Science and technology in the GDR

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Science and technology in the GDR were subject to the ideological guidelines of the state and thus of the SED , which committed itself to scientific socialism . This concerned the focus of research and the handling of the results in universities and in industry.

Ideological and social conditions

The Marxist belief in progress predicated the development of science and technology to increase the productive forces and to provide the necessary resources for socialism . Walter Ulbricht's slogan "Chemistry brings bread - prosperity - beauty" expressed the confidence in the "chemicalization" of production and agriculture in 1958. Another task was the creation of a “technical intelligentsia from among the ranks of the working class and the layers allied with it” (II. Party Conference of the SED 1952). Accordingly, the general number of students (from 31,000 to around 100,000) and lecturers rose sharply until 1960, especially in the natural sciences and technology. In 1964 the SED elevated science to the “fourth productive force” of the “scientific-technical revolution” (WTR) alongside capital, labor and land. The ideology included the idea that the creative power of the working people, together with the creative use of science and technology by the intelligentsia , would improve life up to communism (technology optimism). The research council of the GDR exercised the political supervision. In the central committee of the SED under the secretary responsible for culture and education Kurt Hager, the department head Johannes Hörnig was responsible for the field of science from 1955 to 1989.

This idea stood in the way of unfavorable working conditions for scientists and engineers: an economic situation that was always worse than in the Federal Republic, poor pay, a shortage of academics and east-west competition. The social sciences in the GDR were subject to the ideological dictates of the prevailing Marxism-Leninism , the content of which should also be confirmed in the natural sciences . Jürgen Kocka and Detlef Pollack emphasize that the claim of the GDR authorities for all-encompassing political control could not be enforced, especially in the field of research. Economic guidelines and personal access also gave unconventional scientists such as Werner Hartmann and Manfred von Ardenne greater freedom at times. Manfred von Ardenne set up the most important private research institute in the entire Eastern Bloc in Dresden with almost 500 employees . The ideological requirements also stood in the way of a high practical and application-oriented research .

Semiconductor production in the VEB Kombinat Mikroelektronik Erfurt

The universities and research institutes were financed by the state. However, in order to improve the practical application, research projects were also funded to a large extent by the state industrial combinations , which cooperated with institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR . In 1976, academy-industry complexes were created , for example for drug research between the Institute for Active Ingredient Research and the VEB Berlin-Chemie. Universities should also cooperate with the industry and be financed by it, which encouraged the emergence of “house universities” in large combines.

Independent industrial research was carried out in the large combines with a considerable workforce. Centers of modern high technology were, for example, the Combine Microelectronics Erfurt , the Combine Carl Zeiss Jena and the Combine Robotron with a focus on Dresden , but they always had to be based on state planning.

Results of science policy

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
But that was certainly not due to the GDR science policy, which completely reveals this section as a POV. - Label5 ( coffee? ) 2:02 p.m., Jan. 26, 2014 (CET)

The level of research presented a mixed picture. Although the GDR was able to build on a school system with a strong mathematical and scientific orientation and train highly qualified students and young scientists, the means and unhindered access to the publications and specialist congresses of the international scientific community were lacking for top research on a global scale. Cooperation within the Eastern Bloc could hardly replace this. No researcher in the GDR received a Nobel Prize .

The systematic industrial espionage carried out by the main administration was only able to obtain a replacement for the Ministry for State Security (MfS), where there was a separate “science and technology sector”. The West already gained an insight into the scope of activities through the defector Werner Stiller in 1979. The technology theft particularly affected militarily relevant areas in which Western companies were prohibited from exporting to the GDR ( CoCom ). The MfS had many years of success with Standard Elektrik Lorenz , IBM and Siemens . The annual savings are estimated at up to 300 million DM.

Computer development, which Gerhard Schürer , head of planning, was a key industry in the 1980s , became a symbol of the failed science policy of the SED . The extremely cost-intensive development of high-performance chips lagged far behind the Western competitors, and even more so did the practice-relevant mass production at Robotron . Schürer had to fend off violent criticism from Günter Mittag for neglecting all other areas, although controversial issues were not discussed in the SED Politburo .

organization

The Academy of Sciences of the GDR organized about a third of the technical research and was the leading institution. Several (central) institutes researched in different fields, such as the Central Institute for Nuclear Research since 1956 in Dresden-Rossendorf or the Central Institute for Welding Technology under the successful inventor Werner Gilde in Halle (Saale) since 1952. In 1955 there were seven technical universities , three of which later elevated to a technical university, two agricultural universities, a university for economics in Berlin and since 1969 ten engineering universities that emerged from older engineering schools. 6100 lecturers taught there. In addition there were the mathematical, scientific, medical and technical faculties of the six universities ( Berlin , Greifswald , Halle-Wittenberg , Jena , Leipzig and Rostock ).

