A World in Arms:The East with the NVA and the Warsaw Pact

With the "Barracked People's Police" the GDR builds up basic military structures at the beginning of the 1950s. After the Federal Republic of Germany joined NATO, the Warsaw Pact was signed in 1955 with the GDR as a founding member. In 1956 the National People's Army was officially established.

by Ulrike Bosse, NDR Info

As the Cold War, the conflict between the Soviet Union and the USA and the alliances led by them shaped the four decades after the Second World War. In the 1950s, the two German states were integrated into these alliances and the division of Germany was thus initially established - on the one hand by the Federal Republic joining NATO and the founding of the Bundeswehr, on the other hand by the integration of the GDR into the Warsaw Pact and the founding of the NVA, the National People's Army.

Open to anti-fascism in captivity

Sieghart John, born in 1928, was sent to the front as a teenager during World War II. In British captivity, he learns that his father, an anti-fascist, may have been right in his attitude. And back in his hometown of Quedlinburg, a friendship develops with a young Russian officer who is billeted with his parents. "He was young, I was young. Speaking wasn't in there. All just signing."

Rebuilding of military structures occurs early in the east

The demilitarization decided by the Allies also applies to the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ). But relatively soon after the war, military structures were gradually being reestablished there - long before the armed forces were officially established in the GDR. As early as 1946, the German People's Police (DVP) created their own border police, which was increased to 10,000 men by 1948. Sieghart John also reported to the People's Police in October 1948 looking for work. "Exactly the period when the decision was made to build up the armed forces," he says. As a police cadet, he is soon seconded to set up stand-by services at the border. It was then also about the handing over of handguns, he remembers:"The basis for artillery, that's how it all started, so little by little. We didn't always get it on the line, it was all kept so secret ."

"Stalin note":United Germany without an alliance partner

In fact, in 1952 the so-called barracked People's Police of the GDR was created, as well as an air and sea police, which was equipped with tanks, ships and airplanes. The political background for this are the negotiations on the European Defense Community in the West. Because the rearmament of West Germany in conjunction with Western armed forces:From the Soviet Union's point of view, that is a threatening idea. In March 1952, the so-called Stalin Note was therefore published:it proposed the reunification of Germany after free elections, a peace treaty and even the approval of a German national army - albeit on the condition that Germany then remained neutral, i.e. did not belong to any alliance.

"Germany treaty":Brief West hope for sovereignty

However, the German government fears that the proposal could mean that a neutral Germany without US military protection would ultimately be at the mercy of the Soviet Union and would sooner or later come under Moscow's sphere of influence. Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (CDU) therefore rejects it. Instead, in May he signs the so-called Germany Treaty, with which the Federal Republic is to get most of its sovereignty rights back from the Western Allies, and the EDC Treaty on the European Defense Union. However, it was rejected in the French National Assembly. Linked to the EVG contract, the "Germany contract" is also obsolete.

Prospects of an all-German state are increasingly dwindling

As early as 1952 it became clear that the prospects for a united German state were dwindling. After Adenauer signed the "Germany Treaty", SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht had the "planned construction of socialism" resolved. He has a five kilometer wide border strip to the Federal Republic laid out. In addition to the "Barracked People's Police" the "Operational Combat Groups" are created - a kind of military reserve long before the armed forces are officially built up.

"London Act" allows accession to NATO

After the failure of the EVG treaty, the so-called London Act is passed on October 3, 1954, which enables the Federal Republic to join NATO and establish national armed forces - combined with the actual abolition of the occupation statute. The GDR reacted to this immediately, as Sieghart John describes it: "At the end of '54 there was a cadre selection and I was selected or transferred to the position:A deputy regimental commander for supplies in the 'Rear Services' division. To Eggesin, in the C command, heavy tank regiment."

Warsaw Pact becomes Eastern Bloc counterpart to NATO

The eastern alliance is officially formed under the leadership of the Soviet Union on May 14, 1955:The Warsaw Pact is founded as a counter-model to NATO - and the GDR is a founding member. In September 1955, the Soviet Union and the GDR then signed a "friendship treaty" which also granted the GDR sovereign rights - within the framework of what the Soviet Union was willing to grant its allies. In January 1956, the law establishing the National People's Army was passed.

NVA build-up in the midst of an economy of scarcity

When the NVA was founded, the diverse military structures that had already emerged in the GDR in previous years were used. Sieghart John is entrusted with the 3rd Panzer Regiment to procure the equipment for the soldiers - and first has to deal with the shortage economy:"In the beginning the soldiers were given footcloths instead of socks. Then footcloths were abolished, they got socks. Socks got holes and who should they mend? So we advertised. The women came, got stockings and then they mend." According to John, getting a second uniform is very difficult at first. For years the soldiers only had one uniform.

GDR armed forces in "Prussian" tradition

The uniforms that John has to take care of in the NVA are much more like the old Wehrmacht uniforms than those of the Bundeswehr. The GDR takes the position that, because of its socialist model of society, it automatically has nothing to do with National Socialism or Germany's militaristic legacy. Accordingly, unlike the Federal Republic of Germany, it does not feel the need to clearly differentiate itself from the past when building up its armed forces, both externally and in terms of its models. The GDR leadership ignores the fact that its citizens also took part in the Nazis' war of annihilation.

Sieghart John says that the training in the NVA was also tougher than in the Bundeswehr, it simply blew a different wind overall:"We were on duty every day, going out was limited. It was somehow more Prussian." At the time, this also applied to the relationship between soldiers and superiors. Contradiction, as permitted by the Bundeswehr's "Citizens in Uniform" concept, is not foreseen in the NVA.

Conscription with construction soldiers instead of conscientious objectors

Compulsory military service was not introduced in the GDR until 1962 - and anyone who wants to study, for example, must be willing to go to the NVA for three years. There is no such thing as conscientious objection in the Bundeswehr. Anyone who does not want to serve with a weapon for religious reasons, for example, is deployed as a construction soldier in the construction units of the NVA and later has to reckon with disadvantages in professional and social life.

Unlike in the Federal Republic, where initially there weren't even any public pledges, the NVA is visible in GDR society - and it should be. There are troop parades, school visits by NVA soldiers - and even children's songs singing the praises of the NVA. Demonstrations against rearmament like in the Federal Republic - impossible in the GDR. But Sieghart John remembers that the reputation of the NVA was actually good:"We probably always managed to make it clear:West Germany is showing us something and we have to copy it, so it's a necessity."

"Never felt it could get really serious"

"The enemy is in the west" - that is indeed the message of the GDR leadership. Again and again she warns of the "militaristic circles" in the Federal Republic. John still remembers how this enemy image was cultivated at that time. "It was suggested that this would lead back to war and aggression." As an NVA soldier, however, he has no real fear of war:"Well, I never felt that it could get really serious." In the 1950s and 1960s, he thought it was logical that there were tensions between two opposing social systems. But in his memory, everyone around him has the confidence that everything will be fine. In both East and West, they also rely on their alliance partners - there NATO, here the Warsaw Pact.

Military should also stabilize the system inside

Unlike the Bundeswehr, however, the troops of the Warsaw Pact not only have the task of defending the socialist order externally, but also of stabilizing the system internally. This can be used to justify the deployment of so-called brother armies when a Warsaw Pact country develops away from the specifications of the Soviet Union - such as the suppression of the uprising in Hungary in 1956. Or the order to shoot at the inner-German border.