What if the East German socialist state that existed from around the end of the Allied occupation of Germany around the early 1950's till the fall of the Eastern Bloc around 1990 had, instead of claiming to be the legitimate government of all Germany (which resulted in tensions within European Cold War geopolitics), decided (or "decided") to form its own national identity separate from Bonn? After all, if Austria can claim to be an independent state, why couldn't East Germany claim an identity inherited from the Prussian state of old? This would likely butterfly away the Ulbricht Doctrine which regulated East-West German relations by, for example, labelling trade between both governments as internal trade within Germany. What other effects could this entail, especially if the Iron Curtain still erodes? If Bonn and East Berlin recognize each other as sovereign, what happens to the extradition mechanism that was a major factor behind the DDR's brain drain IOTL?
WI: The DDR recognized as a sovereign country by Bonn?
- Thread starter GauchoBadger
- Start date
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The DDR and BDR were both admitted to the UN in 1973. Thereafter they were both recognized sovereign states, having I believe full diplomatic relations with lots of countries. I suspect that several countries had relations with both Germanys from several years before that.
Or maybe the intended WI is that the DDR declares itself separate from "Germany" at its beginning in 1949?
That would be conceding the legitimacy of the BDR as "Germany", which Stalin would never do, nor any other Soviet leader at the time.
The DDR and BDR were both admitted to the UN in 1973. Thereafter they were both recognized sovereign states, having I believe full diplomatic relations with lots of countries. I suspect that several countries had relations with both Germanys from several years before that.
Or maybe the intended WI is that the DDR declares itself separate from "Germany" at its beginning in 1949?
That would be conceding the legitimacy of the BDR as "Germany", which Stalin would never do, nor any other Soviet leader at the time.
In a slower deteriorating communist bloc, East Germany might find itself as the poor, neutral neighbor of West Germany.
Occupying powers could also limit political unification. Perhaps they decide that a neutral buffer zone is in everybody's best interests. East Germany, Roumania, Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland could serve as neutral buffer states allowing only handfuls of United Nations observers.
Occupying powers could also limit political unification. NATO and the Warsaw Pact might allow tax-unions and common policing standards, but these would be cooperative agreements between independent German states (e.g. Rhineland agreeing with Wurttemeberg). Few federal agencies would function across state borders. Elections would be sharply divided between different states.
Other states (e.g. Bavaria) would try to distance themselves politically for war-mongering Brandenburg-Prussians.
Occupying powers could also limit political unification. Perhaps they decide that a neutral buffer zone is in everybody's best interests. East Germany, Roumania, Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland could serve as neutral buffer states allowing only handfuls of United Nations observers.
Occupying powers could also limit political unification. NATO and the Warsaw Pact might allow tax-unions and common policing standards, but these would be cooperative agreements between independent German states (e.g. Rhineland agreeing with Wurttemeberg). Few federal agencies would function across state borders. Elections would be sharply divided between different states.
Other states (e.g. Bavaria) would try to distance themselves politically for war-mongering Brandenburg-Prussians.
Prior to the rise of Nazi Germany and the Anschluss, Austria had been an independent state, whereas East Germany had been part of the German state for as long as there had been one. Any Brandenburger identity (no Soviet Union interested in keeping Kaliningrad is going to tolerate a Prussian identity) would be transparently artificial (cf. the French attempts to promote an independent Saarland), and it is hard to imagine it surviving the fall of communism, or achieving any recognition from Bonn or the West beyond that which East Germany received IOTL.
A big problem is no one wanted to be "Prussian" after WW1 and 2. Of all the Germans they were the most despised as they got most of the blame. The last thing any German state wanted to be known as is Prussia. in 1945.
