🏠 Security and comfort
Honecker offered jobs, cheap flats and welfare, so people had a reason to feel the GDR looked after them (see Economic Problems in the 1980s).
Life in the GDR: Social Change, 1962-87 » Honecker, GDR Identity, the Media and Sport
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section A, Investigation A5, Key topic 3
- How Honecker tried to build a GDR identity
- The role of state television, newspapers and Western television
- Why sport and Olympic success mattered to the GDR
- How to answer a 16-mark question on an interpretation
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Unlock This CourseHonecker and a GDR identity
Erich Honecker led the GDR from 1971 to 1989. He wanted East Germans to feel that the GDR was their own country, not just the poorer half of Germany. This feeling of belonging to the GDR, and pride in it, is called a GDR identity.
Key terms:
- Identity: a sense of who you are and which group you belong to.
- Mass media: ways of reaching large numbers of people, such as television and newspapers.
- Valley of the Clueless: the nickname for parts of the GDR that could not pick up Western television.
📖 A GDR of its own
The 1974 constitution dropped mentions of one German nation. The GDR also claimed the best of German history, marking Martin Luther's 500th birthday and a Karl Marx Year in 1983.
The limits were clear. East Germans shared a language and many relatives with West Germans, and the Wall meant they could not choose where to live. Pride in the GDR was real for some people, but weak for many others.
Mass media: two televisions
State television, run by the Deutscher Fernsehfunk, and newspapers such as Neues Deutschland, the SED's own paper, spoke for the party. Their evening news, Aktuelle Kamera, gave the official version of events. Alongside news they offered films, quizzes and children's programmes, so the state could reach families at home.
Western television was the big rival. West German channels could be seen in most of the GDR, and in the 1970s the authorities stopped trying to stop people watching. Viewers saw news that the GDR did not report, plus films, adverts and shops full of goods. In the Dresden area and parts of the north-east, signals were weak, so these places were nicknamed the Valley of the Clueless.
Why it matters
Western television let East Germans compare their lives with life in the West every evening. That made it hard for the state to be the only voice, and it weakened the GDR identity Honecker wanted.
Sport and Olympic success
The GDR first sent its own team to the Olympics in 1968. Honecker's government spent huge sums on sport. Talented children were spotted at school and trained at special sports schools and clubs.
🏅 The results
At the 1976 Montreal Olympics the GDR won 40 gold medals, second only to the Soviet Union, from a country of around 17 million people.
🏆 The purpose
Medals gave pride at home, showed the world the GDR was a real country, and were used to claim that socialism worked.
There was a hidden cost. It was later shown that the state ran a doping programme, and many athletes, some of them teenagers, were given banned drugs.
Common mistakes
- Saying Western television was banned. In the 1970s it was mostly tolerated.
- Saying all East Germans felt a GDR identity. Many felt German first.
- Treating medals as proof of loyalty. They brought pride, but not support for the party.
Exam-style question
This is the style of Paper 2 Section A, question (c). Read the two sources and the extract, then answer the question.
Source A: From a report by Erich Honecker, First Secretary of the SED, to the Party Congress of the SED, June 1971 (translated).
'We know only one goal, which permeates all the policies of our party: to do everything possible for the good of the citizens, for the happiness of the people, for the interests of the working class and of all workers. That is the meaning of socialism.'
Source B: From a report by the SED party information department in Leipzig, 14 March 1984 (translated).
'At the moment, emigration to the FRG is the subject of more and more discussion in party and work collectives. [ ... ] In social studies instruction at the company vocational school ... in Leipzig-Halle, an apprentice asked if the figures announced on West German television were accurate.'
Extract C (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history book):
'By the 1980s Honecker had given the GDR an identity of its own. Rising living standards, Olympic gold medals and a state television service made many East Germans proud of their country. Few loved the system, but most had come to accept it as their home, and the GDR seemed secure.'
Extract C suggests that Honecker's policies gave most East Germans a GDR identity. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer. [16 marks]
Model answer
Extract C argues that Honecker's policies made most East Germans accept the GDR as their home. There is some support for this. The extract points to rising living standards, and Source A shows this was Honecker's stated aim: he told the 1971 Party Congress that the party's goal was 'the happiness of the people'. My own knowledge backs this up. Rents were very low, new flats were built, and in 1976 the GDR won 40 gold medals at Montreal, second only to the Soviet Union, from around 17 million people. The 1974 constitution dropped mentions of one German nation, and the 1983 celebrations of Luther and Karl Marx tried to give the GDR a past of its own. Many people did take pride in sport and valued secure jobs and cheap housing.
However, the evidence challenges the idea that most people accepted a GDR identity. Source A is a report by the party leader to his own congress, so it shows what Honecker wanted people to believe, not what they felt. Source B, written for the party in 1984, is more revealing. It says emigration was 'the subject of more and more discussion' even in party collectives, and that an apprentice questioned 'the figures announced on West German television'. This suggests that even an apprentice at a company vocational school questioned official figures and checked them against Western broadcasts. Extract C ignores this. Western television reached most of the country, so people compared their lives with the West, not just with the GDR's past. The Wall still divided families, and the sporting success hid a secret doping programme. By 1989, thousands were leaving through Hungary and Czechoslovakia and mass protests forced Honecker out in October, which suggests that loyalty was shallow.
Overall, I agree only in part. Honecker's policies gave many East Germans a stake in the GDR through homes, jobs and sporting pride, and the extract is right that most people got on with their lives. But 'most' accepting a GDR identity goes too far. Source B and the events of 1989 suggest that acceptance rested on comfort and a lack of choice, and faded once Western influence grew and leaving became possible. A fairer judgement is that Honecker built a partial and fragile identity.
What lifts it to the top level: it weighs both sides using Extract C and both sources, adds precise own knowledge, and reaches a judgement that explains why 'most' is too strong.
Exam tip
Question (c) always has a 'how far' judgement. Name each source, quote it, say what it cannot tell you (a leader's speech shows his aims, not people's feelings), then finish by weighing both sides.