Page 130 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC/ SOCIAL UNION 103

economic liberalisation and rather campaigned for wholesale
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nationalisation. Thus the Communist Party represented an economic
conception similar to the one of the Social Democrats though less
evolutionary-socialist, but more pronounced in its anti-Fascist, democratic
and revolutionary rhetoric. However, the virulent anticommunist Kurt
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Schumacher opposed any amalgamation of SPD and KPD, which he
considered to be in the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union –
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indeed, by now accessible archival sources confirm the direct control of
the communist leadership in the Soviet zone of occupation by Moscow
and the on-site Russian Military Administration. As the western occupying
powers also prohibited a bipartisan union across the east west divide, the
two parties merged to a single political party forming the Sozialistische
Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED) headed by Otto Grotewohl (SPD) und
Wilhelm Pieck (KPD) solely in the eastern zone in April 1946. Moreover,
the Communist Party in the western zones of occupation faced
discrimination and even persecution. While the KPD was initially licensed
and allowed to participate in the political and governmental reorganisation
of post-war West Germany, it was increasingly restricted in its
representation, excluded from inter-party proceedings; furthermore, its
ministers, such as the Minister for Reconstruction in Rhineland-Palatinate,
Willy Feller, the Ministers for Transport and Reconstruction in North
Rhine-Westphalia, Heinz Renner and Hugo Paul, or Minister in Lower
Saxony, Karl Abel, were actually dismissed by the Allied military
authorities by 1948. In particular in the Anglo-American Bizone, the
occupying powers aimed to foster anticommunist political life, and
therefore banned the communist press; after several prohibitions to
publish, the Westdeutsche Volksecho (Dortmund) lost the licence on 4 May
1948, the KPD-organ Freiheit (Düsseldorf) on 8 October 1948. In essence,
being discredited and limited in its course of political action and
communication, the KPD’s influence in politics remained marginal even
though the results of the elections between 1946 and 1949 prove that the
communist electorate cannot be considered quantité negligible. However,
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despite the shared goal to fight capitalism and economic liberalism, there
was no concerted action on the part of the SPD and KPD to the benefit
of the bourgeois coalition of CDU, CSU, FDP and DP.
In addition to the disunity of the political left, the social composition of
the Economic Council was in favour of conservative and liberal forces.
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Furthermore, the Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union
benefited from the Catholic Church’s influence. In many dioceses
throughout West Germany, the Catholic church mobilised their flocks for
the parties and church officials led numerous rallies, sent tens of
thousands of speech outlines to church and lay leaders, and distributed