Putschcast
A global podcast about Riots, Rebellions and Revolutions. Putschcast explores how power changes hands, whether through internal social and political decay, external pressure, popular resistance or a pure stroke of luck.
Featuring experts in their field, every episode explores a unique moment in history that led to profound changes in the lives of the people affected by it.
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Putschcast
#2 East Germany - Palace Coup behind the Berlin Wall
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After the gruesome end of World War II and in a city filled with rubble, a disciple of Stalin built a fortress. He was the goateed architect of German Socialism who made it onto the cover of Time magazine and who didn’t shy away from setting up one of the most rigid police states to cement his power. His name? Walter Ulbricht.
Now almost forgotten, Ulbricht rose to power and faced an uprising only 4 years after founding his own state. His response? A brutal crackdown. Always on his side, his most loyal protege, Erich Honecker. For decades, the two men who couldn’t have been more different didn't only build Socialism; they also built a wall together.
But what happens when the student decides the master's time is up? A textbook palace coup. The year was 1971, when the old guard, Ulbricht, found himself outmaneuvered by his closest ally - or so he thought.
Joining us is Olaf from the Netherlands, who is the face of ‘East Germany Investigated’, a popular YouTube channel that dives deep into the history of the German Democratic Republic.
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Send us an email to putschcast@gmail.com and visit our website.
After the gruesome end of World War II and in a city made of rubble, a disciple of Stalin built a fortress. He was the architect of German socialism who made it onto the cover of Time magazine and who didn't shy away from setting up one of the most rigid police states just to cement his power. His name? Walter Ulbricht. Underestimated by many, appreciated by few, Ulbricht crossed the panel and had an uprising to deal with only four years after he founded his own state. His response brutal cracker. Always on his side, his most loyal protege, Erich Honecker. For decades, the two men who couldn't have been more different did not only build socialism, they also build a wall. Yes, that wall. What happens when the student decides the master's time is up? The textbook hell is cool. The year was 1971 when the old Gambled Ulbricht found himself elmaneuvered by his closest element. How did the apprentice become the master? Then why do we know so little about this important chapter of the Cold War? Welcome to Pudgecast. I'm your host, Oliver Hobbiton. So here we are, Pudschcast. We promised you a variety of topics, a variety of protagonists and villains that you will meet listening to this podcast. And it's all about power changing hands. And often when you think of that, you think of, you know, the French Revolution, you think of people storming the barricades. You do think of um people with um machine guns storming into a government building and chasing out the current uh president. But today we're talking about a very, very different kind of takeover, and it's uh involving a man who's not that well known in the Western world, even I think, uh, because um he was around in a time over 50 years ago that is a bit forgotten, especially when it comes to Cold War history. And I'm very, very excited to have someone on Putschcast here today who can tell us more about the man with the goatee, who was an Ein dictator, I think we can call him that, for many years in East Germany. And our guest today, not the dictator, the guest is called Olaf from uh the Netherlands. Hello, Olaf.
SPEAKER_03Hi, good evening, I have to say. Glad to be here. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Um I'm so impressed by this steady line that we have across the world, literally. And it's um it's fascinating to speak to someone not from Germany who is interested in East German history. And towards the end of this uh podcast, we'll we'll hear a bit more about your connection and your background, Olaf. Yeah. But um with me in the studio as well is um my co-host James Spennet. Hi, James. G'day, Oliver. How you going? James, we've just named him in the introduction. The man of the hour of today's uh putcast episode is Walter Ulbricht. Hand on your heart. How much did you know about Walter Ulbricht before I raised this topic with you?
SPEAKER_02Um Hand on Heart? I you know, I don't think I was even familiar with his name. Honecker, yes.
SPEAKER_00Ulbricht, no. And I think that's exactly the reason why we should talk about him today. Let's just start with who was this man and uh what time did he live in? And Olaf, I hand over to you. Can you set the scene a bit for us? So, what time in history are we talking about? How did he become the man that he was?
SPEAKER_03Walter Ulbricht was uh born like in in 1893. He was born and raised like a typical communist, and uh the time we're talking, but we'll talk about today is more uh like in the 1970s when uh when he was um yeah succeeded by uh by Honecker, also the name you just mentioned. So those two big leaders of the GDR, I think the only two real ones that they had. Um and Ulbricht was in the 1970s, you have to see in the in the in the country in the GDR, we had to deal with the country had been just existing for 20 years, founded in 1949. There had been a lot of struggles, like um in 1953, you had the German uprising where workers, hundreds of thousands of workers, went on the streets in 1961 because of people uh that all the people that that kept leaving the country, uh the building uh the the Berlin Wall was uh was built, and um in 1970, in around the 1970s, there was a new uh financial crisis. So Ulbricht, who was appointed the first leader in in when the when the state was founded, uh did have hard times. And uh he was um from from a social point of view, he was a special guy, he was uh anti-social, total abstainer on parties. He was uh he was not uh he was not having fun. So he was always working on his on his power, so to say, always working for uh yeah, for for his position and and yeah, not being interested in in other people. And people who got in his way, he just um yeah, he just put them out of his way. Every everyone who was hindering him. And that was um yeah, something that was kind of kind of a red line going through the whole history of his career. Uh he was asked to uh to come to Germany because he spent um the the the war times he spent uh in the in the Soviet Union. So he wasn't as a communist, he wasn't in in Germany during the war, but he was uh yeah put in place uh on orders of the Soviet Union after the Second World War to uh to build up the communism and the communist German state at that time. We didn't speak of the East and the West. Uh after the Second World War. It was his first task uh as the Gruppe Ulbricht, as it was called, uh, when with with 10 other people with people, with other persons to uh to go to Berlin and uh and get things started there.
