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> West Germany attempted to isolate East Germany with the so-called Hallstein Doctrine, which amounted to a pretty solid trade embargo. The first sentence is t
by holgerschurig 19d ago
> West Germany attempted to isolate East Germany with the so-called Hallstein Doctrine, which amounted to a pretty solid trade embargo.
The first sentence is true, and is what I know. The second economical leg of this sentence is new to me.
Basically, Hallstein Doctrine was what "One China" politics is. The BRD assume that is is the sole legitimate (since democratically elected) government. For example, someone from east germany fleeing to west german already had the (west) germanship citizenship, no paperwork needed to get it.
However, Hallstein doctrine had --- to the best knowledge ... very unspecified reactions. Germany e.g. stop diplomatic relationships with Cuba. But not economical ties, I know that my father continued to smoke Havanna cigars (eeeek!). They stopped diplomatic ties with Yugoslavia ... but all the Winnetou Films were recorded there, and it even became a holiday destination for west germans. Also all payments continued, it was not an economical embargo.
In the case of Egypt it could be seen like that. When Egypt accepted the state-hood of east-germany, then West-Germany broke it's diplomatic ties AND stopped its economical aid. I'm not aware of it stopping buying oil from Egypt, thought.
Fan fact: there is also two inverses of the Hallstein doctrine. The first one is the Ulbricht Doctrine. That doctrine mandated that socialist countries mustn't normalize their diplimatic ties to west-germany until it recognized east-germany.
And the second inverse is that other countries only saw west-germany as the legal succession of the 3rd Reich and even the german empire. So it was West-Germany had hat to fulfill contracts of that time. Except for the reparations. The USSR took (or stole) more stuff from East Germany than the western allied forces took from West Germany. About 30% of the industrial infrastructure was removed, e.g. 11800 km of railway tracks. And even after they stopped removing the infrastructure itself, they still demanded a percentage of the production.
- expedition32 19d agoThe economy of the DDR was a basket case. It was the USSR that did them in when the Soviets stopped selling them oil and gas for cheap in the 1970s. Moscow was surprisingly capitalist. They noticed they could sell their resources to the West for dollars or give them away to their communist "allies".
- flohofwoe 19d agoMight have to do with the fact that East Germany's Uranium deposits dried up sometime between the late 60s and early 70s (but of course there was also the global oil crisis around that time). In the early days the GDR provided most of the Uranium for the Soviet nukes, and there was constant haggling about who pays what (usually the GDR) and how much profit the GDR was allowed to take (usually not much). Cheap oil and gas might have been a part of the deal, until West Germany also discovered that the Soviets were willing to sell cheap to the "class enemy" during the 1970s (e.g. that problem of (the whole of) Germany becoming dependent on Russian oil and gas started much earlier than most people realize today. Also related fun fact: the GDR started to refurbish and use old steam locomotives again as a result of the oil crisis. I remembered seeing those regularly as a child, and then later wondered what caused this anachronism.
- Lumich 18d ago« that problem of (the whole of) Germany becoming dependent on Russian oil and gas » — For whom was it a “problem”, and why?
- flohofwoe 18d agoIt wasn't much of a problem until Russia decided to go all-in on its "imperial ambitions" again which made it an unreliable trade partner for Germany. Remember: it was Russia which tried to blackmail Germany by shutting down the pipelines, and that was before the Ukrainians settled the matter once and for all by blowing up Nordstream (Russia had been shutting down the gas flow indefinitely by end of August 2022 after three months of back-and-forth, and the dry pipeline was finally blown up end of September 2022).
- 21asdffdsa12 19d agoThe west had a ton of products manufactured in the GDR. Check your Privileg washing machine - it was made in the DDR! Same goes for IKEA furniture. That was the bitter end of the utopia, that it was basically a capitalist labour camp at the end to survive.
- ErroneousBosh 19d agoAs recently as the late 90s (which, yes was 30 years ago, not all that recent) in the UK we were getting tractor tyres coming in stamped "MADE IN DDR". Although I don't know if that was more a case of "we really ought to take the grinder to that mould and stick something else on", or what.
- flohofwoe 19d agoPretty sure it would have been "Made in GDR" ;) Must have been leftovers from before 1991, or maybe Pneumant (the former GDR tyre company) indeed never cared to update the original molds until Goodyear bought them in 1999.
- ErroneousBosh 18d agoI will check what it says on them next time I take a look at the draff pit - we still use the tyres to weigh down the cover :-)
- johannes1234321 19d ago> For example, someone from east germany fleeing to west german already had the (west) germanship citizenship, no paperwork needed to get it. Mind that that didn't only matter for GDR, but also East Prussia etc. which was important for all the displaced people from now-Poland, Sudeten Germans etc.
- dmurray 19d agoHow does that work, are people from East Prussia today entitled to come and live and work in Germany? Or was that right dropped at some point? Or only ever available to those of German descent (which seems uncomfortably close to the values of the previous German regime, and surely would require some paperwork to establish)? The region that was once East Prussia has now mostly been ruled by Russia since longer than almost anyone there has been alive.
- johannes1234321 19d agoThis became stricter with a big reform in 1999 and then further changes. Till then (West) Germany had quite inflspecific wordi g. The constitution says "German citizen is, who is German" and they kept the old Empire's citizen law to have continuity. That's one of the reasons why reunification between East and West bad go be done so quickly (from falling Wall No. 9th 1989 to reunification October 3rd 1990) as East Germans could migrate to West easily as soon as the Wall fell and promise of quick unification was a key promise to prevent even bigger migration.