1949 - One year, two Germanies | DW Documentary

[Music] Germany four years after the end of the Second World War balanced between devastation and new beginnings and of course facing some dramatic changes [Music] [Music] I'm [Music] [Applause] [Music] the old Germany was gone in the small town of Lloyd's Dorf on the Rhine like everywhere else it was all about just getting through everyday life as their golf can hold if there wasn't much discussion if we passed the piano standing in the street we'd ask where should this go and then we'd pick it up and carry it off Hines Watts was in the Catholic Youth Organization the main thing was to do some sports seminars and studying weren't enough we realized we wanted to have a say in things as well the parish priest encouraged younger generations to look to the future and take things into their own hands Schwarz had already had political experience albeit bad experience like millions of other young men he had been a member of the Hitler Youth he is the main issue for me and for my generation was not the Nazis but what can we eat do we have a roof over our heads how can we get through this day those were our priorities and were for our politicians as well in the politician did that at the beginning of 1949 another former Hitler Youth returned to Germany by train from a prisoner of war camp in the Soviet Union his captors had inspired his new world view hands ma drove had lost his home in Pomerania and his family had been torn apart but he had a burning desire I wanted to make amends I had spent my imprisonment in the Soviet Union in the region around Moscow where the front lines were I saw scorched earth I felled trees in the forest so that homes could be rebuilt more drops brother lived in Hamburg but he went straight to the Soviet sector of Berlin where he wanted to help build a new society I understood that this must not be allowed to happen again I experienced war and I'd experienced fascism and that this is not life even conceptually speaking I wanted a new Germany first though I had no idea about how it could or should be evolved NATO's get leaked early spring and Munich the giant statue of Bavaria overlooks the wide field of the tunisian visa in the background the foul and quisha in the foreground at the fest visa which again lives up to its festive name this spring [Music] Munich had been the capital of the Nazi movement still a Jewish lawyer and his daughter charlotta decided to move back to their old house on the Therese Ian visa in Munich Fritz Niland had escaped the Holocaust charlotta had survived by hiding in the countryside as well it was incredibly important for me to know that I definitely wouldn't be staying in Munich I didn't want to go back there because I didn't want to meet the people who had done this to us I couldn't imagine that you of Munich the streets here are bustling with life there are still ruins but the streets and squares are clear and reconstruction work is going on everywhere resources permitting at least [Music] Heidelberg had been largely spared by the war center of the old town was the University which stood ready to greet its large student population one of them was Gunther Dorman he had served in the war and joined the student council this one this was a life like you can't imagine I'd so forget about heating even in winter but we toughened up I mean we're soldiers the situation was dire many students had so little money for food housing and books that the university was facing closure dama Dunson strike so we went on strike against its closing the university and then we set up the students help students initiative in fact everyone got involved on TV forgot me to go home the population helped the students to keep their free tables which were these special places where students could eat for free they showed so much solidarity it was incredible the highlight was a demonstration on the Main Street the u.s. garrison commander brought up his tanks but the students didn't allow themselves to be cowed as far as an officer was this open-mindedness almost a joy that something like this worked that's what that was the type of democracy we loved and fought for in the spring of 1949 Germany was a divided country split into East and West you could feel that especially on the Elbe two hours on Sunday afternoons the authorities on both sides of the border would turn a blind eye to the law there were happy reunion families catching up and even Interzone tea parties in 1945 the four victorious powers divided Germany into occupation zones the American British and French in the west and the Soviet in the East and right in the middle of the Soviet zone Berlin equally split into two the 1949 was the trypsin easier song it became the unofficial anthem of the three Western zones which had begun working closely together the winners had never managed to agree on a common policy throughout Germany now the Western powers were put in the trip zone easy ins on course to their own separate Western German state the Soviet occupation forces had been blockade in West Berlin since the summer of 1948 after the deutsche mark was introduced against Moscow's Express will West Berlin had become a frontline city in the cold war people of the world you people in America in England and France look at this city the aerial resupply of West Berlin became a political PR success for Americans and Britons both here and in West Germany the airlift lay the emotional foundation for a turn towards the West as air traffic from West Germany to Berlin steadily increases police and the eastern sector are increasingly restricting road traffic within the city they have set up roadblocks on the sector borders dragging him back in 1949 and saw the exchange rates it was absolutely clear the West was stronger and wanted to use the exchange rate to show off its strength and the Soviets couldn't keep up they were the losers which is why they piled on the pressure