Central European Civil-Military Relations and NATO Expansion - Chapter III

Title: Central European Civil-Military relations and NATO expansion - Chapter III

CHAPTER III: GERMANY: ONE PEOPLE, ONE STATE, ONE ARMY

East Germany followed a very different path than Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia because external forces predominantly defined the ultimate course of the revolution. In East Germany the communist Socialist Unity Party (SED) lost total control of the situation propelling the state onto a path leading to dissolution; and the Federal Republic of Germany (and later the USSR, the U.S., Britain, and France) created the conditions for Germany's ultimate unification within the NATO security umbrella.

Erich Honecker, as party and state leader of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1971-1989, was responsible for shaping the GDR of the late 1980s. With the help of the Berlin Wall, erected in 1961, he set the GDR on a stable course of political and economic development. During the 1970s, much of the GDR's domestic policy could be seen as an attempt to raise the standard of living (consumer communism) in return for which East Germans were expected to accept stricter controls on Western contacts and make efforts to neutralize sources of opposition. The end of the GDR's self-imposed isolation commenced when Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik led to the opening of diplomatic relations with Bonn. Honecker's more open foreign policy transformed the GDR from an international outcast to a legitimate member of the international community.

In 1985 all of this changed when Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms in the Soviet Union and socialist community dramatically altered the environment in which the GDR had been operating. When Hungary and Poland began reforms, the East German Government became an even more staunch defender of the status quo. In the end, Honecker's unrelenting resistance to domestic reforms undermined his domestic support and regime's legitimacy.

In May 1989 Hungary dismantled its barbed-wire border with Austria and then announced on 10 September that its borders to Austria would be opened. By the end of September more than 45,000 East Germans had made a frenzied exit to the West,

demonstrating that the German Democratic Republic was in desperate need of reform. When the largest protests since the failed workers' uprising in June 1953 spread in East Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig and elsewhere in early October, the legitimacy of the regime came into question,

Several opposition groups formed--the most notable among them, New Forum--but they needed to overcome their divisions and to work openly for alternatives.

The riots kept spreading. On 16 October when 100,000 protesters rallied in Leipzig, the Socialist Unity Party ousted Erich Honecker. Two days later Egon Krenz replaced Honecker as head of state, SED General Secretary, and Chairman of the Defense Council.

Despite the leadership change, the riots continued. Only after 300,000 protesters had marched in Leipzig on 23 October, did one member of the SED politburo finally meet (on 26 October) with New Forum for the first time.

This only led to new protests demanding free elections, the ouster of the secret police, and the legalization of New Forum.

Though Egon Krenz attempted to associate himself with the reform by meeting with Gorbachev and Lech Walesa and promising far-reaching change, he could not stem the revolutionary tide. When thousands of East Germans packed the FRG embassy in Prague to seek asylum, Krenz announced on 3 November 1989 that they could travel to West Germany. By 8 November, 50,000 East German citizens had crossed the Czechoslovak border to the FRG (bringing the GDR's 1989 emigration to more than 200,000) and the entire 44-member Council of Ministers,

led by premier Willi Stoph, and most of the SED politburo had resigned.

On 9 November the GDR lifted its travel ban making the Berlin Wall superfluous.

On 13 November, 477 of the 478-member People's Chamber (Volkskammer) elected Hans Modrow the new prime minister.

The Socialist Unity Party then issued an "Action Program" outlining a number of political reforms, including round-table discussions with political parties and the call for free elections which were held on 18 March 1990.

Uncompleted Defense Reform

One of East Germany's immediate defense reform requirements was to establish civilian [executive and legislative] command and control over the defense ministry, secret police, and National People's Army (NPA). This was of essential import because during the revolutionary period--in October and again November--the military was almost employed and the lines of authority were unclear so the NPA was not always under lawful control. In addition, the GDR had the added complication and uncertainty resulting from the enormous (roughly seventeen-division) Soviet Western Group of Forces (WGF) troop-presence.

During the domestic unrest leading to the revolution in East Germany, Defense Minister Heinz Kessler signed Order No. 105/89 on 27 September 1989 which increased the state of combat readiness along the borders, around Berlin, and in Leipzig.

During protest demonstrations in early October, Honecker ordered (on 7 October) that rubber truncheons and live ammunition be distributed to National People's Army soldiers, to support the People's Police and State Security Police if necessary.

Violence was averted only when Egon Krenz, then SED politburo member in charge of security, flew to Leipzig (on 9 October) and unilaterally canceled Honecker's order, thereby allowing protesters to march unmolested. Egon Krenz then replaced Erich Honecker as SED secretary on 18 October 1989.

