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Secular Faiths
27
In sum, National Socialism presented Germans with a developed, if somewhat murky, worldview that explained where they had come from, where they were going, what they should do to get there, and who stood in their way. It was a worldview anchored in familiar words, names, and values. It provided reasons for daily action and hope for the future. For the Germans who could accept Nazism’s outward claims, the world made sense. The ideology they were asked to accept encompassed familiar aspects of German history, German thinking, and German culture.
“The Party Is Always Right”
If Nazism was a cult whose founder was still among the faithful, Marxism-Leninism in the GDR was an established religion with a reasonably settled theology, more Catholic than Protestant in structure. The pope was in “the Third Rome,” Moscow, though the Orthodox prelate was replaced by the reigning head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The head of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) was a cardinal, supreme in his realm yet subject ultimately to Moscow. The authority of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin had passed to the party, and its word was now sacred.
In the early years of the GDR, however, the Stalin cult was strong. One of the first books published by the Soviet occupation forces in 1945 was a brief biography of Stalin, translated from Russian and so hurriedly prepared that there is no mention of his role in World War II. It presented Stalin as a flawless, almost superhuman figure: “J. W. Stalin is the brilliant leader and teacher of the party, the great strategist of the socialist revolution. He is implacable in facing the enemies of socialism, absolutely true to principle, the union of clear revolutionary perspective and clarity of goal in all his activities, combining them with extraordinary firmness and persist-ence in reaching those goals.”57 Two pages later, the book stated: “The name Stalin is the symbol of the moral and political unity of Soviet society.” The comparison to Hess’s words in 1934 is evident (“Hitler is Germany and Germany is Hitler”). Thousands of poems in praise of Stalin, generally translated from Russian, flooded the GDR during its early years.58 In those years, classrooms had Stalin shrines with his picture surrounded by red bunting, and children recited touching verses like this one: Fold your little hands,
Bow your little head,
Think for five minutes
On Stalin.59
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28
Chapter One
A earlier variant of the poem ran:
Fold your little hands
Bow your little head
Think for five minutes
On Hitler,
Who gives us our daily bread
And helps with our every need.
The cult of Stalin rivaled Hitler’s until Stalin’s death in 1953.
Early Marxists also received adulation, although never to the extent that Hitler did. The youngest members of the Free German Youth (FDJ) were the Thälmann Pioneers. Ernst Thälmann, the martyred leader of the German Communist Party, was to be their model. There were no books of poetry in praise of party leaders, though occasional poetic outbursts did appear. Consider this 1950s’ hymn to Thälmann:
As if Ernst Thälmann could ever die.
Thälmann died, yet did not die.
For that which he, while he lived, taught,
That for which he, without rest, propagandized,
Lives as an admonition in millions of hearts,
Lives as knowledge in millions of brains.60
Even here, the emphasis is less on Thälmann the man than on what he taught. Such bombast largely vanished by the GDR’s later years.
Although the GDR was never willing to repudiate Stalin (one of the reasons the SED banned Sputnik, rather a Russian Reader’s Digest, in 1989 was its forthright discussion of the evils of Stalin’s rule), no subsequent Soviet or GDR leader enjoyed the same veneration. No one thought to write of Erich Honecker in such terms. The adulation of Lenin and Stalin had been somewhat inconsistent, given Marxism’s egalitarian rhetoric. It also was hard to avoid awakening memories of the treatment of Hitler. That does not mean later leaders were not honored. Their images filled the newspapers, magazines, newsreels, and television, but those images were of normal people. Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker appeared more as kindly grandfathers than mighty dictators.
A comparison of the tribute book for Ulbricht, published in 1968 on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, with Adolf Hitler: Pictures from the Life of the Führer is striking. Titled Walter Ulbricht: A Life for Germany, the book presents him as wise and capable but not superhuman, a man clearly subordinate to the party.61 The Hitler dust jacket has a photograph of him shot This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:33 UTC
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Secular Faiths
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from below, towering over an unseen audience.62 The cover of Ulbricht’s volume shows an elderly man reading a book.63 According to the introduction: “Walter Ulbricht was educated by the party of Marx and Engels, of Liebknecht and Thälmann. His teachers were international leaders of the labor movement such as Lenin and Dimitroff, who above all taught him that one can lead the masses only if one has the closest connection to them. We are all witnesses of how Walter Ulbricht discussed all important problems with workers and collective farmers, with scientists and artists, with women and the youth, and how he was able to take the knowledge he gained and make theoretical generalizations that improved our lives.”64
Ulbricht is presented as a product of the party, whereas the NSDAP was a product of Hitler and was indeed synonymous with him. The Communist movement predated Ulbricht. It had formed him, he had not formed it.
During World War II, a common Nazi poster announced that “Adolf Hitler is victory.”65 Twenty years later the FDJ used the slogan “Walter Ulbricht—
that is what we all are! With Walter Ulbricht we will win!”66 The focus on Hitler in the first slogan contrasts with the broader focus of the second.
