About the lecture

In this module, we think about how the German Democratic Republic emerged following the Second World War, focusing in particular on: (i) the importance of the occupying powers (Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union) in deciding what Germany should look like after the Second World War; (ii) the question of whether the western powers should have handed over territory to the Soviets so readily; (iii) the lack of any forced 'communisation' in the early stages of the Soviet occupation; (iv) the extent to which the Soviets engineered the merger between the SPD and the KPD to create the SED; (v) the figure of Walter Ulbricht; (vi) the fears of a nationalist backlash against the division of Germany into zones of occupation; and (vii) the reasons Stalin resisted the transformation of the Soviet zone of occupation into an actual country, and the extent to which his hand was forced by the creation of West Germany in 1949.

About the lecturer

Patrick Major is Professor of History at the University of Reading. His research interests are primarily the political, social and cultural history of divided Germany in the Cold War. He has recently completed a large project on the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, and is currently undertaking a project on Anglo-American and German film depictions of 'bad Nazis' and 'good Germans', which has been funded by the British Academy.