Russian Commands and German Resistance: The Soviet Occupation, 1945-1949The common assumption has been that Stalin established a totalitarian state in his zone and that the authoritarian Germans simply continued from one obedience to the other. Scholarly analysis, first possible with the coming down of the Wall, begins with the Soviet Command in Berlin. It then traces policy implementation in four German states and eight local communities. The surprising conclusion is that the purposes of Stalin were confused, that the Moscow policy was ambivalent, and the assigned personnel insufficiently prepared and controlled. The German response was a massive resistance, whether out of a desire for freedom, or for a higher standard of living, or the inertia of continuing in their individualistic/capitalist ways. |
Contents
the Center of Commands | 7 |
The SED Compelled and Resisted | 29 |
The German Way Comes to a Dead End | 51 |
Copyright | |
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administration Americans Antifa arrested asked barracks Berlin bourgeois camps cars command complained confiscated created demanded denazification dismantling Dresden east economic Eisenach election estates factory farm farmers fired firms Gardelegen German Giese Gniffke Görlitz Grimma Güstrow Höcker houses Hübener industry Karlshorst Klimov Kolesnitchenko Kommandant Kommandanten Kommandantura KV Grimma lack Land Reform Länder Landrat Landtag Leipzig Leipzig Land Löwenthal Magdeburg mayor Mecklenburg meeting Moscow needed NKVD Occupation officers owners party percent persons Pieck plunder police political potatoes Präs Pres problems production punished quota raped ration Red Army refugees reparations reported resistance Russians sabotage Sachsen SAPMO Schwerin SED leader sent SMA ordered SMA's SMAD soldiers Soviet Stadt Stalin Stendal Stralsund taken Thüringen tion told took tried troops Tulpanov Ulbricht USSR vote wanted West women workers Zeigner zone