During renewed tension, the SED politburo on 7 November 1989 rejected by only one vote a proposal to put the NPA on the streets. Despite the politburo vote, a group of hard-line NPA officers allegedly put troops and tanks on maximum alert. The situation relaxed only when moderates prevailed and the GDR government announced the opening of its borders and the Berlin Wall on 9 November.

Defense Minister Rainer Eppelmann has alleged that when former Defense Minister Heinz Kessler ordered the 1st Motorized Infantry Division in Potsdam to "close" the wall on 11 November 1989, the NPA General Staff withdrew the order.

Heinz Kessler rejected Eppelmann's allegation as false.

Admiral Theodur Hoffmann supported Kessler noting that discussions "always revolved around support for the police in the second line, but never around the deployment of the NPA against demonstrators or the people."

Despite reports that the readiness of some Soviet Western Group of Forces had been raised,

Soviet Chief of the General Staff Moiseyev went out of his way to make it clear that the WGF remained neutral: "Our military were in no way involved. They were instructed not to intervene in any matters pertaining to domestic interrelations in the fraternal countries. Everything that is happening there is the sole concern of each individual country."

When the People's Chamber replaced Willi Stoph with Hans Modrow as prime minister on 13 November 1989, they also elected Guenter Maleuda, of the small Democratic Farmer's Party, to replace Horst Sindermann as People's Chamber president and replaced 27 members of the old Parliament. Admiral Theodor Hoffmann replaced Heinz Kessler as defense minister on 15 November and immediately made it quite clear that: "I am only accountable to my prime minister and to the People's Chamber" (see Table 1 below).

On 18 November the People's Chamber confirmed Hans Modrow's new 28-member Cabinet which included 17 communists and 11 members from four parties closely allied to the SED. The People's Chamber also established special commissions to consider constitutional changes, work out a law for democratic elections, and investigate abuses and corruption of former communist officials. The main consideration was to change Article 1 of the Constitution which assigned the leading role to the Communist Party.

Despite these concessions, a new wave of popular anger at the abuses under Erich Honecker arose, the Communist Party was thrown into disarray, and its leadership collapsed on 3 December.

Between mid-November and early December 1989, authority over the Government, the civil service, the police, and the army officially shifted away from the Communist Party to Prime Mini-ster Hans Modrow and his Cabinet. In early December Gregor Gysi replaced Egon Krenz as SED secretary and Manfred Ger-lach, of the Liberal Democratic Party, became head of state and thus head of the Defense Council.

As a result, control over the NPA now resided solely with the new Government and Defense Minister (Theodur Hoffmann). In mid-December the Cabinet announced that it would dissolve the secret police and would name a new civilian supervisor, directly subordinate to the prime minister, to head two new intelligence agencies.

Table 1 - East German Defense Reform, 1989-90

The issue of German unification was broached early. On the one hand, in East Germany free elections were increasingly seen as a prelude to some form of national plebiscite for reunification with the FRG. On the other hand, Chancellor Helmut Kohl presented a 10-point outline to the FRG Parliament on 28 November 1989 for creating a German federation that would eventually lead to the reunification of the two German states.

The Soviet Union issued a harsh critique of the plan describing it as "fraught with dangerous consequences [and] bordering on outright diktat."

When East Germany's battered Communist Party held its "first" round-table discussions with new opposition political groupings led by New Forum on 7 December, the SED agreed to adopt a new Constitution, hold free elections by 6 May 1990, and seek a formula for unifying the two German states.

When Kohl and Modrow met for the first time on 19 December, they agreed to reopen Berlin's Brandenberg Gate, introduce free movement for all Germans by Christmas, and sign a treaty establishing future forms of cooperation.

During January 1990 it became clear that the communists had lost control. Not only had 400,000 (of 16.5 million) East Germans fled during 1989, but protests also continued to spread throughout the country. After several groups within the SED called for its dissolution claiming that the party had not reformed itself radically enough and continued to pose a threat to East Germany's stability, the SED-Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) executive committee convened an emergency session on 21 January 1990. Though SED leader Gregor Gysi managed to prevent disbandment, he admitted that the SED had been unsuccessful in making the transition from Stalinism to democratic socialism; and the SED expelled fourteen party leaders including Krenz.

With the SED's collapse, the East German Government also experienced crisis. Prime Minister Modrow claimed that he could only maintain stability if the opposition joined the Communist-led coalition. On 29 January the opposition finally agreed to create a "grand coalition" on the condition that Modrow and all cabinet members renounced their party affiliation until after the elections (which were moved up to 18 March from 6 May), that the opposition get key cabinet posts, and that the round-table approve all legislation.

