Development of Germany up to 1961

Question 1

What number of SPD members were imprisoned or killed?

Answer 1

-20,000

Question 2

What was the rate of rejection of the SPD/KPD merger?

in the West?

Answer 2

-82% rejection

Question 3

What happens in May 1946?

Answer 3

-The US does not pay USSR reparations

Question 4

What is created in January 1947 in order to pay back reparations?

How did the USSR view this?

Answer 4

• The creation of Bizonia in order ‘to pay USSR reparations’ and improve economies enough to gain wider capitalist support.
• The USSR however view the creation of Bizonia as a complete breech of Potsdam and the beginning of a West German state.

Question 5

What happens at the Moscow Meeting of Foreign Ministers?

When was this?

Answer 5

• April-May 1947 The Moscow Meeting of Foreign Ministers was a failure.
• Impossible solutions were made
• No agreement at all passed agreement to disagree
• Bizonia continues without interference
• Ultimately the Grand Alliance collapses

Question 6

What were the causes of the Berlin Blockade?

Answer 6

• Long term;
• USSR desire for united communist Germany, removing Western influence from East.
• USA prevention of spread of communism, want strong capitalist West Germany and to improve German economy.
• Short term;
• Currency Reform , Deutschmark more valuable than Ostmark- breach of Potsdam.

Question 7

What were the consequences of the Berlin blockade?

Answer 7

• Failure of USSR blockade
• The pro capitalist state of West Germany is created and the pro-US Adenauer is elected.
• East German state created in retaliation with Ulbricht, USSR support.
• NATO formed
• Soviet atomic bomb
• Western rearmament and the arms race

Question 8

What were the causes of the East German Uprising?

Answer 8

• Ulbricht increasing working hours
• Collectivising farms
• Poor conditions
• Weak economy

Question 9

What were the events of the East German Uprising?

Answer 9

• 50,000 striking
• 100,000 protestors in East berlin
• GDR forces too weak to control, Ulbricht appeals for USSR support and the USSR send tanks- 100 dead.

Question 10

What were the consequences of the East German rising?

Answer 10

• De-stalinisation proven limited
• Western protest
• German reunification impossible
• Migration from East

Question 11

What were the causes of the Berlin Crisis and creation of the berlin wall?

Answer 11

• Mass migration from GDR
• Fears of collapse
• Khrushchev is overconfident

Question 12

What are the events of the Berlin Crisis? (1958)

Answer 12

• Ultimatum regarding Western withdrawal from Berlin and the imposition of Berlin as a free city.
• talks in Geneva and Paris (to do with nuclear free central Europe) unsuccessful as ended by U2 Plane Crisis of 1960.
• Kennedy implies that no action will be taken against the Soviets if West Berlin remains untouched.
• Mass migration in 1961 which leads to the creation of the Berlin Wall.

Question 13

What were the consequences of the Berlin Crisis?

Answer 13

• Berlin was now physically divided and there was an end to migration
• GDR economy stabilised and New Economic System
• No hope of German reunification

Short-term tensions; e.g tanks at checkpoint Charlie and Cuban Missile Crisis.