Important technical colleges and universities were:

Bergakademie Freiberg , University of Architecture and Construction Weimar , University of Agriculture and Food Management Bernburg , University of Agricultural Production Cooperatives Meißen, University of Seafaring Warnemünde-Wustrow , University of Transport Dresden, Technical University of Construction Cottbus , Technical University Ilmenau , Technical University Köthen , Technical University of Leipzig , Technical University of Leuna-Merseburg , Technical University of Wismar , Technical University of Zittau , Technical University of Zwickau , Technical University of Dresden , Technical University of Karl-Marx-Stadt , Technical University of Magdeburg

Products and developments

Sigmund Jähn

Important products, areas, events, discoveries, developments, results in the scientific and technical area of ​​the GDR were (including the preliminary stages in the Soviet occupation zone):

Space technology and research

Electrical engineering and electronics

P8000 with WEGA 3.1
A KC 85/1 with a Junost television set, a Geracord recorder and a K6313 printer
Stern-Recorder R160 from VEB RFT Sternradio Berlin
  • Development, construction and copying of analog and digital integrated circuits such as microprocessors , memory chips and CCD sensors as well as almost all active and passive electronic components. Many of these products were on the CoCom embargo list of the USA, Japan, the EEC and other western countries because of their possible military use . The development of our own technology for the production of memory chips led to the production of complex 1 Mbit memory circuits with a structure width of 1.2 µm. Some microprocessor systems have been developed since the 1970s:
  • Mainframe: ESER (IBM S / 360 and S / 370 compatible, within the framework of the RGW )
  • Minicomputer: K 1600 , DEC PDP-11 compatible; K1840 , corresponds to DEC VAX 11/780
  • Personal computer: PC 1715 , A 5120 (both office PCs), EC 1834 (XT-compatible) and the robotron A 5105 educational computer (for universities and for vocational training) were produced by Robotron . The 8-bit microcomputer P8000 as a desktop version with OS / M operating system (compatible with CP / M ) and as a tower version as a 16-bit microcomputer with several monitor workstations for multi-user and multi-task applications (operating system WEGA , compatible with Unix ) produced by the EAW .
  • Home computers : Z1013 (kit), Z 9001 , KC 85/1 , KC 87 and KC 85/2 to KC 85/4 .
  • Industrial PC : 8-bit MC80 microcomputer from VEB Elektronik Gera.
  • Development and mass production of entertainment (TV, radio) and industrial electronics and electrical engineering, for example at RFT and Robotron
  • Radio technology and radio systems:
    • Transceiver SEG 15 D, SEG 100, Teltow , EKN, for example at Funkwerk Köpenick
    • Radio receivers EKV 10–13, EKD 100, 300 and 500
    • Radios U 700, UFT 721, UFS
    • Short wave transmitter KSG 1300, KN1E, KN5E, KN20
  • Electric motors, turbines and generators

Mechanical engineering and technology

  • Automation technology (robots, control technology, automatic machines and semi-automatic machines)
  • numerous machines, devices and systems for industry, the chemical and petroleum industry and agriculture
  • technological processes, for example welding processes ( Central Institute for Welding Technology (ZIS) , Halle (Saale) )

vehicle construction

Passenger and commercial vehicles

Wartburg 353 , Wartburg 311 , EMW 340
IFA L60

All vehicle construction companies in the GDR were combined in the Vehicle Construction Industry Association, which from the late 1960s was divided into several combines (including IFA Combine Commercial Vehicles, VEB IFA Combine PKW, VEB IFA Combine for two-wheeled vehicles), in which the individual production sites / State-owned enterprises were grouped together. Important products were:

Samson Swallow

Agricultural vehicles and construction machinery

Progress ZT 300
T 174

Construction of tractors , agricultural machinery , harvesters, combine harvesters and construction machinery