That's exactly what it did in OTL--especially under Honecker. (Ulbricht had perhaps never quite given up on the idea of some sort of German reunification.) It explicitly rejected the West German position that there were "two German states but one German nation." According to Honecker "All talk of the unity of the German nation" was "twaddle." https://books.google.com/books?id=n8OvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA203 There were two German nations, said Honecker, one capitalist, one socialist. Abgrenzung--"demarcation"--between the GDR and the FRG was a constant theme of his. The GDR Constitution of 1974 made this explicit by dropping all mention of a single "German nation" which had figured in previous GDR constitutional documents. https://books.google.com/books?id=hWZ4DQAAQBAJ&pg=PT524
Of course its separate national identity was based on ideology, but it was still a separate national identity. And in fact there was no plausible basis for anything other than ideology as the demarcation. The GDR could not identity itself with Prussia--it contained many lands that had never been part of Prussia (as well as of course lacking many that were.) In particular, many Saxons were prominent in the GDR--Ulbricht was notorious for his Leipzig accent. https://books.google.com/books?id=H-neBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA142
It was the FRG, not the GDR, that had a Federal Minister of All-German Affairs, later Federal Minister of Intra-German Relations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_of_Intra-German_Relations To the GDR, at least under Honecker, the FRG was a separate nation with a separate social system. The GDR had diplomatic relations with the FRG exactly as it had such relations with France, the UK, or other capitalist nations. (Such at least was the official theory, even though ordinary citizens of the GDR probably did not regard the FRG as a "foreign" nation in the sense that France was.)
I get the weird felling that this forum contains a lot of DBWI's that are not identified as such...
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My mistake, i forgot about the DDR's diplomacy with, say, the multiple nations of the third world. What i think i wanted to mean was for the DDR and West Germany to recognize each other as legitimate.
The FRG stopped this, not the GDR. The FRG constitution forced the actors to go for a "one nation, two sovereign states" compromise for the Basic Treaty of 1972. The GDR, at this point, would gladly have gone for two nations.
Edit: Also, it really depends on what you mean by "legitimate". The Basic Treaty did not touch questions of legitimacy, but it did unequivocally say that neither FRG nor GDR could legally speak for the whole of Germany.
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Have Adenauer's plan to surrender control of Berlin entirely to the USSR in exchange for a return to the Line of Control as of approx. May 10, 1945 approved by all sides. As a conditional have both German states recognize each othet (East Germany would essentially be reduced to Prussia) and have both admitted to the UN in 1962/3.
Even if accepted this would just accelerate the UN membership of the Germanies by a decade. But there is no reasonable chance that it would be accepted by the USSR (even if Adenauer got the US to agree to the idea, which is doubtful--JFK would be too wary of Republicans charging him with having sold out West Berlin). I can just see Khrushchev to the Presidium: "Let's swap important industrial areas of the GDR for a West Berlin that will probably be largely depopulated as its residents flee to the Federal Republic? And in the process ease the military threat to the West at the Fulda Gap? I don't think so, comrades. Moreover, the very fact that the West is making such an offer is a sign that it recognizes West Berlin is indefensible--so we'll eventually get it anyway."
Many Catholics had lived as Prussian citizens because they had become Prussian provinces. Prussia and later the Prussian dominated German Empire had been Protestant in its core and identity.
My hope was to provide a solution to rhe OP question but given the above...
https://m.spiegel.de/international/...ap-west-berlin-for-parts-of-gdr-a-780385.html
"Neither Osterheld nor Adenauer thought Khrushchev would agree to a deal. It would have deprived the German Democratic Republic of important industrial regions. But if the Soviets were to accept it, "it would be an advantageous exchange for us," Osterheld wrote on April 24, 1962." This simply underlines my point about the USSR being extremely unlikely to accept.
In 1945 I would have said "That was then, this is now." Of all the Germans blamed for the world wars the Prussians were in front. It was far easier to call yourself "German" than "Prussian". Being German was bad enough in 1946, being Prussian was even worse.
I know, it seemed appropriate to acknowledge that with the information from OTL. I think Khrushchev potentially can be swayed though, especially as the US is concerned with developments in Cuba around this time.