The conflict of ideologies and common security

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"The dispute of ideologies and common security"

A joint paper by the SPD and SED was published on August 27, 1987, entitled The Dispute of Ideologies and Common Security . In it, the two parties laid down their common will for the peaceful coexistence of two German states.

The paper was drawn up by the Basic Values ​​Commission of the SPD and the Academy for Social Sciences at the SED Central Committee. Erhard Eppler played a leading role . While Erhard Eppler (SPD) and Rolf Reissig (SED) approached the journalists in the west with the paper, Otto Reinhold (SED) and Thomas Meyer (SPD) did so in the east . Another participant was Harald Neubert . The paper was initially published in the party newspapers Vorwärts and Neues Deutschland .

In the central passage it read: The Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR should "prepare for a long period of time" in which they

“Coexist and have to get along with each other. Neither side may deny the other's right to exist. Our hope cannot be that one system will abolish the other. It is aimed at ensuring that both systems are capable of reform and that the competition between the systems strengthens the will to reform on both sides. "

Coexistence and shared security should therefore apply "without time limit".

The prognosis of a “long period” of further division of Germany did not come true. The party dictatorship of the SED ended just two years later and the division of Germany in the following year.

After its publication, the paper was discussed extremely controversially both in the Federal Republic and in the GDR and drew numerous debates, especially in the media and political parties. The CDU took it as a kind of indication that the SPD had not seriously strived for reunification, but rather put it at risk with its dialogue policy. For example, the decision of the 22nd party congress of the CDU in November / December 2008 states:

"Two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, on August 27, 1987, the SPD and SED presented a basic values ​​paper in which the Social Democrats practically abandoned the goal of reunification."

In the GDR, interest in the joint SED / SPD document was so great after its publication that the newspaper “Neues Deutschland”, which printed the paper in full on August 28, 1987, was out of print within a very short time.

In the following months, the script was discussed in wide circles of GDR society, in churches, opposition groups, as well as at academic events and at universities. Although the paper was welcomed by many citizens, in particular by opposition activists and representatives of civil rights groups, after its publication, there were also critical opinions. Some members of the opposition had an ambivalent relationship to the dialogue talks between the SPD and SED and the joint ideology paper. On the one hand, they endorsed the content of the paper and saw in it, as it were, an important first step towards a far-reaching social dialogue; on the other hand, it was also criticized that the opposition had not been directly involved in the talks.

The reactions to the paper were different in the USA and the USSR. Although there were supporters and opponents of the paper in both countries, especially in government circles in the USA, it was viewed with skepticism from the start and the dialogue talks as such were rejected. In the USSR, however, the attitude towards paper changed. After an initial phase of skepticism and anger about the SED going it alone, it was increasingly welcomed by the government from 1988 onwards.

literature

  • Rolf Reissig: Dialogue through the Wall. The controversial rapprochement between the SPD and SED. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-593-37066-2 .
  • Lothar Mertens : Red think tank? The Academy for Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED. Chapter 6: Comments on the SED-SPD paper. LIT, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-8034-6 , p. 215ff.
  • Nina Grözinger: Dialogue and Dissent. The SPD-SED paper from 1987. The social democratic policy on Germany in the 1980s using the example of the SPD-SED dialogue paper. Akademikerverlag, Saarbrücken 2016, ISBN 978-3-639-88664-1 .
  • Erich Hahn : SED and SPD. A dialogue. Ideology Talks between 1984 and 1989 edition ost, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-360-01038-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Party convention of the CDU from November 30th to December 2nd, 2008 (Ed.): Decision of the 22nd party congress of the CDU in Germany. Divided. United. Together. Perspectives for East Germany, Stuttgart 2008, pp. 1–22.
  2. ↑ It should be noted critically that many GDR citizens who had not received a copy of "New Germany" found it difficult to acquire the paper afterwards. The Central Committee bureaucracy had forbidden any further printing of the paper. (See Lothar Mertens: Rote Denkfabrik? The Academy for Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED. Cologne 2004, p. 215).
  3. ^ Wolfgang Templin: Controversial positions of the citizen movement. In: Karl Giebeler, Alfred Geisel (Ed.): The SPD-SED dialogue paper. Pp. 131-141.
  4. ↑ Nina Grözinger: Dialogue and Dissent. The SPD-SED paper from 1987. The social democratic policy on Germany in the 1980s using the example of the SPD-SED dialogue paper. P. 76.
  5. ^ Ann L. Phillips: The West German Social Democrats' second phase of Ostpolitik in historical perspective. In: Lily Gardner Feldman (Ed.): The FRG at forty. (= German politics and society. Volume 16). Cambridge 1989, pp. 408-424.
  6. ^ Rolf Reissig: Dialogue through the wall. The controversial rapprochement between the SPD and SED. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 311ff.