An alternative analysis to the bourgeois media: an account by the last Premier of East Germany.
The take over of the GDR by the Federal Republic of Germany
"I have come to the conclusion that the economic difficulties in the GDR, as in the Soviet Union, were exacerbated by Perestroika, which was not an economic reform program, but stemmed from Gorbachev’s maxim that more democracy equals more socialism. He never really had an economic conception — he tinkered with democratic developments, the role of the Duma, or democracy within the economy, but did not focus much on the economy itself. It centered around what productive capability was needed to achieve certain social outcomes.
My view is that the developments of the 1980s led to an implosion. That is, there was no revolution in the GDR or in any other Eastern European state. We collapsed in on ourselves, as the relationship between the party and the population was no longer stable. The party leadership did not understand that popular mistrust of the party’s leading role was growing because the economy was being led in an increasingly scattered manner. This context, along with the downturn caused by Gorbachev’s Perestroika, was the final step in a collapse that began not in the GDR but in the Soviet Union."
An interview with Hans Modrow,
The Last Communist Premier of East Germany
An interview with Hans Modrow,
The Last Communist Premier of East Germany