The third way (magazine)

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The third way magazine . Zeitschrift für Moderne Sozialismus was a periodical published in the Federal Republic of Germany between 1959 and 1964 that advocated alternatives between Soviet-style socialism and Western capitalism . The magazine was covertly financed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution , which, with its help, intended to feed doubts about the official ideological line of their state and party leadership , especially among SED members in the GDR, and thus to weaken the latter.

Story and content

Most of the authors of this magazine were former communists who had broken with their parties (SED or KPD ) as supporters of a “ Third Way ” : anti-Stalinists such as Wolfgang Leonhard , Hermann Weber , Gerhard Zwerenz , Jo Scholmer and others. The editor was Rudolf Schröder. IMs of the MfS and double agents were also active in the magazine: For example Walter Barthel and Pit Gromnica.

On twelve pages, each issue of the magazine covered a wide range of topics on social issues in the GDR, Eastern Europe and the communist movement. The contributions were loosened up by poetry by Erich Fried , Gerhard Zwerenz or Jewgeni Jewtuschenko , but also by quotations from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels or by appeals such as freedom for comrades Janka , Steinberger and all other imprisoned socialists in the GDR!

The Third Way dealt polemically with politics, social development, the media and the historiography of the GDR. He analyzed SED-ZK conferences, Ulbricht speeches and TV programs by Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler's The Black Channel . The third way spread views of dissidents who could not express themselves publicly in the GDR.

The editor in charge of this magazine was the former FDJ functionary Heinz Lippmann , who had set off for the West with 300,000 DM from his association. He installed Walter Barthel as editor-in-chief. Right from the start, the organ was financed and controlled by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution . IG Metall was specified as the source of finance in the imprint . These Günther Nollau :

“In May 1959 we started our paper with the article Between Stalinism and Capitalism . The attacks on Stalinism were easy for us. But to be credible, we also had to criticize capitalism and the federal government. That was not difficult, because there were many things to complain about about the Ostpolitik at the time . But the attacks had to be dosed in such a way that they [...] had to be represented before the supervisory authority. "

Since Barthel was working at the same time as IM for the State Security of the GDR, every step of the Third Way was known to the "political opponent" before it went to press.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Opperskalski : Heinz Lippmann and the Third Way. ( Memento from July 13, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) In: Secret. 4/2003, accessed on November 13, 2017
  2. ↑ Walter Barthel: From the life of a double agent. In: WDR 3 radio critical diary . January 23, 1996.