East Germany and the Frontiers of Power

Introduction 9seaboard could not impose ‘European’ values on the pioneer spirit.⁴⁴ The EastGerman authorities likewise struggled to assert themselves when their citizens,too, could ‘go west’. The open border offered loopholes to dictatorship, andthe negotiation of power between gatekeepers and citizenry was not alwaysstacked in the state’s favour. Its short-term victories, such as 13 August 1961,stored up the seeds of future problems, as Chapters 7 and 8 will show. Thebook traces the ebbs and flows of this asymmetric conflict. Many of thoseEast Germans confined within the system undoubtedly perceived themselvesat the time as relatively powerless, but it would be condescending to denyindividuals any agency in this contest. At a further remove, and with twodecades of hindsight, one might see the GDR as one of the first victims of theglobalization process which knows no national frontiers. East Germany triedperhaps harder than any modern state to seal itself off from the outside ‘first’world of capitalism and democracy. The electronic mass media were neverthelesscapable of penetrating the iron curtain in ways which made it increasinglyanachronistic and futile.Economist Albert O. Hirschman was among the first to theorize power inopen and closed systems. In his seminal Exit, Voice and Loyalty,⁴⁵ he arguedthat any member of an economic, social or political entity faced with an adversesituation has two basic options: either to walk away (exit), or to speak upand complain (voice). ‘Voice’ could range from ‘faint grumbling to violentprotest’,⁴⁶ but was always most effective when collectively articulated, whereas‘exit’ was an individual solution, a quiet slipping away. Moreover, the twowere diametrically opposed like opposite ends of a see-saw: generally speaking,exit would, according to Hirschman, ‘tend to atrophy the development of theartofvoice’.⁴⁷ Nevertheless, both actions encouraged hierarchies to remedyshortcomings, particularly where competition existed. In monopolistic systems,however, ‘management’—in this case the communist state—would have lessinterest in recuperation, especially where a limited outlet existed. We mightreasonably ask whether, with the open border, East German communists wereindeed happy to see the back of troublemakers. The availability of West Germanyas a dumping ground may have encouraged the Stalinist excesses of the 1950s.Equally plausibly, the open frontier before 1961 may have acted as a safety valvefor popular discontent and a brake on authoritarianism. This is an importantambiguity and one to which I shall return, although there is no clear answer tothis paradox.Freedom of movement has, nevertheless, generally been seen to increase theroom for manoeuvre of those left behind and to encourage reform. Conversely,⁴⁴ Frederick Jackson Turner, ‘The Significance of the Frontier in American History’, in id., TheFrontier in American History (New York: Henry Holt, 1920), 1–38.⁴⁵ Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations andStates (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970).⁴⁶ Ibid., 16. ⁴⁷ Ibid., 43.