Soviet Zone of Occupation

Rainer Karlsch traces the evolution of the chemical industry in the Soviet Zone of Occupation (SZO)/ GDR in the first two postwar decades. He shows how, in spite of emphasis on the chemical industry in economic policy, the industry in the GDR fell behind its counterpart in West Germany, and links this failure in part to the industry s integration into the Eastern European economic zone and disconnection from the international economy. 

Capacity losses, reconstruction, and unfinished modernization The chemical industry in the Soviet Zone of Occupation (SBZ)/GDR, 1945-1965... 

See Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany. A history of the Soviet zone of occupation, 1945-1949 (Cambridge, 1995), 29ff. 

Germany increasing economic and political divergence of Western (US/British/French) and Eastern (Soviet) zones of occupation. Hermann Hesse awarded Nobel Prize for Literature. 

Germany defeated by Allies collapse of Nazi regime July Potsdam Conference divides Germany and Austria into Allied zones of occupation (American, British, French, Soviet). Berlin (in Soviet zone) also divided into four occupied sectors. Four Allies initially agree goals of de-Nazification, demilitarisation and democratisation. Hermann Broch, Der Tod des Vergil... 

But what is not nearly as well known is the fact that it was the Allied liberators of Germany who staged the greatest campaign of book destruction that mankind had ever seen. Among the victims of Allied displeasure were 34,645 titles as well as, comprehensively, all school textbooks published between 1933 and 1945 not only were these no longer permitted to be printed and sold after the war - they also had to vanish from the archives of many libraries.3 In the years from 1946 to 1952, the Soviet Occupation Power published four such lists ( Liste der auszusondemden Literatur , or list of proscribed literature) of titles earmarked for destruction. In accordance with the instructions in the censors introduction to the second and third volumes, the first three of these lists also went into force in the western Occupation Zones. 

The history of oceanographic observations in Wamemiinde is closely related to the history of marine research in Germany after World War II. The rapid development of marine economics and fisheries required the foundation of hydrographic services and marine research institutions also in the Soviet Occupation Zone and later in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). 

In 1945 the Soviet troops discovered only 35,000 tonnes of Wehrmacht s chemical ammunition in the Soviet occupation zone, while the rest 215,000 tonnes were kept in the Western zones. Fortunately, our military archives keep 52 well-saved pages of classified documents regarding the German CW scuttled in 1947 in the Baltic Sea by the Soviet troops. My former colleagues from the Defence Ministry broke the top secret seal and gave me 7 pages of Documentary proved evidence on cases of chemical ammunition scuttling in the Baltic Sea for initiative research. 

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