Honecker received less adulation. Standard posters with his image did appear in large editions.67 He guarded his image, ensuring that dozens of photographs appeared in Neues Deutschland when he visited the Leipzig trade fair. When even one of his Politburo colleagues wondered if fifty photographs were necessary in a single issue, Honecker replied that he had either to be shown with all of his conversational partners or none.68 But again, the pictures were of an ordinary human being. No slogans equated him with victory, no photographs magnified his stature. Unlike Hitler, he looked small in photographs, perhaps most notably when dwarfed by Helmut Kohl during his 1987 visit to West Germany. From the GDR perspective, however, his visit was a diplomatic triumph that overshadowed his physical stature. In photographs of parades, Marxist leaders stood together on the platform. They appeared as normal human beings in gray suits, not towering figures dwarfing ordinary people.
The GDR’s leaders were infallible “by omission.” There is no post-Stalin GDR counterpart to Göring’s statement that Hitler was infallible. Rather, there simply was no mention of their errors. Guided by the party, the GDR’s leaders always seemed to make the right decision.
The GDR’s leaders were important, but the party was the true source of absolute knowledge. According to the SED’s Concise Political Dictionary, the collective leadership of the party was capable of making “scientifically exact decisions.”69 The wisdom of the party was as absolute as that of any This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:33 UTC
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Chapter One
pope, more so indeed, for the pope only rarely speaks ex cathedra, whereas the party usually did. A 1959 trai
ning booklet for the GDR’s army, for example, asserted that it was impossible for a socialist army to order its soldiers to behave unethically, since such an army was obeying the unalterable laws of nature when it followed the will of the party.70 Since the SED said what socialism was, such confidence in the absolute correctness of the socialist army’s actions is the equivalent of the Nazi soldier’s oath of absolute obedience to Adolf Hitler. In each case, the entity to which the oath was made was infallible.
The role of the party is presented in a 1958 pamphlet published to help party groups celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the German Communist Party. One section cites Brecht’s hymn to the party: The party—
Is the immorality of our mission.
The party—
Is the only assurance.
The mind of the class,
The meaning of the class,
The strength of the class,
The glory of the class—
That is the party.71
Here, too, the language is religious, speaking of immortality and glory. Just as the Christian doctrine of predestination asserts that God not only knows the future but directs it to his ends, so, too, the party was guided by the certain laws of history according to Marxist-Leninist theory. Human action could accelerate or slow down history’s flow but never in the long run reverse it. The eventual Communist paradise was sure.
Marxist texts had sacred force, but they needed the party’s interpretation. At the GDR’s end, scholars were working to complete a full edition of the works of Marx and Engels with all the assiduity of biblical commentators. The GDR canon included not only Marx, Engels, and Lenin but also decisions of party congresses and programmatic speeches by party leaders.
Those speeches were intended more for reading and study than hearing—
though unfortunate party members did listen to them for hours as they were read (and read they almost always were).
Just as Hitler’s words were a necessary complement to books and articles during the Third Reich, so were the obligatory citations from the Marxist canon. Dissertation writers knew how important it was to include an appropriate number of citations of the classics of Marxism-Leninism. A This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:33 UTC
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popular GDR marriage manual quoted Marx on the importance of the family.72 Banners with appropriate quotations were almost as common as advertising in the West.
Ways of Worship
The socialist faith was evident in its recurring festivals. As Gibas and Gries observe: “The GDR had an extraordinarily dense set of official state political holidays.”73 The first festival of the year fell on 15 January, the anniversary of the deaths in 1919 of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. It was the GDR’s equivalent of 9 November. As Neues Deutschland claimed in 1986: “Karl and Rosa died martyrs’ deaths. But they live in our deeds.
They are with us! We are under their red flag!”74 International Women’s Day fell on 8 March. May Day remained the major labor holiday. The end of World War II was commemorated on 8 May. The high point of the year was 7 October, the anniversary of the founding of the GDR in 1949. Major holidays were occasions for mass parades, with citizens encouraged in a variety of ways to march past their leaders carrying flags, banners, and placards.
Then there were the recurring anniversaries, not the occasion of a holiday but of significant press coverage: the births and deaths of Marx, Engels, Ernst Thälmann, Wilhelm Pieck, and Otto Grotewohl. The GDR calendar also featured days set aside to honor specified occupations, for example, metal workers, farmers, construction workers, and chemical workers, but these did not receive major press coverage.
The most significant periods on the GDR calendar were the party congresses. Unlike the NSDAP’s annual Nuremberg rallies, party congresses were held at four- to five-year intervals after 1950. Eleven were held in all: 1946, 1947, 1950, 1954, 1958, 1963, 1967, 1971, 1976, 1981, and 1986.
