Personal housekeeping

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Half of the fruit sold in the GDR in 1981 was produced in personal households

In the GDR, personal housekeeping or individual housekeeping referred to the 0.5 ha of agricultural land that every farmer, after joining an agricultural production cooperative (LPG), was allowed to cultivate at his own expense and benefit.

In the statutes for the establishment of the LPGs it was stipulated that you had to bring in your entire area with the exception of 0.5  ha , on which a certain number of animals could be kept. For an LPG type III , this was a maximum of two cows, two sows, a maximum of five sheep and an unlimited number of small animals. After the forced collectivization in 1960, many involuntary cooperative farmers used the work energy for these small areas of their own and there was a “work slowly ideology” in the LPGs.

The housekeeping, which, unlike in the Soviet kolkhozes, was planned from the beginning, originally aimed to secure the livelihood and food security of the rural population. After the restrictions on animal husbandry for private individuals were lifted in 1977, they were an excellent source of income for the LPG employees, around two thirds of whom made use of them. The main cause was the politically wanted discrepancy between state purchase and sale prices under socialism. The proceeds for the delivered products exceeded the sales prices in the shops many times over. It happened that bulls were fed bread because it was cheaper to buy than cattle feed. Rabbits were fattened with oatmeal in order to sell them at high prices to the state trade. It also happened that rabbits or eggs were bought at cheap retail prices in order to later sell them at a higher price to the state purchasing organizations. There was the absurd situation that rabbits could be bought for 15 marks and sold again for 60 marks.

Share of production in 1981 in%
product proportion of
vegetables 28.8
fruit 50.7
Rabbit meat 99.8
Eggs 44.2
Bee honey 98.0

The individual households became more and more important for the supply of food. In addition to the abolition of the permitted number of animals, from 1977 attempts were made to increase production in the household with fattening contracts and cheap loans and bonuses. After the Council for Mutual Economic Aid (Comecon) had agreed, from 1978 onwards higher revenues were paid to private producers of fruit and vegetables than to the production cooperatives. This was tantamount to an admission that the latter were unable to guarantee adequate care.

The liberalization of the policy towards private households also led to an expansion of the areas cultivated by them. In 1976, around 3.8 percent of the LN was farmed by these with 240,000 ha. By 1985 the area had increased to 629,920 hectares, which corresponded to 10.1 percent of the LN. Eight percent of the net food production was generated there, whereby it must be taken into account that a considerable proportion was consumed by the company itself or was not included in the statistics in any other way.

A problem with the private households arose for the management bodies of the LPGs due to the legal regulation that the work performance in the company could not be restricted by the individual economic activity, but this was often not complied with. In practice, it was often the case that many employees stayed away from work when in doubt and preferred to take care of their private small business. The contribution to household income through this was often higher than the earned income in the LPG. There were also regular complaints that private households were withdrawing feed and operating resources from the cooperatives. On the other hand, many farmers were particularly motivated by the fact that housekeeping offered them an opportunity to continue working as independent farmers, at least on a small scale.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Barbara Schier: Everyday life in the "socialist village" , Waxmann Verlag , 2001, ISBN 3830960999 , p. 38.
  2. ↑ a b Jens Schöne : Agriculture of the GDR 1945–1990 , State Center for Political Education Thuringia, 2005, p. 38 available as a pdf ( memento of the original from December 31, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thueringen.de
  3. ^ Antonia Maria Humm : On the way to the socialist village? (= Critical Studies in History . Volume 131). Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-525-35794-X , p. 90.
  4. ↑ Jens Schöne: Agriculture in the GDR 1945–1990 , State Center for Political Education Thuringia, 2005, pp. 65/66.
  5. ↑ Barbara Schier: Everyday Life in the "Socialist Village" , Waxmann Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3830960999 , p. 230.
  6. ↑ Ernst Woll: Bread rolls as rabbit food , Spiegel, January 5, 2012.
  7. ↑ Klaus Schroeder : Der SED-Staat , Böhlau Verlag, 2013, p. 653 ISBN 9783412211097
  8. ^ Barbara Schier: Everyday life in the "socialist village" , Waxmann Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3830960999 , pp. 225/226.
  9. ^ Barbara Schier: Everyday life in the "socialist village" , Waxmann Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3830960999 , p. 224.
  10. ^ Barbara Schier: Everyday life in the "socialist village" , Waxmann Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3830960999 , p. 225.
  11. ^ Barbara Schier: Everyday life in the "socialist village" , Waxmann Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3830960999 , p. 230/231.
  12. ↑ Jens Schöne: Agriculture in the GDR 1945–1990 , State Center for Political Education Thuringia, 2005, p. 67.