SPEAKER_00I mean, what a biography! The the the years you've just mentioned. So 1953 was the his big first challenge as a leader when there was the uprising on the 17th of June in East Germany, and again I'm hoping to do a whole different episode on that very moment in in the German history, but then born in uh sixty six years before that, so 1893. So we're talking the prime of the Wilhelminian era, right? So it's the it's the German Empire. Um Wilhelm II is in power. He's from Leipzig, I think. That's his hometown, so Saxony.
SPEAKER_03He was a Saxon, and it was something that he was it was clearly uh you could clearly hear it from his voice. And and one thing is uh yeah, that he didn't he didn't work on this. So he he also when when you hear him uh do a speech or something like that, you see that he is still talking in his uh Saxon uh voice, also speaking to the whole country. Uh, people sometimes really had issues to understand him. And the funny thing is that his successor, uh Honecker, who was from the West, when you hear him speak, it also at the end at the end it came also like a Saxon thing or Saxon language when he tried to uh to speak to them, although he wasn't from that uh from that region.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and for for all non-German speakers, I think it's important to explain that Saxon is sort of uh laughed at a bit. It's it's uh it's a dialect that's not very popular and and seen as um comical in some instances, I would say. Like there's many Saxons are the the butt of many jokes, I think, in in German language.
SPEAKER_02So I was just wondering with um Ulbrich's like you mentioned that he was he he didn't party, he was um you know constantly working on the power, on his power. Like, was there anything that you could sort of pinpoint that made him like that? Was there something in his background that um you know would make him be that kind of person?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the funny thing is that when you compare him to to Honecker, Honecker has a story like that, but for for for Ulbricht, it's not really something that you can really point back to, something in his youth that you say he was very poor, he was uh he lost his parents in an early age or something uh things like that. So that was not really the case. So it's not something that you really can pinpoint and say, okay, this is the reason why uh Water Ulbricht turned at the end, he turned out the man that he that he got to be. He grew up as a communist. He is uh he and at the end, as you said, in the in World War II, he was uh the he was in the on the front and he was uh uh asking via loudspeakers uh uh to German soldiers to give up because it's no it doesn't make any sense, but there were only a few who really uh heard him talk and really stepped over. So he was also at that time he was a little bit made made fun of already by the by the Soviets saying saying something like in the evening, yeah, you can uh you can have your dinner as long as you have some some people uh that give up.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, was that the deal? So because I've heard he was outside of Stalingrad, but on the other side of the front. And so unless Germans defect and raise the white flag, he doesn't get food, is it?
SPEAKER_03I think that was it. He he just tried to get in that in those uh how do you say in those those circles of people, and I think maybe uh purely psychological speaking, but I'm not a psychologist. I I would say it's a minority complex that he really um yeah, that that really made him made him the person that he is. But it's not really clear events that happened during his youth or the beginning of the 20th century when he was still young. Yeah, uh that I would say as as far as what I know, um yeah, we can relate to that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I I do think that that time in exile, so he was an active communist, talking Weimar Republic then, he would have been, you know, in his um in his 30s. And uh there was a scene as well, which I've heard where he actually debated uh Joseph Goebbels in in Berlin that ended up in one of the biggest brawls between Nazis and Communists. So he he met Goebbels face to face. So just to to give people an idea of his expertise as well, because I'm sure the Communist Party, which was very strong at that time, wouldn't have sent him there. I've shared with with James before there's this this uh notorious statistic Stalin actually killed more communists than Hitler, and that that might have been something that because the the numbers were horrific. Like I I read something about 10% of German communists in exile actually survived the purges under Stalin. And Ulbricht is one of them, and if that doesn't shape you, then what does?
SPEAKER_03It's it's really surprising that because uh Ulbricht, being of course uh partially also in the Soviet Union in those years, uh in the in the for at least in the 40s, uh must have seen or at least noticed things around him and being informed about people just disappearing, I think the belief was so that strong that people didn't want to see it or didn't want to believe it. And um coming back to your the question that you asked is around the um what what I think is is what happened around when the the Second World War uh started, is that they of course the communist uh also Ulbricht had already been active in in several other European countries. And um what they I think what what happened is that the the more the leaders or the leadership was uh of the communists in our in uh in Europe that they didn't want to lose when when the Germans were uh having their war there in the other countries, is that they were moved to the Soviet Union, and but other communists, of course, uh working underground, they stayed behind. So after the war, there was a kind of they didn't like each other in the first minute because they had been there all those years, and the other ones they had been safe in uh in the resistance fighters versus the um exile um brigade, so to speak.
SPEAKER_02I just I wonder, um I mean, because I know Stalin was particularly sort of paranoid and would get rid of his enemies and his allies alike. And I was just thinking then with Ulbricht, would it be that he was so ideologically committed that Stalin or the Soviet leadership saw him as a good bet? Or he was so unthreatening that he sort of avoided the purges.
SPEAKER_00That's a very good point.
SPEAKER_02That the Soviets didn't bother, sort of overlooked him to be purged.
SPEAKER_03It could be that he that he escaped through the net. It could also be that uh, also speaking from a German point of view, that uh he was of course uh speaking of all the people that were together in the in that um in that Soviet uh exile, plans that they had for him were at least good enough, where they would see him in his role. And also he had done some things uh already on German and European soil. He also didn't ask the the two critical questions, so that was that might have been the reason why they said okay, he he he would be the right guy to uh to go to Germany after the war.
SPEAKER_02Like underwhelming, underthreatening, but devoted.