Locomotive and wagon construction

DR series V 180
DR series 250
  • Locations: Lokomotivbau Karl Marx Babelsberg , Institute for Rail Vehicles Berlin-Adlershof , Lokomotivbau Elektrotechnische Werke Hennigsdorf
  • 1951 Construction of the locomotive H 45 024 suitable for lignite combustion by the Association of Nationally Owned Enterprises Locomotive and Wagon Construction (LOWA)
  • 1961 express locomotive 18201
  • from 1956 further development of the BR 50, for example BR 50.40 ; The last steam locomotive model in this series was 504088
  • From 1954 construction of the rust-fired locomotive BR 25 001 and from 1958 the coal dust locomotive BR 25 1002
  • from 1954 construction of the class 65.10 passenger train tank locomotive by VEB LEW Hennigsdorf and series production at VEB LKM Babelsberg (coal locomotive)
  • 1956 BR 50 (coal locomotive)
  • From 1955 construction of the first large multi-purpose diesel locomotive V 180 , development from 1953 by the Institute for Rail Vehicles Berlin Adlershof , the locomotive construction "Karl Marx" Babelsberg and the Deutsche Reichsbahn, later development of the V 240 and V 300
  • 1958–1990 Construction of the first diesel locomotive V 60 1001 and the prototypes V60 1003–1007 (1961), V60 1201 (1964), V60 106.0–1 (1974) etc. in VEB Lokomotivbau “Karl Marx” in Babelsberg and later in LEW Hennigsdorf
  • from 1960 construction of E 11 or E 42 electric locomotives , six-axle BR 250 , BR 243 (today 143), BR 252 (today BR 156)
  • Trams for example articulated multiple units G4-65 , Rostock # 721 from 1959 to 1967
  • Construction of double-deck coaches and trains

shipbuilding

Dry dock at the Neptun shipyard , June 24, 1985
Sea passenger ship of the Mikhail Kalinin class from VEB Mathias Thesen Werft Wismar

Construction of merchant ships, passenger ships, fish loggers, military ships, fishing and processing vessels and marine engines

  • Locations: Neptun-Werft ( Rostock ), Warnowwerft ( Warnemünde ), VEB Schiffbaukombinat Rostock , MTW ( Wismar ), Peene-Werft ( Wolgast ), Elbe-Werft, Damgarten, Brandenburg , Rosslau and Magdeburg , the institute for shipbuilding technology, the Volkswerft Stralsund , Rechlin shipyard, shipyards in Barth and Boizenburg , Rostock ship electronics , Greifswald communications electronics , VEB Klement-Gottwald-Werke Schwerin
  • Peene shipyard in Wolgast:
    • 1949 to 1952 construction of loggers and tugs in Wolgast: a total of 178 ships that were delivered to the USSR as reparations.
    • from 1951 this shipyard was used by the GDR government as a "national defense company". 73 percent of the ships of the Volksmarine were developed and built here.
    • 1951 Construction of a new coastal protection boat for the maritime police
    • 1950 to 1990 the shipyard initially built mine-laying, minesweeping and clearing vehicles, later the roadstead anti-mine boat project 415 was developed here.
    • from the 1960s construction of anti-submarine forces (the two generations Hai, Parchim I / II), landing craft (the generations Labo Type 46, Robbe Type 47, Frog Type 108), torpedo speedboats. From 1950 to 1990 245 new naval units were built, 19 rebuilt or partially built and 3 hulls without equipment. In addition, around 35 ships were repaired and around 30 serviced annually.
  • Neptun shipyard Rostock:
    • At the end of the 1970s, seven high seas utilities were built for the NVA's People's Navy (Darss class).

Aircraft construction

Presentation of the 152 / I
Assembly hall with Ilyushin Il-14

The GDR owned around 5,000 military and civil aircraft and helicopters. They were owned by the state-owned Interflug or its predecessor, Deutsche Lufthansa . They were used by the NVA , GST , the People's Police and the aircraft industry in the GDR.

