
taboos’ in the cultural
sphere – the party was still
unwilling to accept direct
criticism
...
The term
"left fascism" has even
been used by some
has been a leading figure in
the West German Greens
for decades and
Photos of a march in 1973
would come back to haunt
Fischer, as they showed

Foreign Affars
1998-2005

Walter Ulbricht

SED

"Revolutionaerer
Kampf" and the radical
"Putzgruppe" - involved
in street battles

July 1952 "Aufbau der
Sozialismus" in the DDR
- intensification of the
"Klassenkampf"
17th June 1953 - highpoint of the German
workers strikes which
were viciously put
down by USSR tanks
and in which 17 people
died
fully consolidated his
leadership by 1958
Soviet crackdown after
Hungarian uprising of
1956

him clubbing a police
officer
witnessing the events of
the "Deutscher Herbst" in
1977 supposedly provoked
Fischer to renounce
violence as a means of
securing political aims, and
then became involved with
the Green party
Ubricht as General
Secretary of the DDR was
marked by complete lack of
concession on both sides of
Germany - each wanted
reunification on their own
terms
Ulbricht recognised that
the SED could never win a
majority in free elections,
therefore sought help from
the USSR
June uprisings eventually
became a stabling force as
they provoked the SED
government to restructure
society through less

USSR formally extends
sovereignty over
internal affairs to the
DDR government

antagonistic means,
however the use of Soviet
troops undermined the
system's legitimacy

creation of the National
Volksarmee in 1956

Ulbricht was an
uncompromising
bureaucratic communist

school system
overhauled in 1959 creation of the
zehnklassige
allgemeinbildende
polytechnische
Oberschule for children
aged 6-16 "allseitig
entwickelte
sozialistische
Persoenlichkeit"
introduction of the
Jugendweihe (instead
of a religious
confirmation) in 1954
building of the Berlin
Wall in 1961 to help
stem the tide of
Republikfluechtlinge

high-level purges of the
party reinforced the ideas
of more ambivalent SED
members that the pvileges
of party membership
depended on loyalty within
democratic centralism
the Berlin Wall symbolished
the acceptance of the
status quo of 2 divided
Germanies
"antifascistischer
Schutzwall" - price was paid
by the Germans who were
cut off from their friends
and family
new stability of the 1960s
was seen by some as the
"golden age" of the DDR

Erich Honecker

SED

DDR

General Secretary

1971-1989

1974 policy of
Abgrenzung
...
Many SED
members called for
their own party to be
dissolved

Lothar de Maizière

CDU

DDR

first and only
democratically
elected president
of the DDR-

12th April2nd
October
1990

February 1990 - the
SED had bcome the PDS
(partei des
demokratischen
sozialismus)
3 October 1990 - the
'official' reunification of
Germany was
celebrated and the DDR
ceased to exist
resigned from the CDU
government under
Helmut Kohl on the
17th December 1990
due to rumours he had
worked for the DDR
Stasi

Michail Gorbachev

Communis
t

USSR

General Secretary
of USSR

1985-91

visited the DDR on the
7th October 1989 to
stand by Honecker's

developments mattered
little to most East Germans
after December 1989 enthusiasm was mounting
for a speedy unification
with the BRD

Maiziere was the last
leader of an independent
East Germany
in 1990, criticisms mounted
of Maiziere's apparent role
as Helmut Kohl's puppet
Maiziere signed the 2+4
Treaty - ended the 4
wartime allied power's
rights in Germany

Glasnost and Perestroika processes of openness and
reconstruction, were

side in the anniversary
parades

implemented in the USSR in
the late 1980s and affected
demands for change in the
6th February 1990 DDR
...

youngest leader yet and
Gorbachev does not
seen as a breath of fresh air
dissent - accepted
German unification as
reforms were intended to
neccessary
revitalise communism, but
ended up unravelling the
whole system
provoked discussion over
whether an East German
Gorbachev was what the
country needed
caused fragmentation
within the SED between
reform-minded proGorbachev and the old
guard of functionaries



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