Walter Ulbricht

During the last days of the Weimar Republic, the KPD had a policy of assassinating two Berlin police officers in retaliation for every KPD member killed by the police.[10]

On August 2, 1931, KPD Members of the Reichstag Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger received a dressing down from Ulbricht, who was the Party's leader in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. Enraged by police interference and by Neumann and Kippenberger's failure to follow the policy, Ulbricht snarled, "At home in Saxony we would have done something about the police a long time ago. Here in Berlin we will not fool around much longer. Soon we will hit the police in the head."[11]

Enraged by Ulbricht's words, Kippenberger and Neumann decided to assassinate Paul Anlauf, the forty-two-year-old Captain of the Berlin Police's Seventh Precinct. Captain Anlauf, a widower with three daughters, had been nicknamed Schweinebacke, or "Pig Face" by the KPD.

According to John Koehler, "Of all the policemen in strife-torn Berlin, the reds hated Anlauf the most. His precinct included the area around KPD headquarters, which made it the most dangerous in the city. The captain almost always led the riot squads that broke up illegal rallies of the Communist Party."[12]

In April 1945, Ulbricht led a group of party functionaries ("Ulbricht Group") into Germany to begin reconstruction of the a communist party along Anti-revisionist lines. According to Grieder, "Espousing the motto 'it must look democratic but we must control everything', he set about establishing an SED dictatorship."[17] Within the Soviet occupied zone of Germany, the Social Democrats were pressured into merging with the Communists, on Communist terms, to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands or SED), and Ulbricht played a key role in this.

After the founding of the German Democratic Republic on 7 October 1949, Ulbricht became Deputy Chairman (Stellvertreter des Vorsitzenden) of the Council of Ministers (Ministerrat der DDR) under Minister-President and Chairman Otto Grotewohl, i.e., deputy prime minister. In 1950, as the SED restructured itself into a more orthodox Soviet-style party, he became General Secretary of the SED Central Committee, replacing Grotewohl and State President Wilhelm Pieck as co-chairmen. This position was renamed First Secretary in 1953.

Ulbricht addresses the People's Chamber in 1950. His modeling of his beard on that of Lenin did not go unremarked by contemporaries[18]

After the death of Stalin (whose funeral was attended by Ulbricht, Grotewohl and other German communists) in March of that year, Ulbricht's position was in danger because Moscow was considering taking a soft line regarding Germany. Ulbricht was accused of building a cult of personality around himself, with an elaborate jubilee planned for his 60th birthday on 30 June 1953, which Ulbricht later cancelled. The propaganda film Baumeister des Sozialismus - Walter Ulbricht, remained under wraps until the fall of the GDR.

The June 1953 East German uprising forced Moscow to turn to a hardliner, and his reputation as an archetypal Stalinist helped Ulbricht. On June 16, 1953, a protest erupted at East Berlin's Stalin Allee as enraged workers demanded comprehensive economic reforms.[19] The East German police had to call in Soviet military units stationed in the city to help suppress the demonstration and communist rule was restored after several dozen deaths and 1,000 arrests.[19] He was summoned to Moscow in July 1953, where he received the Kremlin's full endorsement as leader of East Germany. He returned to Berlin and he took the lead in calling in Soviet troops to suppress the widespread unrest with full backing from Moscow and its large army stationed inside the GDR. His position as leader of the GDR was now secure.[20]

Ulbricht managed to rise to power despite having a peculiarly squeaky falsetto voice. His Saxon accent, combined with the high register of his voice, made his speeches sound incomprehensible at times.[21]

At the third congress of the SED in 1950, Ulbricht announced a five-year plan concentrating on the doubling of industrial production. As Stalin was at that point keeping open the option of a re-unified Germany, it was not until July 1952 that the party moved towards the construction of a socialist society in East Germany.[22] The "building of socialism" (Aufbau des Sozialismus) was begun under the orders of Stalin, the de-facto ruler of East Germany. By 1952, 80% of industry had been nationalized.

The Council of Ministers of East Germany decided to close the Inner German Border in May 1952. The National People's Army (NVA) was established in March 1956, an expansion of the Kasernierte Volkspolizei which been set up already in June 1952. The Stasi (MfS) was founded in 1950, rapidly expanded and employed to intensify the regime's repression of the people. The states (Länder) were effectively abolished in July 1952 and the country was governed centrally through districts.

Ulbricht visiting a collective farm in Trinwillershagen in 1953.

Ulbricht uncritically followed the orthodox Stalinist model of industrialization: concentration on the development of heavy industry regardless of the cost, availability of raw materials, and economic suitability. The result was an unstable economy that was chronically short of consumer goods, and those that were produced were often of shoddy quality. For example, the Trabant automobile introduced in 1957 was widely ridiculed for its poor quality. Germans joked, "How do you double the value of a Trabant? Fill it up with petrol."[23] The frustrations led many to flee to the West: over 360,000 did so in 1952 and the early part of 1953.[24]

In 1957, Ulbricht arranged a visit to an East German collective farm at Trinwillershagen in order to demonstrate the GDR's modern agricultural industry to the visiting Soviet Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan. The collectivization of agriculture was completed in 1960, later than Ulbricht had expected. Following the death of President Wilhelm Pieck in 1960, the SED wrote the president's post out of the constitution. Taking its place was a collective head of state, the Council of State. Ulbricht was named its chairman, a post equivalent to that of president. His power consolidated, Ulbricht suppressed critics such as Karl Schirdewan, Ernst Wollweber, Fritz Selbmann, Fred Oelssner, Gerhart Ziller and others from 1957 onward, designated them as "factionalists" and eliminated them politically.