hands ma drove who was already a member of the East German Communist Youth Organization the FDJ now officially joined the SA D the socialist Unity Party the trained mechanic was sent to a locomotive Factory in the Berlin suburb of Hennings Dorf there he was supposed to find recruits for the new system but traces of war and the Nazi era was still to be found everywhere so I became a mechanic in this case had a plant in Henning stone even in 1949 there were engines waiting for repair there which still had to keep the wheels rolling for the war banners part of the workforce were West Berliners and some of the lads in the factory began calling me the Russian because everyone had noticed how he always argues and we've had mouths the Russians he's on their side the whoreson it was a tough position to be in but Hans MA drove didn't back down he's been de I'm I'm also a jerk like you you have a different idea of the world to mine but one thing is clear we're all Germans the estimate first new post-war locomotives leave the Hennings door plant it's a promising start to the new year the first of our two year plan reconstruction was the most important issue in both eastern and western Germany rebuilding houses and roads the economy and maybe even the state or perhaps of two states politicians in both East and West were busy trying to build support for their different solutions young people were now supposed to play an active role in political life but politics and parties had gotten a bad image under the Nazi regime and people were loath to have anything to do with them anymore there can't be a worse climate than the anti-party climate post-world War two I don't know how many million members the Nazi Party had there were I don't know how many members and organizations affiliated with the Nazis there was one in every family then suddenly everything was wrong and everything was criticized and rightly so I was asked many times how I could join a party again since the autumn of 1948 politicians from the state Parliament's in western Germany had been meeting at the pedagogical Academy in Bonn drawing up a democratic constitution for the new western state at the behest of the occupying powers as well it was like well those on top the establishment and now the new establishment again let's see we've had enough of the establishments establishment a thirty mention of any candidacy it people they don't care very much at all they had been defeated and had no strength left and they didn't care about this or that law the vast in an article of kisses kisses or the you nice kiss it's out of public view sixty-one men and four women in the parliamentary council were discussing the future but chairman Konrad Adenauer also wanted to take the opinions of young people into account the climate at Heidelberg University had calmed down then one day a postman turned up in the office of the general student committee I can still see the telegram from Konrad Adenauer inviting me to attend the meetings of the parliamentary council as a guest accommodation and meals are provided by us but please bring bed linen meat wagon by then Gunther doorman was working regularly as an assistant to the parliamentary Council in bond which gave him direct access to high-level politics one morning I was walking along Buddhist beggar alley on my way to the plenary session and when Adenauer drew up in his Mercedes why it was raining and he pulled up next to me rolled down the window and said I take it you're going to defend a recession come on I'll give you a lift otherwise you'll get wet when we arrived he told the driver this young man here if you see him again the common goal of the delegates was to build a functioning democracy for which the parties were working closely together the Social Democrats most important man Carlos MIT had even been sent from Wittenberg to bond in place of a CD you delegate that's what kind of fine chef but there was no inter party political hostility apart from with the communist party there was always a row when rhymin who was at that time the Communist Party's faction leader made inflammatory speeches full of ideological jargon we rejected underwater opulent and so did the occupying powers the British even had max rhymin arrested the anthem communist was the fear of communism the fear of the East was already there especially among the many people who had come from the east and had already experienced communism and fled from it from communist muskie Florence and Jewish aid organizations had settled in Munich Smule Strasse and around them lots of small stalls and shops servicing a large black market Holocaust survivors from Eastern Europe who were waiting to travel on to Israel or the u.s. sold some of the rations they received in their transit camps here the American occupiers turned a blind eye so I saw in the Regas judiciously Jewish life was bustling there you could almost say it was a small town there were restaurants and a synagogue so it was like a real Jewish village and of course there were many small stalls where they traded and a lot of people not just Jews came to buy things they couldn't get elsewhere he was a coffee it was a good thing that the people there could earn a little extra money the sudden mention could get done at CCBC investor to Fatima Khan [Music] and climbers mission [Music] I life in the Western zones in 1949 was still tough but people wanted to enjoy themselves again even though the past was still very close everywhere [Music] a major sporting event after a 15-year break Pines bloomin starts the first German six-day race and eunuch yesterday stars were big again Heinz rumen one of the Nazi regimes favorite actors returned in his role as the crafty little man his comedy the secret of the red cat became a hit in western Germany meanwhile cinemas in the eastern zone were usually showing more serious fare mainly celebrations of Soviet successes society in the Soviet zone was being