SPEAKER_00So he was good enough to there are many leaders, uh especially autocrats in history who were exactly that profile, weren't they? Like not the shining star, the overwhelming orator who just drew millions of people in, but just the underestimated bureaucrat who quietly works away. And like you said before, Olaf, that he was always working and always you know making sure his power base is where it needs to be. And uh, if someone threatened him, he moved him somewhere else. Today's Putschcast episode is brought to you by Motorcycle Rental Melbourne, your ticket to an amazing adventure on two wheels across Australia. Motorcycle Rental Melbourne is not just a rental company, it is your gateway for the most spectacular way to explore the fifth continent, to enjoy winding coastal roads and challenging mountain passes, or the never-ending wilderness of the Outback. You can just rent a motorcycle or book a self-guided tour, complete with an itinerary and accommodation. Whether you like adventure bikes, cruises, or anything in between, visit the website motorcyclerentalmelbour.com.au. And don't forget to mention Butchcast for a 10% discount on your next rental. Book your bike today and find your freedom. Terms and conditions apply. Walter Ulbricht survived as a German communist, not only Nazi Germany, but more importantly, he survived Stalinist Soviet Union, which would have been a bigger threat to him. And it was 1945, the war was over. Before we connect there, the other person that's very important for today's story, Erich Honecker. Where was he in 1945? And how did he get there? So, what do we know about his background, Olaf?
SPEAKER_03Erich Honecker, he was a little bit younger, he was from 1912, so uh like 20 years younger, and he was from the Saarland, and uh he was, yeah, I think compared to Ulbricht, also a typical communist, grew up in a family, not really poor family, but also I think one of his parents died very early, or his sister, or something like that. So at least he had some, yeah, well, at least a challenging uh youth, I would say, was really active as a socialist. I think he he already was uh um he became part of the communist party uh as soon as he was able to, decided because then you get already in the in the 1930s, and it was for him clear that uh it was uh it was for him the communist way and not the the Nazi way. So he was uh he was decided also following his father. His father was also a very active communist.
SPEAKER_00There's already that tiny divide that you mentioned before where you had those two groups of communists, the ones who went into exile and the ones who stayed behind. So Ulbricht is the one who spent his time in Moscow. Wahoneke remained in Germany for the entire duration of the war. What what happened to him after 1933?
SPEAKER_03He got arrested because uh because of his work. He was asked to you know go go more into the country and also be in other uh places to to be in the in the underground movement because they could use him, and he was he was really to uh prepare to to risk his life for uh for a lot of assignments that he did. And at the end he um he got arrested and uh he was he spent some time in the jail in the 1930s, and um yeah that's something that um um yeah that that really is a clear difference from uh Ulbrich. I think he was arrested something like in 1937, and then he um uh he managed to flee also from the prison because he had a relationship with uh with the with one of the um how do you say the guards, the prison guards, the lady lady guards there, and he had a relationship with her and he managed to flee and really well. When you read the novel that when you read about those times from from Hanukkah compared to Ulrich, it's it's definitely it's the mu the uh the one more that's more exciting. So he he fled from prison and he um because he was asked because he was a le he he was a roofer, so he was asked, especially in those days in Berlin, um to uh to yeah to do reparations. So the prisons, prisoners were you know they moved out of the prison uh during the morning, they got to do their work, guarded of course, and and and on one of those days he managed to to flee.
SPEAKER_02Honecker strikes me as I mean, I didn't didn't agree obviously with a lot of what he did as a leader, um, but he did strike me as someone who was quite brave and courageous. From what I read, he sort of he did go to jail for his beliefs, and it probably would have been easier for him to go into exile. I mean, that was before he knew about the purges, I'm guessing. So he did sort of strike me as someone that you know was very committed to his beliefs and willing and willing to lose his like liberty for them.
SPEAKER_00And he might not have been a senior as well as Ulbrich, right? Just because of the age difference. So Honecker was probably more at um the next generation, obviously, so he wouldn't have had the first ticket out of Berlin.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he was young, he was much younger, I think, and that of course did the uh the things that he did was also more a little bit like maybe maybe a little bit more profile than they would uh reposition uh Ulbricht. That's why, or maybe one of the reasons that Ulbricht got to go to the Soviet Union and and uh and Honecker didn't.
SPEAKER_00So 1945 Honecker spent many years in prison. Ulbricht was in the Soviet Union, they both have a very different story to tell after this time, and Honecker now has this nimbus of being a resistance fighter, right? Like he this is a story you can tell for the rest of his life because he set out the war in Nazi Germany and did time in jail. There was obviously the fall of the Third Reich, uh Potsdam Conference we know about the Nuremberg trials, but then how did those two end up in power shortly after the war? For the people who don't know too much about the that interesting period between 45 and 49, 49 is when the German Democratic Republic was founded. What happened in those years in between?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so so for Ulrich it was that he was sent back to Berlin uh in 1945 to uh to work on communism, uh starting in Berlin, of course, being the uh the the capital, and that is the the place where you really had to be at that time. Uh as you said, there was a lot a lot of things going on by it was not completely already clear at the end of the Second World War you had this division of the country uh where you had this Soviet uh part and you had the American and the uh the British part, but it's not that they had agreed already up front that they would split the country. The split of the Germany was uh at let it at the end, it was the sad outcome of that they didn't seem to come to an agreement. Uh, and there is a lot of that's talk saying that also Stalin would have wanted one Germany, of course, he would want to uh would wanted to have one Germany, communist Germany, which of course was not possible. And and in 49 it was uh it was the West, it was West Germany being founded as a separate state first, and then it it was clear that East Germany had to do the same, or at least for the for the Soviet ruled part, uh the GDR was founded. And in those years, um Ulbricht already worked his way up, uh and was in 49, he was already appointed the first leader of the GDR, so he was the number one in the um in the country. And again, when you say the word appointed, just clarifying who who appointed him, and of course the Soviets who had at the end who were yeah who were ruling the uh that that part of the country. And you have to imagine that also in those years, especially the first three, two, three years, there was so many uh military still avail uh uh still there in the in the country, and Berlin all uh still being uh not only the Soviets but also the Americans and the the the British were still there, yeah. And it was not really clear who was having which part, etc. That that part came later, or that really came to in effect later. Ulrich just seemed to to to work his way up in in the in the forties, like the first pick to to become the he was the sole survivor, so it's like um yeah, and he was and he was lucky by that. And and Honecker on the other side, he was appointed uh the um the head of the the Freie Deutsche Jugend, so the Free German Youth Organization, because at that time, especially for communism, yeah, the the the the focus should be on the young people to to make sure that they are devoted communists and that they will follow everything that um that the country the new country stands for. Uh Honecker being a little bit younger would just was was the perfect fit for that profile.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's those famous photographs of him on his bicycle, I think uh riding his bicycle. That's that was his trademark. So Ulrich came back, he was on top straight away. He was appointed leader of the um you know Communist Party, and then later became the the he wasn't the head of state, I think, just to get the facts right.
