APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110024-7
The Society
A. Historical background
The German Democratic Republic (GDR) was established in 1949 out of the zone of defeated Germany that had been occupied by the U.S.S.R. after World War II. Its people are thus the inheritors of a Western European culture despite their government's close ties with the Soviet Union and the Communist-controlled Eastern European states. Before this development, the East Germans participated with their western brothers in shaping a culture comparable to those of the French and the Italians in terms of its significant and varied contributions to the development of Western civilization. Indeed, if the German Democratic Republic could be considered a historical entity by itself, then it would be correct to label it the homeland of Bach, Handel, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner, Luther, Nietzsche, Bismarck, Cranach, Goethe, Schiller, Fichte, Ranke, Treitschke, Bluecher, Moltke, Clausewitz, Humboldt, Leibnitz, Pufendorf, Schliemann, Stresemann and a host of other German worthies. The German nation, during its brief era of political unity, however, also produced an aggressive leadership which was partly to blame for the devastation of World War I and which was directly responsible for the mass destruction of World War II and the deaths of some 20 million persons, more than half of whom were noncombatants. The Communist rulers of East Germany have sought to portray their regime as the direct heir of Germany's constructive traditions, and have only recently and reluctantly dropped their allegations that a revanchist West Germany is resuscitating the destructive drives that have terrorized Europe twice in the present century.
The geographic position of historic Germany, astride the North European Plain and between large and expansionist neighbors, was a significant factor influencing the formation of the German character. Defensive combat against constant French pressure in the west and offensive confrontations with various Slavic tribes in the east fostered an ancient warlike tradition, while the struggle for survival during the disastrous Thirty Years War (1618-48), and the rise of the Prussian kingdom in the eastern areas out of a patchwork of constantly warring states in the 17th and 18th centuries made military necessity into a civic virtue. Civil obedience and subordination of the individual to the state are acknowledged by the Germans as the traits most finely honed by the Prussians. These traits were reflected in a highly stratified class society which rested on the tightly knit family dominated by the father. The relatively poor quality of Prussia's soil in what was largely an agricultural economy into the latter half of the 19th century combined with the early acceptance of the Protestant work ethic is widely credited with molding those other so-called Prussian traits, perseverance and thoroughness.
Nationalism and the industrial revolution were important factors shaping the more recent development of the German character. The Germans were the last major European nation to achieve unified statehood. Once achieved, however, the augmentation of German power to a position unsurpassed on the
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110024-7