systematically politicized in the face of some resistance including at the locomotive plant in Hennings Dorf in his speech director Berger emphasized that the two-year plan can only become a reality through the work of us all all the willing forces of our zone are now in the process of building a new better life for themselves through their own planned work the youth organization fry a dog and made up around 20 percent of the company's staff so there - we were the organized part of the youth and not the majority who could march through the company's singing big let's build it songs back at the parliamentary council in Bonn the student Gunther doorman was experiencing firsthand how policies are made and not just as a spectator spun and Avanti combines a meter the exciting thing was the lunches there he heard a lot of things you didn't hear in the official sessions I don't know I came by and sat down at my table and suddenly asked me what was happening with the students why they were so apolitical but also so engaged I told him some things and he said can we talk about this in a little bit more detail on our invited the student to his home in ruined off on the other side of the Rhine for a good meal and a bottle of wine dunsack they are messy and he said can you write down what you told me and bring it to my office tomorrow if possible and that became the basis of a speech he made shortly afterwards henna cos shipped on the 13th of October 1948 has gone down in history by the end of the shift Chanukah and mines 24.4 cubic meters of coal instead of the standard 6.3 cubic meters the sed tried to use the activist movement to boost the economy in the east and turned the minor Chanukah into a great propaganda hero we also wanted gente cos I made great efforts to do a good job in my workshop forget recognition but it wasn't the sed controlling that it was you putting your back into it so others accepted you and said no he's one of us but when it came to politics it was often hard for the young activist and his colleagues to find common ground and these issues there was always a distance one that was of course anti-communist on the communist regime plagued the sed party headquarters determined life in the East and the sed was doing what Stalin the leader of the Soviet Union decided Stalin's most important man in Berlin was Valtor Ulbricht officially he was only a second-rank politician but he was the one holding the reins the party wanted to control public life and especially the economy of the Soviet zone the Leipzig spring fair of 1949 was their shop window for the first time since the end of the war the technology fair has returned with its former glory the BMW eisenach stand yeah B&B the BMW 2-liter 80 horsepower a dream in blue and there's a 130 horsepower racer for even faster spirits with three carburetors a delegation from the Hennings Dorf locomotive works also traveled to this fair they were chosen according to political criteria party leaders were always talking can we win him over or him is he talking in our favor or against us for the past year the SED had been trying to counter the increasing alienation between east and west with a major campaign for unity and a just peace the People's Congress and Berlin's Admiral Palast was to represent all Germans in reality the makeup of the delegates had been manipulated and with everything that the East demanded Stalin remained the decisive figure in the background give us our unity give us a just peace [Applause] West Berlin was still under blockade by the Soviets and had to be supplied from the air things began to heat up throughout the city we went across to West Berlin and sang Americans go home and we were convinced that those following us to the s-bahn station because we had some Americans go home that they were the ones who wanted to drive a wedge between us the US headquarters in Frankfurt had long since abandoned the idea of a united Germany the Western Allies wanted a new West German state but on their terms Germany's politicians had to navigate a tricky path after months of negotiations by the parliamentary Council in Frankfurt complete agreement of the basic law of the future West German Constitution has been reached Jesus Gunja get saved all this blathering with the military governments that was discussed in the official meetings in veiled terms firstly because they didn't want to make it but too clear to the public to avoid increasing the populations opposition to what they're doing is secondly they didn't want to do the occupying powers any favors by making it such a big issue some tame amat the Germans were still dependent on their occupiers but the president of the parliamentary council was thinking ahead it's better if we compromise with them and become sovereign and free ourselves from this permanent occupation approval procedure the guns came he knew exactly what he was doing he knew that if we didn't go with the West now with the English French or Americans then we had no chance at all yeah only chance for Germany to come back again was with the West for me I don't know it was the Americans masse and so he was part of American policy a separate post office handles daily incoming mail many of the letters deal with the question of what the flag of the new German state should look like here is the design of a thirteen-year-old girl a flag committee is discussing the various proposals the Western Allies wanted Germany to be a federal state to avoid power being concentrated in the center not all delegates liked that and there was something else worrying them many members asked several times whether we were doing the right thing because in making a constitution for a federated entity we were basically cementing the division of Germany for photography and I'll start Mohammed the name of the document is the basic law not Constitution it was adopted on the 8th of May 1949 exactly four years after the end of the war it's a