SPEAKER_03He wasn't the head of state of the newly founded East Germany in 1949, but he was he was the general secretary, and general secretary later on was the only, let's say, one of the top functions who survived and was then the number one of the country. Yeah, uh, but he was the first general secretary of the uh central committee of the SED, so the socialist uh unity party of uh East Germany. And he was lucky, uh he would really he was really incredibly lucky, which I think will be the next question that we will be asking is about the uh the uprising.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so obviously the 1953 crucial year. Um first of all, Stalin dies, and we have an we have an uprising in East Germany, I think the first one in the Eastern Bloc as well. We don't want to go into that too much today because hopefully we do another episode on it. But what role did those two play? Was there already um a co-collaboration, cooperation between Honecker and Ulbricht during the uprising, or how is that a crucial event to understand for what happened later?
SPEAKER_03When it comes to the uprising for for Honecker, it was not really a um big deal, uh, because he wasn't at that time not really having the power, he was part of the uh the youth organization, so it was for Ulbricht, however, being the general secretary, I think if as because you're planning to do another episode on that one, I think the uprising, I think there's a couple of things that are important. First of all, that in theory would have been the end of the GDR already, if and were for the uh for the Soviets to intervene. When all those people were on the street in 1953 on the 17th of June. So there were uh Ulbricht was led away and and he was moved to Karlshorst, so the the headquarters of the of the the Soviets in in uh in Berlin, and he was yeah, kept there, and he uh was having some phone calls with some of the Politburo members that that stayed in the center, so they were hoping it was going to rain and people maybe would go home, but it didn't happen. And things only got worse because for him, because there were more and more and more people on the street, and there were uh I think they were entering the building, and at the end it was clear for him that once this was happening, it was clear and he it was clear that he was yeah, he was finished. The Soviets tanks and the tanks rolled in, and and I think the story is known that uh there were people killed as well. And that's where the Soviets saved him. And at the end, it was still not clear after that um um uh uprising if he was able to and allowed to stay in his position, so he really had a hard time after that uprising to make sure that he would still be uh the general secretary of the country, and that was something that he really worked on by because at the at the time, um in those weeks after his position was so weak that many people who didn't who hadn't dared to speak up uh they dared to speak up, say Ulbricht, you you did you just did a bad job.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he was only four years into his project, right? It was like East Germany was only four years old.
SPEAKER_02Do you do you think that if Ulbricht had um you know not been saved or not been lucky, the the history of the GDR would have been different?
SPEAKER_03Absolutely, absolutely. So it's uh it's clearly a Soviet decision, uh, and they uh for I think for clear reasons decided to intervene. Um but if they hadn't done so, uh Ulbricht had been finished, the German Democratic Republic had been finished, so it was clear that the people uh in the whole country, so it was not only in Berlin, in the whole country, people were in the streets, they didn't accept what was going on, and it was just with a lot of violence, um, and and and I think uh I don't know how many imprisonments there were, uh it was just um yeah, ended.
SPEAKER_00And uh if that hadn't happened, yeah, it was uh the the GDR would have been finished, and also for Ulbricht, because yeah, the Soviets were the ones who decided, so it was uh for him also not clear if he would survive after 1953 and for context, I think it's really important for listeners to understand that that day was so crucial in post-war German history. It became the 17th of June 1953, it became a public holiday, the national holiday in West Germany, I think in honor of the people who rose up. In East Germany, it was the biggest secret no one spoke about. Um it was, I think, always if it was spoken about, it was a few decadent try-hard Westerners um stirring up trouble among genuine communists. I think that is sort of the message that was um shared, but it really, really shaped the rest of that relationship of those two men. James, just a reality check for the non-East Germany experts out there. Have you ever heard of the 1953 uprising?
SPEAKER_02No, had it been different in terms of like the the media landscape, I'm sure a lot of people would have known about you know the uprising in um 1953. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So, but yeah, I had no idea about because it became a blueprint in the Eastern Bloc, didn't it, Olif? Like I think it was the first one after the war. So 53, East Germany, 56, the same thing almost in Hungary. And then we had 1968 the the Prague Spring, similar thing that Moscow decides who's in charge. And through a miracle, do we know why he survived? No, he just happened to have the right friend in Moscow. How did Ulbrich survive 53?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so yeah, there's I think two things. He was lucky because the guy who really was against him in um in Moscow, I think he was called Berea, um he just suddenly disappeared. Uh but uh and in in Germany, that was one of his biggest talents of Ulbricht, that he managed to get rid of everyone who just criticized him. And that were after the after the uprising, it was a lot of them, and he managed to see okay, those those those those people I don't like you, and he just managed to get rid of them to uh downgrade them or put them to work in another part of the country, and that power was something that he had. And he was also lucky that there were, of course, also a number of other people, and Honecker was one of those amongst them because he was not really having power, because he was not really directly involved in the uh things would happen with the uprising, but he was still ready on the table as a candidate member. I think it was not really a clear decision for the Honecker to how what to choose, but he just I think God's feeling was that he should have it should choose for for Udricht because it was really obvious to do this.