The planned 1990 congress was rendered moot by the collapse of the GDR, though preparations were well in motion. Each congress, it was claimed, represented a new stage in the development of socialism in the GDR. Unlike the Nazi rallies, which were celebrations of Nazism rather than decision-making bodies, GDR party congresses were allegedly deliberative bodies at which the course of the coming years would be discussed and, through the collective wisdom of the party, determined. “What the Party Congress decided will be realized,” as a common slogan proclaimed. The Nazis published two major volumes each year on their party rallies, filled with dramatic photographs. Such volumes were impossible for the GDR’s This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:33 UTC
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Chapter One
party congresses, since the primary activity consisted of delegates sitting in a large hall listening to interminable speeches. Instead, thick books with the texts of speeches and decisions appeared. The periods between congresses were marked by plenary sessions of the Central Committee, whose decisions were also published.
The major annual festival was 7 October, the “birthday” of the GDR. The
“round” anniversaries, those divisible by five, were the subject of particular splendor. Books were issued for each of the decennials.75 Each of the forty anniversaries was celebrated with the full resources of the nation. The state usually provided “presents” for the population in the form of increased supplies of scarce consumer goods, but the people were also expected to provide “gifts” for their state in the form of increased production. The press reported numerous commitments by factories or work groups to exceed their quota in honor of the anniversary.
The 1984 anniversary, the thirty-fifth, was typical. Planning, as always, began soon after the previous anniversary. Neues Deutschland began mentioning it several months in advance. A survey of articles in the weeks leading up to 7 October suggests its centrality:
• 1/2 September: GDR athletes achieve excellent results in honor of the thirty-fifth anniversary.
• 4 September: The thirty-fifth anniversary logo appears for the first time on page 1.
• 11 September: Production goals met in honor of the GDR’s thirty-fifth anniversary.
• 15/16 September: Bezirk party sections begin their annual training course under the symbol of the GDR’s thirty-fifth anniversary. Workers pledge to do their best to honor the GDR.
• 21 September: Erich Honecker meets representatives of artists in the GDR to review accomplishments in the GDR’s thirty-fifth year.
• 27 September: Medals are awarded in honor of the thirty-fifth anniversary.
• 2 October: A Berlin theater is reopened in honor of the thirty-fifth anniversary.
• 4 October: Medals in honor of the thirty-fifth anniversary are awarded to military officers, worthy citizens, and effective collectives.
• 5 October: Honecker speaks to members of the anti-Fascist resistance:
“In honor of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the German Democratic Republic, workers have accomplished outstanding deeds.”
• 6/7 October: Fourteen of the sixteen pages focus on the anniversary.
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• 8 October: Most of the sixteen pages review the events of the celebrations and carry the texts of speeches.
Only three issues after 30 August failed to give at least one lengthy story to the coming anniversary, and these issues focused on Erich Honecker’s visit to Ethiopia in honor of the tenth anniversary of its Marxist revolution.
The festivities reminded citizens of the accomplishments of their state and built in them a sense of obligation to “repay” the state. But the centrality w
ent beyond normal holidays. The weeks of preparation, the massive press coverage, and the vast demonstrations were an attempt to give the nation’s anniversary a transcendental significance, to build a “we” feeling to convince citizens that they were part of a great endeavor. It was a significant event in the great “salvation story” of Marxism-Leninism, since each year marked another step of socialist progress.
Another quasi-religious manifestation was the network of what might be called pilgrimage sites. These included places connected with Lenin and the history of the party and the huge Soviet War Memorial in Berlin-Treptow (built in part with the stones from Hitler’s Reich Chancellery).
Alan Nothnagle describes the significance of the Treptow memorial: Like all Communist monuments of this type (and like any cathedral), the Treptow Park memorial was not intended as a mere tourist attraction but as a center of constant pro-Soviet and antifascist ritual. It was the site of thousands of ceremonies, most notably the annual celebrations of the Soviet victory on 9 May and Revolution Day on 7 November. But in between it was used as the backdrop for youth consecrations, the initiation ceremonies of Young Pioneer and FDJ groups, the oath-taking of soldiers and officers, flag consecrations, antifascist rallies, anti-imperialist demonstrations, countless torchlight ceremonies, FDJ-Konsomol meetings, wreath-laying by newlyweds, and many other events.76
Nothnagle further notes that Young Pioneers tended nearly 3,000 Soviet memorials throughout the GDR. Visitors often left wreaths or other tributes at the memorials. A 1974 book listed about 5,000 GDR memorials commemorating the history of the labor movement, anti-Nazi resistance, and the like.77 No one survived schooling in the GDR without numerous visits to such sacred places.
Buchenwald was a particularly mythic location, interesting in that it involved a double manipulation of history. It overemphasized the martyrdom of the Left and concealed the fact that the Soviets promptly used it as a concentration camp themselves for a time after 1945. The forty-page brochure distributed at Buchenwald had four passing mentions of the This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:33 UTC
The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic Page 5
