A Response to Rosenberg's Thesis on Colonialism in East Germany; Rejoinder to Schulz and Hansen

Abstract

After the East German regime bloodily crushed the June 1953 workers' insurrection, the revolt was blamed on "fascist thugs" from West Berlin. How else to explain why a workers' government was turning its guns on the working class? These events allegedly prompted Bertolt Brecht to comment wryly, "The government has no confidence in the people. Perhaps it should dissolve the people and elect another." Unlike Brecht, many on the left accepted Walter Ulbricht's justification because they wanted to believe socialism was being created; they refused to entertain the possibility that the East German working class was rejecting it. An external enemy was found upon whom the events could be blamed, a convenient scapegoat allowing people to delude themselves as to the real underlying causes of the rebellion.

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