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대학생기자단/해외상생기자단

Comparison of the similarities and differences in DPRK and GDR

Comparison of the similarities and differences in state relationship in the DPRK and the GDR – Part I

 

 

Sven Horak, August 10th, 2009

Institute of East Asian Studies, IN-EAST (www.in-east.de)

 

 

Among today’s and in history’s divided countries, such as China/ Taiwan, Yemen, Cyprus, Ireland, India/ Pakistan/ Bangladesh, the similarities between Korea and Germany are remarkable: Both countries were divided after World War II and both were divided under the involvement of the United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The latter assumed the existence of uniform states which emerged from the declaration of intent of the Potsdam conference in August 1945, as well as the Ministers of Foreign Affairs conference in Moscow in December 1945.[1]

Despite the initial similarities of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) their further development on political side- economically and ideologically- almost disappeared in the further progress.

 

Rudolf Appelt, who published an article in the Socialist Unity Party’s (SUP)[2] Magazine “Einheit”, was probably the first author who analysed the situation of both countries directly after the war in 1947. The result of his research was that already in 1947 the political and economic situation and trend in the Soviet occupied North Korea was very similar to the situation in the Soviet occupied East Germany. On the contrary, Appelt discovered similarities between the US occupied South Korea and the occupied western zones of Germany. Just little time passed after the foundation of the two states until the DPRK recognised the GDR as a state.

The special solidarity of the GDR to the DPRK is exhibited in the political, technical and humanitarian support during the Korean War and beyond that. In the 1950's the SUP initiated a broad solidarity and donation campaign for North Korea. Until 1957 an especially for this reason established Korea-committee of the GDR transferred donations at a value of 40 million D-Mark under the slogan „Who helps Korea, helps Germany“ to North Korea. But those should not remain the only donations. The sum of the unpaid postwar assistance to rebuild the country was a multiple higher (comp. Tab. 1).

 

Commencement of diplomatic relations

Already in November 1949 the GDR and the DPRK entered into diplomatic relations and exchanged Ambassadors immediately. Similar to the Republic of Korea (ROK) and being inspired by the “Ostpolitik” of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in terms of their policy towards the North (and the communist states of the Eastern Bloc generally), the DPRK took over elements of the reunification concept of the GDR. 

After the Korean War the bilateral relations developed positively and rapidly. Grotewohl, Minister President of the GDR, visited Pyongyang in December 1955. Kim Il Sung, those days Chairman of the Minister Cabinet of DPRK, visited East Germany a year later. Already in 1953 both countries entered into a treaty regulating the financing of non-commercial projects. In January 1955 a second treaty followed establishing the technical- and scientific collaboration. In December 1955 two additional treaties were concluded governing the postal services and the telecommunication. The GDR supported the DPRK in terms of reconstruction after the Korean War, in particular the re-establishment of the port Hamhung on the East coast of North Korea. According to estimations between 1953 and 1962, the unpaid development aid of the GDR for the DPRK amounted to a total of 217 to 545 Million Roubles. Hence, East Germany occupied the third rank of the development aid granting states right after the USSR and the VR China (see tab. 1).

 

Tab. 1: Unpaid aid for postwar reconstruction provided by communist states to
North Korea from 1953 to 1962. (Exchange rate at that time: 1 Rouble = 1 USD)

 

Country

Estimation 1 *

Estimation 2 **

Soviet Union

China

GDR

Poland

Czechoslovakia

Romania

Hungary

Bulgaria

2000a
1320
545.4
362
113
65
25
20

2000b
1800b
217
164.4
113
90
15.7
20

Total

4510.4

4418.1

 

Source:
* Yoon T. Kuark, p. 61; ** Glenn D. Paige, pp. 41

a) incl. USD 190 Mio or 760 Mio roubles debt relief in November 1960

b) Loans included

In: Grabowsky, 1987, p. 469

 

The mutual visits of Grotewohl and Kim Il Sung, their similar fate, the consent on unification policy and the strong support for postwar reparation of North Korea strengthened the solidarity between the two states. The relationship between Pyongyang and East Berlin experienced its heyday in this first phase of their relations, which can be regarded as the years between 1949 and 1961.

