History: The last attempts at the SED: manipulation, control and social division before the end of the GDR

At the end of 1988 and early 1989, the GDR government headed to the peak of its internal crisis. The political tensions, the increasing social resistance and the growing dissatisfaction among the population made an aggressive policy of repression inevitable. In this context, various strategies have been developed to control the companyto maintain and curb the opposition forces. One of these means was the targeted manipulation of social institutions, especially the churches and opposition groups, by the state security organization, the Ministry for State Security (MfS). The focus was on attempts to found supposedly independent organizations, such as theso-called “free thinker association”, gain influence and control. These measures were intended to replace or at least weaken the social spaces occupied by churches and opposition groups with state-guided structures. But these strategies revealed the despair of SED leadership and their inability to control social reality whilethe inner situation had already come to an explosive point.

Manfred Stolpe and the political instrumentalization

In January 1989, an interview with Manfred Stolpe, the then president of the Evangelical Church in the GDR, was published in the Westdeutsche newspaper “Die Welt”. Stolpe was a central figure in the religious and social life of East Germany and was also considered one of the few church representatives who publicly took a critical stance on the government.In the interview, he again called for the change and reassessment of the preamble to the Basic Law in order to facilitate a reunification of Germany. He argued that reunification in the near future would be unrealistic and that the existing case law would rather hamper an rapprochement between East and West. Stolpe expressed himself clearly dismissively of the term”Reunification” and warned of the emotions that such a designation evokes. For the GDR government, this attitude was an extremely undesirable development, as it reflected the official line that continued to see Germany as incompatible with the political goals of the state. In addition, Stolpe suggested that Springer-Verlag be called on in the future when the “GDR” was namedrenounced quotation marks, which made it clear the intention to change the state self-definition and to push the GDR into a less isolated position. This proposal was actually implemented in August 1989, which showed the willingness of the GDR leadership to react to Western influences.

Reactions and counterattacks: The GDR propaganda against Stolpe

However, these Western and ecclesiastical voices were perceived as a threat by the SED leadership. The day after the interview, almost all GDR newspapers published a sharp, almost confused gloss with the title: “Herr Stolpe and the ideal case”. The article was a political backlash aimed at criticism of Stolpe and his behavior. In doing so, the main focus was on theWorship services were received in the churches, which, according to the GDR propaganda, were only moderately attended. However, Stolpe is accused of not interested in this social reality, but rather to make politics and to want to attach “something bad” to the GDR. The criticism emphasized that in the GDR there was already full freedom of religion, which was caused by the actualRelationships are confirmed, and that it is not a service to freedom of religion if someone deals with state issues. The message was clear: The church representative Stolpe acted against the interests of the GDR, and his criticism is just a pretext to discredit government policy. However, the attacks were formulated in encrypted form, so that the church leadersas a general attack against their community. Western journalists like Gerhard Rein described these attacks as “unusual” because they targeted a man who often portrayed the GDR in a positive light, often even better than the actual circumstances.

Domestic tensions and the exacerbation of repression

After the turbulent events of 1987 and 1988, the SED leadership in January 1989 seemed to be in a tougher pace. Political and social tensions increased, and the party signaled that it wanted to tighten control again. It was obvious that the government tried to repress the social space through repression, intimidation andto control propaganda. Especially in this climate, it was strategically sensible to attack the one who publicly took a critical stance on the government: They wanted to set an example and achieve a deterrent effect. Stolpe, who always showed himself loyal to the party and played a more moderating role in the opposition, became a symbolfor the internal fragility of the system. The attacks on him were an attempt to strengthen control of social discourse and weaken the opposition. But ironically, the intensified repression in this environment often led to the willingness to grow and criticize. People looked for ways to express their dissatisfaction and resorted toFewer and fewer official channels. The GDR thus became an “ideal” example of a society that was in a crisis while the leadership tried to keep control.

The “Freethinkers Association”: Another attempt at manipulation

Just a few days after the attacks on Stolpe, the GDR newspapers announced that a “preparation committee” had been set up to set up a so-called “free thinker association”. Several articles, speeches and interviews explained that this association wants to take up the traditions of enlightenment and freedom of expression. The goal was to create an organization that people would14 years should be open and which aimed to accompany and make personal and family holidays and funerals in a worldly and dignified manner. It was announced that the association would provide contact telephones and offer discussion offers on social, political and cultural issues. In June 1989 the association was officially founded, but the publicResonance was extremely low. Even students reported that they learned from their teachers that they could not really express their opinions in this association. The members were shaped by the Marxist worldview, which confirmed the criticism of the association’s actual independence. The willingness to participate in this association remained extremelyweak. Only a few thousand people showed interest, and many just wanted to get the association’s materials without actually wanting to contribute. The MfS, the secret service of the GDR, feared from the start that the association of “hostile-negative forces” could be infiltrated in order to destabilize society.

The Association as a Camouflage Organization: High-level Manipulation

The “Freethinkers’ Association” represented the SED’s last attempt to officially gain influence in social spaces controlled by churches and opposition groups. For opposition members, he was a pure camouflage organization that only served to expand the influence of state power in these areas. After the events of 1987 and 1988, in which the politicalLeadership of the GDR increasingly seemed to lose power, the founding of this association was understood as an admission that the party had long since lost control of many social challenges. The SED leadership saw in the association as a means to further deepen social divisions and to increase the opposition movements through targeted influenceweaken. Some church representatives and opposition groups were skeptical about the founding and saw it as a renewed declaration of war by the party. Others argued that the founding only makes sense if the opposition members are given equal organizational options. No one seriously believed that the association had come about without the support of the state.The first chairman, Helmut Klein, was a long-time SED functionary and rector of the Humboldt University, which made it clear the proximity to the political establishment. The SED Politburo had already decided in December 1988 to found the association in response to the unrest of the years before. The MFS was involved in the planning from the start toto equip around a hundred full-time officials, to establish their own media and to set up a nationwide structure. The aim was to equip the association with its own radio and television stations, its own magazine and a complex organization at district and district level. The MfS had its own room in the headquarters in East Berlin, and the first managing director, EberhardSchinck, was an experienced official who was formerly deputy head of a publishing house and secretary for propaganda in a Berlin SED district management. At the end of February, the MfS was asked to examine the cooperation of a secretary who was to work in the association – the reason: She was divorced and the association did not want to take any risks. Already in January the wish wasappeared to work closely with the MfS to effectively control the dressing. The plans became more and more concrete, more and more detailed. The MfS wanted to equip the association with its own media, its own structures and a fixed hierarchy in order to secure the control over the long term.

Manipulation in the sign of social disintegration

The actual effectiveness of the “free thinker’s association” was minimal. He was primarily a camouflage organization that used the SED to control social spaces occupied by churches and oppositional movements. However, the internal political situation was so tense that these attempts at manipulation hardly met with acceptance. The population was increasingly skepticalcompared to official offers, and the independence of the association was questioned from the start. The society was already in a state of upheaval in which the state strategies of control and manipulation had little effect. The GDR was at the end of its existence, and the political measures of leadership, no matter how weak they were, could not face the crisisstop more. The attempts to influence through organizations such as the “Frethinkers Association” were ultimately just an expression of a desperate struggle for the last control in a society that was already in free fall. The manipulations of the SED and the MfS were symptoms of a system dedicated to collapse and showed how deep the social divisionand that political failure was already.