SPEAKER_00He was loyal and always stark as. Hour and that would have um connected the two for the next uh almost twenty years, and then let's forward a few years. Next milestone in German history, 1961, it's August, and let's just quickly take a listen to this. Walter Ulbricht, he lived to an old age, and all he's famous for is this one sentence. This is pretty much what his entire political career has boiled down to, which is translated into English, no one has the intention of building a wall, which he said during a press conference shortly before the wall was built. And by wall, of course, I mean the Berlin Wall. And this is the first real big project that those two men have worked on together. Is that correct, Olav?
SPEAKER_03Uh, that's correct. And this is also the project that Honecker, who, as you clearly um and correctly stated, really gained trust with Ulbricht uh based on what happened in 1953, and also got more responsibilities over the years and years. And this was the project that Ulbricht gave to Honecker and said, This is your your master's work. Yeah, so uh and this is what Honecker was already prepared and was been preparing month and month and month um uh before, of course, August and 61. I think not even the Politburo members uh all knew about it, so it was that that's the that's high level secrecy. I think in the afternoon, it was a summer afternoon, just in the day before that uh Ulbricht invited all the Politburo members in in his home and and having um having coffee and except Honecker because Honecker working working at the end already on on making things happen happening during the night. I think at 12 o'clock sharp that he um with the project uh of the walls, or project Rose as it was called, uh, to get uh West Berlin sealed off.
SPEAKER_00James, why do you think the Berlin Wall was built?
SPEAKER_02I think there was an exodus uh brain drain of East Germans going over to West Germany. Also, I think the the project of the GDR does not look good if everyone's trying to leave. But if you put a wall up as well, can you project it as like you're protecting yourself against the evil capitalists around you?
SPEAKER_00Because Olaf, it's he survived the purges in the Soviet Union, he came back only a few years into his project. There's the first ever and biggest uprising in the Eastern Bloc. Another couple of years, not a couple, but another eight years on, he has to build a wall to lock up his own people because clearly his policies don't work. And yet this man doesn't fail, and there's no consequences because he stayed in power after this. And uh interestingly, from an economic point of view, the Berlin Wall did work, didn't it? It paid dividends.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it it worked, especially in the first years. At the end, it worked, of course, uh all over its whole time of its existence because it was the last loophole for people who wanted to leave East Germany, because also for the for the ones maybe if you don't know exactly how it works, so he had the the border between the east and the west of Germany that was already guarded and I would say impenetrable, like for years. So it was not really an option to uh to leave the country through uh via that way, so the east-west border. So to go as an as an East German uh citizen, go to West Berlin and leave the country there uh was uh the most common way of of doing that until August 1961. So what you could do is just you go you would go to West Berlin, so you had to skip, of course, the um the controls, you have to be lucky and not to be asked too many questions, and then you got but it was relatively easy. You could go to West Berlin and then you could uh be um yeah recognized as a German citizen because West Germany would welcome everyone coming from the east as being a w a German citizen because they said everyone is a German citizen, so there was no uh no no really strong selection in that.
SPEAKER_00The war was built first time in history that a man in power, and obviously, you know, the people around him, and I assume, of course, Sinoff from Moscow first for this big project. Um, he wouldn't have just done this on his own. Um, and then the economy started to stabilize uh because first of all, people didn't have another choice, but also West German currency was a lot stronger, and there was a lot of buying across the border, so heavily subsidized East German products were just bought up by Westerners and then up in Western markets. So I think there's a bit of truth to both sides of the story, and um, I remember from my own uh family stories from my own family that this is seen the mid-late 60s as really not a time as prosperity, but things were going the right way. So the standard of living was going up, people could feel it in the shops, there was more products. Um, and I think people made their peace and they settled into the dictatorship as you have to, because the other choice would have been a bullet in your back on the Berlin Wall.
SPEAKER_03People know okay, there's no way of getting out, so um, yeah, well, let's see how we can live with it and be proud of a country, even uh stores saying, Okay, we only got products from the GDR and our GDR this and our GDR this. So the also a point saying, Okay, this is our country, it's a new country, you have to be proud of it and uh get it get it done. Which at the end, if you take a look at the work that has been done by uh by by the East Germans, so to say, between 1945 and 89, um, we see the financial support that West Germany got, like the Marshall Plan, etc. There was no Marshall Plan for East Germany, and there was also when you take a look at the old factories that had also been uh partially destroyed but also been removed by uh in the eastern part by by the Soviets. Um the uh the East Germans had a much harder job, which they did, to build back uh their economy and make it a flourishing one, even the most flourishing one in the in the eastern bloc. So that's something that uh that also should not be forgotten to say as well.