 

Differences in the political development

The GDR and the DPRK showed a set of similarities and differences which initially facilitated the bilateral relations between the two states, but later, however, rather made them more difficult. The separation was common to both states as a consequence of World War II, whereby in the German case this division was the result of Germany’s role as an aggressor, while Korea was rather an innocent victim of the division of Eastern Asia into geopolitical zones of special interests. Demarcation lines separated both the Korean peninsula and Germany into two states. Soviet and American troops faced one another in each case. The GDR could gain a rather semi-sovereign state by means of its foreign- and security policy and due to its dependency on the USSR, which deployed military forces on the GDR territory. On the contrary, North Korea could gain far more independence from the USSR. This can be considered as the result of North Korea’s policy to keep the Soviet Union and China at distance so that none of them could exercise too much power.

 

 

During the postwar decade and under extensive quarrels among parliamentary groups accompanied by political clean-ups within the SUP, the Moscow-oriented Ulbricht-wing emerged at the top of the party finally. The “special German way to socialism” was already repealed in 1948, and the basic ideological positions of the SED were aligned to the ones of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). In the Workers Party of Korea (WPK), on the contrary, the Moscow-oriented communists couldn’t win a majority at any time. In 1945/46 the pro-Chinese “Jenan-Koreans”[3] and Kim Il Sung’s followers from the anti-Japanese partisan fight were more influential than the Soviet-oriented Koreans in the North. By end of the 40s they already vested an unmistakably nationalistic-Korean profile in the domestic development of North Korea

Foremost two factors contributed to a more independent development of the WPK/DPRK compared to the SUP/GDR:

On the one hand, during the initial two decades of the postwar period the security interests of the Soviet Union were unilaterally focused on Europe only. Hence, not much attention was given to the Eastern states.

On the other hand, before the end of the Korean War peoples committees were spontaneously formed that served as the origin of a revolutionary North Korean state. In Germany nothing comparable appeared. In 1945, after World War II antifascist committees were founded but remained without an important impact.

The political clean-up of the socialist forces of the SUP was taking place between the years 1948 to 1956 in Germany. In 1956 the victory of the national-communist “Kapsan-fraction”[4] of Kim Il Sung took place in the North Korean WPK.

 

The economic preconditions were fundamentally different between the GDR and the DPRK. Already since the early years of the GDR its economy has been inferior compared to the West German economy, which was especially appealing to some parts of the working class and the petty bourgeoisie of the GDR. The DPRK was in a better position, since their economy was by far superior to the sister states’ economy. That position could be kept until the end of the 60s when the ROK became economically stronger. The reason for these differences can be found in the initial starting conditions. The heavy industry sector of the former German Reich was not concentrated on the territory of the GDR, neither were there any substantial mineral resources. North Korea, on the contrary, was the base of the heavy industry for the entire country - a heritage of the former Japanese rule. In fact there have been some structural similarities between the GDR and South Korea during the early years: the major sectors were concerned with agricultural production and in some areas light industries.

 

References

 

Appelt, Rudolf (1947): Zur Frage Korea. In: Einheit, Nr. 6/1947, p. 596f.

 

Grabowsky, V. (1987): Zwei-Nationen-Lehre oder Wiedervereinigung? Die Einstellung der Partei der Arbeit Koreas und der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands zur nationalen Frage ihrer Länder seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: Ein Vergleich. In: Park, S.J.; Weber-Schäfer, P. (2005): Sozialwissenschaftliche Studien, Bd. 36, Studienverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer: Bochum, 1987.

 

Kuark, Yoon T. (1963): North Korea’s industrial development during the post war period. In: The China Quarterly, No. 14, pp. 51-64.

 

Paige, Glenn, D.: The Korean People's Democratic Republic. Stanford, California: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, 1966.

 

Park, J.Y.: Kommunismus-Kapitalismus als Ursache nationaler Teilung: Das Bild des geteilten Koreas in der deutschen und des geteilten Deutschlands in der koreanischen Literatur. Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg. Dissertation, 2005.



[1] Grabowsky, p. 1

[2] In German: „Sozialistische Deutsche Einheitspartei“ (Short form: SED)

[3] The Jenan-Koreans were communists who participated at the side of the Chinese communists in the civil war against the Kuomintang and against the Chinese Anti-Japanese liberation war.

[4] The Kapsan fraction, named after their location of operation in North Korea near Manchuria, fought in the 1930s and 1940s against the Japanese occupation.