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New Volume of Previously Secret Documents Sheds Light on the East German Uprising of June 1953

National Security Archive publication coincides with
June 17 anniversary of the crisis


 
Contact:  Christian F. Ostermann  011-49-30-238110 (as of June 13)
Malcolm Byrne (202) 994-7043 (e-mail: mbyrne@gwu.edu)
June 13, 2001

Newly published documents on the landmark worker-led uprising of June 1953 in East Germany show that the crisis was far more widespread and protracted than previously believed.  The documents, obtained from the files of the former ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) of East Germany, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), as well as other former Soviet bloc and American archives, also prove that the scale of the crackdown was much larger than official sources had indicated.  

The new records included in this volume will contribute to the ongoing heated debate in Germany over the nature of the uprising and the planned construction of a memorial to those who died during the unrest.

“The 1953 uprising was a pivotal event in the Cold War -- the first serious disorders to occur in the ‘workers’ paradise’,” says the volume’s editor, Christian F. Ostermann, currently Director of the Cold War International History Project in Washington, D.C.  “They not only became an early reference point for later civil outbursts in Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968 and Poland 1980, but they also foreshadowed the ultimate demise of the GDR in 1989.”

 Highlights from the volume include:
 

  • Top-level transcripts of the East German leaders’ meetings with Joseph Stalin

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  • Internal documents showing deep tensions within the East German leadership

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  • Detailed Soviet and East German postmortems of the riots revealing extent of demonstrations and difficulties in crushing the uprising, even through force

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  • U.S. proposals to expand covert operations against East Germany, including encouraging “elimination of key puppet officials”

  • The new volume, Uprising in East Germany, 1953: The Cold War, the German Question, and the First Major Upheaval behind the Iron Curtain, is being published by the Central European University Press in Budapest as part of the “National Security Archive Cold War Document Reader” series.  The book is a product of a joint research venture by The National Security Archive (George Washington University) and the Cold War International History Project (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars), both based in Washington, D.C.

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