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Internationale Forschungsstelle DDR Profile picture
Internationale Forschungsstelle DDR
@_IFDDR
We research the history of the German Democratic Republic and its enduring relevance for international movements today. In cooperation with @tri_continental.
Nov 28, 2023 • 25 tweets • 5 min read
The #Tehran Conference convened 80 years ago #OTD.
The “Big Three” discussed, among other issues, the question of what to do with #Germany after the War. Records show that the initiative to partition Germany undoubtedly came from the USA and UK, not the USSR. [A thread 🧵] Image The Tehran Conference convened on 28 Nov. 1943. By this time, the tide of the War had already turned after the Soviets defeated Hitler’s 6th Army at Stalingrad in Feb. 1943. The central question at the Tehran Conference was thus the opening of a second front in Western Europe.
Sep 26, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
And also "Operation Sunrise”: initiated even earlier in Feb. 1945, the US & UK began secret negotiations with high-ranking SS generals in Switzerland to determine whether the Wehrmacht could form “a common front with the Allies against the advance of the USSR in Europe”.🧵 1/5 These negotiations took place with the blessings of Himmler and Hitler in the villa of German industrialist Edmund Stinnes in Bern.

The Swiss intelligence service and the private attaché of Pope Pius XII played mediatory roles.
2/5 Image
Sep 11, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
West and East Germany played diametrically opposed roles in #Chile's history, which we will be exploring in an article later this week to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the putsch against #Allende.

To look at just one example: the role of the German intelligence services 🧵
Image
Image A recent investigation by @mdrde found concrete evidence that the BND (West Germany's intelligence agency) had worked with a German sect in #Chile to smuggle weapons to fascist groups in opposition to the Allende government.
2/
 ardmediathek.de/video/fakt/chi…
Jul 31, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Day 4: On 16 December 1972, Portuguese commandos entered the Mozambican village of Wiriyamu & gunned down all 400 of its inhabitants. While Salazar's brutality was downplayed by his @NATO allies, the #WorldYouth come together in Berlin to denounce colonialism & support FRELIMO.🧵 Image The formation of the Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO) and early support of the socialist states:
2/5 #WorldYouth Image
Jun 20, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
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.
🧵 1/ Image 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/ Image
Jun 19, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
The weapons and vehicles with which the apartheid regime gunned down over 170 South African school children in #Soweto 1976 came from West Germany.

East Germany (the #DDR), on the other hand, had been a leading supporter of the anti-apartheid struggle. A very brief thread: 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.
Jun 19, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
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. Image
Jun 1, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
@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/
Nov 12, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
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/ “For the unity of Germany” & “An economic policy for t ▪️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/
Oct 7, 2022 • 14 tweets • 7 min read
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/
Jun 30, 2022 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
#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/
Jan 15, 2022 • 16 tweets • 8 min read
#OTD in 1919, after suppressing the Spartacist Uprising, proto-fascist forces killed communist leaders Rosa #Luxemburg & Karl #Liebknecht on the orders of the Social Democrat-led government.
Their deaths must be understood in historical context of the German workers' movement:
1/ In January 1912, the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland (SPD) secured a historic electoral victory – with over a third of the votes, it became the first workers' party to dominate a European parliament. Deep divisions had, however, already been developing within the party. 2/