Association of mutual farmers' aid

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Flag of the VdgB

The Association of Mutual Farmers Aid ( VdgB ) was a mass organization for the rural population in the German Democratic Republic , which, like all mass organizations, was dominated and led by the SED . Before the peaceful revolution in the GDR , the association was organized in 8,000 local groups with 640,000 members. The accession was less of a voluntary nature, but rather because it was hoped that it would gain social or economic benefits. After 1990 the VdGB was effectively absorbed into the German Farmers 'Association, even if the VdgB of the GDR, which had recently been transformed into the Farmers' Association of the GDR, expired.

history

The Central Association of Mutual Farmers Aid ("ZVdgB") was founded at the First German Farmers' Day in Berlin (East) in November 1947 from the commissions for land reform and committees for mutual aid to farmers formed since autumn 1945 . In November 1950, under pressure from the SED, this merged with the Central Association of Agricultural Cooperatives in Germany to unite mutual aid to farmers / farmers' trade cooperatives (VdgB / BHG). The VdgB, close to the SED, was supposed to dominate the rural cooperative system. The disempowerment of the former Raiffeisen cooperatives in the villages was the prelude to the collectivization of the farms. The highest organs of the association of mutual farmers 'aid were the "German Farmers' Days", later the "Central Delegate Conferences". The aim of the organization was first to support the land reform and later the development of a socialist agriculture. For the collectivization of GDR agriculture that began in 1952 - the formation of agricultural production cooperatives (LPG) - operated by the SED based on the model of the "Lenin Cooperative Plan", the VdgB / BHG also took on the functions incumbent on it in the distribution of seeds, Fertilizers and feed and in the collection of agricultural products

The weekly newspaper Der Freie Bauer appeared as the press organ from 1946 , and from 1985 as the VdgB newspaper Unser Dorf . After 1957 the organization was only called "Association of Mutual Farmers Aid", or "VdgB" for short (decision of the 5th German Farmers' Day). It consisted of the local organizations of the VdgB, whose work was guided and controlled by district boards, district boards and the central board of the VdgB. The district boards and the central board of the VdgB were also the business management and "balance sheet" bodies as well as the auditing association of the cooperatives of the VdgB, especially the rural trading cooperatives (BHG) (1989: 272 legally independent companies with 26,000 employees), the two wine cooperatives of the GDR in Freyburg and Meißen and the 86 dairy cooperatives (for these only auditing service), which in turn were institutions of the local organizations of the VdgB. The VdgB was a member of the National Front of the GDR and was represented in local parliaments from 1950 to 1963, in state parliaments from 1946 to 1952 and in the People's Chamber from 1986 to 1990 .

Since the 1970s at the latest, she has seen her tasks increasingly - in addition to material and technical supply of the agricultural businesses - in the improvement of working and living conditions in the villages, the maintenance of farming traditions, culture and sport as well as the vacation arrangements of the cooperative farmers ("holiday service" - including "VdgB-Erholungsheim Ringberghaus " in Suhl with over 180,000 vacationers since opening 1979, "VdgB guest and vacation home" in Ziegenrück ). The VdgB supported the international relations of the GDR with the exchange of farmer delegations and the qualification of functionaries from other countries at the agricultural engineering school of the VdgB "Friedrich Wehmer" in Teutschenthal . A separate area in the central board of the VdgB took care of relations with the Federal Republic of Germany, especially with the German Farmers' Association (DBV). The VdgB financed its work from profit transfers from the VdgB cooperatives, v. a. the BHG.

At the turn of the century the VdGB leadership feared dissolution and expropriation. It therefore prepared the division of the VdgB into the farmers 'association of the GDR eV (representing the interests of the farmers) on the one hand and the Raiffeisenverband der DDR eV (especially for the farmers' trade cooperatives) on the other hand, which ceased its activities at the latest on the occasion of German reunification . In addition, the local BHGs should be released into self-employment. The BHGn and the Raiffeisenverband should remain members of the farmers' association. This proposal was accepted at the farmers' day in Suhl in March 1990, despite isolated criticism from the grassroots who mistrusted the VdGB leadership, which had been associated with the SED for decades. This was preceded by the demand - vehemently supported by the (West) German cooperative organization - of the Federal Agency for the Credit System (BAKred - today BAFin) on August 30, 1990, according to which the Raiffeisen associations' right to examine in the accession area expired on October 3, 1990 and they themselves to join the associations in the old federal territory. With the exception of Saxony, all Raiffeisen associations in the GDR complied with this requirement; the Thuringian Association decided to liquidate it as early as September 1990, while the one in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania merged - until then tolerated - in 1993. In Saxony-Anhalt there was no association in the legal sense. The tasks as central associations were taken over by the West German cooperative associations ( Deutscher Genossenschafts- und Raiffeisenverband (DGRV), Verband der Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken (BVR) and the German Raiffeisenverband (DRV)) of the Federal Republic. The GDR Raiffeisen Association was converted into the working group of cooperative associations and liquidated around 1994. As an East German association, only the Cooperative Association of Saxony - founded on April 19, 1990, the later (from 2004) Mitteldeutsche Genossenschaftsverband (Raiffeisen / Schulze-Delitzsch) eV existed until it was merged with the Genossenschaftsverband eV, Frankfurt, in 2013 .

Chairperson

See also

Web links

Commons : Association for mutual aid to farmers  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christian Booß: From the mass organization to the Agricultural Pressure Group - The transformation of the Association of Mutual Farmers Aid (VdgB) to the Farmers Association 1990. November 10, 2015, accessed on November 27, 2015 .
  2. ^ A b Christian Booß: Cooperative farms in the field of agriculture that were not LPG. (PDF) November 11, 2011, accessed November 27, 2015 .