Mining machinery

Optical instruments

Pentacon camera
  • Cameras ( Pentacon , EXA ), binoculars, telescopes, film cameras, optical measurement technology, planetariums, navigation technology, for example at VEB Carl-Zeiss-Jena

Scientific device construction

Chemical industry and research

Special role of military technology

In 1989, the direct armaments industry in the GDR consisted of 74 companies with predominantly or partially arms production, in which around 42,000 employees were employed. In addition, there were a number of supplier companies, so that a total of around 130 companies and parts of companies (final producers and suppliers) were commissioned with the production of military goods and around 285 companies and parts of companies (including 25 special repair companies) were commissioned with the repair of military goods and employed around 100,000 people . Many of the purely state-owned GDR armaments companies specialized in the production and repair of armaments almost entirely without a civilian “mainstay”.

Organization and products

VEB Carl Zeiss Jena (1978)
VEB Kombinat Robotron Dresden (1990)

All companies in the defense industry possessed (in RGW comparison) modern premises with highly productive technology and equipment. The workers and engineers employed in the company had a high level of qualification and a pronounced quality awareness. The armaments companies were classified as independent operations or parts of operations in the combines, with the exception of the special technology combine in Dresden, which only included arms companies. Accordingly, they were subordinate to the economic management of the industrial ministries and the State Planning Commission of the GDR . They were thus (unlike in the People's Republic of China ) clearly separated from the army. The initiative for armaments projects came from the relevant bodies in the SED. The share of arms production in the industrial goods production of the combines varied depending on the product range. The following combines had the largest share of arms production in 1986:

The total volume of defense technology goods and services produced in 1989 totaled 3.7 billion marks, of which defense technology was exported to a value of 1.4 billion marks. The main customer was the Soviet Union.

Machine guns of the Kalaschnikow series (VEB equipment and tool construction Wiesa, GWB for short, in Wiesa , today Spezialwerkzeuge und Hydraulik GmbH) were also supplied to various countries outside the Warsaw Pact. There were also exports to the non-socialist economic area (NSW). A considerable amount of foreign currency was generated in the GWB and even small arms were developed for export in exchange for foreign currency (see Wieger brand ).

Around 1980 arms deliveries to African countries amounted to around 200 million marks annually. In addition, repairs of fighter planes ( VEB Flugzeugwerft Dresden , today Elbe Flugzeugwerke GmbH) were carried out for friendly countries such as Iran and Iraq during the war against each other .

The total volume corresponded to about one percent of the industrial production of goods in the entire GDR. The main services included the repair and modernization of Soviet defense technology as well as the production of defense technology based on Soviet licenses and own developments for the National People's Army and for the armies of the Warsaw contracting states. The GDR carried out 86 percent of all repairs to military goods for its own armed forces.

Main products and services were in particular:

a) Repairs, especially of Soviet armaments
b) production of
  • Rifle weapons and rifle ammunition,
  • Hand grenades, mines and pyrotechnics,
  • Anti-tank missile complexes and fire control systems,
  • Combat and auxiliary ships,
  • Bridge-laying tanks, floating tanks
  • mobile special structures and installations on motor vehicles,
  • mechanical and electronic security technology,
  • Education and training equipment
  • Service and protective clothing and camouflage materials;
c) Scientific and technical achievements in the fields
  • Basic technologies of microelectronics and manufacturing of components for fiber optic communication
  • High performance and infrared optics
  • digital and optically parallel image processing
  • optoelectronic sensors
  • Laser technology
  • Camouflage means
  • Technologies for the repair of defense technology.

The microelectronics program

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
For the 1 megabit chip U61000D , the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena combine was awarded the gold medal at the Leipzig spring fair in 1989.

A central research and economic program that even outlasted the GDR was the microelectronics program in the south of the GDR. From 1977 onwards, around 15 billion GDR Marks were invested in this then primarily military-oriented program to build up its own microelectronics industry. The Soviet Union stopped buying armaments products from the mid-1980s (see below). A switch to purely civil production initially failed because of the boycott-related lack of availability of western basic technologies. (In the meantime, however, successor companies and new settlements in so-called Silicon Saxony are quite successful.)

