Anti-fascist barrier

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This photo from the series taken on August 14, 1961 at the Brandenburg Gate was a media icon of the GDR
Postage stamp for the 10th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall
Postage stamp for the 20th anniversary of the combat groups, 1973
Battle band of the Berlin combat groups in Karl-Marx-Allee on the 25th anniversary of the erection of the anti-fascist protective wall on August 13, 1986
East Berlin festival parade 750 years of Berlin on July 4, 1987 with participants in the erection of the anti-fascist protective wall

Antifascist protective wall was the official name for the Berlin Wall in the German Democratic Republic . The composite name was meant to give meaning and exaggeration for the building.

origin

The term " anti-fascist " referred to the legitimation legend of the GDR as an "anti-fascist" state. In addition, the German communists traditionally branded “almost any opposing force as a variant of fascism ”. The term "protective wall" corresponded to the core argument of the SED to the erection of the Berlin Wall, after which the GDR, the shut-off of West Berlin Protection against "human trafficking", "Sabotage", offer fascists and warmongers, but reminded involuntarily of fixing lines from the era of National Socialism as the Siegfried Line and the Atlantic Wall .

The Ministry for State Security (MfS) had already started the propaganda preparation of the intended construction of the wall in 1959 by constructing a military threat to the GDR from the "fascized" Federal Republic. The first highlight in July 1960 was the meticulously planned appearance of the Bundeswehr officers Bruno Winzer and Adam von Gliga , who allegedly had fled to the GDR as responsible patriots, before the world public, where they testified to the "fascization of the Bundeswehr and the entire Bonn state apparatus".

When the wall was erected, the mere sight of it, with its watchtowers and barbed wire , prompted comparisons with concentration camps , which in the West used expressions like “red KZ” and “Ulbricht-KZ” for the GDR and “Ulbricht-SS” for the Knocked down border guards. The term “ wall of shame ”, coined by the governing mayor Willy Brandt in August 1961 , which quickly became well known, was to be given an opposite term with “anti-fascist protective wall”. The originator of the name was in 1961 the SED functionary Horst Sindermann responsible for the propaganda of the GDR .

meaning

On July 31, 1962, the Politburo of the SED declared the words "anti-fascist protective wall" to be the binding designation for the Berlin Wall in the GDR. Until the mid-1960s it took the place of other names under which "the Wall" had been. In public, the designation "anti-fascist protective wall" was now considered a sign of good political behavior.

In public in the GDR, the SED took full control of the pictorial representations of the border fortifications in Berlin. At the same time, the permitted images of the border installations in Berlin had to be in connection with the Brandenburg Gate . Only the photos from a series of the ADN news agency taken there on August 14, 1961 were permitted to document the cordon measures. A photo that showed four armed members of the working class fighting groups with the gate behind them and a determined look to the west became a media icon of the GDR. The gate became the Wall's logo in parades and on postage stamps .

Since Willy Brandt and Egon Bahr introduced a “ policy of small steps ” towards the GDR towards the end of the 1960s , they no longer used words such as “Schandmauer” and “Ulbricht-KZ”. Another reason for the growing silence of Nazi comparisons on the wall was the mid-1960s with the Auschwitz trial commencing processing of the Nazi dictatorship .

Although she had embarked on the policy of small steps, it remained in the GDR until its collapse in 1989 with the designation "anti-fascist protective wall".

Post war

In 1971 a postal war broke out between the Federal Republic and the GDR after the Deutsche Post issued two postage stamps on August 12, 1971, on August 13, 1961–1971 to commemorate the erection of the Wall. The Deutsche Bundespost sent back letters stamped in this way to the senders in the GDR, especially since the first day letters were imprinted with 10 years of anti-fascist protective wall. 10 years of secure protection of peace and socialism carried.

When the Deutsche Post issued a postage stamp for 25 years of the anti-fascist protective wall on August 5, 1986 , the Federal Minister for Post and Telecommunications Christian Schwarz-Schilling announced the "end of the philatelic trench warfare". He decided that only the first day covers would be sent back in order not to contribute to the wall becoming a "rarity" in philately .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herfried Münkler : Antifascism as a founding myth of the GDR . In: Manfred Agethen , Eckhard Jesse , Ehrhart Neubert (eds.): The abused anti-fascism. GDR state doctrine and the lie of the German left . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau, Basel, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-451-28017-5 , pp. 79–99, on the wall p. 87.
  2. ↑ Elena Demke: "Antifascist protective wall" - "Ulbricht concentration camp". Cold War of the Wall Pictures . In: Klaus-Dietmar Henke : The Wall. Establishment, overcoming, memory. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-423-24877-8 , p. 103.
  3. ↑ Elena Demke: "Antifascist protective wall" - "Ulbricht concentration camp". Cold War of the Wall Pictures . In: Klaus-Dietmar Henke : The Wall. Establishment, overcoming, memory. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-423-24877-8 , p. 97, with emphasis on the terms cited in SED propaganda writings.
  4. ↑ "Operation Ostrich Egg"; see Bernd Stöver : “That is the truth, the whole truth.” Liberation policy in the GDR feature film of the 1950s and 1960s. In: Thomas Lindenberger (ed.): Mass media in the Cold War. Actors, images, resonances. Böhlau, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2006, ISBN 978-3-412-23105-7 , p. 63
  5. ↑ The term "Schandmauer" in the Federal Government Bulletin of September 8, 1961, chronik-der-mauer
  6. ↑ Spiegel interview, May 7, 1990. p. 60 .
  7. ↑ Michael Kubina: The SED and its wall . In: Klaus-Dietmar Henke : The Wall. Establishment, overcoming, memory. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-423-24877-8 , p. 87.
  8. ↑ Elena Demke: "Antifascist protective wall" - "Ulbricht concentration camp". Cold War of the Wall Pictures . In: Klaus-Dietmar Henke : The Wall. Establishment, overcoming, memory. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-423-24877-8 , p. 97, there also on the use of Mauer in 1964, note 2 (p. 481).
  9. ↑ Leo Schmidt: The universal iconization of the wall . In: Klaus-Dietmar Henke : The Wall. Establishment, overcoming, memory. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-423-24877-8 , 456-468, here p. 458 f.
  10. ↑ Elena Demke: "Antifascist protective wall" - "Ulbricht concentration camp". Cold War of the Wall Pictures . In: Klaus-Dietmar Henke : The Wall. Establishment, overcoming, memory. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-423-24877-8 , p. 107 f.
  11. ↑ Jan Rosenkranz: Salto postale. The cold philatelic war after the building of the wall , the Friday of August 10, 2001
  12. ↑ Constantin Graf von Hoensbroech: Postal and philatelic trench warfare. The Tabula Rasa of January 24, 2010