SPEAKER_02And I'm just curious, uh what was the view of the wall from the Soviet Union?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so they they first didn't want it. So um uh Ulbrich knew that he needed the permission from uh from the Soviets, but even there was a an a conference with within all the Eastern Bloc states where he he stated that this is the issue, I need you, and if I don't build the wall, so this is the way he sold it. If I don't build the wall, my economy will go bankrupt. And if my economy goes bankrupt, then you will go bankrupt as well. So this is the way that he like convinced the other states, saying, Okay, well, and and Soviets still said pretty until pretty much for the before they start building it, they didn't want it. And uh after many repetitions and many meetings, etc. etc., they said, Okay, uh Ulrich, build your wall, because they also maybe saw okay, this is then the only way that we can solve this issue. Uh, and one and another important thing was, of course, uh that they didn't know up front how was the West going to react. So, what would be the uh reaction of the United States when they certainly would seal off West Berlin? Uh, I think they had a talk with uh was it Kennedy at that time, and there the Americans had stated uh that well they don't care as long as they don't uh set a step into West Berlin. Yeah, and even that that that day when the bowl was built and Kennedy was woken up in the morning to say, Okay, we got a Berlin ball with Berlin Wall built. He said, Well, well, well, he didn't care, and that was where the West Berliners were really pissed off at because they didn't do anything and just let it happen. And all of a sudden they lived on an island, yeah, and they lived on an island from one day and the other, and and there was no support from the the US to uh yeah to change that. And uh yeah, so that that was what what everyone was waiting for in the Russian or at least Ulbricht side, so they got the green light and they just could build it, and there was no really interventions, but that was of course, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Move forward. The East Germany's founded, uprising overcome, the Berlin Wall was built. Forward ten years, Ulrich is still in power. Now it's how old is he? He's uh in his mid-70s at least. Yep, he's about heading towards the 80 almost. Um, he's still the most powerful man in the land. But Honecker has also aged and would now be seen. Reminds me a bit of the whole Biden debate we had in America a while ago. When are you too when are you too old to resign? Where are those two men in the early 70s? Ulrich is still in power, nothing's changed for him. In the meantime, he built up one of the most notorious secret police services in the world, the Stasi, which we haven't mentioned yet. And that's obviously a lesson he's learned from the Soviet Union, but also after the uprising. And where where was Honecker at that stage in his career? What was his role?
SPEAKER_03So Honecker was given uh once he has finished the uh the Berlin Wall project very successfully, he was given even more and more responsibilities by Ulbricht. He became a full member of the Politburo, so I would say the most important people governing the the GDR um uh in I think 1958 uh already, or uh was given more more and more responsibilities already after the after the Berlin Wall. So he was clearly becoming the number two of Ulbricht. When you see like those black and white footage from those times, and you see Ulbricht visiting uh a factory, you see Ulbricht visiting a village or whatever, you see always Ulrich first, and then you see Honeker immediately right next to him. So it was clear for everyone that uh that you should be like his successor, and it was, I think, was also for Ulrich was clear that that would be become his way. But Ulbricht was a very, very stubborn guy. There was also things that were part of his, I would say, uh his end, because Ulbricht, of course, getting older, getting weaker, and Honecker smelling the power coming up. So, yeah, those two things don't go get well together if you want to to stay in the position that that you had. So then again, coming to the Soviets, who of course, yeah, at the end it was them deciding what happened in the country. But then all of a sudden, like those things happened in uh in the Soviet Union as well, uh, Khrushchev was gone and and Brezhnev came. And Brezhnev already was the number two as well, and he visited the German Democratic Republic. And uh, when he was still the uh just before he became the first man, he became uh he visited the GDR and he visited Ulbricht. And um Ulbricht was telling him how well things were going in the GDR, like you said, after the Berlin Wall, so after 61, those years after one, the economy was going better, better, and it was really, I think they were doing really well, maybe at that time already being the best ones of all the um uh eastern bloc states. Yeah, uh, and he was telling Brezhnev, because at the time the Soviet Union also had huge issues, that they should see him and uh, or at least to follow him, or at least do as the East German do because they're doing the right thing. And he's telling that to the people who not sure if I can uh pronounce this in this podcast, saved his ass. And and Brezhnev was he said, yeah, sorry, I'm I'm not feeling well. I'm I need to go.
SPEAKER_00Silly for someone who's been around for over 70 years, like he thought he'd be more smart than that, wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was that was yeah, he was really a uh smart ass. He was thinking he was smarter than everyone else, and at the time he saw himself on the same level as Lenin and as Stalin. That was that was what he really turned out to be. That was really that of that uh yeah, we are you're talking about those things, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03So in in this stubbornness, still believing that he is right and he was always right, yeah, it was clear that that for Honecker it was uh even more easier to uh to make a move. So and there came something, so Brezhnev met Honecker, of course, during his um his visit, and they shared common hobby going hunting. So they went hunting together, and uh this friendship emerged, so they they became friends for for for for decades long after as well. Honecker was kind of already having uh a front row seat in becoming um Ulbricht's um successor. But it wasn't that easy because uh the Soviets were a little bit reluctant to let Ulbricht go, because also, yeah, you know what you have, and you don't know what you what's going to come if you're going to change the guy, etc. So they knew that they had to get rid of Ulbricht. He was stubborn, he was getting old, he was almost 80 years old. So uh, but yeah, how? So maybe like in a way that he wasn't the first man anymore anymore, but he was going to do something else, but he still was like not really disappearing from one day to the other. Yeah, and that was a thing that I think Honecker was um yeah, he didn't expect that because he he thought, yeah, wait, don't you see this pretty clear that this guy is really like messing up and and I'm your guy?
SPEAKER_00Honecker, who wanted to stage his own play, worked behind the scenes tirelessly, he was the second in charge, Brezhnev was the second in charge, Brezhnev became number one. Honecker's like, hang on, it's my turn now. They both liked hunting. I mean, which which communist dictator didn't like hunting, except for Ulrich, basically, because Ulrich had neither friends nor hobbies, I think. So the intrigue was about to happen, but then it's that crossing the Rubicon moment, isn't it? Which in Putschkast we talk about many times. There's there's backroom conversations you can have, there's power play, but to step out in the limelight and openly challenge that is the the crucial part. Was there a moment like this? Was there a moment he must have faced them either head on or indirectly? A letter, or did he do it through the Russians? What do we know about this challenge? How did it happen?