In the wake of NATO's double resolution of December 1979 and the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) announced by US President Ronald Reagan in 1983, armament efforts in the GDR were also intensified, with a focus on military electronics. A Politburo resolution of May 24, 1983 planned to increase the military production shares of the Carl Zeiss Jena Combine from 15.7 percent in 1983 to 28 percent in 1990. The core projects were the development and production of a homing head for air-to-air missiles, an optoelectronic homing head for sea target missiles and remote sensing systems for war in space . The militarization of microelectronics affected the entire industrial sector. By 1990, military exports were planned to almost triple compared to 1981/85, which was no longer relevant when Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the CPSU on March 11, 1985. As a result of its disarmament policy , the GDR's armaments industry suddenly lost its largest buyer, the Soviet Union, as well as the raw materials it traded for. As early as mid-1986, the general director of Carl-Zeiss Jena, Wolfgang Biermann, had a concept drawn up for the actual discontinuation of military projects on Honecker's personal instructions; a switch to civilian production resulted in the high proportion of in-house production of microelectronic components (in 1989 around 70 percent, Germany around 40 Percent) to absurd cost structures that contributed to the de facto national bankruptcy of the GDR at the end of the 1980s.

literature

  • Mitchell Ash : Science, Politics and Modernity in the GDR. Approaches to reconsideration . In: Karin Weisemann, Peter Kröner, Richard Toellner (eds.): Science and politics. Genetics and Human Genetics in the GDR (1949–1989) . Lit, Münster 1997, pp. 1-25.
  • Jürgen Kocka: Science and Politics in the GDR . In: ders., Renate Mayntz (Ed.): Science and reunification. Disciplines in transition . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1998, pp. 435–459.
  • Dieter Hoffmann, Kristie Macrakis (ed.): Natural science and technology in the GDR . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 978-3-05-002955-9 .
  • Ralph Jessen: Academic Elite and Communist Dictatorship. The East German university teaching staff in the Ulbricht era . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999 (online) .
  • Clemens Burrichter, Gerald Diesener (ed.): On the way to the “productive force of science” . AVA-Akademische Verlagsanstalt, Dresden 2002, ISBN 3-931982-29-7 .
  • Jens Niederhut: Exchange of Science in the Cold War: The East German Scientists and the West . Böhlau, Cologne and others 2007, ISBN 341223706X .
  • Horst Müller u. a. (Ed.): The industrial espionage in the GDR: the scientific-technical clearing up of the HVA . edition ost , Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-360-01099-5 .
  • Peer Pasternack : Science and Politics in the GDR. Reconstruction and literature report (HoF work report 4'10), ed. from the Institute for University Research Halle-Wittenberg (HoF), Wittenberg 2010, ISSN  1436-3550 , ISBN 978-3-937573-23-6 , (PDF file; 2.1 MB) .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jessen: Academic Elite . P. 148f.
  2. ^ Hans-Hermann Hertle , Stefan Wolle : At that time in the GDR. Everyday life in the workers 'and peasants' state . Munich 2004, p. 120. Ulbricht's statement at the chemistry conference in Leuna in 1958 read exactly: "Chemistry brings bread, scientific and technical progress, high work productivity and prosperity for the whole people."
  3. ↑ Jessen: Academic Elite . P. 43.
  4. ↑ a b c Science and Politics in the GDR . In: Jürgen Kocka, Renate Mayntz (Hrsg.): Science and reunification. Disciplines in transition . Berlin 1998.
  5. ↑ Detlef Pollack: Modernization and Modernization Blockages in GDR Society . In: Konrad Jarausch (Ed.): Dictatorship as Experience: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR. New York, Oxford 1999, pp. 27-45
  6. ^ Ralf Rytlewski: Science, research and technology . In Ploetz: The GDR. Data, facts, analyzes . Edited by A. Fischer, updated by F. Bedürftig, Cologne 2004, pp. 217, 220.
  7. ^ H. Knabe: The infiltrated republic. Stasi in the west . Munich 2001, p. 438.
  8. ↑ Handelsblatt September 15, 2006: With the crumbs from the cake . On chip production in the GDR.
  9. ↑ CS Maier: The Disappearance of the GDR and the Fall of Communism . Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 138 ff.
  10. ^ Ploetz: The GDR. Data, facts, analyzes . Edited by A. Fischer and others, Cologne 2004, p. 215 ff.
  11. ↑ A. Herbst and others: This is how the GDR worked. Lexicon organizations and institutions . rororo, Reinbek 1994, Volume 2, article "Technical and agricultural universities of the GDR".
  12. ↑ a b Werner Hänsel, Heinz Michael: Armaments conversion in the new federal states .