Unwritten History: The Year 1949 in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany
The year 2019 is the anniversary year in the history of Germany. 70 years ago, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic were founded. 30 years ago, the whole world experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall. The last event greatly influenced historiography. This concerns the role played by the USSR in Germany. This also concerns the GDR population, which allegedly had suffered "under Soviet tyranny" only. With the "end of history" the socialist variant of social development was written off, even though the mixed Chinese model still exists today. Therefore, it was hardly interesting to analyze the GDR history comprehensively. German foundations with their subsidies supported the topics and the interpretations, which in their view contributed to the development of democracy in Russia. It was logical that the former authority of Russian historical German studies was lost. Incidentally, the current events in the Federal Republic made the topic of East German identity again up to date. This can lead to rethinking the history of the Soviet occupation zone. The author does not claim to revise the previous historiography in a short article. His goal is more modest. He intends to use the documents from the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation to prove the following: Known stories can be reassessed and supplemented. The novelty also is that research tasks are being redefined. This can help to gain influence of Russian historical German studies in historiography.