SPEAKER_03The green light from Moscow to uh for Honecker to make his move came in April 1971. And uh I think in this in the same month or end of the month, uh the Honecker drove to uh I think it was the uh the residence or is this his holiday home or whatever, the his Dacia. He drove to to uh to uh to Ulbricht and he drove there with a military convoy, I think I don't know how many cars, uh all uh armed with automatic weapons, and he had the the the phone lines to Ulbricht cut because he was yeah, that at least tells us that he was preparing for the worst. So uh Ulbricht heavily defending himself or trying to escape or whatever, trying to make a phone call with I don't know. And at the end, so Honeke went in. Uh, they had a uh a pretty heavy discussion. Of course, the contents no one knows, but we know that it's must have been a discussion uh of about one and a half hours. And at the end, um Ulbricht gave up and he he signed the piece of paper that uh that Ulbricht that Honecker had brought with him, saying, Okay, I will uh I will resign. I will resign. And and that was what happened, and I think one or two weeks later it was the official, the formal announcement that he would resign. That was the end. Ulbricht, and it's um always later on mentioned that it was a putsch organized by Honecker and Milke, the head of the the state security. Uh, although I think Milke, uh the head of state security, had not a lot to do with it. Uh, maybe he provided the people and the soldiers uh so Ulbricht still spoke up afterwards and used the very word putsch. Yeah, that's what I read uh recently. Yeah, yeah, that he saw it as a putsch against uh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Which uh is risky considering he had such a comfy retirement. Um when you you mentioned there was um arms involved, and it could have gone very differently. That discussion.
SPEAKER_03Mid-1971, Honecker is in the position that he always wanted, the highest position, the general secretary of the country, so he can't get any higher. And then what is Honecker doing? He uh he still is trying to um make Ulbricht's life hell. So the the guy that at least I would say he should partially also be thankful to Ulbricht because Ulbricht also made him made it possible for him to get in that position. At the end, of course, not but in the years he was promoted, etc. etc. So it's two months after Honecker's installment. Ulbricht has his 78th birthday, and on that morning, so they were all reliving in that Zitlung Wantlitz area in somewhere in the middle of the forest uh in the in the east. So they were all living together in one little privileged village. Honecker arranged for everyone so all the Politburo members visiting Ulbricht in the morning on his birthday. Ulbricht didn't know anything, so they called his housekeeping like 10 minutes to eight in the morning, and then say at eight, you get a visit. We're coming all we're coming by to uh to visit your with your 78th birthday. And Ulbricht, he he was totally surprised, didn't have time to dress. And then it's the quite famous pictures showing Ulbricht sitting on his chair in his morning gown, shown and presented as an old man who couldn't, yeah, who wasn't able to deal with the things anymore, so as a weak man, and this is what what what um Honecker wanted, and he even takes it one step further. Two months later, he shares Ulbricht's medical foul. So also with with all the things he had, he shared make makes it public, or at least he shares it amongst other people. And after his death, once I think uh uh Ulbricht dies um two years later, so on the 80th birthday, he also there's also a kind of presentation where Ulbricht is not able to stand anymore, sits down, and then Ulbricht uh gives him a kind of medal or something, uh certificate saying, Oh, thank you very much. You have been uh 80 years, but of course, in mean in real life, the those guys cannot stand each other any any longer. Ulbricht dies, I think, uh only days after his um 80th birthday. Surprisingly, also especially for Honecker, because Honecker had done so much to yeah to make people forget him and to make sure he's old and he's not in the picture anymore. The people visiting his um his funeral, the funeral of uh of Ulbricht, uh was really a lot of people, so there was uh much more than uh was uh planned for or estimated. So that was something that Honecker also well had to had at least blink blink a few times.
SPEAKER_00So it wasn't um so it wasn't a big state funeral, it was a regular funeral, but East Germans flocked to it because they were still, or his followers at least, went to show their support.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you could you could go there, and I think it was this the funeral was a state funeral, but you could yeah, okay, of course it would have been funeral, but you could go to visit uh the I think the before the funeral or the the ceremony started, you were able to to visit, and people were really waiting in line, and that's why I think even the uh it was postponed for a couple of hours. So it was really lots of people going to Berlin and as a as a thank as a say of saying of thank you thank you to uh to uh to Ulbricht because Ulbricht had more like um there were stamps with his name, there were companies with his name, etc. Honecker never had that while he was alive, while he was alive, and Honecker immediately, like in the first month after Ulbricht's death, he made he made them renamed, uh the companies renamed, etc. So everything that remembers the people of Ulbricht, the books in the bookstore, for example, he had them uh taken out, etc.
SPEAKER_00So it was really ungrateful, deep.
SPEAKER_03It was really deep with Honecker, yeah, and on a very low level.
SPEAKER_00Um having grown up in East Germany, I grew up with Honecker obviously, uh, as a child. I I don't think I've ever heard the name Ulbricht, and unless there was older people talking about him, but there was there was no presence of him. And you've mentioned before, Olaf, that he saw him, Ulbricht saw himself in line with Lenin and Stalin and those other heroes of the communist movement, but only years after his death, he was pretty much forgotten. And I think this might be why now hardly anyone knows about him, let alone in the Western world. And this is why I think it's important. We we brought his name back to explain what role he had to play and how he ended in a very, very sad way, maybe deservedly, um, considering how he treated everyone else. But that photograph, uh, and I think we should share this on our social channels from Putschcast, that is a famous photograph, him sitting in his armchair with his slippers on, a bathrobe, um, all those dignitaries from the communist party surrounding him, and he just sits there like in an in a nursing home, really, even though it's in his own house. And that is a very low level of letting someone go. But again, a few decades before, he would have just been shot. So things had changed in the communist bloc of how to disp dispose of old leaders, but then again, Honecker didn't end uh very differently, and that's that's enough for another another topic. James, what have you learned today?