complicated document and was only supposed to be provisional only the Communists and Bavarian CSU parties voted against it ladies and gentlemen the basic law has been passed with 53 votes in favor and 12 votes against the relationship between the east and west was shifting May 11th 1949 three minutes before midnight on the border between the British and Soviet zones everything is ready for when they lift the blockade the adoption of the Basic Law prompted the Soviets to lift the blockade on Berlin the division of Germany now seemed inevitable [Music] [Applause] our turn our flies to West Berlin [Applause] the parliamentary council is filled with deep gratitude for your struggle for your suffering for your patients which has now led to victory West Berlin breathed a sigh of relief the island in the Soviet zone can now be supplied by land again prices began dropping and shops filling up the basic law was solemnly proclaimed on the 23rd of May 1949 the parliaments of the federal states all had to give their consent before it could come into force conscious of his responsibility before God and mankind inspired by the will to preserve his national and state unity it was preceded by a preamble referring to German unity the first articles to follow were those that guarantee fundamental rights a church song was sung at the ceremony as there was no national anthem at the time [Music] the Countach de bomb for me fundamental rights were actually the decisive factor in what the parliamentary council did at that time those fundamental rights they were the be-all and end-all if the fundamental rights and the freedom of the citizen and self-determination and freedom of opinion and all that are guaranteed then things can't go wrong again duncanemma sofia paseo the East responded to the founding of the Federal Republic with a propaganda offensive for German unity and the election of a third People's Congress but it turned into a fiasco for the SED and some heavy weight manipulation was needed before it could claim the necessary two-thirds of the vote at the beginning of June the party called invited members to attend the F D J's Youth Parliament DJ karl-marx-stadt marching through the streets of leipzig where a total of 200,000 young people met for a mass rally the against the dividers for unity was heard a lot in Leipzig too but it was really just a rearguard action there would now be two German states the sed was betting on saving face and showing which Germany was the better one so did Chanukah both of them talking about their fight to stop what was happening in the West and the whole thing in a Congress Hall in Leipzig which was called the hall of the Rising Sun was also implying the message the West is going and we will have the Rising Sun in Lloyds Dorf a few kilometres up the Rhine from Bonn the twenty-year-old apprentice hind Schwarz had become a professional politician as district secretary of the CDU he organized events and took care of the contributions of the members I had a small moped you always had to push started you couldn't kick started so I drove through the district to see if I could collect my salary in the end that also had the advantage that it gave you a chance to get to know people and talk with them before long the CDU office had arranged a car for Heinz farts to use in the Bundestag election campaign and when the announced candidate was too late Schwarz would give the election speech instead it was a Catholic Place meeting on Sunday morning after high mass we went into the church and then into a hall with 120 130 seats you couldn't see across the room because everyone was smoking no women but all there sit down shut up the boy wants to talk then I gave my 50-minute speech then there still has to be a discussion does anyone else want say anything okay we are all voting for the CDU on Sunday 80% [Music] election time in the young Federal Republic and it's summer which you would want to make the most of at the end of July big things were happening on the cultural scene the Goethe Prize was awarded to Thomas Mann in Frankfort after an absence of 16 years Thomas Mann and his wife have returned from America for a visit to Germany welcome or not I would have felt my life besmirched if I had only paid homage to the genius of Goethe away from home and avoided Germany in the process but the east-west separation cast its shadow in 1949 there were two Goethe Prizes Thomas Mann received the second one at an elaborate ceremony in vemma in the east the poet kept his distance and gave the same acceptance speech a second time the speech was lauded in newsreel in East Germany both good surprises to Thomas Mann one in Frankfurt on mine and one my mom made the indivisibility of German culture clear in the most beautiful ways but Thomas Mann's books were once burned in Germany and he remained guarded in both Frankfurt and vomer the paper has covered my visit with kindness and ceremony like from a rule book there weren't any abusive letters either as there were in the West only a flood of welcoming and congratulated telegrams from trade unions youth federations political and cultural organizations while democratic governments of West Germany have a tough fight against reactionary nationalism and reawakened Nazism in the east it is the bourgeois desire for freedom and the democratic rule of law in the dissatisfaction with poor economic conditions which work against the popularity of the regime of course all criticism is banished to the private and oral spheres in fact National Socialist beliefs had not disappeared in Munich the Nazis cult sites had been demolished but when the newspaper the süddeutsche Zeitung talked about the Jewish Question reactions were frightening saying why don't you go to America but they can't use you there either they've had enough of these bloodsuckers the anti-semitism us anti-semitism was never dead it was never dead he told the publication sparked a demonstration