East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall in November 1961.

Despite economic gains, emigration still continued. By 1961, 1.65 million people had fled to the west.[25] Fearful of the possible consequences of this continued outflow of refugees, and aware of the dangers an East German collapse would present to the Eastern Bloc, Ulbricht pressured Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in early 1961 to stop the outflow and resolve the status of Berlin.[26] During this time, the refugees' mood was rarely expressed in words, though East German laborer Kurt Wismach did so effectively by shouting for free elections during one of Ulbricht's speeches.[27]

When Khrushchev approved the building of a wall as a means to resolve this situation, Ulbricht threw himself into the project with abandon. Delegating different tasks in the process while maintaining overall supervision and careful control of the project, Ulbricht managed to keep secret the purchase of vast amounts of building materials, including barbed wire, concrete pillars, timber, and mesh wire.[28] On 13 August 1961, work began on what was to become the Berlin Wall, only two months after Ulbricht had emphatically denied that there were such plans ("Nobody has the intention of building a wall"),[29] thereby mentioning the word "wall" for the very first time. Ulbricht deployed GDR soldiers and police to seal the border with West Berlin overnight. The mobilization included 8,200 members of the People's Police, 3,700 members of the mobile police, 12,000 factory militia members, and 4,500 State Security officers. Ulbricht also dispersed 40,000 East German soldiers across the country to suppress any potential protests.[30] Once the wall was in place, Berlin went from being the easiest place to cross the border between East and West Germany to being the most difficult.[31]

The 1968 invasion by Warsaw Pact troops of Czechoslovakia and the suppression of the Prague Spring were also applauded by Ulbricht. East German soldiers were among those massed on the border but did not cross over, probably due to Czech sensitivities about German troops on their soil during World War II. It earned him a reputation as a staunch Soviet ally, in contrast to Romanian leader Nicolae Ceauşescu, who condemned the invasion.

From 1963, Ulbricht and his economic adviser Wolfgang Berger attempted to create a more efficient economy through a New Economic System (Neues Ökonomisches System or NÖS). This meant that under the centrally coordinated economic plan, a greater degree of local decision-making would be possible. The reason was not only to stimulate greater responsibility on the part of companies, but also the realization that decisions were sometimes better taken locally. One of Ulbricht's principles was the "scientific" execution of politics and economy: making use of sociology and psychology but most of all the natural sciences. The effects of the NÖS, which corrected mistakes made in the past, were largely positive, with growing economic efficiency.

The New Economic System, which involved measures to end price hikes and increase access to consumer goods,[19] was not very popular within the party, however, and from 1965 onwards opposition grew, mainly under the direction of Erich Honecker and with tacit support of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Ulbricht's preoccupation with science meant that more and more control of the economy was being relegated from the party to specialists. Also, Ulbricht's motivations were at odds with communist theory, which did not suit ideological hardliners within the Party.

For ideological reasons, the communist regime demolished large numbers of important historical buildings. The Berlin Palace and the Potsdam City Palace were destroyed in 1950 and 1959. About 60 churches, including intact, rebuilt or ruined ones, were blown up, including 17 in East Berlin. The Ulrich Church in Magdeburg was razed in 1956, the Dresden Sophienkirche in 1963, the Potsdam Garrison Church in June 1968 and the fully intact Leipzig Paulinerkirche in May 1968. Citizens protesting the church demolitions were imprisoned.

Ulbricht attempted to shield the GDR from the cultural and social influences of the western world, particularly the youth culture. He intended to create the most comprehensive youth culture of the GDR, which should be largely independent of western influences.[32]

In 1965 at the 11th Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the SED, he made a critical speech about copying culture from the western world by referring to the "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" of the Beatles song: "Is it truly the case that we have to copy every dirt that comes from the west? I think, comrades, with the monotony of the yeah yeah yeah and how that all is called should we make a stop".[33][34]

Ulbricht's state funeral in Berlin on 7 August 1973.

By the late 1960s, Ulbricht was finding himself increasingly isolated both at home and abroad. The construction of the Berlin Wall became a public relations disaster for him, not only in the West, but even with the Eastern Bloc. This became increasingly critical as the GDR faced increasing economic problems due to his failed reforms, and other countries refused to offer any kind of assistance. His refusal to seek rapprochement with West Germany on Soviet terms, and his rejection of détente infuriated Brezhnev who, by that time, found Ulbricht's demands for greater independence from Moscow increasingly intolerable (especially in the aftermath of the Prague Spring). One of his few victories during this time was the replacement of the GDR's original superficially liberal democratic constitution with a completely Communist document in 1968. The document formally declared East Germany to be a socialist state under the leadership of the SED, thus codifying the actual state of affairs since 1949.

On 3 May 1971 Ulbricht was forced to resign from virtually all of his public functions "due to reasons of poor health" and was replaced, with the consent of the Soviets,[35] by Erich Honecker. Ulbricht was allowed to remain as Chairman of the State Council, the effective head of state, and held on to this post for the rest of his life. Additionally, the honorary position of Chairman of the SED was created especially for him. Ulbricht died at a government guesthouse in Groß Dölln near Templin, north of East Berlin, on 1 August 1973, during the World Festival of Youth and Students, having suffered a stroke two weeks earlier. He was honoured with a state funeral and buried among other communists in the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde.