East Germany, West Germany, and U.S. Cold War strategy, 1950-1954

The thesis is about the Cold War in Germany, 1950-1954. Within the context of the debate over German rearmament, it explores the political strategies adopted by the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations and by the Adenauer Government to deal with the German reunification issue and East Germany. From the Communist perspective, the study analyzes how the Soviets and East Germans approached the German question and tried to influence political developments in West Germany. More broadly, it seeks to demonstrate how the interaction between the Cold War adversaries affected two historical processes: the Western integration of West Germany and the "Sovietization" of East Germany.; By drawing on a wide array of East German, American, and West German primary sources, the dissertation argues that the German question took on specific propaganda functions 1950-1954. In the absence of direct East-West negotiations, both sides viewed the reunification issue as a means to "seize the initiative" in the Cold War and attempted to use it to achieve various domestic and external goals. Using the personal papers of such political leaders as Walter Ulbricht, Otto Grotewohl, and Wilhelm Pieck, the thesis shows how the East Germans and Soviets sought to manipulate the German question to maintain Communist control in East Germany and to fight the rearmament drive in West Germany. Conversely, it analyzes Western attempts to exploit the German question in the Cold War and to improve Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's domestic political position. Apart from evaluating the effectiveness of Western and Communist propaganda operations in both parts of Germany, the thesis contributes to the debate over the 1952 Stalin Note on German reunification and offers a new perspective on the East German Uprising in 1953.; While keeping the German question formally open for propaganda purposes, the Western Powers and the Soviet Union concentrated on political consolidation in the two German states, respectively, 1950-1954. The study emphasizes the volatility and uncertainty of this stabilization process that ended with the "freezing" of the division of Germany in 1954-1955.