At the 17 March 1990 Warsaw Pact Foreign Ministers session in Prague, all seven members of the Warsaw Pact agreed to Germany's right to unify, but they disputed the formula for unification. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze ruled against NATO membership for a united Germany, but Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia argued that a united Germany in NATO would benefit European stability!

The 18 March 1990 democratic elections to the 400-seat People's Chamber produced a resounding call for quick German unification and a market economy by electing a coalition of conservative parties allied with the FRG's ruling Christian Democrats. Of the 24 political parties in the People's Chamber, the conservative three-party Alliance for Germany coalition--comprising the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Democratic Awakening, and German Social Union--won 193 seats. The Social Democratic Party of Germany won 87 seats and the Party of Democratic Socialism (the former SED) won 65.

When the new People's Chamber convened on 5 April, it voted unanimously to delete the constitutional preamble defining East Germany as "a socialist state of workers and peasants."

CDU chairman Lothar de Maiziere became prime minister. On 11 April 1990 he created a broad coalition government to change the Constitution (which according to Article 63 required two-thirds majority in the People's Chamber)

and hasten unification. De Maiziere named Rainer Eppelmann, a civilian who headed Democratic Awakening, minister of disarmament and defense (Eppelmann accepted the position only on condition that "disarmament" be in his title),

and appointed the former defense minister, Admiral Theodur Hoffmann, to be the new NPA Chief of Staff.

The drive toward German unification accelerated. On 20 March 1990 the FRG and GDR agreed in principle to have economic and monetary union plans by the end of April and to implement them on 1 July. The strategy was to sign a treaty in which East Germany would adopt the FRG's tax laws, eliminate price subsidies for consumer goods, and give Bonn's Bundesbank authority over monetary affairs.

De Maiziere's plan for unification involved invoking Article 29 of the FRG Constitution that allowed East Germany's five separate states (laender) to apply directly to Bonn for admission to the FRG.

But this required a change in the GDR Constitution because these states, which were abolished by the Communists, had to be recreated. In July the People's Chamber recreated the laender state structure to facilitate unification.

Though Lothar de Maiziere supported a unified Germany in the European Community (now Union) and NATO, and agreed with the FRG position that no NATO troops should be stationed on East German territory, the Soviets still differed on the formula for a united Germany. On 12 April the People's Chamber voted to approve NATO membership for a united Germany, but only if NATO were to change its strategy.

On 3 June 1990 when Gorbachev met with President Bush in Washington, the two were still unable to agree on Germany's role in NATO. Intending to make Germany's membership in NATO more compatible with Soviet interests, Bush presented Gorbachev with a list of nine points--to include expanding CSCE's functions, a German pledge not to acquire nuclear or chemical weapons, accelerating arms control negotiations, and revising NATO doctrine. Gorbachev reportedly argued that these concessions were "not enough."

Although Gorbachev consistently rejected the German unification within NATO formula, his concession to Helmut Kohl in July illustrated that he really had little choice in the matter. In reality, Soviet control had been ceded in November 1989 when the GDR failed to stabilize the domestic situation as a reformed communist state; de facto unification occurred on 1 July with the economic and monetary union of the two German states. In addition, the Soviets had to decouple political unification from the security issue when they conceded that all-German elections could occur irrespective of the Two-Plus-Four (the two Germanies, plus the U.S., USSR, U.K., and France) agreement, which was signed on 12 September 1990.

On 20 September the GDR People's Chamber voted 299-80 and the FRG Bundestag voted 442-47 to ratify a treaty

by which the GDR would discard its Constitution and adopt nearly all the FRG's laws when official unification occurred on 3 October 1990. When the People's Chamber dissolved on unification, 144 of its 400 members joined the FRG's expanded Bundestag

until the new all-German parliamentary elections were held on 2 December 1990. Those elections returned Helmut Kohl to power; Kohl's Christian Democratic Union coalition with Hans Dietrich Genscher's Free Democrats controlled 392 of the Bundestag's 656 seats.

Armed Forces Reform

East German armed forces reforms never had a chance to fully develop between the initial riots in October 1989 and unification. The Warsaw Pact's May 1987 so-called defensive doctrine and Gorbachev's 7 December 1988 announcement of unilateral reductions initially drove the National People's Army restructuring and reductions during 1988-1989. During January-June 1990, the collapse of SED control, free elections in the GDR, and the FRG's drive for unification filled the vacuum and hastened reform efforts. Little happened between monetary unification on 1 July and the Soviet Union's 12 September 1990 concession to permit a 370,000 total German force within NATO by 1994 (by the Four-plus-Two agreement). With the 3 October 1990 formal unification of Germany, the original 175,000-troop National People's Army simply disappeared from the face of the earth.