of outraged Jewish refugees in Munich small Strasse the Munich riot police quickly waded in the Holocaust survivors suddenly felt as if they were facing the Nazis again the American military police was only able to calm the situation with difficulty meanwhile bond was preparing for the first Bundestag election Antigua oh sure on these are the sounds that echo all across bond it's just one large construction site here with the new Bundys house building in the center his house working against the clock the pedagogical Academy was expanded to become the seat of parliament the small town on the Rhine officially became the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany West Germany has elected its first Parliament while the run up to August 14th still saw a fierce propaganda war Election Day itself was calm in all three Western zones the result the CDU came in two points ahead of the SPD with 31% a total of 11 parties entered the new Bundestag on the 7th of September 1949 [Music] the allied military governors were present at the ceremony it was then that the basic law the Grund gazettes came into force this was followed by the election of the federal president and a week later the election of the federal Chancellor the young man from Lloyd's Dorf watched it all happen the receipts outside the pedagogical academies so you could watch what was happening and hear what was going on through loudspeakers when it came to electing the Chancellor both sides were neck-and-neck would add now CDU take the prize none of us knew so we were curious about the result and it worked however the lead was wafer-thin a nard now used his casting vote to clinch the election a week later he was sworn in as the first Chancellor of West Germany Ivana Shivani who done is done the following day the new chancellor made his way after the hotel Petersburg on the other side of the Rhine this was the residence of the High Commissioner's the representatives of the Western powers the new Federal Republic was far from sovereign it was still under supervision as was written in the occupation statute the document was signed by the three allies and then handed to the federal Chancellor the three allies were to step on the carpet the Chancellor was supposed to stand in front of it an act of symbolic subordination that our dena didn't care for while the bond parliamentarians debate the High Commissioners who created this facade dictate West German politics this government in Bond contravenes international law and must not be allowed to speak on behalf of Germany it only carries out the will of the High Commissioners now it was East Berlin's turn on the 7th of October 1949 the Fulks rat or People's Council a subcommittee of the People's Congress met in the former Air Ministry building and declared itself a provisional Parliament the people's chamber has unanimously enacted the constitution of the German Democratic Republic and just as unanimously passed the law on the formation of the provisional government Otto growth of all became the first East German Prime Minister but the real power was still with Moscow's man Valtor all breached the German Democratic Republic was coming into being in the same Hall where Hitler's Germany capitulated just four years earlier we intend to wage a determined struggle against the spirit of fascism and militarism that plunged the people into two world wars the Soviet military governor agreed the Soviet government has constantly tried to prevent the division of Germany which was only deepened by the puppet bon government the Soviet government recognizes the efforts of the German Democratic forces to take the restoration of German unity into their own hands as legitimate the sed controlled the new East Germany from the outset common electron lists and a block system turned the other parties into mere extras sed president Wilhelm peek was unanimously elected president of the Republic he was congratulated by the youngest member of parliament Margot Feist later Hanukkah [Applause] on the evening of the election FDJ leader Erich Honecker organized a gigantic march of tens of thousands of young people a short while ago there was still calling for unity now they were celebrating their own state the message of general secretary Stalin was the most important act of international recognition and culminated in this sentence the foundation of the German Democratic peace-loving Republic is a turning point in the history of Europe if it came to an armed conflict I was aware that my brother was in the West and I was in the East this division went through whole families that was the feeling I had - that was a problem for us what would the future be like the amazing year 1949 came to an end with the Germans entering unsanitary as two separate states the success of democracy in the West and an end to the division within just hopes today all Germans are represented in the same democratically elected parliament and the division is a thing of the past the Bundestag meets in the old Reichstag right where the Berlin Wall once divided the country 1949 s legacy also contains a message for future generations he kept ellipta theses length imply expirienced how this country was lying on the ground and nobody thought that it could ever rise again you have a lot to thank your ancestors for living in a country today where you can move freely where you have unassailable democracy Seidman M Evita but you have to defend it you have to cherish your country and be ready to stand up for it at all times [Music]

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 3,448,221

Keywords: politics, divided Germany, founding of states, Cold War, democracy, fascism, FRG, GDR, DDR, East Germany, West Germany, division of Germany, German history, history of Germany, DW Documentary, DW, Founding of Germany, documentary, Germany, deutsche welle documentary

Id: dMVq4jj1QtE

Length: 42min 26sec (2546 seconds)

Published: Mon May 27 2019