SPEAKER_02Well, I've learned quite a lot. It sounds like Ulbricht is almost one of the first victims of like what is now called a cancellation. Yeah, sort of he's sort of wiped from history. I'd heard of Honecker, but yeah, I didn't know much about Ulbricht. He just sounds like one of those sort of classic communist apparatics of the time that um built up a fairly paranoid infrastructure. Um, and I guess in some respects, I wonder if he thought he was successful. Do you know that, Olaf?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was not without a reason that he saw himself on the same level as Lenin and Stalin. Um, by the way, speaking of wiping out, uh Stalin wasn't also an excellent example. Uh, when in 53 it came out, 53 he died. So 56, I think it must have been. That it came out that uh Stalin wasn't that good guy that everyone had in mind, and in the many East Germans that also had the poster of Stalin uh above their working place or their bed. Then there was all overnight, there was an action that also the companies and the street names and everything that referred to Stalin was also uh uh it was a de-standal Stalinization going on. And there's um I think it's on YouTube. You can there's an interview by an American uh journalist interviewing uh Ulbricht and uh about the destalinization that was going on, and Ulbricht says, Well, we don't have it, and then the interviewer says, Okay, well, we saw that names have changed streets have been changed, and you remove the statue, etc. etc. And then uh Ulbricht said, I don't want to continue the interview anymore.
SPEAKER_00So problem solved. I'm impressed that he even gave interviews. I mean, that that was already quite progressive at the time. Usually dictators didn't bother until the 80s or so. But Ulbricht made it on the cover of the Time magazine, which uh I'm not sure Honecker ever did, so he had that um ahead of him. I think what I learned the most is how much influence the Soviet Union still had on domestic policies in East Germany. Like I wasn't aware that over you know, 25 years after the end of World War II, they were really still deciding who's in charge and who's not. Where, at least from an East German perspective, people would have thought, well, yes, there will be intrigues and maybe even a coup à putsch, but at least it's an internal one, but not the pubmaster from Moscow deciding that all the way down to the yeah 1971 coup we just learned about.
SPEAKER_03That's also the reason that uh, because of that, I would say it's construct. Uh, that is why Honecker was that disappointed in Gorbachev, because at that time things out worked out uh differently.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Olaf, uh, we've learned a lot from you. Um, can we still find out why you are so interested in East Germany? You know, you're not from East Germany, as I hear from your accent, you are from uh from the Netherlands. What is your connection to the topic?
SPEAKER_03I was born and raised in the Netherlands, but I'm I'm half German. Uh so I visited my German grandparents uh at least twice a year when I was a child, and my grandmother happened to come from Leipzig. So she had this, as we called it earlier in the in the putchkast today, uh the funny Saxon uh uh dialect or accent.
SPEAKER_00But she didn't know Ulbricht in person, did she?
SPEAKER_03Uh no, she didn't. I think that would have been too good to speak up as well. But um that would be that would be the headline uh on of this podcast. But yeah, that's that was of course interesting because she was still, although she was she'd been in the west for decades, she was still referring to bei uns in Leipzig. So uh, like like in Leipzig, it was her home, and she was already gone. And my I remember my father also telling her, Well, quit saying that because you're in the west for like years. Why why still why Leipzig is still your home? Uh so it fascinated me. There's a place behind the Iron Curtain, and sometimes her brother came over for a birthday because it was in the 80s that you could already travel to the West when you little bit when you were a little bit older in the world. Yeah, so that was yeah, so I think 65 plus or something like that. Uh so I met him a f a couple of times, and then I had also two uncles uh living in West Berlin, so yeah, surrounded by a wall. Yeah, um, and that's what fascinated me, and it still fascinates me today today. That's so so people in the same country, same language, uh um but you can't reach them, you cannot just easily go there and and there's a wall. So, why is there a wall and how does it work? And and what should I do to to go the other side? So that's yeah, something so I was first in in the first when I was came first to Berlin. I just wanted to investigate the whole Berlin Wall installation. So we walked around all West Berlin to see what's still left of it, and then afterwards, my interest got a little bit broader also for the politicians behind who made it happen, how did the Secret Service work, etc. etc. And all those things. Um, yeah, I started four years ago now with uh with a YouTube channel um to make it a little bit more accessible to the I would say non-German speaking people, because there's a lot of books, there's a lot of there's been a lot of investigation, uh but it's most of it isn't German, which is logical, but it's also a pity because yeah, it's uh there it especially what happened in Germany between 1945 and 1990 is um it's it's an essential piece of world history, so you cannot uh yeah, it's it's really interesting to um to dig into and to to try to understand things and also see how things in other parts of the world are happening, for example, today, or things that you don't want to happen today. So uh so every time when I made a movie in a someone, uh for example, about the Stasi or about people who were like spied on or things like that. Um, and there's someone making a reaction say, Well, then you got to come to my country today, and he's referring to a Western country, uh, and compare comparing things like that they were with the GDR, how they were, then I still think okay, then I still got a lot of work to do to make a little bit more clear how real life really was in a GDR. But there were also positive things, and those things I also mentioned on the uh on the YouTube uh channel in East Germany investigated.
SPEAKER_00I can highly, highly recommend it. Um, and and I also, of course, have some anecdotes and stories because most families that I knew in my own family, um, my grandmother's brother he uh defected in the 50s, and then my grandfather's brother was one of those last ones before the war went up in in 60, who got to West Berlin and uh never came back. He still lives there till this day. The the torn apart families and and yeah, that living in two systems in one country, and I think Germany being a microcosm of the Cold War is just um it's just a really interesting topic that has so many chapters that are yet to be told. And Walter Olbricht is certainly one of them. He made it onto our list. I want to thank you again, Olaf. Also, thank you, James, for uh doing some research. And we'll share those books that you've read on the topic on our website as well, putchcast.com. And please don't forget to subscribe to East Germany Investigators. On YouTube. I checked just before the show. Walter Ulbrick had about 150,000 viewers. Congratulations. That's fantastic. People are even more interested in Erich Honeker. That's what we will give more people. Absolutely. And um, I hope that we also will talk about him because yeah, he wasn't uh he didn't lose power in a democratic election either. So therefore it's a topic for putschast. And um thank you again, Ola, for your time, and um we'll follow your channel.
SPEAKER_03Thank you very much.
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