Political

• Potsdam conference (1945)


  Reconstruction of Germany to de-nazify
• Reasons for divided Germany- Allies

  • Set up Marshall Plan (1948) to prevent European countries taking aid from Soviets and becoming Communist
  • Retained old party system in Germany
  • Bank of German State (1947) broke agreement for economic unity
• Reasons for divided Germany - East

  • Managed 'free' elections
  • SPD & KPD formed SED, most significant part in Soviet zone
  • Rapidly becoming communist b/w 1945-7
  • USSR left Allied Control Council (1947)
• Constitution of FRG

  Article 20

  • to identify political interaction
  • FRG is a democratic and social federal state, with state authority derived from the people (though elections and other votes)
  • Legislature bound by constitutional order
  • All Germans had right to resist those seeking to abolish order if there is no remedy
• Constitution of FRG

  Article 21

  • who cannot politically interact and why
  • Political parties must comfort to democratic principles and keep all accounts public
  • Parties seeking to undermine democracy are unconstitutional
  • Parties seek to undermine FRG will be excluded from state funding
• FRG government

  • Parties needed 5% to gain a seat
  • Bundestag and Bundesrat elected president
  • No Article 48 to avoid undermining democracy
  • Proportional presentation and first past-the-post voting system
• Basic Law 1949

  • equal rights to all German citizens, regardless of sex, race, political views or religion
  • State education for all
  • freedom of speech
  • no censorship
• First FRG election (1949)

  • 75% voter turnout
  • CDU/CSU= 31%
  • SPD= 29%
  • FDP/liberal coalition (held balance of power)
  • Chancellor= Konrad Adenauer
• FRG vs GDR actions

  1949- NATO alliance of Western countries set up (anti-communist and Comecon, which GDR joined in 1950)

  1951- RG allowed to make own foreign policy rather than control of Allied High Commission. Joined European Coal and Steel Communist (ECSC)

  1955- FRG joins NATO. Hallstein doctrine- FRG free to govern, represents Germany in world affairs and won't recognise countries recognising GDR

  1957- FRG one of founding members of European Economic Community (EEC)

  1961- Berlin Wall
• How Adenauer created stability (1949-63)

  • forceful personality kept FRG coalitions working together until 1957
  • CDU/CSU remained majority party in the Bundestag until 1969
  • Focus on west to rebuilt economy and be accepted as party of Europe
  • 1953- changed voting allocation to make it harder for smaller parties to gain a seat
  • 1952- Social Reich Party banned, 1956- KPD declared unconstitutional
• How Adenauer created instability (1949-69)

  • Too powerful than Basic Law allowed: was chancellor and foreign minister until 1955 (controlling foreign and domestic policy), and appointed weak ministers more as advisers than equals
  • Focus on west moved away from German unification
  • Exclusion of political opposition reminded people of Nazi policy in 1933
• Challenges to the FRG in the 1950s

  • The Radical left & right
  • Clause in basic law meant parties threatening democracy could not exist (banned right wing parties)
  • KPD did not get enough seats in Bundestag
  • KPD organised communist demonstration in cities - 1953, 6,000 communists clashed with police, dispersed with water canons
  • Did not actually have freedom of speech due to law
  • Social Reich Party (banned in 1952)
  • KPD (communist)
• Challenges to FRG in the 1960s

  • Pacifism (Year Zero principle)-> youth, students and intellectuals (APO & SDS)
  • allowed Adenauer to rebuilt civil service and allow an army
  • possibility of building and storing atomic weapons
  • Young People wanted to confront Germany's past, objected to ex-Nazis in political power
  • Left youth without family history
  • against FRG's military involvement through NATO
  • Youth ('What did you do in the war daddy?')
  • Reaction to Vietnam War (1954-75), youth saw US as money-grabbing capitalists
• Challenges to FRG

  1960s
• Split in SDS after student shot

  Debate on how violent riots should be
• Emergency Law passed

  1968
• Emergency Law (1968)

  • Allowed government powers of arrest and surveillance
  • Led to change in student protest
• No left wing parties to absorb voters after KPD banned and SPD revised policies (1959)
• SDS broke away from SPD due to rearmament views

  1961
• SDS protested former Nazi members (called Auschwitz Generation) in office
• Protest about visit from Shan of Iran, police conflict and student is shot, increasing membership of SDS

  1967
• 'East riots' against Springer (right wing tabloid) followed
• Challenges to FRG in the 1960s (cont.)

  • APO (strong university membership supporting radical theories on opposing government through protest)
  • SDS- socialist Student Union (Vietnam war and Nazi membership in office)
  • Rudi Dutschke (leader of SDS from 1965, responsible for escalation of violence
  • 1968- shot by right wing fanatic who read press by Axel Springert
• Seventeenth law to improve political stability

  • access surveillance of written and oral telecommunications
  • reinforce civilian police manpower
  • radically centralise federalist distribution of powers
• Criticism of seventeenth

  • clear example to students of 'fascist tendencies' in Germany
  • direct pushback by German government against anti-authoritarian countries
  • Amendment in direct opposition to growing counter culture of movement of 1968
• Failure to deal with terrorism

  • Terrorist groups were fluid: changing names, leaders and members
  • Arrests could provoke terrorist attacks
  • emergency laws made groups feel marginalised, so resorted to terrorism
  • 1971- leaders of West Berlin Tupamaros shot and arrested, members disbanded and moved
• 1970 poll- 1 in 5 Germanys had sympathy for Baader-Meinfof gang
• Emergency law (1968)

  • allowed BND to use measured previously hampered by Basic Law's civil liberties, and wider powers of arrest and detention
  • dropped number of open protests and number of arrests
  • some groups went underground, violent opposition (terrorism) was the only way
• Policing units

  • BfV (1950)- investigated suspects opposing Basic law, only worked in Germany and hampered by civil liberties under Basic Law (no opening mail, searching homes)
  • BND (1956)- same, but also conduct investigations abroad
  • GSG-9 (1972, after shooting of Israeli athletes at Munich Olympics)- act against terrorists (kill with approval from Adenauer), arrested RAF members and rescued hostages on place hijacked to Frankfurt (1977)
  • BEFA- gave BND centralised access to all police information and may have encouraged rise in terrorism
• Employment ban (1949)

  • target parties threatening democracy (KPD, neo-Nazis), members could not be employed
  • seldom applied- only 400 lost jobs between 1950 and 1972
• Article 131 (1951)

  • allow employment of ex-Nazis in civil service
  • kept employment but ban was still in place and occasionally used
• Anti-Radical decree (1972)

  • political vetting of everyone applying for a state job after rise of extremist parties, mostly at universities
  • harder for party members to get jobs
• Difficulties of de-Nazification

  • could not find all Nazis involved in the Holocaust
  • had to change ideas embedded into Germans as children
  • Soviets wanted a different outcome
  • Could change policies, but not mindset
• De-Nazification

  • 1946- 250,000 arrested (hard to classify)
  • many removed themselves from records
  • sheer scale made democracy seem ineffective and corrupt
  • many joined Nazis but were not sympathetic
• 1985- 85%+ teachers in Bavaria who lost jobs through de-Nazification came back
• 1,600 ex-Nazis were allowed to work in the US
• Voting numbers increased in 1970s (91%,1972 and 1976)


  shows discontent towards politics
• 1949- Trizonia formed
• 1949- Basic Law (must have 5% to be presented in parliament)
• 1949 election- 79% turnout, CDU= 31% (in power for 14 years), SPD=29%