Policies of expropriation: Political Power and Property in the Sovjet Zone of Occupation (1945-1952)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Thomas Großbölting
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 321844628

Property rights are a basic element of power structure in society. So, radical transformation of political power very often goes hand in hand with massive changes of the ownership structure. Up to now, historians of the 20th century did not pay much attention to this connection between property, property rights and political power. Looking to the Soviet Occupied Zone (SOZ), the expropriation of private industrial ownership was a central tool to establish the dictatorship of the Socialist Unity Party. Between 1946 and 1948, 9300 industrial companies, small and medium sized enterprises and handicraft businesses were dispossessed. The conversion of the former private property in a public property did not stop till to the 1950s.This process of expropriation was a central component on the Communist way to gain, to establish and to reinforce their dictatorship. Following Ulrich Herbert, it was the very special alliance of socialism and antifascism that stimulated and legitimized both the political turning away from National Socialism and the long lasting establishment of the SED-dictatorship.Our project will analyze preconditions and circumstances, the reasons, means, aims and consequences of the expropriation process in the SBO. We will investigate these questions on the basis of empirical sources for the three provinces Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg. We extend our research from the beginning of the occupation period immediately at the end of the Second World War to the foundation of the German Democratic Republic.Which factories were dispossessed for what reasons? How were the expropriation measures implemented and established on a political and a bureaucratic level? How was the takeover of property - from sequestered property over fiduciary administration to public own factories - organized and legitimized? Finally, we will research the wide range of different forms of protest against these policies and the very different reactions of former proprietors affected by these policies. For this analysis, we will peruse a wide range of different archival sources, starting from the files of the central government to the archival sources of private industries, small and medium companies and handcraft workshops.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants