second five year plan

• aimed to combine the production of capital and consumer goods
• developed the nuclear energy and the first nuclear reactor in the GDR
• successes

  • 1958-9 the GDR economy grew by 12%
  • consumer goods were being produced and living standards improved
  • rationing cards for meat, fat and sugar disappeared
• when was it 


  1956 - 1960
• failures

  • stabilising social improvements were brought at high cost to the economy
  • the state couldn't invest this money into other needy sectors such as the development of infrastructure for transport and energy and the modernisation of industry
  • the GDR was desperately short of hard currency