On 19 June 1953, Ethel & Julius #Rosenberg were executed by the federal government of the USA.
Here, Victor Grossman, a journalist and former US soldier that defected to the socialist camp in 1952, recalls his impression of the Rosenberg case and the solidarity of the #DDR.
Ethel and Julius #Rosenberg were were convicted of espionage and sentenced to death by electrocution at the Sing Sing prison in New York. Following their conviction, an international campaign for clemency unfolded in both the capitalist West and the socialist East.
Prominent figures such as Albert Einstein, Frida Kahlo, Jean Cocteau, Bertolt Brecht & Pablo Picasso advocated for leniency, yet President Eisenhower refused to back down.
In the German Democratic Republic (#DDR), a mass campaign developed in support of the Rosenbergs. Rallies were held by worker brigades and youth groups, as scientists and artists published statements advocating for their release or at least a more lenient sentence. 3/
Following the execution in June 1953, a number of streets and parks throughout East Germany were named after Ethel and Julius Rosenberg to commemorate the Jewish couple.
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Unrest in West Germany: On 20 June 1948, a secretly planned economic reform is implemented in the Western occupied zones of Germany. A new USD-tied currency (the “Deutsche Mark”) is introduced to facilitate the flow of US capital into Germany as part of the Marshall Plan.
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This currency reform has two major consequences. First, it triggers a massive increase in prices throughout the economy, as pre-existing price controls are swept away, and wages remain frozen.
(Photo: Munich, August 1948) 2/
Months of social unrest follow. In October 1948, the US military even resorts to the deployment of tanks and tear gas to disperse protesters calling for the nationalization of industries in Stuttgart. 3/
The apartheid troops that were deployed to suppress the #sowetouprising drove trucks made by the West German Mercedes-Benz corporation. Their weapons had been delivered by West Germany, which maintained close relations with the apartheid regime until the very end.
We recently interviewed the anti-apartheid militant Ronnie Kasrils, who recounted his experiences & impression of the socialist states' solidarity with the ANC.
Kasrils was 1 of hundreds of anti-apartheid militants to receive military training in the #DDR. ifddr.org/en/interview-r…
@John68Richmond No: The UK had pushed for the partition of Germany since 1941 & the US since 1943. The USSR resisted this idea throughout the war, including during negotiations at the Potsdam Conference – that's why the Agreement states Germany is to be "regarded as a single economic entity”. 1/
@John68Richmond As top US diplomat George Kennan wrote in an internal document in the summer of 1945, “Better a partitioned Germany, of which at least the western part acts as a buffer for the forces of totalitarianism, than a united Germany which lets these forces again reach the North Sea.” 2/
@John68Richmond Or as Erich Köhler, the first President of the West German parliament, later said, “We reject the unity of Germany if this allows the socialist forces to rule over the whole country.” Or Konrad Adenauer: “Better half of Germany whole than the whole of Germany half.” 3/
Friday, 12 November 1948: Following months of social unrest in the Western occupied zones of Germany, 9 million workers lay down their tools in the country’s largest strike since 1920. The workers’ demands are wide-ranging: ... 1/
▪️The socialization of key industries and credit institutes
▪️The introduction of economic planning & management in the commercial-industrial sector
▪️Democratization of the economy and greater say for the unions
▪️Declaration of and measures to relieve the economic emergency 2/
The economy in West Germany had been spiralling downwards for months after the Western powers introduced a surprise currency reform in June 1948 to facilitate the Marshall Plan, which sought to open up Western Europe to massive US investments.
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73 yrs ago #OTD, the German Democratic Republic was founded as a democratic, antifascist reaction to WW2 & the subsequent restoration of monopoly capitalism in West Germany.
Although it existed for only 40 yrs, the #DDR offers progressive movements a wealth of knowledge today. 1/
Far from representing a separatist state and Soviet-style regime as the dominant narrative today would have it, the #DDR was founded in East Germany after the Western powers snuffed out all attempts to form a unified, neutral, parliamentary republic in post-war Germany. 2/
In violation of the Potsdam Agreement, the capitalist powers occupying West Germany disregarded the stipulation that Germany was to be regarded as “a single economic entity” & they refused to break up the monopolies that financed Nazi rule, despite referenda on the issue. 3/
#OTD: 30 June 1946. In the first direct democratic initiative in post-war Germany, over three-quarters of the voters (77.7%) in Saxony approve the expropriation of large monopolies and corporations without compensation to eliminate the economic basis of German imperialism. 1/
This measure sought to rip out the roots of German fascism, as it had been the magnates & landed nobility that had bolstered the rise of fascism to suppress class struggle & promote monistic ideals of a class-less “German folk” with a right to "Lebensraum" in the East. 2/
A year prior to the expropriation of industrial monopolies, a comprehensive land reform had been carried out by the peasants themselves to seize the large holdings of the Junker nobility and redistributed them to the small peasants and landless migrant families. 3/